Bài giảng Introduction to Software Engineering - Week 3: Project management - Nguyễn Thị Minh Tuyền

sk management process
£ Risk identification
 p Identify project, product and business risks;
£ Risk analysis
 p Assess the likelihood and consequences of these risks;
£ Risk planning
 p Draw up plans to avoid or minimise the effects of the
 risk;
£ Risk monitoring
 p Monitor the risks throughout the project;
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 Risk management process
 Risk Risk Risk Risk
 identification analysis planning monitoring
 Risk avoidance
List of potential Prioritized risk Risk
 and contingency
 risks list assessment
 plans
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 Risk identification
£ May be a team activities or based on the individual
 project manager’s experience.
£ A checklist of common risks may be used to
 identify risks in a project
 p Technology risks.
 p People risks.
 p Organisational risks.
 p Tools risks.
 p Requirements risks.
 p Estimation risks.
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 Examples of different risk types
Risk type Possible risks
Technology The database used in the system cannot process as many transactions per
 second as expected. (1)
 Reusable software components contain defects that mean they cannot be
 reused as planned. (2)
People It is impossible to recruit staff with the skills required. (3)
 Key staff are ill and unavailable at critical times. (4)
 Required training for staff is not available. (5)
Organizational The organization is restructured so that different management are responsible
 for the project. (6)
 Organizational financial problems force reductions in the project budget. (7)
Tools The code generated by software code generation tools is inefficient. (8)
 Software tools cannot work together in an integrated way. (9)
Requirements Changes to requirements that require major design rework are proposed. (10)
 Customers fail to understand the impact of requirements changes. (11)
Estimation The time required to develop the software is underestimated. (12)
 The rate of defect repair is underestimated. (13)
 The size of the software is underestimated. (14) 37
 Risk analysis
£ Assess probability and seriousness of each risk.
£ Probability may be very low, low, moderate, high or
 very high.
£ Risk consequences might be catastrophic, serious,
 tolerable or insignificant.
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 Risk types and examples
Risk Probability Effects
Organizational financial problems force reductions in the Low Catastrophic
project budget (7).
It is impossible to recruit staff with the skills required for the High Catastrophic
project (3).
Key staff are ill at critical times in the project (4). Moderate Serious
Faults in reusable software components have to be Moderate Serious
repaired before these components are reused. (2).
Changes to requirements that require major design rework Moderate Serious
are proposed (10).
The organization is restructured so that different High Serious
management are responsible for the project (6).
The database used in the system cannot process as many Moderate Serious
transactions per second as expected (1).
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 Risk types and examples
Risk Probability Effects
The time required to develop the software is High Serious
underestimated (12).
Software tools cannot be integrated (9). High Tolerable
Customers fail to understand the impact of Moderate Tolerable
requirements changes (11).
Required training for staff is not available (5). Moderate Tolerable
The rate of defect repair is underestimated (13). Moderate Tolerable
The size of the software is underestimated (14). High Tolerable
Code generated by code generation tools is inefficient Moderate Insignificant
(8).
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 What-if questions
£ What if several engineers are ill at the same time?
£ What if an economic downturn leads to budget cuts of 20%
 for the project?
£ What if the performance of open-source software is
 inadequate and the only expert on that open source
 software leaves?
£ What if the company that supplies and maintains software
 components goes out of business?
£ What if the customer fails to deliver the revised
 requirements as predicted?
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 Risk planning
£ Consider each risk and develop a strategy to
 manage that risk.
£ Avoidance strategies
 p The probability that the risk will arise is reduced;
£ Minimisation strategies
 p The impact of the risk on the project or product will be
 reduced;
£ Contingency plans
 p If the risk arises, contingency plans are plans to deal
 with that risk;
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 Strategies to help manage risk
Risk Strategy
Organizational Prepare a briefing document for senior management
financial problems showing how the project is making a very important
 contribution to the goals of the business and presenting
 reasons why cuts to the project budget would not be
 cost-effective.
Recruitment problems Alert customer to potential difficulties and the possibility
 of delays; investigate buying-in components.
Staff illness Reorganize team so that there is more overlap of work
 and people therefore understand each other’s jobs.
Defective Replace potentially defective components with bought-
components in components of known reliability.
Requirements Derive traceability information to assess requirements
changes change impact; maximize information hiding in the
 design.
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 Strategies to help manage risk
Risk Strategy
Organizational Prepare a briefing document for senior management
restructuring showing how the project is making a very important
 contribution to the goals of the business.
Database Investigate the possibility of buying a higher-
performance performance database.
Underestimated Investigate buying-in components; investigate use of
development time a program generator.
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 Risk monitoring
£ Assess each identified risks regularly to decide
 whether or not it is becoming less or more
 probable.
£ Also assess whether the effects of the risk have
 changed.
£ Each key risk should be discussed at management
 progress meetings.
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 Risk indicators
Risk type Potential indicators
Technology Late delivery of hardware or support software; many
 reported technology problems.
People Poor staff morale; poor relationships amongst team
 members; high staff turnover.
Organizational Organizational gossip; lack of action by senior
 management.
Tools Reluctance by team members to use tools; complaints
 about CASE tools; demands for higher-powered
 workstations.
Requirements Many requirements change requests; customer
 complaints.
Estimation Failure to meet agreed schedule; failure to clear reported
 defects.
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 Topics covered
1. Risk management
2. Managing people
3. Teamwork
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 Managing people
£ People are an organisation’s most important
 assets.
£ The tasks of a manager are essentially people-
 oriented. Unless there is some understanding of
 people, management will be unsuccessful.
£ Poor people management is an important
 contributor to project failure.
 People management factors
£ Consistency
 p Team members should all be treated in a comparable
 way without favourites or discrimination.
£ Respect
 p Different team members have different skills and these
 differences should be respected.
£ Inclusion
 p Involve all team members and make sure that people’s
 views are considered.
£ Honesty
 p You should always be honest about what is going well
 and what is going badly in a project.
 Motivating people
£ An important role of a manager is to motivate the
 people working on a project.
£ Means organizing the work and the working
 environment to encourage people to work
 effectively.
 p If people are not motivated, they will not be interested
 in the work they are doing. They will work slowly, be
 more likely to make mistakes and will not contribute to
 the broader goals of the team or the organization.
£ Is a complex issue but it appears that their are
 different types of motivation based on:
 p Basic needs (e.g. food, sleep, etc.);
 p Personal needs (e.g. respect, self-esteem);
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 p Social needs (e.g. to be acceptedas part of a group).
 Human needs hierarchy 
 Self-
realization needs
 Esteem needs
 Social needs
 Safety needs
 Physiological needs
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 Need satisfaction
£ In software development groups, basic
 physiological and safety needs are not an issue.
£ Social
 p Provide communal facilities;
 p Allow informal communications e.g. via social
 networking
£ Esteem
 p Recognition of achievements;
 p Appropriate rewards.
£ Self-realization
 p Training - people want to learn more;
 p Responsibility.
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 Personality types
£ The needs hierarchy is almost certainly an over-
 simplification of motivation in practice.
£ Motivation should also take into account different
 personality types:
 p Task-oriented;
 p Self-oriented;
 p Interaction-oriented.
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 Personality types
£ Task-oriented.
 p The motivation for doing the work is the work itself;
£ Self-oriented.
 p The work is a means to an end which is the
 achievement of individual goals - e.g. to get rich, to play
 tennis, to travel etc.;
£ Interaction-oriented
 p The principal motivation is the presence and actions of
 co-workers. People go to work because they like to go to
 work.
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 Motivation balance
£ Individual motivations are made up of elements
 of each class.
£ The balance can change depending on personal
 circumstances and external events.
£ However, people are not just motivated by
 personal factors but also by being part of a group
 and culture.
£ People go to work because they are motivated by
 the people that they work with.
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 Topics covered
1. Risk management
2. Managing people
3. Teamwork
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 Teamwork
£ Most software engineering is a group activity
 p The development schedule for most non-trivial software
 projects is such that they cannot be completed by one
 person working alone.
£ A good group is cohesive and has a team spirit.
 p The people involved are motivated by the success of the
 group as well as by their own personal goals.
£ Group interaction is a key determinant of group
 performance.
£ Flexibility in group composition is limited
 p Managers must do the best they can with available
 people.
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 Group cohesiveness
£ In a cohesive group, members consider the group
 to be more important than any individual in it.
£ The advantages of a cohesive group are:
 p Group quality standards can be developed by the group
 members.
 p Team members learn from each other and get to know
 each other’s work; Inhibitions caused by ignorance are
 reduced.
 p Knowledge is shared. Continuity can be maintained if a
 group member leaves.
 p Refactoring and continual improvement is encouraged.
 Group members work collectively to deliver high quality
 results and fix problems, irrespective of the individuals
 who originally created the design or program.
 Effectiveness of a team
£ The people in the group
 p You need a mix of people in a project group as
 software development involves diverse activities such
 as negotiating with clients, programming, testing and
 documentation.
£ The group organization
 p A group should be organized so that individuals can
 contribute to the best of their abilities and tasks can
 be completed as expected.
£ Technical and managerial communications
 p Good communications between group members, and
 between the software engineering team and other
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 project stakeholders, is essential.
 Selecting group members
£ A manager or team leader’s job is to create a
 cohesive group and organize their group so that
 they can work together effectively.
£ This involves creating a group with the right
 balance of technical skills and personalities, and
 organizing that group so that the members work
 together effectively.
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 Assembling a team
£ May not be possible to appoint the ideal people to work on
 a project
 p Project budget may not allow for the use of highly-paid
 staff;
 p Staff with the appropriate experience may not be
 available;
 p An organisation may wish to develop employee skills on
 a software project.
£ Managers have to work within these constraints especially
 when there are shortages of trained staff.
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 Group composition
£ Group composed of members who share the
 same motivation can be problematic
 p Task-oriented - everyone wants to do their own
 thing;
 p Self-oriented - everyone wants to be the boss;
 p Interaction-oriented - too much chatting, not enough
 work.
£ An effective group has a balance of all types.
£ This can be difficult to achieve software
 engineers are often task-oriented.
£ Interaction-oriented people are very important
 as they can detect and defusetensions that 62
 arise.
 Group organization
£ The way that a group is organized affects
 p the decisions that are made by that group,
 p the ways that information is exchanged and
 p the interactions between the development group
 and external project stakeholders.
£ Key questions include:
 p Should the project manager be the technical leader of the
 group?
 p Who will be involved in making critical technical decisions, and
 how will these be made?
 p How will interactions with external stakeholders and senior
 company management be handled?
 p How can groups integrate people who are not co-located?
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 p How can knowledge be shared acrossgroup?the
 Group organization
£ Small software engineering groups are usually
 organised informally without a rigid structure.
£ For large projects, there may be a hierarchical
 structure where different groups are responsible
 for different sub-projects.
£ Agile development is always based around an
 informal group on the principle that formal
 structure inhibits information exchange
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 Informal groups
£ The group acts as a whole and comes to a
 consensus on decisions affecting the system.
£ The group leader serves as the external interface
 of the group but does not allocate specific work
 items.
£ Rather, work is discussed by the group as a whole
 and tasks are allocated according to ability and
 experience.
£ This approach is successful for groups where all
 members are experienced and competent.
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 Group communications
£ Good communications are essential for effective
 group working.
£ Information must be exchanged on the status of
 work, design decisions and changes to previous
 decisions.
£ Good communications also strengthens group
 cohesion as it promotes understanding.
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 Group communications
£ Group size
 p The larger the group, the harder it is for people to
 communicate with other group members.
£ Group structure
 p Communication is better in informally structured groups
 than in hierarchically structured groups.
£ Group composition
 p Communication is better when there are different
 personality types in a group and when groups are mixed
 rather than single sex.
£ The physical work environment
 p Good workplace organisation can help encourage
 communications.
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Questions?
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