It is hard to think of the successful completion of a business software project without the support of a Software Project Management Plan. Such projects require adequate planning, monitoring and controlling to meet the objectives of a high-end enterprise solution. At the same time, one must take into account the total time required and manage the resources in an efficient manner to deliver the project well within the stipulated time. It was found that the most problematic areas in meeting the exact user requirements were the difficulties in articulating the needs of the clients and the incorrect estimation of the needed resources.
A software development process is concerned more with its production aspect than its technical aspect. This is why such processes look similar to general project management processes, such as risk management, change management, release management, and requirements management. The focus of the concern with all these management processes remains the proper identification of the scope, estimation of the work involved, and the creation of a work schedule. A software project development plan cannot serve a meaningful purpose of its existence unless it is not optimized for project planning, monitoring and control. The exact estimation of requirements must precede the development of a project plan to deliver the successful completion of the tasks involved.
Project Management Software, or simply Project Software, is a tool that is designed to help when you are to deal with a large and complex project. Such a large project usually requires you to keep an eye on a range of details – project estimation, planning, scheduling, resource allocation, cost control, budget management, and an effective communication with team members. The project software really helps in meeting the varied requirements of a large project and provides assistance in completing the tasks involved. These tools exist under a variety of design approaches. Chief among them are Desktop, Web-based, Personal, Single User, Collaborative, Integrated, and Non-Specialized tools.
With the project monitoring and control, the software project development plan enables the team members to work in an integrated environment where they can easily contribute to the progress of the project and be aware of its overall progress in real time. It helps the project manager keep a focus on the planned development process with valuable inputs from its team members. If a change in plan is required at any stage of the process, the manager finds it easy to implement the same and keep abreast with the changing requirements.
The goal of the Software Project Tracking and Oversight Key Process Area is to provide sufficient insight into project performance so that the project manager can detect variances between performance and the plan and take preventive or corrective action. Software Project influences all PMBOK knowledge areas and is most closely associated with the Monitoring and Controlling group of processes and is organized into goals, commitments, abilities, activities, measurements, and verifications.
The goal is to relate to and support project oversight and corrective actions. The goals are that results are tracked against project plans, that corrective actions are taken when there is a variance between planned results and actual results, and that corrective actions that change the project plan are agreed to by the affected groups. The abilities and activities all support the achievement of these goals. Commitments to this are required at the executive level. The first commitment is that a software project manager be assigned to the project. This commitment will be made by default for most IT projects.
The project manager responsible for the entire project is likely to be someone who is considered a “software project manager”, or at least has experience managing software projects. When larger projects require a sub-project for the creation of a software system or application to be defined, this commitment requires a project manager to be assigned to manage the sub-project. This is an organizational commitment, but might require you to identify and assign a project manager to manage the software sub-project if you are the overall project manager.
The second commitment is also at the organizational level and it is that project management follows a written organizational policy for managing software projects. Project Managers working out of a Project Management Office should have such a policy to follow.
Overall, project management software will bring measurable financial returns and deliver clear outcomes across projects, programs and risk management to an organization, with its ease of use and flexibility. Lastly, team members will have online and instant access to all the information needed to complete their assigned tasks, making collaboration easier and increasing the project teams success.
Project management software can also be used to provide information to various people or stakeholders, and can be used to measure and justify the level of effort required to complete the project(s). Such software can provide cost maintenance, early warning of any risks to the project, information on workload, for planning holidays, and historical information on how projects have progressed. Using project management software is a must for organizations that need to organize and direct complex projects.
