Exploiting organizational knowledge in developing IS project cost and schedule estimates: An empirical study

Project management is vital to the effective application of organizational resources to competing demands within and across projects. The effective application of project management, however, is predicated upon accurate estimates of the project budget and schedule. This study assesses primary and supporting activities that exploit knowledge within an organization's memory to develop project schedule durations and budgets. The study further assesses the subsequent impact of predictability on project success. Two hundred and sixteen survey responses from IT professionals with project management responsibilities were analyzed. Results found use of the primary activities of using parametric estimating techniques (use of formal models), bottom-up estimating techniques (formulating estimates at the task level), and the support activities of team reliance, realistic targets, and professional experience all impact the predictability of estimates for project cost and duration. Predictability in turn was found to directly impact project success with regards to meeting cost and duration objectives. While use of analogous estimating techniques (using similar previous projects) was not found to be useful for project managers with more experience, it was used by project managers with less experience in determining predictability.     

The effects of change control and management review on software flexibility and project performance

Software flexibility and project efficiency are deemed to be desirable but conflicting goals during software development. We considered the link between project performance, software flexibility, and management interventions. Specially, we examined software flexibility as a mediator between two recommended management control mechanisms (management review and change control) and project performance. The model was empirically evaluated using data collected from 212 project managers in the Project Management Institute. Our results confirmed that the level of control activities during the system development process was a significant facilitator of software flexibility, which, in turn, enhanced project success. A mediator role of software flexibility implied that higher levels of management controls could achieve higher levels of software flexibility and that this was beneficial not only to the maintainability of complex applications but also to project performance.     

Factors that motivate software engineering teams: A four country empirical study

Motivation, although difficult to quantify, is considered to be the single largest factor in developer productivity; there are also suggestions that low motivation is an important factor in software development project failure. We investigate factors that motivate software engineering teams using survey data collected from software engineering practitioners based in Australia, Chile, USA and Vietnam. We also investigate the relationship between team motivation and project outcome, identifying whether the country in which software engineering practitioners are based affects this relationship. Analysis of 333 questionnaires indicates that failed projects are associated with low team motivation. We found a set of six common team motivational factors that appear to be culturally independent (project manager has good communication with project staff, project risks reassessed, controlled and managed during the project, customer has confidence in the project manager and the development team, the working environment is good, the team works well together, and the software engineer had a pleasant experience). We also found unique groupings of team motivational factors for each of the countries investigated. This indicates that there are cultural differences that project managers need to consider when working in a global environment.     

Our worst current development practices

Successful software projects can result from avoiding the more serious mistakes that lead to disaster. Specifically, we must look at the actual results of similar projects; make planning and estimating formal activities; plan for and control creeping requirements; use formal inspections as milestones for tracking project progress and software disasters; and collect accurate measurement data, during the current project, to use with future projects. There is no substitute for solid empirical data used by capable project managers who are supported by automated estimating and planning tools. This combination can almost always be successful. By contrast, no data at all, unprepared managers, and manual estimating and planning are consistently characteristic of our industry's major software disasters     

Rule Breaking in New Product Development – Crime or Necessity?

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of applying general rules in organizations to govern multiple new product development projects. Data were collected in structured interviews with project managers and project members from seven successful projects within Swedish companies. Results show that projects either broke rules or that organizations had developed strategies to cope with the risk of rules preventing the progress of the projects. The project managers of the rule following projects reported lack of rule breaking to be the result of the rule design at each company, intending to minimize the risk of rules preventing the progress of projects. With the exception of the manager of the rule changing/removing project, project managers show a relaxed attitude to breaking general rules that hinder project progress. The study indicates that frameworks of common project management rules increase the risk of delay in new product development projects, unless strategies of rule breaking or dynamic rule modification are applied. Applications of emergent standard management philosophies and practices to innovation are discussed.     

How experienced project managers assess risk

Software development projects, given their diverse and abstract nature, offer unique challenges and risks. Although a substantial body of literature has been written to address project risk management, my experience in the field led me to question whether this literature accurately mirrors the concerns of real-world project managers. To confirm my suspicions, I surveyed 14 experienced application systems developers, all located in Ireland. All survey participants manage custom-built, software-intensive application development projects that originate from external clients. The survey focused on three major areas: (1) Which characteristics of the customer, the application, and so on, do experienced software project managers consider important when planning new development projects for new, external clients? (2) How do these characteristics relate to accepted software project risk drivers? (3) Do most project managers characterize new projects in generally the same way, or do different project managers use different perceptual lenses when viewing new projects? This survey of a homogenous group of project managers revealed a surprising diversity of risk management concerns     

Project managers in global software development teams: a study of the effects on productivity and performance

Globalization is having a deep impact on today’s world economy. One of the most affected industries is the software industry. Recently, global software development (GSD) has gained a lot of attention. This new trend of producing software is influencing all software processes, including human resource management. The aim of this study is to provide an overview of the implications of GSD for software project managers by analyzing project performance from different perspectives such as the 360-degree feedback evaluation. Results show that performance of GSD projects is lower than in-house projects, but apart from that, this study reveals that there are also negative consequences for software project managers, which need to be taken into account. For instance, the experiment revealed a lack of attention to tasks by software project managers and, as a consequence of this, performance losses. The main conclusions of this research may be valuable for software development organizations.     

Monitoring Software Development Through Dynamic Variables

This paper describes research conducted by the Software Engineering Laboratory (SEL) on the use of dynamic variables as a tool to monitor software development. The intent of the project is to identify project independent measures which may be used in a management tool for monitoring software development. This study examines several Fortran projects with similar profiles. The staff was experienced in developing these types of projects. The projects developed serve similar functions. Because these projects are similar we believe some underlying relationships exist that are invariant between the projects. These relationships, once well defined, may be used to compare the development of different projects to determine whether they are evolving the same way previous projects in this environment evolved.     

An Externally Replicated Experiment for Evaluating the Learning Effectiveness of Using Simulations in Software Project Management Education

The increasing demand for software project managers in industry requires strategies for the development of the management-related knowledge and skills of the current and future software workforce. Although several approaches help teach the required skills in a university setting, few empirical studies are currently available to characterize and compare their effects. This paper presents results of an externally replicated controlled experiment that evaluates the learning effectiveness of using a process simulation model for educating computer science students in software project management. While the experimental group applies a system dynamics (SD) simulation model, the control group uses the well-known COCOMO model as a predictive tool for project planning. The results of the empirical study indicate that students using the simulation model gain a better understanding about typical behavior patterns of software development projects. The combination of the results from the initial experiment and the replication corroborates this finding. Additional analysis shows that the observed effect can mainly be attributed to the use of the simulation model in combination with a web-based role-play scenario. This finding is strongly supported by information gathered from the debriefing questionnaires of subjects in the experimental group. They consistently rated the simulation-based role-play scenario as a very useful approach for learning about issues in software project management.     

Recommender system for software project planning one application of revised CBR algorithm

Project management is an experience-driven and knowledge-centralized activity. Therefore, project managers require some assistance to reduce the uncertainty at the early stage of constructing project plans. To overcome the predicament faced by project managers, this investigation proposes a hierarchical criteria architecture (HCA) to enable project managers to describe project requirements adequately. Furthermore, to solve HCA problems, a revised case-based reasoning (RCBR) algorithm, is presented and a recommender system for software project planning is implemented, based on multiple objectives decision techniques and the mining approach. Finally, the proposed RCBR algorithm is successfully applied to analyze 41 real projects from a software consultancy in Taiwan. Experimental results demonstrate that RCBR can efficiently provide related information to help project managers to construct project plans at an early stage. Additionally, the knowledge discovery process of RCBR provides project managers with results similar to what-if analysis. The knowledge can enable project managers to obtain feasible information to re-schedule project resources, and bargain with their customers in the early project planning stage.