Project Planning

Each team should establish plans for the development and management of the software project. Project planning establishes an understanding of the activities, resource estimates, plans, risks, and commitments and agreements between the project team, the customer, and the instructor. Aside from establishing an understanding between the various stakeholders of the development effort, part of planning is establishing the guidelines that coordinate the daily activity of the team working on the project.

This project plan, produced as a document, subdivides the system development effort into a manageable set of discrete tasks. The goal of the planning effort is to assemble the tasks and determine a time schedule for each of the boxes (see process overview).

Project planning is an iterative process with periodic stepwise refinements.

• Planning is used to find ways to produce results with limited resources and limited schedule flexibility.
• Planning is negotiating compromises in due dates and resource allocation.
• Planning is identifying and accommodating the unforseen.
• Planning is blending the efforts of many people to produce a product that satisfies the customer's need.

Long-term plan

The long-term project plan describes the resources to be used for the entire length of the project. It should detail what is to be done, at a high-level, and by whom.

Short-term plan

A tentative short-term plan helps the project team coordinate their activities of the project, so they can work at an effective rate.

The schedule will reflect:

• each team members abilities to perform the activities
• the resources utilized in the project
• the groups overall ability to perform

The tentative short-term project plan should follow a set of activities that needs to be performed in order to proceed with the successive activities for the next week.

An example of a short-term project plan is:

Week 1

• Identify team and choose project

Week 2

• Familiarize team members with their task assignments
• Assign positions accordingly to interest and abilities
• Establish milestones for project (Time Schedule)
• Inform group about the procedure for weekly status reports
• Determine Risks
• Establish structure for your project

Week 3

• First In-Progress Review

Week 4

• Evaluate the project for improvements for customer usability
• Second In-Progress Review (Analysis)
• Establish baselines

Week 5 - 7

• Development phase
• Analyze baselines (week 6)
• Third In-Progress Review (Development)

Week 8

• Release share-ware version to customers for evaluation/feedback (optional)
• Analyze baseline

Week 9

• Incorporate customer feedback with respect to the project
• Subgroup Updates
• Fourth In-Progress Review (Validation- optional)
• Final Establishment of baselines
• Prepare for Presentation

Week 10

• Archive subgroup work

Risk

The short-term plan certainly encompasses plenty of risks. The best way to handle risks are to:

• identify the risk.
• find a resolution for this risk within the time frame of the project.
• figure out the chance this risk will occur.

Goals

• To establish a process through which the project team will establish work and project plans.
• To establish a process through which the project teamwill establish long-term (tactical) work and project plans.
• To establish a procedure for periodic review and improvement of the project plans by all members of the project team.

Commitment to Perform

Organizational Policy

The project is committed to establishing a written organizational policy for planning a software project.

The project is committed to establishing and maintaining both short- term project plans and long-term project plans.

The project is committed to establishing a project leader within each team who is responsible for managing the project plans for their team.

Ability to Perform

Responsibilities

An individual on each team, the plan manager, will be responsible for maintaining and updating the long-term project plan. This includes:

• developing the project plan
• managing the modification of the long-term project plan by working with the customer
• updating the project plan so the plan reflects the current state of the project
• tracking changes to the long-term project plan
• ensuring that all changes are distributed to the appropriate individual

An individual on each team, the plan manager, will be responsible for creating and maintaining the short-term project plan for the project team. This includes:

• examining the long-term project plan to understand where the project stands withinin the scope of the entire project
• examining the long-term project plan to gain understanding in planning for the current time-frame
• working with the instructor and the project team to establish reasonable objectives and commitments
• appropriating tasks and responsibilities to individual members based on their interests and abilities
• managing the review process for project plan changes per the configuration management policy and the SQA under Project Plan Change Form
• ensuring that all changes are distributed to the appropriate parties

Documentation

The documentation for software project planning can be broken down into two main areas: the short-term project plan and the long-term project plan . Each team is responsible for creating and maintaining both a short-term and a long-term project plan.

This section briefly describes the necessary contents of the short and long-term project plans developed for the project.

The Long-term project plan shall:

• identify the customers (who are sponsoring the project)
• identify the users (who will be using the product)
• identify the long-term constraints of the project
• establish time duration of project (how long will the project last)
• identify measurable goals and objectives of the project
• include a list of modifications and justifications to the long-term project plan (this list should contain date stamps of all modifications)
• include an initial work breakdown structure (WBS) that details the tasks to be done, an estimated effort to complete the task and a set of skills needed to perform the task

The Short-term project plan shall:

• identify the scope of the work to be completed
• identify measurable goals
• identify the interests and abilities of all team members
• identify task assignments of all team members
• establish a detailed project time schedule
• establish a procedure for evaluating weekly progress of group members
• establish a set of assignments for each team member structured in the form of a statement of work (SOW)
• identify the risks associated with the short-term plan
• include a list of modifications and justifications to the short-term project plan (this list should contain date stamps of all modifications)

Training Members in Project Planning

All members will examine the short-term project plan, specifically noting their responsibilities. This evaluation of the short-term project plan ensures that all members of the project team understand and agree to the short-term project plan.

Every member of the project should have a thorough understanding concerning the process for suggesting changes and making updates to the project plans as detailed in the configuration management section of this document. The project leader is the only one to make changes to the project plans, but the weekly status reviews should be used as a forum in which members can raise and address concerns. Weekly status meetings are discussed later in the Activities to Perform section of this document.

Training should be done in the first week after project members have been assigned to their projects.

This training includes:

• All members reading this document
• All members reading the long-term project plan for the project
• All members reading the short-term project plan for the project
• All members working the plan manager to construct work breakdown structures and statement of work

This training will:

• Enable the members to get a better understanding of the project
• Enable the members to find tasks of the project that they might be interested in
• Enable the members to get a perspective of what will be expected of them for the semester - i.e. give them a measure by which to compare themselves

Activities Performed

Project Plan Development

The short and long-term project plans must be developed.

Assigning personnel to subgroups and tasks is a very important part of project planning. If done correctly, the people on the team will enjoy working on the project and will be very productive. If done incorrectly, team members will be unhappy and not as productive as they might otherwise be.

Each student will write down information concerning themselves.

The plan manager will acquire the job applications for the members assigned to the group. The plan manager in concert with the project leader will inform the members about the subgroups and tasks to be accomplished.

The plan manager will take an objective approach to assigning personnel to the project tasks. This approach focuses on developing quality and correct products. The plan manager will consult with the project members to make sure that the personnel assignments to tasks is appropriate to their interest before final assignments in the project plan are made; however, in the event that a member's preferences can not be accommodated, the project leader has the final authority in the matter. The project advisor will be consulted if the members do not agree on personnel assignment.

Project Plan Reviews

The long-term project plan will be reviewed with the customers and instructor to assure a firm understanding of the project as a whole.

The short-term project plan will be reviewed with the instructor, project leader, and project members, one week after the members have been assigned to the project. This review establishes:

• management is informed and approves of the goals, personnel allocations, and project schedule
• management understands and approves how the current activities fit into the overall project plan
• all members of the project team understand their specific responsibilities and tasks
• the project leader understands the organizational process for planning and plan maintenance
• all project members understand the organizational process of project plan maintenance and review

The project plan should be reviewed by the project leader and instructor every week to assure that the project is progressing as planned.

The project leader must update the following sections in the long-term project plan:

• Personnel All members for the current project must be listed in the personnel section of the long-term plan.
• Activities - All significant activities accomplished must be listed in the activities section of the long-term plan.
• Task Plan - The activities accomplished may affect the long-term project plan. The tasks plan for the entire project might need to be updated if slippage's in schedule will affect subsequent activities.

Modification

Any changes to the long or short-term project plans should be negotiated between the project leader and project advisor. Changes should be reviewed by management and the customers as necessary.

Any modification to either the short or long-term project plan should follow the standards of the Configuration Management policy.

The weekly status meetings offer a good time to inform all project members of any changes to the short or long-term project plans. E-mail should be sent to all members and the instructor if any immediate changes are made, otherwise the status meetings should be used to let all members be aware of any changes in schedule or task assignments.

Measurement and Analysis

Status

The status of the project in relation to the project plan should be known at a weekly level by the instructor, the project leader, and any plan manager within the group.

All project members (including project leader) should update the plan manager as to the status of their efforts and progress on a weekly basis. These weekly status reports should be compared to the project plan schedule by the plan manager to assess the current status of the project (see Project Tracking and Oversight). Any slippage's should be identified, and the project plan should be updated by the plan manager with advise and consent of the project leader.

Collecting Information

Over the entire life of the project, the project teams should collect data to help future project planning.

The following information concerning project plans should be collected:

How many revisions to the original project-plan were made before being accepted by the instructor?
Were "state saves" (i.e. backups) done on schedule as the plan requires. If not, then how many were skipped, and how many were late?

• How many errors in the design were found
• How many revisions to the design were made
• How many errors in the requirements were found
• How many errors in implementation were based on not following the design or not following requirements
• How many slips in the project schedule occurred
• How many activities will be affected by the schedule slips that occurred
• How many of the activities listed in the long-term plan were accomplished

The following information about personnel should be collected:

• How many people were on the project
• How many people were assigned to each subgroup
• What are the names and e-mail addresses for all members on the project
• Which classes has each member previously taken or taking currently that would help their performance
• Which members in the subgroups work well together

Verifying Implementation

The weekly status meetings with the instructor accomplishes the verification that the activities being performed are correct according to the long and short-term project plans.

As described earlier, these meetings with the instructor should serve to resolve any problems that arose during the week that the members could not resolve among themselves. The team members should inform the project leader about conflicts that did appear over the previous week, even if they were resolved. The instructor will offer advice and insight into solutions to problems that the teams have come across.

The project leader will schedule event-driven meetings with the instructor. These meetings will occur at times when the input of the instructor is most required: usually after a major improvement of the project (and the project leader wants to impress the sponsor, or verify that what was build is what the sponsor wanted), or when there is a lack of direction for the project. Whatever the cause, the project leader should understand that these meetings will be well recorded and documented in the project notebook for reference.

Whether the meeting is planned or event-driven, or whether the meeting was between the team or between the project leader and the project sponsor, all meetings will be documented. All important ideas and points made in any meeting for the project will be recorded and entered into the project notebook.

One team member will be assigned the task of notekeeper. It is up to this person to record all information in meetings and record them in the project notebook (project notebooks are to be maintained using word processing or web-based tools).

Periodic and event-driven meetings will:

• Provide a forum in which the instructor and project sponsor can offer corrections to what has been implemented
• Provide a forum in which conflicts that come up can be resolved
• Allow the project team to demonstrate meaningful progress in the project (demos to the sponsor and advisor)
• Provide checkpoints to make sure that the project is on schedule
• Provide checkpoints to make sure that the product(s) being developed satisfy the requirements for the project

Final Comments

The short-term project plan will capture the essence of what is to be accomplished. It will be updated as needed to reflect problems and changes to the activities of the team. Specific personnel information will also be contained in the project plans.

The long-term project plan will capture the essence of the project as a whole. This plan will be maintained, so at any point, anyone within the project or anyone outside the project can understand the history and future of the project. This plan will serve as a reference to keep the teams on track in their activities.

All the short-term project plans and the long-term project plan will be kept in the project notebook, and they will be kept in electronic form in the project archive directory.