Write Role of Management

Proper management is an integral part of software development. A large software development project involves many people working for a long period of time. We have seen that a development process typically partitions the problem of developing software into a set of phases.

To meet the cost, quality, and schedule objectives, resources have to be properly allocated to each activity for the project, and progress of different activities has to be monitored and corrective actions taken, if needed.

All these activities are part of the project management process. The project management process component of the software process specifies all activities that need to be done by the project management to ensure that cost and quality objectives are met. Its basic task is to ensure that, once a development process is chosen, it is implemented optimally.

The focus of the management process is on issues like planning a project, estimating resource and schedule, and monitoring and controlling the project. In other words, the basic task is to plan the detailed implementation of the process for the particular project and then ensures that the plan is followed. For a large project, a proper management process is essential for success. The activities in the management process for a project can be grouped broadly into three phases:-

            Planning
            Monitoring and control
            Termination analysis

Project management begins with planning, which is perhaps the single largest responsibility of the project management. The goal of this phase is to develop a plan for software development following which the objectives of the project can be met successfully and efficiently. Project monitoring and control phase of the management process is the longest in terms of duration. It encompasses most of the development process.

It includes all activities the project management has to perform while the development is going on to ensure that project objectives are met and the development proceeds according to the developed plan. As cost, schedule, and quality are the major driving forces, most of the activity of this phase revolves around monitoring factors that affect them.

Termination analysis is performed when the development process is over. The basic reason for performing termination analysis is to provide information about the development process. Remember that a project is an instantiation of the process. To understand the properties of the process, data from many projects that used the process can be used to make predictions and estimations about future projects. The data about the project is also needed to analyze the process.