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CHAPTER 3 PROJECT MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS 75

Four P’s have a substantial influence on software project management—people,
product, process, and project. People must be organized into effective teams, moti-
vated to do high-quality software work, and coordinated to achieve effective com-
munication. The product requirements must be communicated from customer to
developer, partitioned (decomposed) into their constituent parts, and positioned for
work by the software team. The process must be adapted to the people and the prob-
lem. A common process framework is selected, an appropriate software engineer-
ing paradigm is applied, and a set of work tasks is chosen to get the job done. Finally,
the project must be organized in a manner that enables the software team to suc-
ceed.
The pivotal element in all software projects is people. Software engineers can be
organized in a number of different team structures that range from traditional con-
trol hierarchies to “open paradigm” teams. A variety of coordination and communi-
cation techniques can be applied to support the work of the team. In general, formal
reviews and informal person-to-person communication have the most value for prac-
titioners.
The project management activity encompasses measurement and metrics, esti-
mation, risk analysis, schedules, tracking, and control. Each of these topics is con-
sidered in the chapters that follow.

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