Management Issues in Software Development

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Management Issues in Software Development

• By Shichao Lei
• Base on Software Engineering
• By Ian Sommerville

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Why is management important?

• Management is an important part of Software
  Engineering
• Many projects fail because of poor management
• Good management can significantly improve
  software development.

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Topics covered

• Project Management
• Management activities
• Project planning
• Project scheduling
• Risk management
• People Management
• Selecting staff
• Motivating people
• Managing groups
• The people capability maturity model

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Software management distinctions

• The product is intangible
• There are no standard software process
• Large software projects are often 'one-off'
  projects

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Management activities

• ?? Proposal writing
• ?? Project cost
• ?? Project planning and scheduling
• ?? Project monitoring and reviews
• ?? Personnel selection and evaluation
• ?? Report writing and presentations

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Project staffing

• Project budget may not allow for the use of
  highly-paid staff
• Staff with the appropriate experience may not be
  available
• An organization may wish to develop employee
  skills on a software project

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Project planning

• Effective management of a software project
  depends on thoroughly planning.
• Continuous activity throughout the project.
• Plans must be regularly revised as new
  information becomes available

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Milestones and deliverables

• Milestones are the end-point of a process
  activity
• Deliverables are project products delivered to
  customers

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Milestones and deliverables
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Project scheduling

• Divide project into parts and estimate time
  required to complete each task
• Organize tasks to make optimal use of workforce
• Minimize task dependencies to avoid delays
• Dependent on project managers intuition and
  experience

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Scheduling problems

• Estimating the difficulty of problems and the
  cost of developing a solution is hard
• Productivity is not proportional to the number of
  people working on a task
• Adding people to a late project makes it later
  because of communication overheads
• The unexpected always happens.

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Bar charts and activity networks

• Activity charts show task dependencies and the
  critical path
• Bar charts show schedule against calendar time

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Task durations and dependencies
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Activity network
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Activity timeline
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Staff allocation
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Risk management

• Risk management is one of the main jobs of
  project managers
• Types of Risks
• Project risks
• Product risks
• Business risks

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Process of Risk Management

• Risk identification
• Risk analysis
• Risk planning
• Risk monitoring

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Managing people

• People are an organisations most important
  assets.
• People is the intellectual capital.
• Poor people management often cause project
  failure.

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People management factors

• Consistency
• Respect
• Inclusion
• Honesty

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Selecting staff

• Information that decision base on
• Information provided by the candidates.
• Information gained by interviewing and talking
  with candidates.
• Recommendations and comments from other people
  who know or who have worked with the candidates.

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Motivating people

• An important role of a manager is to motivate the
  people working on a project.
• Motivation is a complex issue but it appears that
  their are different types of motivation based on
• Basic needs
• Personal needs
• Social needs

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Human needs hierarchy
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Need satisfaction

• Social
• Provide communal facilities
• Allow informal communications.
• Esteem
• Recognition of achievements
• Appropriate rewards.
• Self-realization
• Training - people want to learn more
• Responsibility.

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Personality types

• The needs hierarchy is often over-simplified in
  practice.
• Motivation should also take into account
  different personality types
• Task-oriented
• Self-oriented
• Interaction-oriented.

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Personality types

• Task-oriented.
• Motivated by the work they do
• Self-oriented.
• Motivated by individual goals - e.g. to get rich,
  to play tennis, to travel etc
• Interaction-oriented
• Motivated by the presence and actions of
  co-workers.

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Managing groups

• Most software projects is developed by project
  team.
• Group interaction is a key factor that determine
  group performance.
• Group composition has limited flexibility.

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Factors influencing group working

• Group composition.
• Group cohesiveness.
• Group communications.
• Group organisation.

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Group composition

• An effective group should have 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 defuse tensions.

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Group leadership

• Leadership depends on respect not status.
• There may be both a technical and an
  administrative leader.
• Democratic leadership is more effective that
  autocratic leadership.

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Group cohesiveness

• In a cohesive group, members consider the group
  to be more important than any individual in it.

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The advantages of cohesive group

• Group quality standards can be developed
• Group members work closely together so
  inhibitions caused by ignorance are reduced
• Team members learn from each other and get to
  know each others work
• Egoless programming where members strive to
  improve each others programs can be practised.

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Group communications

• Information must be exchanged on the status of
  work
• Good communications also strengthens group
  cohesion

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Group communications

• Group size
• Group structure
• Group composition
• The physical work environment

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Group organisation

• 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.

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Informal groups

• The group acts as a whole
• The group leader serves as the external interface
  of the group but does not allocate specific work
  items.
• This approach is successful for groups where all
  members are experienced and competent.

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Extreme programming groups

• Extreme programming groups are are informal,
  democratic organisations.
• Some management decisions are devolved to group
  members.
• Programmers work in pairs

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Working environments

• The physical workplace
• Comfort
• Privacy
• Facilities.
• Health and safety considerations
• Lighting
• Heating
• Furniture.

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Environmental factors

• Privacy - each engineer requires an area for
  uninterrupted work.
• Outside awareness - people prefer to work in
  natural light.
• Personalization - individuals adopt different
  working practices and like to organize their
  environment in different ways.

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Workspace organisation

• Workspaces should provide private spaces
• Work areas that teams can work and discuss
  together are also required

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• Thank you!
• Questions?