Gestão de projectos de software com QFD e ABC

Dissertação de Mestrado em Sistemas de InformaçãoA situação actual de elevada concorrência comercial coloca múltiplos problemas às organizações que fazem do software o seu Core Business, designadamente, o controlo dos custos, a qualidade do software, a comunicação entre as organizações e os clientes, o controlo da produtividade e a gestão do risco. Ao longo do tempo foram desenvolvidas diversas abordagens à gestão de projectos e, mais recentemente, à gestão de projectos de software, o que por sua vez, despoletou muitas propostas metodológicas para o desenvolvimento do software, concretamente, para gestão do ciclo de vida do software (Cascata, Incremental, Evolutivo, etc.), sendo as mais actuais denominadas metodologias ágeis (XP, Scrum, Crystal, etc.). Acontece que as metodologias tradicionais, e mesmo as mais modernas, não conseguiram, ainda, dar resposta aos principais problemas da gestão de projectos de software. Estes problemas não são exclusivos desta área, pois em todas as áreas da indústria, com maior ou menor intensidade, tem-se verificado a existência destes mesmos problemas, para os quais foram sendo desenvolvidas soluções, com bons resultados, designadamente o desdobramento da qualidade (QFD), o custeio por actividades (ABC) e a sua mais recente evolução, o custeio por actividades orientado ao tempo (Time-Driven ABC), a orçamentação por actividades (ABB) e a correspondente versão temporal (Time-Driven ABB). Estas são opções que, ainda, estão a dar os primeiros passos na indústria do software, existindo muito poucos trabalhos sobre a sua aplicação, de forma integrada, à gestão de projectos de software. O principal objectivo desta dissertação é propor um Framework de Gestão de Projectos de Software, que procure dar resposta aos problemas que inquietam as organizações dedicadas à produção de software, mediante a aplicação do QFD, o ABC/Time-Driven ABC e ABB/Time-Driven ABB, integrados por meio da Engenharia do Valor (EV) ou de modelos de Programação Linear (LP) – que funcionam como elementos agregadores do framework; para o controlo e monitorização da qualidade e dos custos é proposta a utilização da gestão do valor ganho (EVM).The current situation of high commercial competition, poses many problems for organizations that make software its Core Business, in particular, control costs, software quality, communication between organizations and customers, productivity control and risk management. Over time, were developed several approaches to the management of projects and, more recently, to software project management, which in turn, triggered many methodological proposals for software development, specifically for managing the software life cycle (Waterfall, Incremental, Evolutionary, etc.), the most current called agile methodologies (XP, Scrum, Crystal, etc.). However, the traditional methods, and even the most modern, failed responding to the main problems of software project management. These problems are not exclusive from this area, because all areas of industry, with greater or lesser intensity, record the existence of these same problems, for which solutions were developed, with good results, including quality function deployment (QFD), activity-based costing (ABC) and its latest developments, time-driven activitybased costing (Time-Driven ABC), activity-based budgeting (ABB) and the corresponding time-driven version (Time-Driven ABB). These are options that are still taking the first steps in software industry, where is very little work on its application, in an integrated way, to software project management. The main objective of this dissertation is to propose a Software Project Management Framework, which seeks to respond to the problems that concern organizations dedicated to software production, by application of QFD, ABC/Time-Driven ABC and ABB/Time-Driven ABB, integrated through Value Engineering (EV) or models of Linear Programming (LP) - functioning as framework aggregation elements; for the control and monitoring of quality and costs is proposed the usage of earned value management (EVM)

An evolutionary software project management maturity model for developing countries

The evidence of project management is known for centuries as can be observed from the construction of the pyramids of Egypt and the Great Wall of China. In the modern age, project-based approaches are increasingly being adopted in almost all areas of product development. Project management has emerged as a specialised discipline since the importance of completing projects within time, cost and quality constraints is crucial for organisations to continue to survive in the competitive world. Project Management, in general, has been developed under the assumption of economic, political, cultural and social rationality. Little is known about indigenous project management in developing countries. The concepts and principles put forward in Western/European countries have been applied to developing countries without much prior studies. Developing nations are struggling constantly to maintain their projects within the constraints of time, cost and quality. Software development companies have found it difficult to adopt methodologies/models/standards that have shown evidence of success in the developed world. This thesis comprises the study of software project management in developing countries. Mauritius, as an instance of developing countries, with problems related to social, economic, cultural and political conditions are discussed. However, these conditions differ from country to country. It is believed that adjustments are required in a software project management framework to fit the requirements of a country. An evolutionary software project management maturity model is proposed for managing software development in developing countries. This model adopts an evolutionary approach, whereby areas of interest (called key process areas) progressively attain maturity. Three levels of maturity are defined along with key process areas that are applicable over all the maturity levels (called the i continuous process improvement group of KPAs). The model is also applied to two software projects in Mauritius to test its effectiveness. Given the studies carried out and its successful application to the Mauritian context, this model for software project management is expected to contribute towards a higher software project success rate. Notwithstanding the application in the Mauritian context, it is plausible that other developing countries may also customise this model as similar problems occur across these countries.ComputingD.Phil. (Computer Science

Towards a unified methodology for supporting the integration of data sources for use in web applications

Organisations are making increasing use of web applications and web-based systems as an integral part of providing services. Examples include personalised dynamic user content on a website, social media plug-ins or web-based mapping tools. For these types of applications to have maximum use for the user where the applications are fully functional, they require the integration of data from multiple sources. The focus of this thesis is in improving this integration process with a focus on web applications with multiple sources of data. Integration of data from multiple sources is problematic for many reasons. Current integration methods tend to be domain specific and application specific. They are often complex, have compatibility issues with different technologies, lack maturity, are difficult to re-use, and do not accommodate new and emerging models and integration technologies. Technologies to achieve integration, such as brokers and translators do exist, but they cannot be used as a generic solution for developing web-applications achieving the integration outcomes required for successful web application development due to their domain specificity. It is because of these difficulties with integration, and the wide variety of integration approaches that there is a need to provide assistance to the developer in selecting the integration approach most appropriate to their needs. This thesis proposes GIWeb, a unified top-down data integration methodology instantiated with a framework that will aid developers in their integration process. It will act as a conceptual structure to support the chosen technical approach. The framework will assist in the integration of data sources to support web application builders. The thesis presents the rationale for the need for the framework based on an examination of the range of applications, associated data sources and the range of potential solutions. The framework is evaluated using four case studies

Improving project management planning and control in service operations environment.

Projects have evidently become the core activity in most companies and organisations where they are investing significant amount of resources in different types of projects as building new services, process improvement, etc. This research has focused on service sector in attempt to improve project management planning and control activities. The research is concerned with improving the planning and control of software development projects. Existing software development models are analysed and their best practices identified and these have been used to build the proposed model in this research. The research extended the existing planning and control approaches by considering uncertainty in customer requirements, resource flexibility and risks level variability. In considering these issues, the research has adopted lean principles for planning and control software development projects. A novel approach introduced within this research through the integration of simulation modelling techniques with Taguchi analysis to investigate ‗what if‘ project scenarios. Such scenarios reflect the different combinations of the factors affecting project completion time and deliverables. In addition, the research has adopted the concept of Quality Function Deployment (QFD) to develop an automated Operations Project Management Deployment (OPMD) model. The model acts as an iterative manner uses ‗what if‘ scenario performance outputs to identify constraints that may affect the completion of a certain task or phase. Any changes made during the project phases will then automatically update the performance metrics for each software development phases. In addition, optimisation routines have been developed that can be used to provide management response and to react to the different levels of uncertainty. Therefore, this research has looked at providing a comprehensive and visual overview of important project tasks i.e. progress, scheduled work, different resources, deliverables and completion that will make it easier for project members to communicate with each other to reach consensus on goals, status and required changes. Risk is important aspect that has been included in the model as well to avoid failure. The research emphasised on customer involvement, top management involvement as well as team members to be among the operational factors that escalate variability levels 3 and effect project completion time and deliverables. Therefore, commitment from everyone can improve chances of success. Although the role of different project management techniques to implement projects successfully has been widely established in areas such as the planning and control of time, cost and quality; still, the distinction between the project and project management is less than precise and a little was done in investigating different levels of uncertainty and risk levels that may occur during different project phase.United Arab Emirates Governmen

Determinar el software de gestión adecuado para acelerar la toma de decisiones durante el testeo de un proyecto IT

La tesis tiene como objeto de estudio a la empresa Unilever ya que la misma utiliza un software de gestión para el seguimiento de avances de testeos en proyectos de Tecnología de la Información (IT1) que no responde con las necesidades de información en tiempo y forma requerida para la toma de decisiones

Accountability in projects: Project manager perspective

This thesis seeks to enhance comprehension of accountability from the perspective of project managers. Both “project management” and “accountability” are ubiquitous terms that have not always been clearly defined in the literature. In addition, whilst much research has looked at accountability in projects from the perspective of the project board and the relationship to the wider organisation, there has been very limited work on accountability from the perspective of the project manager. Diverging from past approaches to accountability, this study adopts a manager-centric stance. Guided by the pragmatist stance, the study adopts a qualitative research design, with the project manager as the unit of analysis. The data set consist of forty-six semi-structured in- depth interviews, with feedback from forty-six project managers, each with differing levels of experience, across a variety of industries. The findings are derived from the thematic analysis of the interview data. A key finding suggests that project managers positively embrace their accountability demands as selfaccountability, directly related to their own self-management, as opposed to being influenced by formal external accountability pressures. This finding supports the position that accountability is seen by project managers as the positive action of constructively achieving agreed outcomes, as opposed to accountability in the general business environment, which is a term that can often be viewed, in common usage, as a negative concept implying fault if goals are not achieved. This research also supports the suggestion, initially raised by project managers, that there is that is a mismatch between the demands of being accountable and the requisite levels of formal authority. The findings highlight behavioural strategies adopted by practitioners to rectify the balance. This research also identifies the areas of the project for which the project manager explicitly accepts accountability. Taken together, the findings offer a novel framework of the project manager’s accountability. The study makes several important contributions to theory. The work generates a renewed conceptualisation of accountability in the context of project management, providing theoretical clarity in this relatively novel context. The final framework integrates several distinct strands to offer a more comprehensive view of accountability. This study offers two new tools for future scholars of project managers to adopt. The first is participatory theory, a theory which has never previously been deployed in the project management context. The study shows that this theory can serve as a useful lens for future scholars, offering an opportunity to advance research in this area with a new lens that accommodates time sensitive and outcomes-based results. Secondly, the study identifies several enhancements to Laughlin’s accountability model that aim to improve its effectiveness as a tool that can be used to illustrate project managers consider and behave when given accountability. For practitioners, this study highlights the importance of several tools that the project manager might gainfully employ and suggests these tools should be taught in any practically valuable project management training

A Survey on Software Project Management Report Part I Importance of Project Management Areas (Short Version)

Visit research website for more information and reports http://faculty.nps.edu/kdemir/spm.htmObjectives of this Study: The objectives of this study are to identify (i) the importance of various project management areas and (ii) project management challenges in software projects. This study is conducted to form a basis for a software project management framework. This report focuses on the first part of the objective. The project management areas are identified through extensive literature search and software practitioner interviews