Software Project Planning

Purpose: to provide a faremwork that enables the manager to make reasoble estimates of resources, cost and schedule.

Software Project Planning

o understand the scope of the problem

o make use of past historical data (metrics)

o perform functional decomposition

o estimate effort and/or function and/or size

o perform risk analysis

o develop a work breakdown structure

o define a project schedule

Software Scope:

• Software scope descibes-

– Function - estimation

– Performance – processing and response time requirements

– Constraints – limits placed on the SW by external HW, available memory, etc.

– Interfaces

– Reliability

• The analyst might ask

– Who is behind the request for this work?

– Who will use the solution

– What will be economical benefit of a successful solution

– Is there another source for the solution

• Ask To customer-

– How wouldd you charachterize good output that would be generated by a successful solution?

– What problem(s) will this solution address?

– Can you show me the environment in which the solution will be used

– Are there special performance issues or constraints that will affect the way the solution is approached

Functional Decomposition:

Cost Estimation:

... occasionally we actually estimate costs -most of the

time we merely validate budgetary constraints ...

• project scope must be explicitly defined
• task and/or functional decomposition is necessary
• historical measures (metrics) are very helpful
• at least two different techniques should be used
• remember that uncertainty is inherent