Software Project Development Best Practices, Managing Risk

1
Software Project Development Best Practices,
Managing Risk

• By
• Mahmood Yassin

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Outlines

• Best Practices in Software Development
• Risk Management
• Managing Risks In Enterprise Systems

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Best Practices in Software Development
Beyond the Software Factory
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Software Development

• A review of common problems and solutions
• Synch-and-stabilize approach
• The Water fall process
• Infinite Defect Loops

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Common Problems and SolutionsSome Facts

• The same problems that ware common in the 1960s
  have reappeared with disturbing regularity in the
  1980s-2000s.
• 75-80 of software projects are typically late
  and over budget.

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Common Problems and SolutionsExamples of Problems

• Lack of understanding in system requirements on
  the part of customers and designers
• Large gaps between estimates of costs and time
  with actual expenditures
• Difficulty of dividing labor between design and
  production (coding)
• Difficulty in monitoring progress in a software
  projects
• Rapid growth in size of software systems
• Poor communication among groups working on the
  same project

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Common Problems and SolutionsExamples of
Problems (Continue)

• Writing systems, not for practical use
• Insufficient numbers of adequately trained and
  skilled programmers
• Difficulty of achieving sufficient reliability in
  large software systems
• Dependence of software on hardware
• Lack of inventories of reusable software
  components to aid in the building of new programs
• Software maintenance costs often exceeding the
  cost of the original system development

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Common Problems and SolutionsCapabilities
Maturity Model (CMM)

• The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at
  Carnegie Mellon University incorporates the CMM
• The CMM provides a framework for organizing
  processes
• Evolutionary steps into five maturity levels that
  lay successive foundations for continuous process
  improvement
• A maturity level is a well-defined evolutionary
  plateau toward achieving a mature software
  process. Each maturity level comprises a set of
  process goals that, when satisfied, stabilize an
  important component of the software process
• Organizing the CMM into the five levels
  prioritizing improvement actions for increasing
  software process maturity

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Common Problems and SolutionsCMM - Continue

• Initial Process
• Repeatable Process
• Software quality assurance
• Software project planning
• Requirements management
• Defined Process
• Intergroup coordination
• Software product engineering
• Integrated software management
• Training program

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Common Problems and Solutions CMM - Continue

• Managed Process
• Software quality management
• quantitative process management
• Optimizing Process
• Process change management
• Technology change management
• Defect prevention

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Common Problems and SolutionsThe Software
Factory Solution

• Purposes
• To make software development more tractable
• To manage software projects better and apply good
  practices more consistently
• Building hybrid solutions based on
  well-understood requirements with many external
  constraints
• Most fundamentally, software development is not a
  manufacturing activity it is more a form of
  product design, where the design is the product
  and replication is trivial
• Example http//www.numbersix.com/solutions/softwa
  reFactory.html

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Common Problems and SolutionsExcerpts from a
Recent Software Assessment

• Firms can gain significant savings by following
  the SEI recommendations.
• The lack of risk management measures was a
  problem in that the company had no buffer time in
  the schedule and no Plan B in case the project
  ran into trouble, which it did.
• Late design changes without a good process for
  handling the changes can cause too much rework in
  development as well as in all other affected
  areas.
• It is difficult to allocate time to reviewing
  designs and code is changing all the time.

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The Waterfall process

• Waterfall process, moving in sequence from
  high-level design to detailed design, functional
  design, programming, and testing.
• The Japanese organized projects mostly by
  following a sequential waterfall process.

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Synch-and-stabilize approach concepts
techniques

• synch-and-stabilize, as applied at Microsoft,
  Netscape and many other PC software firms, is
  both philosophy of product development as well as
  a set of specific concepts and techniques.
• The core of the idea is to encourage programmers
  to innovate and experiment but frequently
  synchronize their designs with other team members
  by creating builds (working versions) of the
  product as often as possible, and then
  periodically stabilize (debug and integrate)
  their code before proceeding to the next set of
  development tasks.

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Infinite Defect Loops

• One potential consequence of not synchronizing
  and not frequently stabilizing a software product
  under development is that the project may fall
  into what Microsoft people used to call Infinite
  Defect Loops.

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Infinite Defect Loops (Continue)
If modules change a lot you can experience an
infinite defect loop.
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Project Risk
!

• "Project Risk" is an uncertain event or condition
  that, if it occurs, has a positive or negative
  effect on at least one objective, such as time
  cost, scope or quality.
• Why to be in risk?
• Bad management and unskilled staff.
• Insufficient budget and unreliable resources.
• Bypassing!

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Project Risk Management

• Categories that will need to be considered
  include the following
• Risk Management Planning
• Risk Identification
• Qualitative Risk Analysis
• Quantitative Risk Analysis
• Risk Response Planning
• Risk Monitoring and control

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Boehms risk engineering task breakdown
Above all, the techniques are designed to
increase risk visibility!
This based on the breakdown presented by Barry
Boehm in his Tutorial on Software, Computer
Society IEEE 1989.
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Risk Management Planning

• Inputs
• Enterprise environmental factors
• Organizational process assets
• Project scope statement
• Project management plan
• Tools and Techniques
• Planning meetings and analysis
• Outputs
• Risk management plan

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Risk Identification

• Inputs
• Enterprise environmental factors
• Organizational process assets
• Project scope statement
• Risk management plan
• Project management plan (RBS)
• Tools Techniques
• Documentation reviews
• Information gathering techniques (Brainstorming,
  Delphi, SWOT)
• Checklist analysis
• Assumptions analysis
• Diagramming techniques
• Outputs
• Risk register

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Example of a Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS)
Back
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Qualitative Risk Analysis

• Inputs
• Organizational process assets
• Project scope statement
• Risk managing plan
• Risk register
• Tools Techniques
• Risk probability and impact assessment
• Probability and impact matrix
• Risk data quality assessment
• Risk categorization
• Risk urgency assessment
• Outputs
• Risk register (updates)

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Probability and Impact Matrix
Each risk is rated on its probability of
occurring and impact on an objective if it does
occur.
Back
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Quantitative Risk Analysis

• Inputs
• Organizational process assets
• Project scope statement
• Risk management plan
• Risk register
• Project management plan
• Project schedule management plan
• Project cost management plan
• Tools Techniques
• Data gathering and representation techniques
• Quantitative risk analysis and modeling
  techniques
• Outputs
• Risk Register (updates)

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Risk Response Planning

• Inputs
• Risk management plan
• Risk register
• Tools Techniques
• Strategies for negative risk or threats
• Strategies for positive risks or opportunities
• Contingent response strategy
• Outputs
• Risk register (updates)
• Project management plan (updates)
• Risk-related contractual agreements

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Risk Monitoring and control

• Inputs
• Risk management plan
• Risk response plan
• Project communication
• Additional risk identification and analysis
• Scope changes
• Tools Techniques
• Project risk response audits
• Periodic project risk reviews
• Earned value analysis
• Technical performance measurement
• Additional risk response planning
• Outputs
• Workaround plans
• Corrective action
• Project change request
• Updates to the risk response plan
• Risk database
• Updates to risk identification checklists

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Managing Risks In Enterprise Systems
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Model of risk factors in ES implementations
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Interrelationships in the risk factor model
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Bibliographic List

• Managing Risks, JE Scott, I Vessey
  Communications of the ACM, April 2002
• ??? ???? ?????? ???????? ?????? ????? ?????
  ??????, ?? ???, ????? ??? 2003
• The Business of Software Michael A. Cusumano.
  Free Press 2004 Chapter 4 Best Practices in
  Software Development.
• Software Project Management Bob Hughes and Mike
  Cotterell. Third Edition.
• Quality Software Project Management Robert T.
  Futrell, Donald F. Shafer, Linda I. Shafer.