Learning Resource

On
Software Project Management

Chapter-9
Monitoring and Control

Prepared By:
Kunal Anand
Assistant Professor, SCE
KIIT, DU, Bhubaneswar-24
 Talkflow
• The Control Cycle
• Responsibilities
• Assessing Progress
– Collecting progress reporting
– Red/Green/Amber reporting
• Review
• Project Termination Review
• Gantt Chart and Slip Chart
• Earned Value Analysis
• Prioritizing Monitoring
• Exception Planning
• Change Control
• Software Configuration Management
The Control Cycle
 contd..
• Define objectives – at the beginning of the project we decide on what we
want to achieve
• Making decisions/plans – we decide how we are going to achieve the
objectives i.e., we create a plan
• Modelling – as part of the process of creating a plan we will consider
different approaches and attempt to assess the consequences of each of
these approaches in terms of how much it will cost and how long it will
take, and so on.
• Implementation – the plan is now carried out
• Data collection – we gather information at regular intervals about how
the project is progressing. These raw details could be quite numerous
and complex on a large project
• Data processing – we process the progress data and convert it into
‘information’ which makes it easier for the project managers and others
to understand the overall condition of the project
• Making decisions/plans – in the light of the comparison of actual project
progress with that planned, the plans are modified. This may require the
modelling of the outcomes of different possible courses of action
…and so the cycle goes on.
Responsibilities
 Assessing progress

Checkpoints – predetermined times when

progress is checked
– Event driven check takes place
when a particular event has been
achieved
– Time driven: date of the check is
pre-determined

• Frequency of reporting: The higher the management level then

generally the longer the gaps between checkpoints.
 Collecting progress details

• Need to collect data about:

– Achievements
– Costs

• A big problem: how to deal with partial completions

– 99% completion syndrome

• Possible solutions:
– Control of products, not activities
– Subdivide into lots of sub-activities
 Red/Amber/Green reporting
• Identify key tasks

• Break down into sub-tasks

• Assess subtasks as:

Green – ‘on target’
Amber – ‘not on target but recoverable’
Red – ‘not on target and recoverable only with difficulty’

• Status of ‘critical’ tasks is particularly important.

 Review
• A cost-effective defect removal mechanism.
• Review of work products is an important mechanism for
monitoring the progress of a project and ensuring the quality of the
work products.
• Testing is an effective defect removal mechanism.
– However, testing is applicable to only executable code.
– Review is applicable to all work products.
• Review usually helps to identify any deviation from standards.
• Reviewers suggest ways to improve the work product.
• A review meeting often provides learning opportunities to not only
the author of a work product, but also the other participants of the
review meeting.
• The review participants gain a good understanding of the work
product under review, making it easier for them to interface or use
the work product in their work.
 Review Roles
• Moderator: Schedules and convenes meetings, distributes
review materials, leads and moderates review sessions.
• Reviewers: Performs the review of the assigned task.
• Recorder: Records the defects found and the time and effort
data.
• Review Process

Planning Preparation

Rework Review
and follow- meeting
up
 Project Termination Review
• Project termination reviews provide important opportunities
to learn from past mistakes as well as successes.
• Reasons for project Termination
– Project is completed successfully handed over to the
customer.
– Incomplete requirements
– Lack of resources
– Some key technologies used in the project have become
obsolete during project execution
– Economics of the project has changed, for example
because many competing product may have become
available in the market.
 Project Termination Process

• Project survey
• Collection of objective information
• Debriefing meeting
• Final project review
• Result publication
Gantt charts
 Slip Charts
• A slip chart is a version of the
Gantt chart where a line is drawn
from top to bottom.
• To the left of the line are all the
completed activities and to the
right those activities ( or parts of
activities) that have not been
completed.
• The more jagged the line, the
more it means that that there are
some activities that are lagging to
various degrees and some that are
ahead of themselves.
• A very jagged line means that
there is scope for re-planning to
move resources from those
activities that are ahead to those
that are behind.
 Cost Monitoring

• A project could be late because the staff originally committed

have not been deployed.

• In this case the project will be behind time but under budget.

• A project could be on time but only because additional

resources have been added and so be over budget.

• Need to monitor both achievements and costs

 Earned value analysis

• Planned value (PV) or Budgeted cost of work scheduled

(BCWS)
– original estimate of the effort/cost to complete a task
(compare with idea of a ‘price’)

• Earned value (EV) or Budgeted cost of work performed

(BCWP)
– total of PVs for the work completed at this time
 An Example:
– Tasks
• Specify module: 5 days
• Code module: 8 days
• Test module: 6 days

– At the beginning of day 20, PV = 19 days

– If everything but testing completed EV = 13 days
– Schedule variance = EV-PV i.e., 13-19 = -6
– Schedule performance indicator (SPI) = EV/PV
= 13/19 = 0.68
– SV negative or SPI <1.00, project behind schedule
 Accounting conventions

• Work completed allocated on the basis

– 50/50: half allocated at start, the other half on completion.
These proportions can vary e.g., 0/100, 75/25 etc

– Milestone current value depends on the milestones

achieved.

– Units processed.

• Can use money values, or staff effort as a surrogate

 Earned Value analysis – actual cost

• Actual cost (AC) is also known as Actual cost of work

performed (ACWP)
• In previous example, if
– ‘Specify module’ took 3 days
– ‘Code module’ took 4 days
• Actual cost = 7 days
• Cost variance (CV) = EV-AC
i.e., 13-7 = 6 days
• Cost performance indicator (CPI)= EV / AC
= 13/7 = 1.86
• Positive CV or CPI > 1.00 means project within budget.
 contd..
• CPI can be used to produce new cost estimate
• Budget at completion (BAC) – current budget allocated to
total costs of project
• Estimate at completion (EAC) – updated estimate
= BAC/CPI
– e.g., say budget at completion is £19,000 and CPI is 1.86
– EAC = BAC/CPI = £10,215 (projected costs reduced
because work being completed in less time)
• Time variance (TV) – difference between time when
specified EV should have been reached and time it was.
• For example, say an EV of £19000 was supposed to have
been reached on 1st April and it reached on 1st July then TV = -
3 months
 Earned value chart with revised forecasts
• This shows how the planned value (PV), earned value (EV)
and actual cost (AC) can be tracked over the lifetime of a
project.

• It also shows how the graph can be used to show adjustments

to the final estimated cost and duration.

• A revised assessment of the budget at completion (EAC

estimate at completion) can be produced by dividing the
original estimated budget at completion (BAC) by the current
CPI.

• Similarly, a forecast of the actual duration of the project can be

derived by dividing the original estimated duration by the SPI.
 Prioritizing Monitoring

We might focus more on monitoring certain types of activity

e.g.
• Critical path activities
• Activities with no free float – if delayed later dependent
activities are delayed
• Activities with less than a specified float
• High risk activities
• Activities using critical resources
 Getting back on track: options

• Renegotiate the deadline – if not possible then

• Try to shorten critical path e.g.

– Work overtime
– Re-allocate staff from less pressing work
– Buy in more staff

• Reconsider activity dependencies

– Over-lap the activities so that the start of one activity does
not have to wait for completion of another
– Split activities
 Change Control

The role of configuration librarian:

• Identifying items that need to be subject to change control
• Management of a central repository of the master copies of
software and documentation
• Administering change procedures
• Maintenance of access records
 Typical change control process
1. One or more users might perceive the need for a change
2. User management decide that the change is valid and
worthwhile and pass it to development management
3. A developer is assigned to assess the practicality and cost of
making the change
4. Development management report back to user management
on the cost of the change; user management decide whether
to go ahead
5. One or more developers are authorized to make copies of
components to be modified
6. Copies modified. After initial testing, a test version might be
released to users for acceptance testing
7. When users are satisfied then operational release authorized
– master configuration items updated
 Software Configuration Management

• The deliverables of a SW product consist of a number of

objects, e.g. source code, design document, SRS document, test
document, user’s manual, etc.
• These objects are modified by many software engineers through
out development cycle.
• The state of each object changes as bugs are detected and fixed
during development .
• The configuration of the software is the state of all project
deliverables at any point of time.
• SCM deals with effectively tracking and controlling the
configuration of a software during its life cycle.
 Necessity of SCM
• To control access to deliverable objects with a view to avoiding the
following problems
– Inconsistency problem when the objects are replicated.
– Problems associated with concurrent access.
– Providing a stable development environment.
– System accounting and status information.
– Handling variants. If a bug is found in one of the variants, it has to be
fixed in all variants
SCM activities
– Configuration identification : deciding which objects (configuration
items ) are to be kept track of.
– Configuration control : ensuring that changes to a system happen
without ambiguity.
• Baseline: When an effective SCM is in place, the manager freezes the
objects to form a base line.
– A baseline is the status of all the objects under configuration control.
When any of the objects under configuration control is changed , a new
baseline is formed.
 Configuration item identification
• Categories of objects:
– Controlled objects are under Configuration Control (CC) . Formal
procedures followed to change them.
– Pre-controlled objects are not yet under CC, but will eventually be under
CC.
– Uncontrolled objects are not subjected to CC
– Controllable objects include both controlled and precontrolled objects;
examples: SRS document, Design documents, Source code , Test cases
The SCM plan is written during the project planning phase, and it lists
all controlled objects.
• Configuration Control (CC): process of managing changes to controlled
objects. Allows authorized changes to the controlled objects and prevents
unauthorized changes .
– In order to change a controlled object such as a module, a developer can
get a private copy of the module by a reserve operation .
– Configuration management tools allow only one person to reserve a
module at a time. Once an object is reserved, it does not allow any one else
to reserve this module until the reserved module is restored .
 Changing the Baseline
• When one needs to change an object under configuration control, he is
provided with a copy of the base line item.
• The requester makes changes to his private copy.
• After modifications, updated item replaces the old item and a new base line
gets formed .
Reserve and restore operation in configuration control
• obtains a private copy of the module through a reserve operation and carries
out all changes on this private copy.
• restoring the changed module to the baseline requires the permission of a
change control board(CCB).
• Except for very large projects, the functions of the CCB are discharged by
the project manager himself.