Page 74 - DCAP304_DCAP515_SOFTWARE_PROJECT_MANAGEMENT

Software Project Management

Notes  Activity has a deliverable.
 Time/cost is easily estimated.
 Activity duration is within acceptable limits.
 Work assignments are independent.

If the activity does not possess these six characteristics, decompose the activity and ask the
questions again. As soon as an activity possesses the six characteristics, there is no need to
further decompose it. As soon as every activity in the WBS possesses these six characteristics, the
WBS is defined as complete. The following unit look at each of these characteristics in more
detail.

Measurable Status

The project manager can ask for the status of an activity at any point in time during the project.
If the activity has been defined properly, that question is answered easily. For example, if a
system’s documentation is estimated to be about 300 pages long and requires approximately
four months of full-time work to write, here are some possible reports that your activity manager
could provide regarding the status:
1. Let’s see, the activity is supposed to take four months of full-time work. I’ve been working
on it for two months full-time. I guess I must be 50 per cent complete.

2. I’ve written 150 pages, so I guess I am 50 per cent complete.
3. I’ve written, and had approved, 150 pages and estimate that the remaining work will
require two more months. I am 50 per cent complete.

The answer (1) is not acceptable, as it does not indicate that after working for two-months full
time, the half work is completed. The answer (2) is a little better but it doesn’t say anything
about the quality of the 150 pages that have been written, nor does it say anything about the
re-estimate of the remaining work. And so we see that an acceptable answer must state what has
been actually completed (approved, not just written, in our example) and what remains to be
done, along with an estimate to completion. Therefore, after working through about half of the
activity, the activity manager should be able to give a very accurate estimate of the time required
to complete the remaining work.
A simple metric that has met with some success is to compute the proportion of tasks completed
as a percentage of all the tasks that make up the activity. For example, suppose the activity has
six tasks associated with it and four of the tasks are complete; the ratio of tasks complete to total
tasks is 4/6, that is, the activity is 66 per cent complete. Even if work had been done on the fifth
task in this activity, because the task is not complete on the report date, it cannot be counted in
the ratio. This metric certainly represents a very objective measure. Although it may seem
somewhat inaccurate, it is a good technique. Best of all, it is quick. Project manager and activity
manager do not have to sit around mired in detail about the percentage complete. This same
approach can be used to measure the earned value of an activity.

Bounded

Each activity should have a clearly defined start and end event. For example, using the systems
documentation example, the start event might be notification to the team member who will
manage the creation of the systems documentation that the final acceptance tests of the system
are complete. The end event would be notification to the project manager that the customer has
approved the system documentation.

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