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1 - INTRODUCTION

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Enterprise IT. The type of contract with an external customer may also affect the way in which a software project
is governed.
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1.5.2.3 The Relationship Between Project Management and Organizational Strategy

The statements in Section 1.5.2.3 of the PMBOK Guide apply equally to software projects, which should be undertaken
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to support the strategies and goals of the organization. Successful software organizations align their projects with the
organization’s strategic goals to ensure that organizational assets are best utilized towards the attainment of those goals.

1.6 Business Value

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According to Section 1.6 of the PMBOK Guide, business value is defined as the entire value of the business; the
total sum of all tangible and intangible elements. A software product may be a proprietary product of the business
and provide a major revenue stream for that business or business unit. In some cases, infrastructure and customer
support software may be capitalized and depreciated over time. Software products are sometimes developed for
use across multiple systems, thus increasing the business value of those products.

Because software is the product of closely coordinated teamwork that is often innovative, the intellectual capital
of a software organization (the software developers, maintainers, and other software personnel) is an especially
important element of business value. Another important element of business value for software organizations is
the set of processes, procedures, and techniques that enable software project managers and product developers
to be efficient and effective by enhancing communication and coordination among individuals, teams, projects,
programs, clients, users, customers, customer bases, and other external stakeholders. Proprietary and unique
processes, procedures, and techniques that provide business also add business value.

1.7 The Role of a Project Manager

As stated in Section 1.7 of the PMBOK Guide, the role of a project manager is distinct from that of a functional
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manager or an operations manager. However, software project work may be organized by product component
(e.g., user interface, database, computation, and communication software), functionally by process component
(e.g., analysis, design, construction, testing, and installation/training processes), or by subsystem (e.g., weather,
radar, air traffic display). The project team may be organized in a functional manner, for example, and the software
project manager may be the manager of the project’s functional units during planning and execution of that project.
Furthermore, a large software project may be treated as a software program that is decomposed into multiple
projects; each having a project manager whose work products are merged into a product stream.
In addition to the characteristics of project managers listed in the PMBOK Guide (knowledge, performance, and
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personal), software project managers provide leadership in:

s Initiating, planning, and developing estimates and plans both initially and on an ongoing basis as
conditions change;

2 COBIT 5 is a series of products available from ISACA.

©2013 Project Management Institute. Software Extension to the PMBOK Guide Fifth Edition 13
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