Page 99 - DCAP305_PRINCIPLES_OF_SOFTWARE_ENGINEERING

Unit 5: Software Project Planning

Revise SDP Notes
Proposed changes to the SDP are analyzed and approved changes are implemented. After
changes are made, the SDP should follow the project’s standard review and approval process.
The biggest single problem that afflicts software developing is that of underestimating resources
required for a project. Developing a realistic project plan is essential to gain an understanding
of the resources required, and how these should be applied.

Types of plan:
• Software Development Plan: The central plan, which describes how the system will be
developed.
• Quality Assurance Plan: Specifies the quality procedures & standards to be used.
• Validation Plan: Defines how a client will validate the system that has been developed.
• Configuration Management Plan: Defines how the system will be configured and installed.

• Maintenance Plan: Defines how the system will be maintained.
• Staff Development Plan: Describes how the skills of the participants will be developed.

The objective of software project planning is to provide a framework that enables the manager
to make reasonable estimates of resources, cost, and schedule. These estimates are made within
a limited time frame at the beginning of a software project and should be updated regularly as
the project progresses. In addition, estimate should attempt to define “best case” and “worst
case” scenarios so that project outcomes can be bounded.
The planning objective is achieved through a process of information discovery that leads to
reasonable estimates. In the following sections, each of the activities associated with software
project planning is discussed.

The “software crisis” of the 1960s and 1970s was so called because of a string
of high profile software project failures over budget, overdue, etc.

5.1 Process Planning

The purpose of Software Project Planning is to set up reasonable strategy for performing the
software engineering and for supervision the software project.
Software Project Planning involves developing estimates for the work to be performed,
establishing the necessary commitments, and defining the plan to perform the work.
The software planning begins with a statement of the work to be performed and other constraints
and goals that define and bound the software project (those established by the practices of the
Requirements Management key process area). The software planning process includes steps to
estimate the size of the software work products and the resources needed, produce a schedule,
identify and assess software risks, and negotiate commitments. Iterating through these steps may
be necessary to establish the plan for the software project (i.e., the software development plan).

This plan provides the basis for performing and managing the software project’s activities
and addresses the commitments to the software project’s customer according to the resources,
constraints, and capabilities of the software project.
“Planning – a clean sheet of paper and anything is possible”
In this phase we will concentrate on the actual planning of a project and include activities such as:

• Setting up milestones

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