Effective Software Project Management

Points to Remember

As I look back at the chapters in this part, I want to emphasize a few key points that you need to consider as you deliberate on the strategy to use in your project.

Risk Situations

Risk in the Linear SDPM strategy is minimal as compared to the other classes of projects I discuss later in the book. For the Linear SDPM strategy for the Standard Waterfall, the only risk specific to the strategy is the risk that you have not completely defined and clearly documented all requirements. I’m excluding exogenous factors because you have no control over them. They are going to happen regardless of the strategy you have adopted. But if you have chosen the wrong strategy and internal factors result in scope change requests, that is a different matter. So what are the consequences of that risk? Three significant ones are worth calling to your attention.

Schedule Slippages

This is probably the least costly of the three. You are going to add more work to accommodate added scope. The thinking project manager will present the customer with two alternatives.

• Keep the same schedule by reprioritizing requirements, removing the lowest priority one, and replacing it with the new scope request.
• Add the new scope request and move the schedule out far enough to accommodate it.

There is a third alternative, but that requires major surgery on the project plan. Briefly put, you change the approach to an Incremental one, release the current functionality for the first increment, add the ...