Assessment of Project Management Practices in Software Industry

By Basharat Jehan

Work published in: B. Jehan, M. Shafi and K. Ghani “Assessment of project management practices in software industry.” in proceedings of

SCONEST, Hyderabad, Pakistan, Sept 2014.

Outline• Introduction• Research Objective• Related Work• Methodology• Questionnaires Response• Questionnaire structure• Result & Analysis• Conclusions• Future Work

Introduction

• Software Management (SPM) and its Processes.

• Pakistan has fast growing software industry.

• Survey based research.

• Results based on 70 software industries data.

• The survey consists of 35 questions.

Research Objectives

Research Objectives

Individual and Organization Info

General PM Practices

Relation b/w PM Practices & Project

Success

Research Objectives (Cont…)

• PM know about the software project

management practices that are important for

effective project management and for the

success of project.

Related Work• Investment in software development industry

increased $17 billion per year1.• It is found that 50 to 80% software failures occur

due to improper project management 2.• Success of project management is the success of

project 3.• Crawford 4 has found variation in project

management knowledge and practices exists, between industries, countries and application areas.

• More about Related Work

Related Work (Cont..)• This work presents project management

practices that are used currently in Pakistan. We have shown the relation of these practices with project success empirically.

Research Methodology• Used questionnaire for data collection. • Hosted on a website.• Distributed through emails, letters and visiting

personally software industries.• Project managers and developers were

surveyed.• Seventy responses were Received out of

110.

Questionnaire ResponsesCurrent position

Response %

Project manager

53 75.7

Programmers

15 21.4

Others 2 2.9

Table 1 : Job Position of Respondents

Questionnaire Structure• Organization Information (2)• Individual Information (3)• Software Requirement management (4)• Software Planning and Estimation (4)• Software Risk Control and Assessment (1)• Software Quality Management (2)• Software management automated Tools (3)• PM Practices VS Project Success (15)

Result and analysis

• Individual and Organizational information

• General Project Management Practices

• Relationship of project success and project

management activities

Organization info of Respondents

less than 10 10 to 20 20 to 50 50 to 100 more than 1000.00%

5.00%

10.00%

15.00%

20.00%

25.00%

30.00%

35.00%

40.00%

45.00%

5.88%

39.71%44.12%

4.41% 5.88%

Number of Employee

Num

ber o

f org

aniza

tion

CMMI Levels of Respondent Industries

Table 2: CMMI Level of Organizations

Success Factors of Project Manager

Power of making decision Good communication skills

others Managing Legal Issues0.00%

5.00%

10.00%

15.00%

20.00%

25.00%

30.00%

35.00%

40.00%

45.00%38.03%

42.25%

14.79%

4.93%

Factors

Resp

onde

nts

Software Requirement management

Formal documented project plan

Informal project plan No project plan0.00%

10.00%

20.00%

30.00%

40.00%

50.00%

60.00%

70.00%

12.35%

64.20%

12.35%

Project Plan Preparation Methods

Project Plan Methods

Resp

onde

nts

Yes No0.00%

10.00%

20.00%

30.00%

40.00%

50.00%

60.00%

70.00%

80.00%

74.24%

25.76%

Is scope document is prepared in organization?

Vision and Scope Document Preparation

Resp

onde

nts

Software Planning and Estimation methods

Functi

onal Point A

nalysis

Line o

f code E

stimaio

n

Wideban

d Delphi E

stimation

Expert

Based Es

timation

Random Es

timation

0.00%

20.00%

40.00%

60.00%

80.00%11.76% 13.24% 1.47%

70.59%

2.94%

Which methods are used to estimate software effort and cost?

Project Estimation Methods

Resp

onse

nts

Power Outage Unrealistic project plane

Requirement Change

Staffing problems others0.00%

5.00%

10.00%

15.00%

20.00%

25.00%

30.00%

35.00%

32.28%

19.69%

13.39%

33.07%

1.57%

Main causes that deviate software projects from their original plan?

Factors effecting Project Plan

Resp

onde

nts

Yes No Not known0.00%

10.00%20.00%30.00%40.00%50.00%60.00%70.00%80.00%

13.43%

70.15%

16.42%

Earned value analysis (keep track of actual and budgeted cost for projects) is used?

Use of Earned Value Analysis

Resp

onde

nts

Yes No0.00%

10.00%

20.00%

30.00%

40.00%

50.00%

60.00%

70.00%

80.00%

76.12%

23.88%

Project risks assessment

Risk Assessed

Resp

onde

nts

Yes No0.00%

10.00%20.00%30.00%40.00%50.00%60.00%70.00%80.00%90.00%

100.00%

96.55%

3.45%

Quality is managed in yours organization?

Quality managment

Resp

onde

nts

Yes No0.00%

10.00%

20.00%

30.00%

40.00%

50.00%

60.00%

70.00%

33.33%

66.67%

Automated project management tools are used?

Usage Project Management Tools

Resp

onde

nts

ID Questions Number of ‘YES’ responses in Successful projects out of 70.

Number of ‘YES’ in Failed projects out of 70.

3Direction of Success Relationship

4Association with project success

PM21 Did the project have a project manager? 64 42 + .002

PM22 Was project manager experienced in the application area?

62 19 ns

PM23 Was project manager changed during the project? 5 45 ns

PM24 Did project manager communicate very well with staff?

60 31 + .002

PM25 Did project manager communicate very well with customers?

63 35 + .006

PM26 Was staff rewarded for working long hours in organization?

50 14 + .009

PM27 Did the project manager have a software development background?

63 16 ns

PM28 Did the project manager involve project team members and experts in project planning?

57 21 + .009

PM29 Were resources monitored for this project? 57 20 + .005

PM30 Was quality managed for this project? 57 20 + .012

PM31 Was the project plan approved by the stakeholders for this project?

56 20 + 0.009

PM32 Have Critical Path Analysis (minimum time to complete a project) made for this project?

50 17 + .003

PM33 Have Earned value analysis (keep track of actual and budgeted cost for projects) made for this project?

44 11 + .005

PM34 Were project risks assessed and controlled? 47 11 + .01

PM35 Was staff added late to this project? 13 54 - .03

SPSS FILE

Conclusion

• IT sector has experienced people and well

qualified.

• Most of the organizations have CMMI Level1.

• Job opportunities available in IT sector.

• Project plan is prepared informally.

• Due to lack of resources expert based estimation

is accepted.

Conclusion (cont…)• Power outage and staffing are main problems

software project from its original plan.

• Risk and Quality management are common. • Use of automated tools are not common.

Conclusion (cont…)Success Factors are:

• Project manager• Rewards for extra work• Communication with staff and user• Earned value Analysis• Critical path Analysis• Quality Management• Risk Management• Involvement of experts in project estimation

Future Work

• Explore sub fields of project management.

• Compare Pakistan project management

practices with other developing countries.

• Effect of trust between top management and

staff on software development.

• Increase sample space to get more accurate

result.