Active Running Software Project Management



Active Running Software Project Management

Abstract

Various methodologies and techniques are in use today, for software project management. Different methodologies fit to different applications, as these methodologies have certain advantages and disadvantages. Some of these methodologies include SSADM, RUP, XP, and Scrum. This paper describes these methodologies of software project management, their advantages/disadvantages, applications and relations to each other.

Introduction

A wide variety of software project management methodologies exist, which vary in the applications, advantages and disadvantages (Huijbers, et.al, 2004). A methodology can be simply defined as a codified set of best or recommended practices. This essay aims to provide information about the most commonly used methodologies and their key points. In addition, the relationships or coupling between the discussed methodologies are described.

SSADM: Structured Systems Analysis and Design Methodology

SSADM provides an organized way for developing and implementing information system solution. Mostly these methodologies follow a sequential list of steps, in which output of each step becomes the input of next step (Kay, 2012). The major phases of SSADM include the investigation phase, systems analysis phase, system design phase, implementation phase, and finally the integration and testing phase. In the next section, these phases are discussed briefly.

Investigation Phase

Before starting working on any software project, the first phase is to investigate the requirements of the project, and observe the current working conditions and environment. It is also essential to observe the data input, storage and output processes. This becomes particularly important if the company has been using manual systems in the past, and the purpose of SSADM is to transform the older manual information systems into software or computerized information systems.

Feasibility Assessment of the Project

Once the investigation is done, second step is to evaluate the feasibility of software to be developed. Usually, the development team evaluates the project for operational, technical, schedule and economic feasibility.

System Analysis Phase

After investing the project incorporating all the possible means and research, and checking feasibility of the project from various aspects, next phase of SSADM deals with analyzing the system under development. At the end of this phase, the project development team develops and management of the company gets a clear idea, that how the new software project is going to help in improving efficiency of the company's business operations.

Systems Design Phase

The purpose of the design phase is to transform the information collected in the previous step into comprehensive system architecture. The major steps of this phase include the design of user interface and output, the design of data and finally the architecture of system. The user interface is designed with the help of requirements collected during the investigation phase. For designing data, Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) is used to determine the relationships between different objects of the system. For assisting the programmers, the pseudo code is also generated during the design phase.

Implementation Phase

After the initial investigation, feasibility study, and design phases, the development team will be in possession of the documents that could be used for coding and implementation of the ...