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56 PART TWO MANAGING SOFTWARE PROJECTS

QUICK establishing mechanisms to mon- How do I ensure that I’ve done it right? You’re
LOOK itor and control work defined by never completely sure that the project plan is right
the plan. until you’ve delivered a high-quality product on
What is the work product? A project plan is pro- time and within budget. However, a project man-
duced as management activities commence. The ager does it right when he encourages software
plan defines the process and tasks to be con- people to work together as an effective team,
ducted, the people who will do the work, and the focusing their attention on customer needs and
mechanisms for assessing risks, controlling product quality.
change, and evaluating quality.

agement activities that lead to effective risk monitoring, mitigation, and management
are presented in Chapter 6. Chapter 7 discusses the activities that are required to
define project tasks and establish a workable project schedule. Finally, Chapters 8
and 9 consider techniques for ensuring quality as a project is conducted and con-
trolling changes throughout the life of an application.

3.1 THE MANAGEMENT SPECTRUM
Effective software project management focuses on the four P’s: people, product,
process, and project. The order is not arbitrary. The manager who forgets that soft-
ware engineering work is an intensely human endeavor will never have success in
project management. A manager who fails to encourage comprehensive customer
communication early in the evolution of a project risks building an elegant solution
for the wrong problem. The manager who pays little attention to the process runs the
risk of inserting competent technical methods and tools into a vacuum. The manager
who embarks without a solid project plan jeopardizes the success of the product.

3.1.1 The People
The cultivation of motivated, highly skilled software people has been discussed since
the 1960s (e.g., [COU80], [WIT94], [DEM98]). In fact, the “people factor” is so impor-
tant that the Software Engineering Institute has developed a people management capa-
bility maturity model (PM-CMM), “to enhance the readiness of software organizations
“There exists to undertake increasingly complex applications by helping to attract, grow, motivate,
enormous variability deploy, and retain the talent needed to improve their software development capabil-
in the ability of
different people to ity” [CUR94].
perform The people management maturity model defines the following key practice areas
programming for software people: recruiting, selection, performance management, training, com-
tasks.” pensation, career development, organization and work design, and team/culture
Bill Curtis development. Organizations that achieve high levels of maturity in the people man-
agement area have a higher likelihood of implementing effective software engineer-
ing practices.
The PM-CMM is a companion to the software capability maturity model (Chap-
ter 2) that guides organizations in the creation of a mature software process. Issues