Approaching Modern Project Management for Software Development

Abstract
:
(GO through entire paper and write what is there in this paper, how u
approached what conclusion are you expecting)

Introduction:
Many project management methodologies being used today, are either the
wrong methodologies or are not applied fully [1]. Some project managers see
methodologies as impractical and bureaucratic, relying on their gut instinct when
it comes to managing projects. If project management methodologies come
across as too complex to use in real-world projects, project managers will look for
their own shortcuts. Given enough time, anyone can be trained to adhere to a
project methodology.
It has been recognised over the last 30 years that project management is
an efficient tool to handle novel or complex activities. It has been suggested that
it is more efficient than traditional methods of management, such as the practice
of functional divisions in a formal hierarchical organisation, for handling such
situations. The process of bringing new projects on stream and into the market
imposes demands on established organisations and necessitates different
management techniques from those required to maintain day-to-day operations.
In such circumstances, where companies have a finite, unique and unfamiliar
undertaking, the techniques of project management can be successfully
implemented. These undertakings would call for more and faster decision making
techniques than possible in a normal operation and making the right choices will
be critical to company success. [12]
The use of project management has become associated with such novel
complex problems, which are inevitably called a project. Consequently the
success of project management has often been associated with the final
outcome of the project. Over time it has been shown that project management
and project success are not necessarily directly related. The objectives of both
project management and the project are different and the control of time, cost
and progress, which are often the project management objectives, should not be
confused with measuring project success. Also, experience has shown that it is
possible to achieve a successful project even when management has failed and
vice versa.
There are many examples of projects which were relatively successful
despite not being completed on time, or being over budget, e.g. the Thames
Barrier, the Fulmar North Sea oil project or Concorde, all of which turned out to
be relative successes, even though the project control aspect of them failed. It
can therefore be argued that the relationship between the two is less dependent
than was first assumed, and in order to measure project success a distinction
should be made between the success of a project and the success of the project
management activity.
This paper attempts to provide a logic for the distinction between project
management and the project. Starting from a definition of the two terms, it will
outline the factors which affect their success, the individuals involved and their

respective orientations and the relationship between these elements. It also

discusses the implications of the situation where the project fails but the project
management process is perceived to have succeeded or vice versa.
Projects are usually split into phases often along the lines of initiation,
control (Planning, Execution) and closure. During each phase, a number of
documents are produced as part of the project control process. All software
projects, regardless of their size, complexity or industry, require a set of defined
rules and principles to be managed effectively and come to a successful
conclusion. This area of managing projects is called project management. This
idea of project management has been around for a long time.
Today, project management has emerged as its own field, supported by
bodies of knowledge and researches across many discipline. Although still
relatively new, the field of Software Engineering has its own Bodies of Knowledge
that include various methodologies, frameworks, tools and techniques supported
by a continuous growing base of research.
Literature Review :
The project management as a human activity has a long history; e.g.
construction of Egyptian pyramids in 2000 BC may be regarded as a project
activity. However, the start for the modern Project Management era, as a
distinctive research area, was in the 1950s. Maylor (2005) determines three
major stages of the PM historical development. Before the 1950s, the PM as such
was not recognised. In the 1950s, tools and techniques were developed to
support the management of complex projects. The dominant thinking was based
on one best way approach, based on numerical methods.
The third stage, from the 1990s onwards is characterised by the changing
environment in which projects take place. It is more and more realised that a
project management approach should be contingent upon its context. It is also
noted that a shift is observed over time in development of project management
from focus on sole project management to the broader management of projects
and strategic project management (Fangel, 1993; Morris, 1994; Bryde, 2003).
Reflecting these changes in the managerial practices, the body of academic
literature on PM has evolved and burgeoned. International Journal of Project
Management and Project Management Journals became the flagship publication
outlets for PM scholars and practitioners.
A large number of (managerial) handbooks outlining the methods and
techniques of PM have been published, e.g. Andersen et al (2004), Bruijn et al
(2004) Kerzner (2005), Maylor (2005), Meredith and Mantel (2006), Mller
(2009), Roberts (2007), Turner (1999), Turner and Turner (2008). Despite a
growing number of publications, there is no unified theoretical basis and there is
no unified theory of project management, due to its multidisciplinary nature
(Smyth and Morris, 2007). Project management has a more applied nature than
other management disciplines.
Although the PM has formed as a distinct research field, there is no
universal, generally accepted definition of a project and project management.
Turner (1999) develops a generic definition of a project: A project is an
endeavour in which human, financial and material resources are organised in a
novel way to undertake a unique scope of work, of given specification, which

constraints of cost and time, so as to achieve beneficial change defined by

quantitative and qualitative objectives. There have been several attempts to
provide an overview of the state-of-the-art research in PM and outline its trends
and future directions (e.g., PMI, 2004; Betts and Lansley, 1995; Themistocleous
and Wearne, 2003; Crawford et al, 2006; Kloppenberg and Opfer, 2002).
In a recent article, Kwak and Anbari (2009) review relevant academic
journals and identify eight allied disciplines, in which PM is being applied and
developed. These disciplines include such areas as Operation Management,
Organisational Behaviour, Information Technology, Engineering and Construction,
Strategy/Integration, Project Finance and Accounting, and Quality and
Management. Notably, one of these eight allied disciplines is Technology
Application / Innovation / New Product Development / Research and
Development. The authors found that only 11% of journal publications on the
subject of project management fell under the Innovation heading. Yet,
importantly, this area showed sustained upward interest, and hence the number
of publications, since the 1960s. Overall, Kwak and Anbari (2009) conclude that
the mainstream PM research proceeds largely in the Strategy / Integration /
Portfolio Management / Value of PM / Marketing direction (30% of all
publications examined by the authors).
Project Methodologies
Project management has grown from the early initiatives in the U.S.
defense and aerospace sectors in the late 1950s and 1960s [2]. The
Organizations that achieved early project management successes, mainly
promulgated through their internal policies, procedures, and lessons learned.
Many articles, seminars, and training programs that expanded the project
management genre, although much of the theory centered on the use of tools
and techniques, such as:

PERT/Gantt charts.
Critical path.
Scheduling techniques.
SMART technique.
Organisational issues.
Conflict management and others.

(Explain these techniques in short if you need more number of pages)

Most projects share a common life cycle. This is not to say that these
projects are all designed and executed the same way, but they remain universal,
as they pass similar phases during the life cycle of the project.
Selection of apt Project Methodology
There are no similar development methodologies. Some companies have
their own unique customised methodology for developing products or services;
others simply use standard commercial off-the-shelf methodologies. With the
incorrect methodology, discovering, designing, building, testing, and deploying
projects can be chaotic [3]. At least 20 different methodologies are competing to
be the best methodology, and this list of methodologies keeps on growing.

The project methodology that is chosen represents merely the framework

for the real work to be done and indicates where creativity is needed. Many
times, project managers simply select the available methodology and continue to
develop their projects with that same methodology. When unpredictable results
occur on a project, they raise issues and risks and try to manage reactively [4].
Project managers often lack the controls to measure and respond to the
unpredictable. Therefore, they must first determine that the methodology is the
correct one. Many project managers find it difficult to give up control as provided
in traditional development. There is no guarantee that the team will deliver if it
just follow a chosen methodology.
Clients seldom complete requirement specifications because their
requirements are constantly changing. The most logical solution is to simply
evolve the product as the client's needs change along the project development
process. This shows the need for a methodology to be more flexible than a
formal waterfall approach. In fact, the trend is shifting to the more iterative or
incremental style of methodologies [4,5]. Most project developments are wrongly
approached with the assumption that the methodology used is well-understood,
and the project can be easily planned and estimated. When a project begins to
fail, the development process is immediately provided with more resources and
attention to get it back on track. Thus, cost and schedule overruns start
occurring. These step-by-step approaches do not work because they do not cope
with human and technical unpredictability. Inflexible processes are often too
constraining and fall short of delivering a project to operations or production [5].
Success of a project
The definition of a project has suggested that there is an orientation
towards higher and long-term goals. Important parameters within the goals will
be return on investment, profitability, competition and market ability. A range of
variables and factors will affect the ability to achieve these goals, which have
been identified by various authors. The following list has been derived from the
writings of Cash and Fox[6], Baker et al.[7,8], Kerzner [9], Wit [10] and Kumar:
(a) objectives; (b) project administration; (c) third parties; (d) relations with
client; (e) human parties; (f) contracting; (g) legal agreements; (h) politics; (i)
efficiency; (j) conflicts and (k) profit. The current literature, for example, Morris
and Hugh [11], would imply that the success of a project is dependent on having:
a realistic goal;
competition;
client satisfaction;
a definite goal;
profitability;
third parties;
market availability;
the implementation process;
the perceived value of the project.

Only two of the items from this list would lie directly within the scope of
project management as previously defined. These are the definitions of a goal
and the implementation process. This would indicate that project management
and its techniques are only a subset of the wider context of the project. Project
management plays a role in project success but that role is affected by many
other factors outside the direct control of the project manager. This would start
to explain why projects can succeed or fail independently of the project
management process.

Success of Project Management

The definition of project management suggests a shorter term and more
specific context for success. The outcomes of project management success are
many. They would include the obvious indicators of completion to budget,
satisfying the project schedule, adequate quality standards, and meeting the
project goal. The factors which may cause the project management to fail to
achieve these would include (see, for example, Avots[12]):
inadequate basis for project;
wrong person as project manager;
top management unsupportive;
inadequately defined tasks;
lack of project management techniques;
management techniques mis-used;
project closedown not planned;
lack of commitment to project.
These factors would suggest that successful project management requires
planning with a commitment to complete the project; careful appointment of a
skilled project manager; spending time to define the project adequately;
correctly planning the activities in the project; ensuring correct and adequate
information flows; changing activities to accommodate frequent changes on
dynamic; accommodating employees' personal goals with performance and
rewards; and making a fresh start when mistakes in implementation have been
identified.
The narrow definition of tasks in successful project management provides
an indicator of why project management success and project success are not
directly correlated. A project may still be successful despite the failings of project
management because it meets the higher and long-term objectives. At the point
when the project management is completed the short-term orientation could be
one of failure but the long-term outcome could be a success, because the larger
set of objectives are satisfied instead of the narrow subset which constitutes
project management.
The majority of literature on project management (see, for example,
Kerzner [9], Duncan and Gorsha [13]) stresses the importance of techniques in

achieving project objectives. They stress how successful implementation of

techniques contributes to a successful project. Avots, Duncan and Gorsha claim
that project management is an important part in project success. Avots , in
studying the reasons for project management failure, argued that failure could
be avoided by paying careful attention to the project management factors which
caused failure.
Duncan and Gorsha identified three problem areas which indicate the
success of a project. These are under-costing, overspending and late delivery. It
is suggested that project planning is needed to overcome these problems.
Lackman has discussed the different tools available to a project manager to
achieve success. These include work breakdown structures, client information
sheets and project plans, among others. The early development of strategies,
philosophies and methodologies of project implementation have been stressed
by Kumar as the most important factor in achieving success. He suggested that
by gathering sufficient site information and being aware of project considerations
and constraints; it is possible to tailor strategies and methodologies which are
specific to a certain situation. Such well-defined strategies will assist in providing
a satisfying and successful implementation of a project. The concentration on
techniques may be considered as the 'hard' issues in project management. They
are the easily measured and quantified concepts of time and cost.
Other writers have incorporated what might loosely be called people skills
alongside these more administrative functions. These people skills are 'soft'
issues in management. For example Randolph and Posner N, Posner [14] and
Jaafari [15] stressed personal, technical and organisational skills as being
necessary to help control projects and achieve successful results. Implicit in all
the above literature is the claim that projects end when they are delivered to the
customer. That is the point at which project management ends. They do not
consider the wider criteria which will affect the project once in use.
They make a distinction between project success and the success of
project management, bearing in mind that good project management can
contribute towards project success but is unlikely to be able to prevent failure.
They also emphasise that a project can be a success despite a poor project
management performance. If, as this argument implies, project management is
purely a subset of the project as a whole, then it is suggested that the broader
decisions in selecting a suitable project in the first place are more likely to
influence the overall success of the project than can be achieved merely through
the techniques of project management. The techniques may help to ensure a
successful implementation of the project, but if the project is fundamentally
flawed from the start it would be unlikely that techniques alone could salvage it.
The techniques may help to identify the unfeasible nature of the project, and
indicate that it should be abandoned or changed.
Importance project life cycles
Successful implementation of any project methodology is a project itself.
The hard part is to roll it out and make it part of the company's everyday culture.
Although managers can manage projects without a formal methodology, having
one can be a big help. Project management methodologies have been around for
decades, but first started to become popular in Information System (IS) in the
early 1970s [4]. These methodologies usually have two components. The first is

an overall process for doing things, while the second consists of templates or
forms required at specific portions of that process.
While the process itself is the true methodology, most project managers
consider the templates and forms to be part and parcel of the methodology.
Project management methodologies are important for two reasons. First, they
standardise the way in which an organisation manages its projects. This allows
people from anywhere in the organisation to talk with one another using the
same terms and the same definitions for those terms. Presenting a consistent
approach to project management via standards also allows project managers to
cover for one another when the need arises.
The second reason that methodologies are important is that they provide
novice project managers with the tools to manage projects, without requiring a
long learning curve. Project life cycles generally go hand in hand with project
methodologies. Such life cycles break a projects life into a series of phases or
stages. The end of each phase provides a convenient project review point for
senior management to institute go or no-go decisions, and also allows project
managers to plan the next phases in more detail. While project life cycles can
have many phases, the majority have three to five. They include some type of
project start-up or initiation, a project construction or implementation stage and
finally a project evaluation or post implementation review [4, 16]. The Project
Management Life Cycle has four phases: Initiation, Planning, Execution and
Closure.
(Explain a little about life cycle)
The Agile Methodologies
Project or development managers are still facing controversy between the
agile and heavyweight methodologies. Currently, many companies favour the
agile methodologies. Agile methodologies present new, non-traditional ways of
building complex products and systems. Projects that use agile methodologies
are now starting to report improved time line and cost savings, compared to
those in the heavyweight family [2]. Additionally, project teams are hailing the
agile family of methodologies as remarkable because, at last, a series of
methodologies contributes directly to the business. Many managers tend to stick
with the heavyweight methodology because they want to predict the entire
project until the last man-hour, whereas the project teams tend to stick with
dynamic shorter cycles [2, 17, 18]. Industries that use agile methodologies
include financial, IT, telecom, utilities, and many more service industries.
Furthermore, this trend is starting to emerge worldwide [17]. The following are
the most commonly used agile methodologies:

Extreme Programming (XP)

Scrum
Crystal methodology
Dynamic Systems
Development Methodology (DSDM)
Rapid Application Development (RAD)
Adaptive software development
Lean development
Feature-driven development

Agile methodologies better suit small projects where smaller project teams
are involved. With larger team size and the complexity and duration of the
project, the choice of a heavyweight methodology is purely from a command and
control perspective. Many smaller companies do not use heavyweight
methodologies and prefer the more agile approach to building solutions [17].
Vital attributes that are required for modern project management:
Project planning focuses on breaking down the total effort into assignable
units, estimating this work, defining the most efficient order in which the work
should be performed, and then deploying available staff to specific work packets
for specific windows of time. Perhaps the most significant influence of modern
project management is on project plans and the planning process. Because
Single-Time Effort projects are only performed once, and in many cases, have
never been done before [19].
It is impossible to create final, stable plans early in the life of the project.
While preliminary and highly speculative projections may and should be
produced, these early plans must be repeatedly re-base lined as new
information becomes available. A complete discovery process is typically
required before stable plans are feasible. Because of their experience with the
early, stable plans of Continuing Effort, many organisations falsely assume they
may simply command early planning data for Single-Time Effort. This often
dooms a project to failure as it is operating with totally invalid set of expectations
and strategies [19].
Due to the complexity and diversity of skills needed to perform SingleTime Effort, it is impractical for the project manager to be the task expert of all
work that must be done. When these managers attempt to blindly dictate
direction, they are quickly exposed by their impractical or unreasonable edits.
Instead, modern managers work to solicit individual contributions, create
consensus within the project team, facilitate group decisions and create an
environment where it is possible for people on the project to accomplish their
work with a minimum of distractions. The modern Project Manager plans,
organises and controls the project with the team and not for the team.
A modern Project Manager must establish clear roles and responsibilities
needed for the success of their project. A project staff often includes many
people who do not report administratively to this manager and may even be at a
higher corporate level. Organising a project structure begins with defining what
is expected of the Project Owner along with each member of the Project Team.
The Project Manager must also define and explain the responsibilities they will
have to the project.
Further, these managers typically have only functional authority over their
team. This authority is often compromised by the priorities, views and
occasional interference of the actual administrative managers. It becomes
illogical and unfair to hold a Project Manager responsible for deliverables and
dates when they have such limited and tainted authority over their team. Even
more vexing is the tendency of out-of control organisations to improve the look
of productivity by deploying the same people to multiple simultaneous projects.
Organisations must address this condition with well-defined roles, clearly stated
responsibilities, full release of people to a project and a corporate resource

management process that insures team members are never over-deployed to

multiple projects.
Single-Time Efforts are measured based on creating quality, not quantity. It
is critical to first verify the completion of promised deliverables. Objective criteria
for completeness and quality must be met before a deliverable is considered
done. Performance and productivity may then be measured by comparing
planned hours, durations, start dates and finished dates against the actuals.
However, instead of comparing performance against the original plans created
during the first days of a project, measurements must be against revised and
relevant baseline plans.
Conclusion :
(GO through Entire paper and generate a para of conclusion.
CONCLUSION AND ABSTRACT should co-relate)
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