Software Project Management

Project management, as applied to software projects, is the process of marshaling and controlling the cost, delivery time, scope, and quality of a piece of software over the development life-cycle.

This class covers project management approaches for technical projects, with a specific emphasis on software projects. The class introduces the fundamental constraints of scope, cost, time, and quality. We examine how changes to any given constraint affect the others, even deriving a simple mathematical model to describe the relationship.

Heavyweight formal processes are examined. The class discusses the five process groups and nine knowledge areas of PMBOK. We examine PRINCE2 with its eight processes. We briefly discuss related ISO and IEEE standards.

The class looks at agile methods such as Extreme Programming and SCRUM, explaining the reasons for their surge in popularity. We examine the strengths and weaknesses of these methods, sorting the hype from the reality.

We examine helpful tools ranging from simple pencil and paper lists, through dedicated software systems. Again, we examine the costs and benefits with an eye toward finding the simplest and cheapest solutions that will meet your projects needs.