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CHAPTER 3 PROJECT MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS 69

(2) the characteristics of the product itself, and (3) the project environment in which
the software team works. When a process model has been selected, the team then
defines a preliminary project plan based on the set of common process framework
activities. Once the preliminary plan is established, process decomposition begins.
That is, a complete plan, reflecting the work tasks required to populate the frame-
work activities must be created. We explore these activities briefly in the sections that
follow and present a more detailed view in Chapter 7.

3.4.1 Melding the Product and the Process
Project planning begins with the melding of the product and the process. Each func-
tion to be engineered by the software team must pass through the set of framework
activities that have been defined for a software organization. Assume that the organ-
ization has adopted the following set of framework activities (Chapter 2):
• Customer communication—tasks required to establish effective requirements
elicitation between developer and customer.
• Planning—tasks required to define resources, timelines, and other project-
Remember : related information.
framework activities
are applied on every • Risk analysis—tasks required to assess both technical and management risks.
project—no • Engineering—tasks required to build one or more representations of the
exceptions.
application.
• Construction and release—tasks required to construct, test, install, and pro-
vide user support (e.g., documentation and training).

• Customer evaluation—tasks required to obtain customer feedback based on
evaluation of the software representations created during the engineering
activity and implemented during the construction activity.
The team members who work on a product function will apply each of the frame-
work activities to it. In essence, a matrix similar to the one shown in Figure 3.2 is
created. Each major product function (the figure notes functions for the word-pro-
cessing software discussed earlier) is listed in the left-hand column. Framework
Product and process activities are listed in the top row. Software engineering work tasks (for each frame-
decomposition occur 5
simultaneously as the work activity) would be entered in the following row. The job of the project man-
project plan evolves. ager (and other team members) is to estimate resource requirements for each matrix
cell, start and end dates for the tasks associated with each cell, and work products
to be produced as a consequence of each task. These activities are considered in
Chapters 5 and 7.

5 It should be noted that work tasks must be adapted to the specific needs of a project. Framework
activities always remain the same, but work tasks will be selected based on a number of adapta-
tion criteria. This topic is discussed further in Chapter 7 and at the SEPA Web site.