Software Project Management



A software project manager is a person who undertakes the responsibility of executing the software project. Software project manager is thoroughly aware of all the phases of SDLC that the software would go through. Project manager may never directly involve in producing the end product but he controls and manages the activities involved in production.

A project manager closely monitors the development process, prepares and executes various plans, arranges necessary and adequate resources, maintains communication among all team members in order to address issues of cost, budget, resources, time, quality and customer satisfaction.

Let us see few responsibilities that a project manager shoulders -

Managing People  
                                                

●      Act as project leader

●      Liaison with stakeholders

●      Managing human resources

●      Setting up reporting hierarchy etc.

Managing Project
●      Defining and setting up project scope

●      Managing project management activities

●      Monitoring progress and performance

●      Risk analysis at every phase

●      Take necessary step to avoid or come out of problems

●      Act as project spokesperson

The job pattern of an IT company engaged in software development can be seen split in two parts:

●      Software Creation

●      Software Project Management

A project is well-defined task, which is a collection of several operations done in order to achieve a goal (for example, software development and delivery). A Project can be characterized as:

●      Every project may has a unique and distinct goal.

●      Project is not routine activity or day-to-day operations.

●      Project comes with a start time and end time.

●      Project ends when its goal is achieved hence it is a temporary phase in the lifetime of an organization.

●      Project needs adequate resources in terms of time, manpower, finance, material and knowledge-bank

Software Project
A Software Project is the complete procedure of software development from requirement gathering to testing and maintenance, carried out according to the execution methodologies, in a specified period of time to achieve intended software product.

Need of software project management
Software is said to be an intangible product. Software development is a kind of all new stream in world business and there’s very little experience in building software products. Most software products are tailor made to fit client’s requirements. The most important is that the underlying technology changes and advances so frequently and rapidly that experience of one product may not be applied to the other one. All such business and environmental constraints bring risk in software development hence it is essential to manage software projects efficiently.



The image above shows triple constraints for software projects. It is an essential part of software organization to deliver quality product, keeping the cost within client’s budget constrain and deliver the project as per scheduled. There are several factors, both internal and external, which may impact this triple constrain triangle. Any of three factor can severely impact the other two.

Therefore, software project management is essential to incorporate user requirements along with budget and time constraints.

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