Software project manager

Chapter 5

Software project management is an essential part of software engineering. Good management cannot guarantee project success, however, bad management usually result in project failure. Software managers do the same kind of job as other engineering project managers. However, software engineering is different from other types of engineering. Some differences are:

The product is intangible. The software cannot be seen or touched; it is not physical at all.
There are no standard software processes. There is no specified process for particular task and quite often it is hard and takes time to manage which software development process is more suitable for the project.
Large software projects are often “one-off” projects. Large software projects are often very different in some ways from previous project. Therefore, even managers with large experience may find it difficult to anticipate problems.

Main activities of a software manager are:

Proposal writing
Project planning and scheduling
Project cost
Project monitoring and reviews
Personnel selection and evaluation
Report writing and presentations

Writing proposal to win a contract to carry out the work is important possible stage. It usually includes cost and schedule estimates and justifies why the project contract should be awarded to a particular organisation or team. Project planning is concerned with identifying the activities, milestones and deliverable produced by a project. The manager should keep track of the progress of the project and compare actual and planned progress and costs. Informal monitoring can often predict potential problems by revealing difficulties as they occur. During a project, it is normal to have several reviews.

Project managers usually have to select people to work on their project. Ideally, skilled staff with appropriate experience will be available to work on the project, by in reality managers (in most cases) have to settle for a less-than-ideal project team. The reasons for this are:

The project budget may not cover the use of highly paid staff.
Staff with the appropriate experience may not be available either within an organisation or externally.
The organisation may wish to develop the skills of its employees, so inexperienced staff may be assigned to the project to learn and to gain experience.