Chapter 8

are work products that are delivered to the customer, e.g. a requirements document for the system.

Deliverables

A development organization may quote a low price because it wishes to move into a new segment of the software market.

Market Opportunity

Accepting a low profit on one project may give the organization the opportunity to make a greater profit later

Market Opportunity

The experience gained may also help it develop new products.

Market Opportunity

when you have to plan who will work on the project, how the project will be broken down into phases and tasks, how resources will be allocated across your company

project startup phase

when you are bidding for a contract to develop or provide a software system.

proposal stage

when you modify your plan in the light of experience gained and information from monitoring the progress of the work.

throughout the project

When estimating a price, the following factors are taken into consideration:

Hardware -software -travel -training

Each Project activities has

-duration in calendar days or months -effort estimate -deadline -defined end-point

The Project Scheduling Process:

-identify activities -identify activity dependencies -estimate resources for activities -allocate people to activities -create project charts

May be added as the requirements change and these may be priced at a higher level to make up the shortfall in the original price

Additional costs

A customer may be willing to allow the developer to retain ownership of the source code and reuse it in other project

Contractual Terms

Cash flow is more important than profit in difficult economic times.

Financial Health

Developers in financial difficulty may lower their price to gain a contract.

Financial Health

It is better to make a smaller than normal profit or break even than to go out of business

Financial Health

are points in the schedule against which you can assess progress, for example, the handover of the system for testing.

Milestones

is not proportional to the number of people working on a task

Productivity

involves breaking down the work into parts and assign these to project team members

Project Planning

Dependent on project managers intuition and experience.

Project Scheduling Activities

Minimize task dependencies to avoid delays caused by one task waiting for another to complete.

Project Scheduling Activities

Organize tasks concurrently to make optimal use of workforce.

Project Scheduling Activities

Split project into tasks and estimate time and resources required to complete each task.

Project Scheduling Activities

At this stage, Create a plan with enough detail to make decisions about the project budget and staffing.

Project Startup Planning

At this stage, you know more about the system requirements but do not have design or implementation information

Project Startup Planning

This plan is the basis for project resource allocation

Project Startup Planning

are the basic planning element.

Project activities (tasks)

is an iterative process that starts when you create an initial project plan during the project startup phase.

Project planning

estimating how much the software will cost to develop, taking into account factors such as staff costs, hardware costs, software costs

Project pricing

is the process of deciding how the work in a project will be organized as separate tasks, and when and how these tasks will be executed.

Project scheduling

If the requirements are likely to change, an organization may lower its price to win a contract. After the contract is awarded, high prices can be charged for changes to the requirements.

Requirements Volatility

At this stage, The project schedule, cost-estimate and risks have to be regularly revised.

Throughout the Project

The project plan should be regularly amended as the project progresses and you know more about the software and its development.

Throughout the Project

A company may underprice a system in order to gain a contract so they don't go out of business

True

As more information about the system and the project team becomes available during the project, you should regularly revise the plan to reflect requirements, schedule and risk changes.

True

Changing business goals also leads to changes in project plans

True

Plan changes are inevitable

True

The price may be increased when a buyer wishes a fixed-price contract and so the seller increases the price to allow for unexpected risks

True

The startup plan should also define project monitoring mechanisms (like milestones)

True

Usually tentative software requirements are used at Proposal Planning in order to give a price estimation.

True

company may underprice a system to gain access to a new market area

True

Adding people to a late project makes it later because of

communication overheads

The unexpected always happens. Always allow ......... in planning

contingency

You should include .......... in your plan so that if things go wrong, then your delivery schedule is not seriously disrupted.

contingency

aim of planning at Proposal Planning

is to provide information that will be used in setting a price for the system to customers.

Problems of some description always arise during a project, and these lead to

project delays

You should make realistic rather than optimistic assumptions when you are defining a

project plan

is created at the start of a project, is used to communicate how the work will be done to the project team and customers, and to help assess progress on the project.

project plan