Integrated Software ProjectComplements in project management

Jean-Louis Binot

19/10/20151 Complements in project management

Progress status after one review

Groups were evaluated on whether they had put the basics in place Having demonstrated a reasonable level of understanding of their project,

through requirement & project statement deliverables Having installed the basic monitoring tools (schedule and efforts) Having understood the principles of building a sound project plan & budgetGlobally, a reasonable level was achieved on these basics

Other aspects showed need for further improvements Some project statement concepts were not understood / not mastered Mistakes in details, not enough rigor or quality checking Reporting (both written and oral) uneven

Expectations for next review will be higher and include Evidence of proactive project management applied to the project Clear, concise and rigorous reporting, both in written report and in presentation

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Objectives of this session

Provide additional input on project management after the first review

Clarifying concepts used in the project statement

Examining the structure of the project status report

Clarifying key concepts that will be further used in the life on the project and reportedin the project status report

Providing some tips on presenting on project status

Answer your questions

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1. Looking again at the project statement

Several aspects were fairly well done: Executive summary, business justification, project approach and organization, risks…

Other aspects are worth a second look: Project purpose, background and stakeholders

Constraints

Project objectives, quality requirements, non functional requirements

Following points need to be mastered and applied during the whole project: Rigor and quality check of deliverables

Planning and effort tracking

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Project background and stakeholders

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“The project is part of the PROJ0010 master course, for computer scientists and computer engineersfrom the University of Liège”.

Accessing the University without a car is difficult. Parking spots are a scarce resource. Moving from one building to another with public transportation is unpractical. Distances are too large to travel by foot. Biking is not really an option, because few secured parking spots and charging stations for electric bikes are available.

A stub of the API definition has been started by the project authors at http://gitlab.montefiore.ulg.ac.be/PROJ0010/api , but it is incomplete

The project background is the project business background:• what is the business context in which the project is initiated• what problem is it trying to solve• are there other initiatives / related projects to take into account etc.• this information can be obtained from project definition or from the stakeholders

If only this internal aspect was picked, this is not enough

This was picked by most groups

This was not picked by most groups

Understanding that Uberpop is illegal and only expense sharing is allowed is also part of background

Project background and stakeholders

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The clients are represented by the educational team / by the university / …

What is a stakeholder ?

A stakeholder is a key person who « has a stake in » the results of the project. Stakeholders should always be identified by name. Their opinion on the project execution and results will matter.

If only this general statement was done, this is not enough

The name of the stakeholders was in the project specification

Project authorsTom Barbette, Bertrand Cornélusse, and Laurent Mathy

Constraints

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- No one knows openstreetmap- The team is composed of five students.- Each work up to 300h on this project.

Only the second one is a real constraint (team has a fixed size) No one knowing openstreetmap is a (current) state, maybe a risk, or maybe already an issue, that can

be dealt with by learning 300h per member is a budget constraint. Your budget cannot be higher. But you are certainly allowed to

work more if it is needed to deliver

Objectives & quality requirements

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Objectives should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound(and, of course, the same should apply to quality requirements)

Simple/Efficient application A lot of members of the ULg use the application.

On-time trip rate Should be lower than some that the client expects

Community feedback We should have a sufficiently large number (to define with clients) of active and happy users

The following (and other examples) are not well formed objectives

System requirements (response time, scalability…) should also be SMART. • They could be stated in quality requirements in the project statement, or in the requirement

deliverable, but must be defined. Some teams forgot part of them.• Response time should be in seconds and realistic (given mobile network delays)• Scalability should be able to cope with a target number of users. How many Ulg members

should be expected to be connected at the same time?

The back-end of the application must be able to deal with a substantial amount of clients.

2. Looking at the project status report

The status report should cover the whole project. Topics include Executive summary

Major achievements

Schedule progress

Milestones progress: not needed

Cost versus budget

Scope control

Planned for next period (feeds into « major achievements » for next review)

Follow-up on action items: should cover the actions requested by reviewers

Other management areas: issues, communication, quality, human resources

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3. Quality checking

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The quality control is a permanent process. Each team member will dedicate two hours per week forthis task... The work of one person will be analyzed by an another team member.

However project statement contains several number mistakes and a formatting mistake (empty section) …

For the requirement and the design phase, at least one week before the end of the phase, a meeting is organized to check the quality of the work done.

Deliverables need the approval of all team members...

However project budget was not reviewed with/approved by team members, while the whole team should stand behind the budget. And project budget IS a deliverable

Do not forget project management deliverables

Be rigorous! Apply your own process. Have your deliverables proofread and checked and plan in advance the time needed to do that - last minute delivery is often exposed to mistakes

4. Schedule and cost management

Reminder of relationships between tools and baseline concept

How to use planning and effort for project control Updating the schedule plan

Using the efforts sheet

Planning ahead : assigning workload over time

Planning ahead: actualizing ETC

Proactively managing the plan : detecting deviations and acting on them

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Reminder: Cost Control and Financial indicators

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BAC

Budget

InitialBudget

CR

Actuals

ACWP(recognized

revenue)

ETC

EAC

ACWP/EAC =%

completionEarned

Value = BAC *

% completion

Budget

Variance

Cost

Variance

Billing

Billed

WIP

At each review, the Pr Mgr re-evaluates the Estimate to Complete (ETC) based on plan and status.What is still needed is not simply budget minus actual costs.

Schedule and cost management

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Project statement Project status report

Project planshows timeline & work remaining to do (ETC)

Project effortsshows costs already spent (ACWP)

The initial project plan allowed to build the initial budget and schedule

Phase level budget and schedule are kept as baseline

Baseline is compared against actual situation to report progress

Actual plan and efforts (costs) are the basis for the actual situation

Maintaining the actual plan during life of the project

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Schedule Person21/09/2015 28/09/2015 5/10/2015 12/10/2015 19/10/2015 26/10/2015 2/11/2015

Phase 1: Requirements 36.0 36.0 24.0

Phase 2: Architecture 54.0 36.0 36.0 32.0

Phase 3: Development

Phase 4: Tests

Project Management 4.0 3.0 11.0 4.0 3.0 3.0 11.0

Total

GRAND TOTAL(Budget/BAC)

96.0

158.0

486.0

372.0

100.0

1,212.0

Curent timePast

cannot be changedno real need to update

Futuremust be updated to show planned

schedule and work remaining to do (ETC)

Once plan is changedgrand total may no longer

reflect BAC. Ignore it

This will show your ETC if you have updated your plan (tasks and efforts) by looking at what really remains to be done

Planning ahead: assigning workload over time

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Explanation : did not know yet how next phases will happen but wanted consistent numbers

Still having a reasonable view of workload over time is needed. How can you plan ahead Using a concrete input if someone knows how, when, how much efforts, how long. Typically the case for tasks

already clear and in the near future.

Making a linear assumption: distribute workload evenly over time. Typically the case for tasks in the farther future.

Making non linear assumptions: for example when two task are in overlap, ramping down the old task and ramping up the new one.

Using the efforts sheet to determine budget status

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ETC EACActual costACWP

BAC BV

From your effort tracking From your plan From your budget baseline

ETC is not the mathematical difference between budget and costs spent. You need to revaluate it by re-estimating the work that remains to be done.

In particular : the work on a deliverable is not done until this deliverable is approved (ETC = 0 before the review is by far too optimistic)

Planning ahead and updating ETC

Numbers are only tools. Project management is about planning and anticipation

The project manager should reconsider his/her plan in the face of New / more information

Issues

These will lead to taking into account delays, additional efforts, counter-measures, as well as positive changes (faster progress, simplifications …)

These should be reflected in the schedule and in the ETC

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Examples of « looking forward » behaviour

We are in phase 1 (requirements) And there is no reason at this stage to change our estimates and planning for phases 3 and 4

We are at the end of architecture And, based on this architecture, we have re-evaluted the efforts needed for coding: we need more

I spent too much effort on project management after two phases I plan to improve (how?) but I cannot become twice as efficient. I need to increase my forecast

We have a delay of 2 weeks in architecture … and we have already replanned phase 3 and 4 to catch up => show the replanning

… and we are busy replanning phase 3 and 4 (when will it be available ?) in order to catch up

… and, after looking at the planning of next phases, we have an issue catching upwe are forced to plan some de-scoping (cutting out some features) on which we will report by …

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coding

coding

ACWP ETC EAC BAC BV0 450 450 450 0

ACWP ETC EAC BAC BV0 500 500 450 50

Project managementACWP ETC EAC BAC BV

70 55 125 80 45

Check your plan and confront it with reality

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5/10/2015Plan

Efforts

Architecture was foreseen to start on week of 5/10, in overlap with end of requirements phase

Could be a good idea but efforts do not show that it happened

Could be several reasons Numbers not up to date for review

(efforts not updated for last week) => need to adjust your process Did not happen but not an issue

because we changed approach => need to update plan

Should have happened and we are a week late in architecture=> need corrective measures and to report issue at review

Specific points on effort tracking

How to deal with project management efforts from team members ? You can allocate project management efforts to (contributing) team members, but they

must be reflected in the project management total (otherwise metrics will be off) The project manager must agree to these efforts

Can we have a category « others » ? It is often used to capture activities not directly related to team members’ tasks, such as

meetings, reporting, etc. Without control, it can become an “effort sink” (especially for T&M contractors) If you do it, it is better to fix a maximum amount of efforts per week for these activities

Keep structure of schedule and efforts aligned The structure and names of phases, tasks, etc. must be the same in both schedule and

efforts sheets or you will generate mistakes

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Major achievements / planned for next period

Major achievements: contains a report on achievements and progress against items listed in "Planned for Next Period" of the last report.

Planned for next period: outlines tasks for the next period (activities to be accomplished, milestones to be reached, issues to be resolved, risks to be addressed, change requests to be analyzed, key deliverables to be completed, etc.).

Be concrete and focus on high level actions, with deadlines. For example

Correct architecture mistakes by xx/2014: done Re-plan phases 3 and 4 to meet deadline by xx/2014: done, 1 week late Implement application kernel (basic features) by end Dec 2014: done 2 weeks late Implement remaining application features by end Feb 2015: ongoing, 1 week late Deliver documents for next review before 23/2/2015: done Address issues of lack of time due to impact of other courses: explain what has been done

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4. Presenting on project status

General tips Have a self-contained presentation

Have a storyline adapted to your audience

Proceed top-down

Specific tips for project management Relate to the project manager’s mission

Understand the purpose of a project review

Make sure your financials are correct

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Have a self-contained presentation

Never assume the reviewer will read your additional reports In this project we do try to read all reports and to give feedback In real life the reviewer will usually NOT have the time Your detailed reports are there to confirm that you have done your homework If you have done it, managers will focus on your presentation

Hence your presentation must be self-contained Include all the necessary information to allow to assess your report and take decisions Stay focused on the key facts (summary & relevant details) Be crisp and to the point

Your presentation is impacting your performance It is often the most visible input your evaluators will remember

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Guide the understanding of your audience

Proceed top-down – do not jump into details Provide an overview (a summary, or where useful, a picture) before zooming into relevant aspects

Provide a clear agenda to understand the structure of your presentation

Remind listeners of your progress in that agenda For example by repeating the agenda between sections (cf. initial project mgt session)

Or by adding a section number to the titles (cf. this presentation)

Use meaningful titles summarizing the main idea of each slide

Have a consistent, clear, easy to read layout

Rehearse and time your presentation

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Have a storyline adapted to your audience

Define your storyline before making your slides Plan what you want to say, in what order Adapt your plan to your targeted audience

Example: a presentation on architecture Reviewers will not necessarily all be technical experts They want to understand the main principles of your architecture and check if it fits application constraints You need to present the overall view with motivations / selection criteria (WHY have you chosen this) Then do the same for each important subpart

What is the relevant story line for reporting on project status? Guiding principle: you are there to report on your mission as project manager

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Example of storyline for a project status report (reminder)

What was achieved since last review: Project Manager Executive summary: summary of key achievements and key actions

Project Status: Project Manager Schedule for whole project (do we still plan to deliver on time) – plus possibly details for current phase

Budget for whole project (do we still plan to remain within budget) – plus possibly details for current phase

Issues and counter-measures

Content: Team Explain what has been done during the phase (for example: explain chosen architecture)

Next steps: Project Manager

(one can invert content and project status)

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Project Management27

THANK YOU

30/04/2015