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Click HereINTRODUCTION
ProjectPlanningis a difficultprocess in the project management cycle.
Nevertheless, it also the mostimportantphase tocoordinatetheproject activities
effectivelyand make theprojectworkimplementedsuccessfully. In Hughes & Cotterell (2009) theStep
WiseApproachframeworkcomprisesanumberofsteps that should be taken into consideration when
planning a project. Themajorstepinprojectplanningistoplaninoutlinefirstandthento flesh out moredetail.Step Wise allowsindividualtechniquessuchasestimating,criticalpathnetwork analysisandriskmanagementto
be appliedat different
steps. Althoughthe frameworkcontainsastep‘executeplan’itonlycoversthe planningnotthemonitoringandcontrol.Theapproachwasdesignedtocomplement the PRINCE2method,whichisaset
ofprojectmanagement standards.
Step Wise follows a 10 step technique starting at
Step 0 ‘Select Project’. Step 0 is defined as outside the main project planning
process. This is where the feasibility study is done and the project selection
is made. The main steps are Step 1 through to Step 10. Each step of the project
planning has different activities to perform:
·
Step 1 and 2, ‘Identify
the scope and objectives’ as well as ‘Identify project infrastructure’
respectively can be done simultaneously.
·
Step 4, ‘Identify the
products and activities’ are reviewed
·
Step 5 and 6, ‘Estimate
effort for each activity’ and ‘Identify activity risks’ respectively are
iterative in nature that is to say, they need to be repeated for each activity
in the project.
·
Step 7 and Step 8, ‘Allocate
resources’ and ‘Review/publicize plan’ are prerequisite to execution of the
plan.
·
In a large project, Steps
5 to 8 are repeated at each lower, more detailed, level of planning.
·
In Steps 9 and 10, ‘Execute
plan’ and ‘Lower-level of planning’ respectively: Planning continues into the
project life cycle and thus there is a reiteration of the planning process
requirement at a lower level. That is, once the project is underway, plans
needs to be drawn up in greater detail for each activity as it becomes due.
Detailed and lower-level of planning of the later stages is normally delayed
because more information will only become available as we near the start of the
next stage.
There are other available software project
planning methods that can be applied in the software project planning process such
as the Top-Down Estimation method which is more suitable the project planning
in the software engineering context and Vision-to-Projects (V2P) Framework. V2P
provides a dynamic framework from which we can derive the
most necessary projects that the organization should implement in order to
achieve or align to the individual organization’s strategic intentions. In V2P
these projects can include a wide range of fields, one of which could be, should
be, would be, software engineering. In a nutshell, software project
planning is more focused on creating a plan to implement the selected project(s),
whereas the V2P framework is more focused on determining which projects to
implement.