Software Project Management: A Unified Framework | Date: 28 April 2011, 08:08
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The software industry moves unrelentingly toward new methods for managing the ever-increasing complexity of software projects. In the past, we have seen evolutions, revolutions, and recurring themes of success and failure. While software technologies, processes, and methods have advanced rapidly, software engineering remains a people-intensive process. Consequently, techniques for managing people, technology, resources, and risks have profound leverage.
This book captures a software management perspective that emphasizes a balanced view of these elements:
* Theory and practice
* Technology and people
* Customer value and provider profitability
* Strategies and tactics
Throughout, you should observe a recurring management theme of paramount importance: balance. It is especially important to achieve balance among the objectives of the various stakeholders, who communicate with one another in a variety of languages and notations. Herein is the motivation for the part opener art, an abstract portrayal of the Rosetta stone. The three fundamental representation languages inherent in software engineering are requirements (the language of the problem space), design (the transformation languages of software engineers), and realizations (the language of the solution space executable on computers). Just as the Rosetta stone enabled the translation of Egyptian hieroglyphics, software management techniques enable the translation of a problem statement into a solution that satisfies all stakeholders.
There is no cookbook for software management. There are no recipes for obvious good practices. I have tried to approach the issues with as much science, realism, and experience as possible, but management is largely a matter of judgment, (un)common sense, and situation-dependent decision making. That's why managers are paid big bucks.
Some chapters include sections with a pragmatic and often hard-hitting treatment of a particular topic. To differentiate this real-world guidance from the general process models, techniques, and disciplines, headings of these sections include the word pragmatic. By pragmatic I mean having no illusions and facing reality squarely, which is exactly the intent of these sections. They contain strong opinions and provocative positions, and will strike nerves in readers who are entrenched in some obsolete or overhyped practices, tools, or techniques.
I have attempted to differentiate among proven techniques, new approaches, and obsolete techniques using appropriate substantiation. In most cases, I support my positions with simple economic arguments and common sense, along with anecdotal experience from field applications. Much of the material synthesizes lessons learned (state-of-the-practice) managing successful software projects over the past 10 years. On the other hand, some of the material represents substantially new (state-of-the-art), hypothesized approaches that do not have clear substantiation in practice.
I have struggled with whether to position this book as management education or management training. The distinction may seem nitpicky, but it is important. An example I heard 15 years ago illustrates the difference. Suppose your 14-year-old daughter came home from school one day and asked, "Mom and Dad, may I take the sex education course offered at school?" Your reaction would likely be different if she asked, "May I take the sex training course offered at school?" (This meant less to me then than it does now that my three daughters are teenagers!)
Training has an aspect of applied knowledge that makes the knowledge more or less immediately useful. Education, on the other hand, is focused more on teaching the principles, experience base, and spirit of the subject, with the application of such knowledge left to the student. I have tried to focus this book as a vehicle for software management education. (I am not sure there is such a thing as management training other than on-the-job experience.) I will not pretend that my advice is directly applicable on every project. Although I have tried to substantiate as many of the position statements as possible, some of them are left unsubstantiated as pure hypotheses. I hope my conjecture and advice will stimulate further debate and progress.
My intended audience runs the gamut of practicing software professionals. Primary target readers are decision makers: those people who authorize investment and expenditure of software-related budgets. This group includes organization managers, project managers, software acquisition officials, and their staffs. For this audience, I am trying to provide directly applicable guidance for use in today's tactical decision making and tomorrow's strategic investments. Another important audience is software practitioners who negotiate and execute software project plans and deliver on organizational and project objectives.
Style
Because I am writing for a wide audience, I do not delve into technical perspectives or technical artifacts, many of which are better discussed in other books. Instead, I provide fairly deep discussions of the economics, management artifacts, work breakdown strategies, organization strategies, and metrics necessary to plan and execute a successful software project.
Illustrations are included to make these complex topics more understandable. The precision and accuracy of the figures and tables merit some comment. While most of the numerical data accurately describe some concept, trend, expectation, or relationship, the presentation formats are purposely imprecise. In the context of software management, the difference between precision and accuracy is not as trivial as it may seem, for two reasons:
1. Software management is full of gray areas, situation dependencies, and ambiguous trade-offs. It is difficult, if not impossible, to provide an accurate depiction of many concepts and to retain precision of the presentation across a broad range of domains.
2. Understanding the difference between precision and accuracy is a fundamental skill of good software managers, who must accurately forecast estimates, risks, and the effects of change. Unjustified precision--in requirements or plans--has proven to be a substantial, yet subtle, recurring obstacle to success.
In many of my numeric presentations, the absolute values are unimportant and quite variable across different domains and project circumstances. The relative values constitute the gist of most of the figures and tables.
I occasionally provide anecdotal evidence and actual field experience to put the management approaches into a tangible context and provide relatively accurate and precise benchmarks of performance under game conditions. Several appendixes clarify how the techniques presented herein can be applied in real-world contexts. My flagship case study is a thoroughly documented, successful, large-scale project that provides a concrete example of how well many of these management approaches can work. It also provides a framework for rationalizing some of the improved processes and techniques.
Organization
The book is laid out in five parts, each with multiple chapters:
* Part I, Software Management Renaissance. Describes the current state of software management practice and software economics, and introduces the state transitions necessary for improved software return on investment.
* Part II, A Software Management Process Framework. Describes the process primitives and a framework for modern software management, including the life-cycle phases, artifacts, workflows, and checkpoints.
* Part III, Software Management Disciplines. Summarizes some of the critical techniques associated with planning, controlling, and automating a modern software process.
* Part IV, Looking Forward. Hypothesizes the project performance expectations for modern projects and next-generation software eco
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