Page 36 - DCAP304_DCAP515_SOFTWARE_PROJECT_MANAGEMENT

Software Project Management

Notes
Examples: PRINCE2 and SSADM.

Tools

Insight is a tool for earned value management that incorporates with a broad range of project
management tools.
Critical Path

The critical path method operates on a directed acyclic graph that successively orders all tasks that
need to be completed in the project. We term this graph the project network. An instance of a
project network can be seen in Figure 1.5. The tasks connected in a project network are classically
the terminal elements of a Work Breakdown Structure. The graph states the order in which the
different tasks need to be completed, and the dependencies between them. Each task has an associated
cost in time. The critical path is the longest path from the start of the project to the finish, and its
cost is the shortest period in which the project can be completed. Any delay on tasks on the critical
path will delay the entire project. In our example, the critical path is (s; b; d; t), with a cost of 60 days.
A related concept is slack; this is the time that a single activity can be delayed, without delaying the
project. By description, the slack of all activities on the critical path is 0.

Application Area

Critical Path can be employed for task scheduling in just about any project management scheme.
Though, the grade of dependencies between the tasks must be high enough to make critical path
calculation useful. Calculating the critical path for all the deliverables in a (linear) waterfall
methodology just won’t be all that amazing.

Advantages

Critical Path analysis is very obvious and unambiguous. It can be used to identify the most
important activities, and make sure additional care is given to them. In addition, for activities
that are not on the critical path, the slack can be calculated and taken into account.

Disadvantages

Critical path was planned for routine activities, which can be estimated effortlessly and correctly.
Doubt about the duration of a task cannot be expressed in the critical path model, and reality can
then sometimes deviate from the model’s predictions.

Usage in Methodologies

For Critical Path scheduling to be effectual, tasks must be known early in advance, and for
analysis to be useful, the tasks must have visible dependencies. This makes it inappropriate for
methodologies like XP, where activities are small, scheduled only shortly in advance, and tasks
have few to no need upon each other.

Tools

Critical Path analysis is a basic project management technique that is extensively supported by
a variety of project management applications. A very well acknowledged one is Microsoft
Project [CP-MSPROJ]. Another means that can do Critical Path analysis is PlanBee [CP-PLANBEE].
Another one is Open Plan [CP-OPENPL]. These are all commercial applications. A Free Software

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