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Subject: Project Planning Approaches

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andypeterson User is Offline

Apprentice
Posts:16

13-03-2008 6:44 AM
I am currently researching a task I’ve been given about project planning in software development (might apply to other areas of project planning). The task is to "analyse the suitability of current approaches, relating theory to practice ". By approaches do you think that methodologies such as Prince2 are an approach? What are the other approaches? Thanks!!! Andy

Eric247

Apprentice
Posts:10

14-03-2008 7:16 AM
Hi Andy, Re: "analyse the suitability of current approaches, relating theory to practice". My view is that most traditional theory is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT to SW development. As the American Yogi Berra said "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.” I think one of the truest and most profound statements on this point can be found here (page 5, para starting with "In a nutshell"): http://www.controlchaos.com/download/Book%20Excerpt.pdf Hope this is a useful to you.

David Jones User is Offline

Apprentice
Posts:17

14-03-2008 1:04 PM
I'd be interested to read your report Andy. I have always considered planning and estimating for projects encompassing a creative process (design, engineering, software dev.) to be missing something fundamental. The problem as I see it is that · the scope of work is not discrete - there is more than one way to skin the cat and a better idea halfway though can change the course of the deliverable. I do not mean scope creep here. · Mental effort is hard to estimate - Physical work is just easier to estimate. Fatigue and personal problems can cause greater variances in productivity for mental efforts IMO. With regards to your original question, I have not heard so much about theories/approaches to project planning in software development as opposed to project estimating: · Function Point Analysis · COCOMO · COSMOS and/or project management: · Agile Project Management · Critical Chain/TOC · IDEAL

Lloyd M

Apprentice
Posts:12

17-03-2008 9:17 AM
Agiles approaches have developped some new project management methodologies based on practice. You will find below some references: * Adaptative Project Management Using Scrum by Craig Murphy This article provides a basic overview of Scrum, an agile process for managing software development project. http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=18 * Delivering Real Business Value using Feature Driven Development by Grant Cause This article provides a basic overview of FDD, an agile approach for managing software development project.

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