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INTEGRATED SUPPORT FOR PROJECT MANAGEMENTDavid Dixon

Imperial Software Technology60 Albert Court Prince Consort RoadLondon SW7 BH ENGLANDAbstract

Conventional off-line project management tools arebeing overtaken by integrated project supportenvironments which are capable of imposing moredirect control over project activities. Suchenvironments can lead to a more systematicapproach to planning, monitoring and controllingsoftware development. This paper describes thefacilities offered by ISTAR For integrated support ofproject management.Key words: integrated project supportenvironments, project management, resourcemanagement, cost management, ISTAR.INTRODUCTIONAny project large or complex enough to require theefforts of several people over more than a few daysrequires management. As the size of projectincreases, so does the complexity of themanagement task; and systematic methods need tobe used if control of the project is to be retainedand best use made of limited resources. Providingproject managers with computer based tools tosupport these systematic methods is effective andeconomical. For large projects, where themanagement task itself requires the efforts ofseveral people, it is the only possible way toproceed.In system development projects, project managersneed to consider six key factors:. costsl schedules. available resourcesl product qualityl product functionalityl product performance

While quality, Functionality and performance appearto be independent variables which determine costs,schedules and resources, there is often considerableroom for negotiation between manager and client.The art of management is in carefully balancing allof these Factors to the satisfaction of the client.This is a complex process, and if it is to be

conducted successfully powerful support isnecessary.This support is needed in three principal areas:

Project Management -- which involvesplanning, estimating and scheduling the activitiesneeded to achieve the desired levels of quality,functionality and performance within thespecified constraints for cost, schedules andresources; assignment of these activities as tasksto project staff: and the application of projectcontrols.Resource Management -- which involvesidentification of the resources available to theproject, their allocation to appropriate tasks, andthe resolution of any conflicts over use of aparticular resource.Cost Management -- which involves collation ofinformation on the actual and predictedconsumption of resources within the project;estimation of progress and the development ofproject controIs.

While conventional off-line project managementtools can be used to support these functions, theycan be made more effective if they are integratedwith the subsidiary activities: technicaldevelopment, configuration management, andquality control, and if they can exercise directcontrol over project activities (see fig 1).

Figure 1. Integration of Planning. Monitoringand Control

490270~5257/88/0000/0049$01.00 0 1988 IEEE Recommended y: W. Murray

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.

ISTARISTAR is an lntegrated Project Support Environmentdesigned to provide integrated project managementvia the contructua/ approach [ 1][2]. This viewsevery task/activity in a software or systems projectas a contruct; that is, a well defined package of workthat can be performed independently by acontrucror (eg a developer) for a c/ienr (eg amanager or perhaps another developer). Theessence of a contract is that it is rhe conrrucrovsresponsibility to decide how to fulfill it subject to anyconstraints in the contract specification. Contractspecifications in ISTAR are designed to includedefinitions of what has to be done, of acceptancetests for contract deliverables, of schedule andresourcing constraints, of requirements as tostandards which must be adhered to, of obligationsfor reporting progress and problems, and so on. Ingeneral, however, the contractor is free to letsubcontracts to perform all or part of the work, andso on recursively (see fig 2).Applied to a real project , this results in the creationof a dynamic hierarchy of contracts whichcorresponds to the task structure used by theproject . The structure of this hierarchy isdetermined by decisions made by the projectmanagers (team leaders etc) at various levels duringthe course of the project . Thus the contractualapproach does not enforce a particular projectorganisation - but is capable of providing effectivesupport for a wide variety of organisations. Forexample, the first level of subcontracts could be forsuccessive phases of the work such as specification,design, code, integrate, test, following a simplewaterfall model of development. Alternatively, thefirst level subcontracts could fo llow d functionaldivision and each be for the complete developmentof a part of the system.

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Of course, the contractual approach does constraincontrol of the project to be hierarchical, and insiststhat everyone in a project knows what they aresupposed to be doing and for whom. But thisreflects the observation that most successfulprojects have these minimum properties.Within this organizational hierarchy, ISTAR permitscontrolled exchange of data between arbitrarycontracts, allowing the use of contracts as libraries,resource pools and so on. Contract specificationscan include rvunsitive obligations that requiresubcontractors to organize their own subcontractsin a particular way, or even forbid furthersubcontracting. This allows managers to control theorganization of the levels below them in a contracthierarchy. In practice, the degree of controlexercised is likely to vary throughout the contracthierarchy; the overall project manager may grantgroup managers considerable freedom to organizetheir assigned work, while junior staf f are likely toget clear instructions on how to proceed from theirteam leaders.Support for the contractual approach is built intothe structure of ISTAR, which creates independentconrrucr databases for the execution of eachcontract. In addition, ISTAR provides contractualoperations for assigning contracts, amending orcancelling them when necessary, accepting theirdeliverables and communicating forma l reportsbetween them.These mechanisms provide the basis for theintegration of project management tools with toolsfor technical development, configurationmanagement and quality control.MANAGEMENT IN ISTARISTAR recognizes that management activities mayhave to be conducted at a number of levels within aproject. For example, project planning may beneeded for the overall project, for each of the mainfunctional divisions of the project , for the work ofteams of project staff and so on. Corresponding tothese activities are a number o f mdor managementfunctions. Depending on the size and organizationof the project, each function may be performed by adifferent member of the project staff, or severalfunctions may be performed by a single member atdifferent times. These functions are the three maorfunctions identified above: Projec t Management,Resource Management, and Cost Management.ISTAR provides tools which support each of thesefunctions. It does not (cannot) fully automate them;rather, it provides support for the human managerby easing the clerica and administrative loadassociated with them. The relationships betweenthese project management functions is shown infigure 3.

Figure 2. Contracts and the Contract Hierarchy

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RESOURCE MANAGERS COST MrVIAGERS

PROJECT MANAGERS

-*PROJECT STAFF

Figure 3. Project, Cost and Resource ManagementPlanningLSTARencourages a more systematic approach toplanning than that required by most of the currentlyavailable project management tools. Using ISTAR,managers are encouraged to focus on accuratelyspecifying the work to be done and on recognizingthe compromises and decisions that need to bemade, rather than being concerned about what theplanning network will look like. Too often, projectleaders are seduced by the graphics capabiIity ofproject planning systems, preferring to solveproblems retrospectively by making adjustments tothe network rather than concentrating on the waywork is specified initially. This is comparable tofixing software problems by patching the binaryand the resulting plans soon lose credibility. Worse,the manager does not gain the sort of insightneeded to develop necessary project controls and toimprove future planning/estimation.Work BreakdownIn ISTAR the first step is to break down any taskinto a set of more easily understood sub-tasks oractivities. This breakdown will provide theunderlying model for planning and controlling theproject. It also enables the manager to structure thework that needs to be performed so that availableresources can be applied as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible.There are three fundamental approaches to workbreakdown [3]:

1. Modular Decomposition - where the targetproduct is first broken down into componentparts. Activities are defined to produce thesecomponent parts and to integrate them into thefinal product. For example, a program might bebroken down into modules. The sub-tasks

would then correspond to the activitiesrequired to produce each module and tointegrate them into the final product.2. Sequential Refinement - activities are defined toproduce the intermediate products (stepping-stones) needed to progress to the tasks finalgoal. Phase-based lifecycle models are a typicalexample of this form of work breakdown egspecification, design, code, test, etc.3. Trivial Transformation - activities consist ofwell-defined transformations to be applied tothe input products to produce the outputproducts - as in the case, for example, ofcompiling a source program into binary.In most projects the breakdown will requireelements of all three approaches.

The detailed breakdown of work for a task will needskill and judgement since it will largely depend onthe nature and application of the work itself and theability of the manager to estimate what is involved.However, in general, it is useful if the structurereflects both the component structure of thesoftware product and the development activitiesneeded to produce each component. Indeed it isuseful to attempt to construct two types ofhierarchy [4]:- a single Acrivity Hierarchy, which indicates thevarious activities which need to be performed tofulfill the task, and- a number of Product Hierarchies which indicatehow various system components (routines,modules, subsystems etc) fit into the overallsystem produced by the task.Once established, these hierarchies can beconnected (scheduled) to best fit the project and theavailable resources.

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ISTAR encourages managers to progressively refinea work breakdown and to concentrate on definingindividual activities in terms of products andresources. Generally activities are performed toproduce a desired product whether it is a document,a piece of software, or an action list from a qualityreview. Predecessor and successor relationshipswhich define a partial ordering of activities areviewed as the result of product interdependenciesnot their cause. In other words, it is the productthat is the key, not the activity producing it, ( -justas real progress is not the amount of effort spentbut what has been achieved).Thus in ISTAR, the manager defines activities interms of what products they are to produce andwhat products they will need before they can start.For example, it might be desirable to start thedetailed design of a system before the architecturaldesign has been completed. If so, the projectmanager must identify a product (an architecturaldesign) which contains the minimum detailsnecessary to start the detailed design activity; thisproduct does not need to be the final product butmust be sufficiently complete to allow the activityusing it to produce its own products. Thus theproblem is modelled as:

produce initial f inaintermediate ----+----->detalled--------->+----detailedarchitectural I cles ign ^ designdesign I I

I II produce II f ma1 I+----architectural-------+design

It might be argued that while the final architecturaldesign is produced, details could be fed to theinitial detailed design activity. This would meanthat the input product to the activity would beconstantly changing, making the output product aconstantly moving target. Such a move is ill-advisedand is the root cause of many problems in a project- the inability to properly handle change. A betterapproach is as above - define intermediatearchitectural designs (there may be more than one)and produce (or subsequently modify) the detaileddesign in accordance with each new architecturaldesign. This product-based approach provides thebasis for better-defined activities and products andpays off both in terms of measuring progress andimproving quality - it allows, for example, for theapplication of more systematic procedures and theability to construct more rigorous tests.Resource RequirementsIn ISTAR, personnel resource requirements for thework breakdown are expressed in terms of effort.Here ISTAR attempts to encourage the manager to

think in terms of the amount of effort needed toproduce a required product rather than the durationof an activity. Activity durations are determined bythe Scheduler when resource allocations have beenmade and the working calendar (public holidays,weekends etc) has been taken into account. Wherepersonnel are allocated 100% to an activity, thedifference between this approach and usingdurations is only marginal but ISTAR provides themanager with the ability to specify less than 100%resource allocations. For example, it is customarywhen estimating the effor t fo r an activity to add apercentage of the managers time since everyactivity requires some management effort tomonitor performance, track progress and resolveproblems etc. Thus every activity will generally haveat least two resource requirements:one for the technical work:

reqmt: technicalattribute: [personnelllc programmer]amount: 20units: working-days%util: 100

and one for the management effort:reqmt: managerattribute: [personnellbeam leader1amount: 2.5units: working-days%util: 14

Modelling management effor t in this way has theadded advantage over the conventional approachusing hammocks (which tend to fudge the issue), ofexplicitly associating management effort with themanaged activities as well as prohibiting theassignment of a manager to too many jobs at once.If, for example, the manager devotes 14% of his orher time to each activity, the Scheduler will onlyschedule a maximum of seven activities to bemanaged in any given period (ie maximumutilization is 100%).To summarize, the ISTAR Work BreakdownStructuring tool encourages the manager toconstruct an acfivity-product based work breakdownwithout regard to predecessor-successorrelationships and to estimate resource requirementsin terms of effor t rather than activity durations. Thisprovides the basis for the construction of a criticalpath network and for scheduling the allocation ofresources.EstimationThere are a number of methods which support thepreparation of estimates for costs, timescale andpersonnel requirements. Broadly speaking, thesemethods fail into one of two classes: micromethods which depend on a detailed analysis of thework to be accomplished; and macro methods whichare an attempt to construct models which require

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only a few input parameters to predict overall cost,schedule and personnel requirements.ISTAR supports methods from both classes. TheTop-down micro-estimation method relies on theprogressive decomposition of a task into itscomponent activities. This method is supported viathe ISTAR Work Breakdown Structuring andScheduling Tools. The ISTAR Software EstimationTool, on the other hand, is a custom-engineeredestimation tool based on Boehms COntrolled CO9Model (COCOMO) [4]; an algorithmic macro-estimation method.Use of a macro-estimation tool fo r preparing initialestimates for all projects in an organisation will helpto promote consistency and provide a common ~001of experience. If the estimation tools database isalso calibrated with an organisations actualexperiences on projects, the resulting estimatesshould also become more accurate.SchedulingThe ISTAR Scheduling tool emphasizes resourceallocation and has been designed to supportdecision making in this area. Changes to thesrructure of the underlying activity/productnetwork should be made through the workbreakdown structuring tool while decisions relatingto resource al/ocation should be made via thescheduling tool.Apart from this separation of concerns, the 1STARScheduling tool operates in much the same way asother pro ject planning tools. It derives the activitynetwork from the work breakdown structure by firstidentifying all leaf activities (all activities whichhave no sub-activities), and then tracing productdependencies (ie identifying any products producedby one activity which are used by another). Itcalculates activity durations from the effort figuresfor each activity and as a safeguard it also checksfor loops in the network.Once the network has been processed, a timeanalysis can be run to determine earliest start andfinish dates, fatest start and finish dates, and totaland free slack for each activity.The tool also produces the earliest possible projectend date and identifies the activities on the criticalpath. If necessary, date constraints in the form ofearliest start dates for individual activities can beintroduced and activities already completed can beconcealed from the network for the purposes o ftime analysis and resource-limited scheduling.Since the time analysis is equivalent to a schedulewith unlimited resources it provides the projectmanager with a check that an acceptable end date isachievable. If the end date is too close to or evenexceeds the target delivery date, the workbreakdown will have to be changed. Of course, thismeans more than just modifying the effort figures toget the right answer since this would not solve theroot cause of the problem and worse, would make

the plan invalid. Changes to the plan need to bejustified and require substantiation.A number of options are available for makingchanges. The structure of the network could bemodified by removing any unnecessary inputproducts to activities. Activities could be re-structured so that intermediate versions of products(draft instead of issued documents for example) areused; this would improve the overlap of work.Alternatively. the estimates for effort for eachactivity could be re-examined. This needs to be donein the context of the six key factors previouslyidentified:

1.

2.

3.

4.5.

6.

Functionality - can the target functionality bereduced and the product still meet its customerrequirement? There is often a tendency toover-specify on software products and theremay well be room to remove unnecessaryfeatures.Performance - can target performance berelaxed and still meet customer requirements?Are performance targets perceived where nonereally exist? Performance targets are alwayscostly in terms of effort since they generallypresent the most problems.Cost - can costs be increased? For example, toallow the addition of more personnel to a giventask or the provision of better developmentfacilities which would improve theeffectiveness of existing project personnel?Timescale - can the end date be moved? Canthe project be started early?Resourcing - would putting more experiencedpersonnel on any activity significantly reducethe amount of effort required?Quality - can the procedures for achieving thedesired level of quality be changed? Forexample, can they be simplified? Can specificstandards be relaxed? Can tools be providedto reduce effort applied to testing, etc

In the end, the answer may be a combination of allsix. In any event it is important that compromisesand decisions are recorded by enforcing standardconfiguration management procedures (particularlychange control) even on managers.Once an acceptable time analysis has been producedthe project manager is in a position to performresource limited scheduling, that is, attempt tomatch real resources against the specified resourcerequirements.Before this can be done, information needs to beacquired on the actual resources that can be used tosatisfy the resource requirements of the activities.In ISTAR, this information is held in ResourceManagement Centres (described in more detail inthe next section) and is obtained automatically bythe Scheduling tool by constructing a query fromthe resource requirements. This query is applied to

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all specified resource management centres such thatdetails of every resource with the requiredattributes, regardless of their experience, will bereturned. Returning every resource that satisfies theattribute requirements gives the project managerthe ability to select an alternative in the event thatsomeone with precisely the specified experience isnot available.The details returned by each resource managementcentre include the resources name or identity, theirtype - RATE or TOTAL, their standard number ofhours per/day (for RATE resources) or total amountleft (for TOTAL resources), their overall availabilityto the pro ject as a start and end date, and lastly aset of periods of unavailability when they may bebooked to other projects or to overheads (training,holiday etc.)The information for each resource provides the rawdata used by the Scheduling tool to establish aresource pool. Once established, the projectmanager has the option of performing resourcelimited scheduling in batch mode or interactively. Inbatch mode the Scheduling tool will attempt tomatch a real resource against each requirementtaking into account its availability on a day to daybasis. Where the experience element of resourceattributes is left unspecified (eg [personnel,O]), theScheduling tool will choose the first resource itfinds with the necessary attributes.If the schedule should fail, or, in the view of theproject manager, the resulting schedule isunsuitable, the interactive mode can be used todetermine the problem or to select an alternativeresource for performing any activity. Other optionsallow the manager to perform scheduling in a whar-if mode where the effects of various hypotheticalsituations can be determined. For example, theattributes of resource requirements can be edited tosee the effect, perhaps, of relaxing the experiencelevel of an attribute or removing the attributealtogether. The availability of a particular resourcecan be altered by removing or adding allocations toother projects or overheads (it may be possible toredeploy them, for example) and the rate/amountfigure can be altered to see the effect of overtime ormore budget as appropriate. Once a satisfactoryschedule has been created, the resource allocationsused can be returned to the appropriate resourcemanagement centres to reserve them.When reservation has been completed, ISTARrequires the schedule to be placed underconfiguration control in order to issue taskdefinitions. The need to place the schedule underconfiguration control is a safeguard in ISTAR,designed to prohibit changes on-the-fly. Newversions of the plan can always be created, but eachmust be placed under configuration control if taskdefinitions are to be maintained.Task Definition

three main elements: a technical requirement,acceptance criteria, and a set of managementconstraints.The Task Definition in ISTAR provides themanagement input to the contractual specification.Its role is to act as the work directive between anISTAR client and contractor providing details ofwhat has to be done, when it should be started andwhen it should be finished, what standards andprocedures should be adhered to, what reportingobligations must be complied with, how the task willbe judged as complete and so on.The task definition derives its information from apreviously constructed schedule and thereby fromthe leaf activities of a work breakdown structure;thus there is a one-to-one correspondence betweentasks and leaf activities. The work breakdownstructure contributes information on what has to bedone (the activity description), the products neededbefore the activity can start, the products to beproduced, and the amount and type of effort to beexpended. The schedule adds the required start andend dates, and details of the actual resourcesallocated to the activity.The ISTAR Task Definition tool can then add: ajobcode for the activity (to be used on timesheets); alist o f objectives to be met; a list of standards andprocedures to be adhered to: a list of reportingobligations that must be complied with; and a list ofverification obligations (acceptance criteria) thatneed to be applied to the product being producedbefore it is delivered to the client. The toolprovides clerical support for the construction of afull work directive and for issuing it along with atechnical requirement and acceptance criteria to acontractor, for example:

system-definition-spec( l)+td( 1)systetlldefinition+spec( l)+wbs( 1)system-definition-spec(l)+doc,std( 1)system-definition-spec( l)+chklst( 1)Here the technical requirement is represented by thedocument standard to be used (dot-std(l)), and theacceptance criteria by the checklist supplied(chklsttl)). (Generally, it would be more convenientto provide references within the task definition toitems held in a standards library rather than supplythem explicitly). The management constraints arecovered by a task definition (td(l)) and a workbreakdown structure containing the definition ofthe activity (task) in terms of its products andallowable resources (wbs(1)).In addition to the ability to issue task definitions,the tool also provides facilities for superseding atask definition with another in the event that asubcontractors contractual specification needsupdating, for cancelling an issued task definitionand for signing it off following receipt of adeliverable.

A contract specification within 1STARcomprises

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RESOURCE MANAGEMENTResource management, partiCUhrlY in a multi-Projectenvironment is a complex issue typically relying onad-hoc decisions based on poorly defined priorities.inevitably, the wrong person is in the wrong place atthe wrong time. There are no easy solutions. butmore can be done to provide a better basis fordecision-making.In ISTAR, resource management is treated as animportant issue and because of ISTARs distributednature has been designed to operate in a multi-contract, multi-projec t environment through the useof Resource Management CentreS.Resource Management CentresA Resource Management Centre holds a databasewhich contains information on the attributes andcurrent allocations of named resources for which itis responsible. Resources in ISTAR are regarded asany consumable item that a project or organisationwishes to control/monitor eg personnel time,services, financial budgets, etcISTAR supports multiple resource managementcentres with no restrictions on the types ofresources that a resource management centre mayhold. For example, a resource management centrecould be configured to hold data on both personneland budgets for a single p roject or group ofprojects; aIternativeIy it could be structured so thatit held only resources o f a certain type or with acommon attribute, eg only C programmers.A resource management centre is run as an ordinaryISTAR contract distinguished from any othercontract only by the context in which it is used. Itcan thus be set up during the initial stages of aproject through a normal contractual assignment toone of the project personnel, or more typically aspart of the overall organisational structure.A Resource Definition Tool is provided to operateon resource management centres and facilitates thedefinition of individual resources and internal oroverhead allocations - advanced bookings ofindividual resources to holidays, training,conferences etc.Two basic classes of resource are recognized by theISTAR resource management system - RATEresources and TOTAL resources.

l RATE resources are regarded as renewable, time-related resources and are expressed in terms ofan availability of so-many per day. The mostobvious example being personnel time which isgenerally expressed as so-many hours per day.l TOTAL resources on the other hand are regardedas a finite pool of an exhaustible resource. Themost obvious example of this is a financialbudget.

Resource definitions of personnel resources include,

as described earlier, a name, the number of hoursworked per day, the period of availability toprojects, and any holiday, training or other non-project bookings that are known in advance. Theyalso include definitions of a resources attributes,skills etc and relative ability.This last set of information is a key feature of thefacilities provided For resource management withinISTAR. ISTAR allows a resource manager to associateattributes with resources. Each attribute isexpressed in the form of tokens as follows:

(attribute,skill level]Both elements of the token are free format textstrings which, by convention, are meaningful toother tools in the ISTAR project managementsystem, notably the ISTAR Scheduling tool.The Scheduling tool is designed to match a resourcerequirement expressed in the form o f the attributesand skill level required with an actually availableresource possessing the same attributes and skilllevels. Thus a requirement expressed as:

[personnel,01[c prci~ramming,over one year experience][Unix sV, good working knowledge]would match with:

[personnel,01[software engineer, grade II]Ic programming.over one year experience][Pascal programming,less than six months]Iunix sV,good working knowledge]but not with:[personnel,01[software engineer, grade I][c programming,over three years experience][ada programming,over six months][Unix sV,good working knowledge][Unix bsd4.2,good working knowledge]because of the difference in the skill level at Cprogramming.There are no restrictions on the number of attributetokens that can be assigned to a resource nor whatthey are used for. Specifying general attributessuch as [personnel] has benefits when used with theISTAR Work Breakdown Structuring tool since it canbe used to verify that a work breakdown hasremained within its overall personnel constraints.By progressively extending the list of resourceattribute tokens defined for requirements as theyare decomposed in the work breakdown the linkbetween the levels in the hierarchical breakdowncan be preserved. A consistency report can then be

Unix is a trademark OCAT&T Bell Laboratories.

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run in the Work Breakdown Structuring tool, whichwill indicate if the resource requirements estimatedat the current level of breakdown are still within therequirements (now treated as constraints) of theprevious level. Thus all resources with a [personnel]attribute, for example, will be summed for allactivities at a given level in the work breakdown andthe result checked against the corresponding figurefor the parent activity. This check is applied to anytwo consecutive hierarchical levels so that as abreakdown progresses this report can be used toverify that estimates remain within the definedconstraints.Allocating ResourcesWithin ISTAR, the principal tool involved in theallocation of resources is the Scheduling tool. Thistool is provided with a work breakdown structurespecifying the activities to be performed, the logicaland technical dependencies between activities andthe attributes and skill levels of the resourcesrequired to carry out the activities.This information provides the basis for generating aquery against a resource management centre toobtain a list of all resources that could potentiallysatisfy the requirements and in the case of RATEresources, their current availability over the periodconcerned. In the case of TOTAL resources, theamount remaining will be returned. (If necessary,resources can also be requested directly by name).These queries can be requested from the schedulingtool against multiple resource management centresas required, either remotely (when the resourcemanagement centre is physically remote from thehost on which the scheduling is taking place) orlocally. In both cases, the queries are handledautomatically and do not require manualintervention from the Resource Manager.The messages returned to the scheduler provide apool of potential resources which can be used tosatisfy the resource requirements specified for aparticular work breakdown. Once a satisfactoryschedule has been achieved, the scheduler can beused to send the chosen allocations back to theresource management centre via a resourceallocation request for consolidation into itsdatabase.Resolving ConflictsUnder normal circumstances, given adequatecontingency in the plans, it is unlikely that changeswill occur frequently and it may be sufficient toschedule access to a resource management centreaccording to the priorities and importance of eachproject to the organisation.This would have to be a manually enforcedprocedure so that each project only performed aquery when all higher priority projects hadconsolidated their allocations. It would mean thateach project in turn would get an accurate picture of

resource availability and would be able to proceedon this basis, confident that its resource allocationrequirements would be satisfied (the schedulertakes into account allocations of resources to otherprojects and avoids duplicate allocations).However, if such an approach was enforced, lengthydelays might be introduced and projects lower inthe priority list might suffer unnecessarily throughthe lack of availability of suitable resources. Forexample, a resource used by a higher priorityproject may have only been chosen because it wastop of a list of equally suitable candidates, while thesame resource may be critical to a lower priorityproject. To overcome this limitation, the ISTARScheduling tool incorporates what-if facilitieswhich allow it to ignore existing resourceallocations and to return alternative allocations tothe resource management centre. At the resourcemanagement centre they may, therefore come intoconflict with existing allocations.For this reason, the ISTAR Resource Allocation toolhas been provided to assist the Resource Manager inidentifying and resolving conflicts between resourceallocations. When allocation requests are received atthe resource management centre the ResourceManager can attempt a provisional allocation todetermine whether there is any conflict. If there is,the whole allocation for a schedule can be releasedin a what-if mode to enable the manager todetermine whether other allocation strategies mightprove more fruitful. In the event that the conflictcannot be resolved or the Resource Manager decidesto release a previously booked resource to the newproject , the manager will have to inform theconflicting project so that it can be rescheduled.Facilities are provided as part of the resourceallocation tool for discarding original bookings andfor consolidating new ones.COST MANAGEMENTThe ISTAR Monitoring tool provides facilities formonitoring actual resource usage against plannedresource usage and for performing forwardprojections on the basis of the current schedule.Cost Control CentresBefore resource usage figures can be captured, anactuals database needs to be set up at a CostControl Centre. The actuals database is initializedby invoking the ISTAR Monitoring tool in theappropriate contract and importing the currentlyactive project schedule. A Cost Control Centre inISTAR terms is a contract capable of validatingtimesheet bookings.As each task definition is issued from a contract it isregistered along with its jobcode in a task definitioncatalogue. The automatic timesheet delivery systemchecks each booking submitted to the cost controlcentre against this catalogue. A timesheet booking isaccepted and installed in the actuals database

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automatically if its jobcode matches a jobcode in thecatatogue. Timesheet bookings may be recorded forboth project bookings and internal bookings(overheads). In the case of project bookings thesewill be against sub-contracted task definitions.TimesheetsTimesheets enable resource usage and progressinformation to be captured within ISTAR. ISTARtimesheets provide a set of forms for recordingpersonal hours, use of other resources such ascapital budgets and for recording progressinformation.The personal hours form is for recording a userspersonal hours on a daily basis over a period of aweek. The form allows the recording of hours spentagainst different jobcodes (different tasks) ondifferent rows of the timesheet. Each row allows theuser to enter the name of the cost centre to whichthe booking is to be sent, the jobcode against whichit is to be validated, the individual daily hours spenton the task and an estimate of the hours tocomplete the task.There are two main reasons for monitoring timeutilization in this manner rather than on a contract-by-contract basis. Firstly, it is convenient to theuser to record all jobs for the week on a single form,and secondly it facilitates the check that rows andcolumns in the timesheet sum to the expectednumber of hours for each task and each dayrespectively.A second form within the timesheet supports therecording of other resources used such as budgets,services etc for each row (job) entered on the firstform as well as recording the expected usage ofsuch resources to complete.To encourage technical developers to regularlyreturn progress data, progress information for eachjob has to be entered by the user before thetimesheet will be eligible for submission to the costcentre controlling it. The information requiredincludes the effort-to-complete and the expectedcompletion date. Free text comments can also beincluded.Timesheet validation and delivery is an automaticbackground service provided by ISTAR. If validationfails, error messages are automatically returned tothe user. Erroneous timesheets will need to becorrected before re-submission and the timesheetsystem provides guidance to the user on the type oferror encountered. If validation succeeds, thetimesheet delivery system automatically installs thebookings in the actuals database of the target costcontrol centre. Facilities are also provided in thetimesheet system for correcting previously acceptedbut incorrect bookings.MonitoringThe ISTAR Monitoring tool generates basic

performance reports and calculates forwardprojections based on the latest actuals. Reportgeneration tools are also provided to allow users todesign their own reports. In addition to generatingperformance reports for display/hardcopy at thecost control centre, the Monitoring tool providesfacilities for generating a performance summary fortransmission to the client contract. This summarycan be integrated into the clients actuals databaseto provide a global picture ofprogress/performance.The types of reports that can be generated include:

A Status report listing the timesheets and sub-contract reports received during the week alongwith the dates on which they were received andtheir point of origin.An Actuals report detailing all activities for whichbookings have been received during the currentweek. Information available includes: the activitystatus (begun/complete); the first and lastbooking dates; the best estimated end datecalculated as a forward projection based oncurrent actuals; the resource usage for eachresource for the current week; the progresscomments from each timesheet author; estimatesfrom each timesheet author of the resource usagerequired to complete the activity and theirestimate of the target completion date.An Activity report which gives full details of all ofthe scheduled activities for the contract and itssub-contracts. Projections based on the actualscan be calculated. For each activity which has hadbookings made against it, the following could bereported: status: actual start date; last bookingdate; projected start date: projected end date:projected float; total actual resource usage todate; total remaining usage; timesheet/sub-contract remarks from people assigned theactivity; estimates from timesheet authors andsub-contracts of the activity completion date.A Resource report which gives full details of allscheduled resources which have booked to anyof the activities of the current schedule duringthe current week. For each resource, thefollowing details can be reported: all scheduledactivities for which a resource has been used; thetotal cumulative resource usage; the totalplanned resource usage for each activity; and thetotal remaining resource usage for each activity.An Exceprions report which details activities andresources which have over-stepped user definedlimits such as all scheduled activities which haveexceeded their planned float by a specifiedamount; all scheduled activities which have useda specified amount of their planned duration; andall scheduled resources which have a rate ofresource usage under/over a specified amountfor the current week.

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REFERENCES[l] Integrated Project Support with ISTAR, IEEESoftware, November 1987[2] Dowson M, ISTAR and the ContractualApproach, Proc. 9th International Conferenceon Software Engineering, IEEE ComputerSociety Press, 1987.[3] Imperial Software Technology, Requirementsfor Software Engineering Databases - FinalReport, Commission of the EuropeanCommunities, 1983[4] Boehm B. Software Engineering Economics,Prentice-Hall 198 1[S] Morgan, David, The Imminent IPSE.Datamation, April 1987.

INTEGRATION WITH OTHER PROJECTACTIVITIESWhile these project management tools providesubstantial benefits over off-line tools even greaterbenefits result when project management isintegrated with technical development,configuration management and quality managementactivities. These benefits arise through improvedstandards and methods of working, and throughmore management visibility of these activities.In ISTAR, project organisation can be controlled viathe contracts set up for resource managementcentres, quality reviews, document and mastersource libraries etc. Documentation standards canbe improved by providing preformatted documentskeletons to be used with the Text/Formsworkbench. Standards and procedures for reviewscan be enforced through the use of the checklistscreated with the ISTAR Quality Managementworkbench; Software Configuration Management interms o f the ISTAR Component Managementfacilities: and problem reporting and correctiveaction in terms o f the ISTAR Problem Reportingsystem and ISTAR contractual mechanisms.EXPERIENCE WITH ISTARWithin Imperial Software Technology, ISTAR hasbeen progressively adopted as the vehicle fo rmanaging the ISTAR project and is currently usedto manage all of the year-four development phase(30 man years approx).The planning tools have greatly improved thequality of the plans, and have led to a betterappreciation within the company of the breakdownof the work being undertaken as well as resourcingrequirements. It is difficult to assess the impact thatthis has had on schedules but it is believed to be amajor contributing factor to the improvements inprogress reporting that have been achieved.Outside of IST, a number of companies areevaluating the use of ISTAR on actual projects, as afirst stage towards adopting it on a large scale. Forexample, two companies (Motorola Inc. and ThePlessey Company) who acquired corporate licencesto ISTAR in the second half of 1986 have eachstarted two pilot projects using ISTAR. While tooearly to quantify the resulting productivity andquality improvements, preliminary qualitativeestimates are encouraging [S].British Telecom. who funded much of ISTARsdevelopment are at a similar stage, using it for twosmall (4-5 man year) projects. Their intention in thelonger term is to adapt ISTAR to support their ownin-house management procedures.

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