Software Project & Risk Management is a 5-day course is designed to provide a knowledge base and practical skills for anyone interested in implementing or improving Software Project Management and Software Risk Management techniques and practices in their organization.   This course is a combinations of our 3-day Software Project Management and 2-day Software Risk Management courses.

This course starts with an overview of software project management basics, including a discussion of what a project is, why project management is important and an introduction to the project management process.  The overview also includes a discussion of the characteristics of a successful software project and the role of the software project manager.

Course attendees will learn what is involved in initiating a project, including defining the project’s boundaries, documenting the project’s charter, identifying project stakeholders and defining the project’s scope.  The software project planning activities are discussed.  Attendees will be taught how to document a project plan, including defining the project organization, creating a work breakdown structure, estimating project parameters, building an activity network and establishing project schedules and budgets. 

This course discusses the use of strategies and tactics involved in software project execution, the need for people leadership and management, and provides a checklist for evaluating the effectiveness of project team and stakeholder communications.  This course surveys various types of reviews and metrics that can be utilized to monitor the project’s progress.  This course also includes a discussion of project control techniques.

Attendees will learn how to close their projects, including reviewing project closure tasks, holding post project reviews and implementing post project metrics.

This course includes an overview of software risk management basics, including definitions of risk management terminology, a discussion of the importance of software risk management and different types of software risks and the introduction of the software risk management process.  Course attendees will learn how to utilize various techniques for identifying and communicating software risk.  These skills will be practiced using team exercises that relate the learned techniques to the attendees own software development projects.  Attendees will learn to analyze their identified risks through exploring the risk’s context, estimating risk probabilities and losses, calculating risk exposure, and considering the risk timeframe.  Attendees will practice utilizing this analysis information to prioritize their lists of identified risks.

Course attendees will explore various risk handling techniques and learn how to define risk containment and contingency plans.  The implementation of risk handling actions will be discussed.  This course will explore the use of various types of reviews and metrics to track software risks.  The course ends with an overview of critical success factors and barriers to implementing a software risk management program and a discussion of risk management principles.

Method of Instruction: This course is taught through lecture and interactive discussion.  Actual examples from the software industry are utilized to make the information relevant.  Throughout this course, learned skills are practiced using individual and team exercises.  The emphasis of this course is on techniques that allow the attendees to transition the skills learned in this course to their own work environments.  

Target Audience: Software project and program managers, functional managers, developers, testers, quality engineers and other software project stakeholders who will be involved in initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling and closing software projects and/or will be involved in identifying and analyzing risks, creating and implementing risk management plans and tracking risks.

Course Objectives: Upon successful completion of this course attendees will be able to:

•  Discuss the basic concepts and issues of software project management

• Plan your software projects

• Implement your project plans through managing people, communications and change

• Select and employ mechanisms for tracking your software projects

• Control your software projects

• Conduct activities necessary to successfully complete and close your software projects

• Identify, analyze, create handling plans for and track the risks to your software projects

Course Materials: Student notebooks are designed to provide reference materials that can be utilized by the attendees long after the completion of the course.  These materials include:

•  Copies of all presentation materials with annotated descriptive notes

• A bibliography of reference materials

• An index and glossary of Software Project and Risk Management Terms

Detailed Outline:

I: Project Management – The Basics

1. What is a Project?

a.  Project Defined

b.  Characteristics of a Project

c.  Software Project - Examples

d.  The Cost/Schedule/Scope Trilogy

e.  Plus Risk

f.  Software Project Context

2.  Why is Project Management Important?

a.  Purpose of Project Management

b.  Why is Software Project Management Important?

3. Software Project Management Process

a.  Project Management Process

b.  Project Management Knowledge Areas & Processes

c.  Project Life Cycle

d.  Project Management Documents

e.  Software Project Management Issues - Initiating

f.  Software Project Management Issues - Planning

g.  Software Project Management Issues - Executing

h.  Software Project Management Issues - Monitoring & Control

i.   Software Project Management Issues - Closing

4. Software Project Success

a.  Software Project Success

b.  Critical Project Success Factors

c.  Improve Software Project Success

5. Software Project Manager

a.  Project Manager

b.  Project Management Expertise

II: Software Project Initiation

1. Project Initiation

a.  Project Management Process

b.  Project Boundaries

c.  Project Sponsor

d.  Why are Projects Initiated?

2. Project Charter

a.  Project Charter

b.  Project Mission Statement

c.  Project Mission Statement – Exercise

d.  Project Justification

e.  Business Case Justification

f.  Primary Project Stakeholders

g.  Other Stakeholders

h.  Benefits of Identifying Stakeholders

i.  Steps to Identifying Stakeholders

j.  Step 1: Identifying Stakeholders

k.  Step 2: Prune the Stakeholder List

l.   Step 3: Define the Participation Strategy

m.  Identify Stakeholders - Exercise

n.  Stakeholders & Their Motives

3. Project Scope

a.  Scope Defined

b.  The Cost / Schedule / Scope Trilogy

c.  Project Scope

d.  Software Project Objectives

e.  Project Objectives – Examples

f.  Defining Project Objectives – Exercise

g.  Product Requirements

h.  Why are Requirements Important?

i.   Issue: Project Failure

j.  Progressive Elaboration

k.  Project Deliverables

l.   Project Constraints

III: Software Project Planning

1. Software Project Planning

a.  Software Project Management Process

b.  Project Planning Goals

c.  Project Planning

d.  Project Planning Process

e.  Software Project Plan Template

f.  Evolution of the Plan

2. Software Project Organization 

a.  Project Boundaries & External Interfaces

b.  Project Organization – Functional Structure

c.  Project Organization – Project Structure         

d.  Project Organization – Matrix Structure

e.  Roles & Responsibilities

3.  Work Breakdown Structure

a.  Work Breakdown Structure

b.  Types of Work Breakdown Structures

c.  Product Type WBS

d.  Process Type WBS

e.  Hybrid Type WBS

f.  Breaking the Project into Activities

g.  Include Everything

h.  Work Breakdown Structure - Exercise

i.   Did You Include It All – IEEE/IEA 12207

j.  WBS Dictionary - Example

k.  Activity Specification - Exercise

4. Estimation

a.  Estimation

b.  Estimation Methods – Expert Judgment

c.  PERT Method

d.  Estimation Methods – Model Based

e.  COCOMO II

f.  Other COCOMO Models

g.  SLIM

h.  Function Point Models

5. Activity Networks

a.  Schedule & Resources

b.  Activity Networks

c.  Activity Network Relationships

d.  Activity Network Exercise

6. Project Schedules & Budgets

a.  Staff & Resource Allocation

b.  Critical Path

c.  Dual Critical Paths

d.  Schedule Duration

e.  Staffing & Resource Allocation - Exercise

f.  Project Budgets

IV: Software Project Execution

1. Strategies & Tactics

a.  Project Management Process

b.  Software Project Execution

c.  Strategies & Tactics

d.  Strategy/Tactics Effectiveness Matrix

2.  People

a.  Leadership

b.  Project Leadership Functions

c.  Leadership Skills

d.  Situational Leadership

e.  People Management

f.  SEI People CMM

g.  People Management Functions

h.  Environment

3. Communications

a.  Project Team Communications

b.  External Stakeholder Communications

V: Software Project Monitoring & Control

1. Software Project Monitoring

a.  Project Management Process

b.  Monitoring & Control - Goals

c.  Software Project Monitoring

d.  Purpose of Project Reviews

e.  Entry & Exit Criteria

f.  Phase Gate Reviews

g.  Project Team Status Reviews

h.  Senior Management Reviews

i.   Project Audits

j.  Tracking Gantt Chart

k.  Earned Value

l.   Earned Value Tracking

m.  Activity Monitoring

n.  Staff & Resource Monitoring

o.  Productivity Monitoring

p.  Requirements Churn Metric

q.  Test Activity Monitoring

r.  Traceability Defined

s.  Bi-Directional Traceability

t.  Benefits of Traceability

u.  Traceability Matrix

v.  Traceability Tagging

w.  Product Quality

2. Software Project Control

a.  Software Project Control

b.  Actuals vs. Estimates

c.  Corrective Action

d.  Corrective Action Steps

e.  Requirements Management

f.  Configuration Control Procedures

g.  Configuration Control Process

h.  Approval Authority Process

i.   Impact Analysis

VI: Software Project Closure

1. Project Closure Tasks

a.  Project Management Process

b.  Why Project Closure is Important?

c.  Project Closure Tasks

2. Post Project Review

a.  Learning from Project History

b.  Post Project Review

c.  Post Project Review Forms

d.  Post Project Review Meeting

e.  Post Project Review Follow-up

3. Post Release Metrics

a.  Post Release Software Quality

b.  Availability

c.  Responsiveness to Customer Problems

d.  Customer Satisfaction

VII: Software Risk Management

1. Risk Management - The Basics

      a.  What is Risk Management?

      ·  Future Awareness

      ·  Risk Defined

      ·  Risk Exists

      ·  Risk / Reward Balance

      ·  Risk Probability & Loss

      ·  Risk Tolerance

b.  Why is Risk Management Important? 

      ·  The Software Challenge

      ·  Software Project Success Defined

      ·  The Plan Will Never Work

      ·  Why is Risk Management Important?

      ·  Risk Management Objectives

c.  Types of Software Risks

d.  Risk Management vs. Project Management

e.  The Risk Management Process 

      ·  Risk Management Process

      ·  Baseline Activity & Continuous Process

2. Software Risk Identification

a.  Risk Identification Goals

      ·  Distribution of Outcomes

      ·  Risk Identification Goals – Identify Risks

      ·  Risk Identification Goals – Prevent Surprises

      ·  Risk Identification Goals – Involve People at All Levels

      ·  Risk Identification Goals – Still Time to Act

      ·  Risk Identification Goals – Communicate

b.  Risk Identification Techniques

      ·  Inputs & Outputs

      ·  Cultural Barriers to Risk Identification

      ·  Risk Identification Techniques

      ·  Brainstorming

      ·  Brainstorming – Team Exercise

      ·  Interviewing

      ·  Interviewing – Team Exercise

      ·  Voluntary / Required Reporting

      ·   Project Decomposition

      ·   Product Decomposition

      ·   Assumption Analysis

      ·   Risk Taxonomies

      ·   Risk Taxonomy – Team Exercise

c.  Communicating Risks

      ·  Writing Risk Statements

      ·  Risk Statement – Team Exercise

      ·  Risk Form – Identification Section

3. Software Risk Analysis

a.  Risk Analysis Goals

      ·  Inputs & Outputs

      ·  Level of Formal Risk Assessment

b.  Risk Context

      ·  Analyzing Risk Context

      ·  Risk Context – Team Exercise

      ·  Process Decision Program Charts

      ·  Root Cause Analysis – 5 “Why?” Method

      ·  Root Cause Analysis – Cause & Effect (Fishbone) Diagram

      ·  Cause & Effect – Team Exercise

      ·  Process Cause & Effect Diagram

c.  Risk Probability & Loss

      ·  Risk Probability

      ·  Probability Lesson

      ·  Loss Analysis

      ·  Compound Risks

      ·  Risk Classification

d.  Risk Exposure & Timeframe

      ·  Another Probability Lesson

      ·  Risk Exposure

      ·  Risk Exposure – Team Exercise

      ·  Risk Timeframes

      ·  Multiple Timeframes

e.  Prioritize Risk List

      ·  The Cost/Schedule/Product Trilogy

      ·  Prioritizing Risks

      ·  Ranking by Exposure & Timeframe

      ·  Prioritization – Team Exercise

      ·  Comparison Risk Ranking

      ·  CCR – Team Exercise

      ·  Prioritization Matrix

      ·  Other Prioritization Techniques

      ·   Risk Form – Analysis Section

4. Software Risk Management Planning

a.  Risk Management Planning Goals

      ·  Planning Goals

      ·  Inputs & Outputs

b.  Risk Handling Techniques

      ·  Techniques for Handling Risks

      ·  Obtain Additional Information

      ·  Obtain Additional Information - Examples

      ·  Avoid the Risk

      ·  Avoid the Risk - Examples

      ·  Transfer the Risk

      ·  Transfer the Risk - Examples

      ·  Control the Risk: Containment Plans

      ·   Containment Plan - Examples

      ·   Assume the Risk: Contingency Plans

      ·   Contingency Plan - Examples

c.  Develop Risk Plans  

      ·  Two Kinds of Actions

      ·  Cost of Risk

      ·  Risk Reduction Leverage

      ·  Risk Form – Plan Section

      ·  Adjust Project Plans

      ·  Risk Planning Exercise

5. Taking Action

a.  Taking Action Goals

b.  Taking Action – Inputs & Outputs

c.  Just Do It

6. Risk Tracking

a.  Risk Tracking Goals

b.  Risk Tracking – Inputs & Outputs

c.  Tracking Mechanisms

d.  Reviews – Project Team

e.  Reviews – Senior Management

f.  Reviews – Major Milestone & Phase Gate

g.  Reviews – Entry & Exit Criteria

h.  Metrics – Ratio Variance

i.   Metrics – Absolute Delta Variance

j.   Metrics – Thresholds

k.   Risk Tracking – Team Exercise

7. Implementing a Risk Management Program 

a.  Five Stages of Risk Management

b. Critical Success Factors & Barriers

      ·  Critical Success Factors

      ·  People

      ·  Process

      ·  Infrastructure

      ·  Risk Management Policy Example

      ·  Barrier – “Don’t Even Talk About Risks”

      ·  Barrier – Fear

      ·  Barrier – “I’m Already Too Busy”

Other Software Project & Risk Management Courses:

Software Project Management: This 3-day course is designed to provide a knowledge base and practical skills for anyone interested in implementing or improving Software Risk Management techniques and practices in their organization. 

Software Risk Management:  This 2-day course is designed to provide a knowledge base and practical skills for anyone interested in implementing or improving Software Risk Management techniques and practices in their organization. 

Customized Software Project & Risk Management Courses:  Our software project and risk management courses are modularized so that they can be easily customized for in-house course offerings that focus on the specific content and topics needed to meet your organization’s exact training requirements. 

The Westfall Team can also customize this course or any of our other standard courses or develop unique software engineering, quality and project management courses to meet your exact in-house training needs and specifications.  For example, class exercises can be tailored to include actual examples from your organization in order to make the training more relevant to your environment.