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Masters Degree Examination April 2015II Semester12MCS08 Software Project Management Scheme Part-A1. Parkinsons law2. Defined3. Project Schedule4. Performance Measures, Predictive Measures5. True6. True7. A project is well-defined task, which is a collection of several operations done in order to achieve a goal (for example, software development and delivery).8. software prototype is simulated version of the intended software product. Prototype provides initial look and feel of the product and simulates few aspect of actual product.9. Work Breakdown Structure10. Return Of Invesment

Part-B

11. a. There are many people or organizations that are dependent on and/or are affected by the final product or output. These people are the stakeholders of a project. Stakeholder management involves taking into consideration the different interests and values stakeholders have and addressing them during the duration of the project to ensure that all stakeholders are happy at the end. This branch of management is important because it helps an organization to achieve its strategic objectives by involving both the external and internal environments and by creating a positive relationship with stakeholders through good management of their expectations. Stakeholder management is also important because it helps identify positive existing relationships with stakeholders. These relationships can be converted to coalitions and partnerships, which go on to build trust and encourage collaboration among the stakeholders. Stakeholder management, in a business project sense, works through a strategy. This strategy is created using information gathered through the following processes: Stakeholder Identification Stakeholder Analysis Stakeholder Matrix Stakeholder Engagement Communicating Information Stakeholder Agreements In today's modern management project practice, managers and stakeholders favor an honest and transparent stakeholder relationship.b. Cash Flow Forecasting :Indicates when expenditure and income will take placeCash Flow Analysis Typically there are outgoing payments initially and then incoming payments There might be additional costs at the end of the project life Cash flow considerations Is initial funding for the project available? Is timing of incoming/outgoing cash flow in line with financial plans? If cash flow is critical, forecasting should be done quarterly or monthly Risky/expensive projects might be funded using venture capital.12 a. Identify relationship between the project and strategic planning To establish a framework within which the system fits To ensure the hardware and software standards are followedIdentify installation standards and proceduresIdentify project team organization

b. Waterfall ModelWaterfall model is the simplest model of software development paradigm. It says the all the phases of SDLC will function one after another in linear manner. That is, when the first phase is finished then only the second phase will start and so on. (diagram) this model assumes that everything is carried out and taken place perfectly as planned in the previous stage and there is no need to think about the past issues that may arise in the next phase. This model does not work smoothly if there are some issues left at the previous step. The sequential nature of model does not allow us go back and undo or redo our actions. This model is best suited when developers already have designed and developed similar software in the past and are aware of all its domains.

13 a. Estimation is often done bysampling, which is counting a small number of examples something, and projecting that number onto a larger population.An example of estimation would be determining how many candies of a given size are in a glass jar. Because the distribution of candies inside the jar may vary, the observer can count the number of candies visible through the glass, consider the size of the jar, and presume that a similar distribution can be found in the parts that can not be seen, thereby making an estimate of the total number of candies that could be in the jar if that presumption were true. Estimates can similarly be generated by projecting results frompollsorsurveysonto the entire population. In making an estimate, the goal is often most useful to generate a range of possible outcomes that is precise enough to be useful, but not so precise that it is likely to be inaccurate.For example, in trying to guess the number of candies in the jar, if fifty were visible, and the total volume of the jar seemed to be about twenty times as large as the volume containing the visible candies, then one might simply project that there were a thousand candies in the jar. Such a projection, intended to pick the single value that is believed to be closest to the actual value, is called apoint estimate.[2]However, a point estimation is likely to be incorrect, because the sample size - in this case, the number of candies that are visible - is too small a number to be sure that it does not contain anomalies that differ from the population as a whole.A corresponding concept is aninterval estimate, which captures a much larger range of possibilities, but is too broad to be useful.For example, if one were asked to estimate the percentage of people who like candy, it would clearly be correct that the number falls between zero and one hundred percent.Such an estimate would provide no guidance, however, to somebody who is trying to determine how many candies to buy for a party to be attended by a hundred people. b. Risk management plans should be developed for each of the above the line prioritized risks so that proactive action can take place. These actions are documented in the Action column of the Risk Table . Following are some examples of the kinds of risk planning actions that can take place: Information buying. Perceived risk can be reduced by obtaining more information through investigation. For example, in a project in which the use of a new technology has created risk, the team can invest some money to learn about the technology. Throw-away prototypes can be developed using the new technology to educate some of the staff on the new technology and to assess the fit of the new technology for the product. Contingency plans. A contingency plan is a plan that describes what to do if certain risks materialize. By planning ahead with such a plan, you are prepared and have a strategy in place do deal with the issue. Risk reduction. For example, if the team is concerned that the use of a new programming language may cause a schedule delay, the budget might contain a line item entitled potential schedule to cover a potential schedule slip. Because the budget already covers the potential slip, the financial risk to the organization is reduced. Alternately, the team can plan to employ inspections to reduce the risk of quality problems. Risk acceptance. Sometimes the organization consciously chooses to live with the consequences of the risk (Hall, 1998) and the results of the potential loss. In this case, no action is planned.14. a. Forward PassForward pass is aCPMtechniqueused to determine theearly startandearly finish datefor an activity. It involves moving forward through a networkdiagramtocalculatetheactivityduration. b. Almost all the projects need to be guided right throughout in order to receive the required and expected output at the end of the project. It is the team that is responsible for the project and most importantly the project manager that needs to be able to carry out effective controlling of the costs. There are, however, several techniques that can be used for this purpose.In addition to the project goals that the project manager has to oversee, the control of various costs is also a very important task for any project. Project management would not be effective at all if a project manager fails in this respect, as it would essentially determine whether or not your organization would make a profit or loss.Cost Control TechniquesFollowing are some of the valuable and essential techniques used for efficient project cost control: Planning the Project Budget Keeping a Track of Costs Effective Time Management Project Change Control Use of Earned Value

15. a. We would expect quality to be a concern of all producers of goods and services. However, the special characteristics of software, and in particular, its intangibility and complexity, make special demands. Increasing Criticality of Software.The final customer or user is naturally anxious about the general quality of software, especially its reliability. This is increasingly the case as organizations become more dependent on their computer systems and software is used more and more in areas which are safety critical; for example, to control aircraft. The Intangibility of Software.This makes it difficult to know whether a particular task in a project has been completed satisfactorily. The results of these tasks can be made tangible by demanding that the developers produce deliverables that can be examined for quality. Accumulating Errors During Software Development.As computer system development is made up of a number of steps where the output from one step is the input to the next, the errors in the earlier deliverables will be added to those in the later steps leading to an accumulating detrimental effect, and generally, the later in a project that an error is found the more expensive it will be to fix. In addition, because the number of errors in the system is unknown the debugging phases of a project are particularly difficult to control.For these reasons quality management is an essential part of effective overall project management.b. one of the challenges of software quality is that "everyone feels they understand it".Software quality may be defined as conformance to explicitly stated functional and performance requirements, explicitly documented development standards and implicit characteristics that are expected of all professionally developed software.The three key points in this definition:1. Software requirements are the foundations from which quality is measured.Lack of conformance to requirement is lack of quality.2. Specified standards define a set of development criteria that guide the manager is software engineering.If criteria are not followed lack of quality will usually result.3. A set of implicit requirements often goes unmentioned, for example ease of use, maintainability etc.If software confirms to its explicit requirement but fails to meet implicit requirements, software quality is suspected.A definition in Steve McConnell'sCode Completedivides software into two pieces:internalandexternal quality characteristics. External quality characteristics are those parts of a product that face its users, where internal quality characteristics are those that do not. Another definition by Dr. Tom DeMarco says "a product's quality is a function of how much it changes the world for the better." This can be interpreted as meaning that user satisfaction is more important than anything in determining software quality.

16. a. Software Management ActivitiesSoftware project management comprises of a number of activities, which contains planning of project, deciding scope of software product, estimation of cost in various terms, scheduling of tasks and events, and resource management. Project management activities may include: Project Planning Scope Management Project Estimation

b. Cost benefit evaluation Techniques Costs and benefits have to be expressed using the same scale to be comparable Usually expressed in payments at certain times (cash flow table) Payments at different points in time are not comparable based only on the amount Time of payment should be considered Techniques Net profit Payback period Return on investment Net present value Internal rate of returnReturn On Investment Also known as the accounting rate of return (ARR) Provides a way of comparing the net profitability to the investment required The common formula ROI = (average annual profit/total investment) X 10017 a. The five major planning activities are: define products; define activities; estimate resources and duration; define activity network; define schedule and total cost. This process can be applied to a whole project or to a phase of a project. Each activity may be repeated several times to make a feasible plan. In principle, every activity(diagram)can be linked to the other activities by 'feedback' loops, in which information gained at a later stage in planning is used to revise earlier planning decisions. These loops have been omitted from the simplicity. Iteration is essential for optimising the plan.

b. Spiral ModelSpiral model is a combination of both, iterative model and one of the SDLC model. It can be seen as if you choose one SDLC model and combine it with cyclic process (iterative model).(diagram) This model considers risk, which often goes un-noticed by most other models. The model starts with determining objectives and constraints of the software at the start of one iteration. Next phase is of prototyping the software. This includes risk analysis. Then one standard SDLC model is used to build the software. In the fourth phase of the plan of next iteration is prepared.

18 a. Project Estimation Technique.Project manager can estimate the listed factors using two broadly recognized techniques Decomposition TechniqueThis technique assumes the software as a product of various compositions.There are two main models - Line of CodeEstimation is done on behalf of number of line of codes in the software product. Function PointsEstimation is done on behalf of number of function points in the software product.Empirical Estimation TechniqueThis technique uses empirically derived formulae to make estimation.These formulae are based on LOC or FPs. Putnam ModelThis model is made by Lawrence H. Putnam, which is based on Nordens frequency distribution (Rayleigh curve). Putnam model maps time and efforts required with software size. COCOMOCOCOMO stands for COnstructive COst MOdel, developed by Barry W. Boehm. It divides the software product into three categories of software: organic, semi-detached and embedded.b.Risk Management ProcessThere are following activities involved in risk management process: Identification -Make note of all possible risks, which may occur in the project. Categorize -Categorize known risks into high, medium and low risk intensity as per their possible impact on the project. Manage -Analyze the probability of occurrence of risks at various phases. Make plan to avoid or face risks. Attempt to minimize their side-effects. Monitor -Closely monitor the potential risks and their early symptoms. Also monitor the effects of steps taken to mitigate or avoid them.

19 a. Critical Path AnalysisThis tools is useful in recognizing interdependent tasks in the project. It also helps to find out the shortest path or critical path to complete the project successfully. Like PERT diagram, each event is allotted a specific time frame. This tool shows dependency of event assuming an event can proceed to next only if the previous one is completed. The events are arranged according to their earliest possible start time. Path between start and end node is critical path which cannot be further reduced and all events require to be executed in same order.b. Project Monitoring and controlIn this phase, the tasks described in project plans are executed according to their schedules.Execution needs monitoring in order to check whether everything is going according to the plan. Monitoring is observing to check the probability of risk and taking measures to address the risk or report the status of various tasks.These measures include - Activity Monitoring -All activities scheduled within some task can be monitored on day-to-day basis. When all activities in a task are completed, it is considered as complete. Status Reports -The reports contain status of activities and tasks completed within a given time frame, generally a week. Status can be marked as finished, pending or work-in-progress etc. Milestones Checklist -Every project is divided into multiple phases where major tasks are performed (milestones) based on the phases of SDLC. This milestone checklist is prepared once every few weeks and reports the status of milestones.

20. a. Decision making is a daily activity for any human being. There is no exception about that. When it comes to business organizations, decision making is a habit and a process as well. Effective and successful decisions make profit to the company and unsuccessful ones make losses. Therefore, corporate decision making process is the most critical process in any organization. In the decision making process, we choose one course of action from a few possible alternatives. In the process of decision making, we may use many tools, techniques and perceptions.In addition, we may make our own private decisions or may prefer a collective decision. Usually, decision making is hard. Majority of corporate decisions involve some level of dissatisfaction or conflict with another party.(Stpes:diagram)b. ISO/IEC 9126This standard deals with the following aspects to determine the quality of a software application: Quality model External metrics Internal metrics Quality in use metricsThis standard presents some set of quality attributes for any software such as: Functionality Reliability Usability Efficiency Maintainability Portability