What Is Project Management Software?

Project management software is a computer application designed to help plan and control project resources, costs, and schedules. It is mainly used to collect, synthesize and distribute the inputs and outputs of the project management process. Traditional project management software includes functional modules such as time schedule, cost control, resource scheduling, and graphical report output. However, starting from the content of project management, it should also include contract management, procurement management, risk management, quality management, claim management, and organization management. And other functions. If these software functions are integrated and integrated together, they constitute a project management information system. ^[1]

Project management software

Project management software is a computer application designed to help plan and control project resources, costs, and schedules. It is mainly used to collect, synthesize and distribute the inputs and outputs of the project management process. Traditional project management software includes functional modules such as time schedule, cost control, resource scheduling, and graphical report output. However, starting from the content of project management, it should also include contract management, procurement management, risk management, quality management, claim management, and organization management. And other functions. If these software functions are integrated and integrated together, they constitute a project management information system. ^[1]

Project management is to enable work items to meet predetermined needs,

A common feature of some project management software programs is that

Although there are many benefits to using project management software, there are a few things you should pay attention to while using them, while avoiding some of the pitfalls as much as possible.

Here are some factors to consider when purchasing a project management software package. Depending on your personal needs, some of the following factors may be more important or less important to you than others.

1. capacity

This is mainly to consider whether the system can handle the number of projects you are expected to perform, the number of resources you need, and the number of projects you are managing at the same time.

2. Documentation and online help functions

The quality of the documentation and online help functions for each project management software package differs, with large differences. Mainly consider the readability of the user manual, the logical expression of the concepts in the user manual, the level of detail of the manual and online help, the quantity, quality, and level of description of advanced performance.

3 Simple operation

This is usually the case regardless of which software package you choose. Mainly consider the system's "view" and "feel" effects, menu structure, available shortcut keys, color display, information capacity for each display, ease of data entry, current

I. Risk background of software development projects

The development of the information industry is currently one of the fastest growing industries and one that has the greatest impact on society. It has not only created huge wealth for us, but also changed our lives in all aspects, from an industry to a small one. A service. We have to admit that software is the most incredible product of the twenty-first century.

Software development projects have a high degree of risk because of their continuity, complexity, less reference, and no standard specifications. At present, most domestic software development enterprises still lack the awareness of the risks of software development projects, and lack the means of systematic and effective measurement and evaluation. According to survey data, 15-35% of software projects were cancelled midway through, and the remaining projects were either overdue or exceeded budgets or failed to meet expected goals. In addition, about 90% of software project failures due to risk control and management reasons can be seen, the importance of software risk control and management in current software development projects.

2. Risk sources of software development projects and their impact on project success or failure

Software development project risk refers to all budget, schedule, and control problems encountered in the software life cycle, and the impact on software projects caused by these problems. Software project risks often involve many aspects, such as: lack of user participation, lack of support from senior management, vague requirements, lack of planning and management, etc. In general, there should be five major aspects.

1. Product scale risk

Project risk is proportional to the size of the product. Common risk factors related to software scale are: (1) methods for estimating product size (including: code lines, number of files, function points, etc.), (2) trust in product size estimation, and (3) product size versus previous products The deviation of the average value of the scale, (4) the number of users of the product, (5) how much software is reused, (6) how much the demand for the product changes, etc. As a general rule, the larger the product size, the more prominent the above problems, especially the method of estimating the product size, how much software is reused, and demand changes.

2. Demand risk

Many projects face some uncertainty in determining their needs. When these uncertainties are tolerated early in the project and are not resolved during the project's progress, these issues will pose a great threat to the success of the project. If you do not control demand-related risk factors, you are likely to produce the wrong product or poorly build the expected product. The customer-related risk factors are: (1) lack of clear understanding of the product, (2) lack of recognition of product demand, (3) insufficient customer participation in making the demand, (4) no priority demand, and (5) The identified needs lead to new markets, (6) constantly changing needs, (7) lack of an effective demand change management process, and (8) lack of relevant analysis of demand changes.

Relevance risk

Many risks arise from the external environment or the relevance of factors. Often we don't do enough to control external dependencies, so mitigation strategies should include a possibility plan to get the necessary components from a secondary or collaborative work resource, and to detect potential problems. Factors related to the external environment are: (1) customer provision items or information, (2) interaction members or interaction group dependencies, (3) internal or external subcontractor relationships, and (4) availability of experienced personnel (5) Reusability of the project.

4.Technical risk

The rapid development of software technology and the lack of experienced staff mean that the project team may affect the success of the project due to technical reasons. . There are mainly the following risk factors: (1) lack of training, (2) insufficient understanding of methods, tools and technologies, (3) insufficient experience in application fields, (4) application of new technologies and development methods, etc.

5.Manage risk

Although management issues limit the success of many projects, don't be surprised that not all management activities are included in the risk management plan. In most projects, the project manager is often the person who writes the project risk management plan. They have a congenital deficiency-it is the hardest to check their own errors. However, issues like these can make project success more difficult. If these difficult issues are not addressed squarely, they are likely to affect the project itself at some stage of the project. When we define the project tracking process and clarify project roles and responsibilities, we can deal with these risk factors: (1) the plan and task are not sufficiently defined, (2) the actual project status, and (3) the project owner and decision maker are not clear , (4) unrealistic commitments, (5) communication between employees, etc.

6. Security risks

The software product itself is a creative product, and the core technology of the product itself is very important to keep secret. But for a long time, our software security awareness is relatively weak. The development of software products mainly focuses on the technology itself, and ignores the protection of patents. The flow of technical personnel in the software industry is a very common phenomenon. With the loss and change of technical personnel, it can lead to the leakage of products and new technologies, and cause our software products to be stolen by other companies, leading to project failures. In addition, there is no clear industry norm for the identification of intellectual property rights in software, which is also a potential risk for our software projects.

Third, risk analysis, management and control

1.Risk analysis

The various risks mentioned above are huge hidden dangers of the success or failure of the project. They have a great impact on the success or failure of the software development project. We can use risk analysis tools to analyze the above types of risks, and control and manage them. To the lowest. A common approach is the risk entry checklist, which uses a set of questions to help project risk managers understand what risks are involved in the project and technology. The risk entry checklist lists all possible questions related to each risk factor, allowing risk managers to focus on identifying common, known and predictable risks, such as product size risk, dependency risk, Demand risk, management risk and technical risk. Risk entry checklists can be organized in different ways. Through hypothesis analysis, cost-benefit analysis, risk profile analysis, decision tree, and so on, giving a definitive answer to these questions can help project managers estimate the impact of risk.

In addition, we can make a risk control outline according to the risk entry checklist (see Figure 1), so that project management and implementation staff can intuitively see the existence of risks and the magnitude of each risk during the project development stage, and take Corresponding measures. From the perspective of the probability of risk, demand risk and management risk have the greatest impact on the success of the project. When a software project development team takes over the project, they develop software in a habitual way. Requirement risk awareness is relatively weak, the completion of the software requirements analysis phase is not detailed enough, and neglect and many software development necessary content. During the entire software development process, the risk control at the requirements analysis stage is particularly important. If the control is not good, it will have a huge impact on the software development project and even fail. Managing risk is actually a reflection of project development management's awareness of the risks of project development. Most domestic software companies are small in scale, young in enterprise, lack of development experience, younger software engineers, lack of experience in large software projects, and lack of experience in management, especially risk management.

2. Risk management

Risk management should be an important task throughout the development of software projects, including risk identification, risk assessment, risk planning, risk resolution, and risk monitoring. It allows risk managers to actively "avoid" risks and carry out effective risk management. Risk management models include: SEI risk management model, Riskit risk management model, SoftRisk risk management model, IEEE risk management process model, CMMI risk management model, MSF risk management model, etc. In project management, it is very important to establish a risk management strategy and continuously control risks during the life cycle of the project. Risk management mainly includes five stages:

(1) Risk identification: On-site observation method, forum method, flowchart method, financial statement method, relevant department cooperation method and environmental analysis method are commonly used for the method of identifying risks.

(2) Risk assessment: Evaluate and evaluate the identified risks. The main task of risk estimation is to determine the probability and consequences of risk occurrence. Risk assessment is to determine the economic significance and cost / effect analysis of the risk. The methods are: probability distribution, extrapolation, multi-objective analysis, etc.

(3) Plan progress: According to the risk results after assessment, formulate corresponding risk management schedules to provide reference for subsequent risk management.

(4) Risk management: Generally speaking, there are three methods of risk management: Risk control method, that is, proactive measures to avoid risks, eliminate risks, neutralize risks, or adopt emergency solutions to reduce risks. Retention of risk. When the amount of risk is small, it can be retained. Risk transfer.

(5) Risk monitoring: including the supervision of risk occurrence and the supervision of risk management. The former is to monitor and control the identified risk sources, and the latter is the organization and technology that supervise people to seriously implement risk management during the project implementation Measures.

3. Risk control

(1) Establish an effective risk control organization

Set up a risk management position: Set up a risk management position during the software development project management process. The main role of this position is to review and express opinions on the project plan or plan from the perspective of risk management when formulating and evaluating the plan, and constantly look for possibilities. For any unexpected situation, try to point out the management strategies and common management methods for each risk to deal with the emerging risks at any time. The risk manager should preferably be someone other than the project leader. The number of risk management positions is determined by the size of the project, and generally 2-3 people are more suitable.

Dual Project Manager: Two project manager positions are set up for the project development project, one is responsible for technical positions and the other is responsible for management positions. At present, the project managers of domestic software development companies are generally one, and the majority of them are technology born. They are mainly good at technology research and development, and are inherently inadequate in management, which is not conducive to project risk management and control. By adding specialized management manager positions, you can make up for the shortage of technically born project managers and improve the management level of software development projects. And such experience has been recognized by most companies in the foreign industry.

(2) Establish effective risk control management process

The risk management process includes training, risk identification, risk analysis, risk planning, execution planning, follow-up planning and other activities. An effective risk management process should be learning, continuous and continuous improvement. Software companies should establish their own risk management database as the basis for risk management, and continuously update and improve it during implementation.

According to the actual situation of the enterprise and the project, scientific project risk and control are of great significance to the successful research and development of the project. During project development,

Since the beginning of the 21st century, project management has received unprecedented attention. There are many reasons for project management to attract attention today, and its promising tomorrow. The main reasons are: the methods and methods of project management in operational research and collaboration just fill the relatively weak points of other management systems or management systems; the theoretical systems of project management such as PMI of PMI or ICB of IPMA are becoming better and better, and Globally popularized almost commercial nature; continuous improvement of project management software functions and deductive theoretical capabilities, making project management from theory to practical implementation and then bring benefits into reality; multinational companies that guide the vane of corporate management have begun to be used in enterprises The use of project management technology and project management solutions has initially formed the situation of enterprise project management.

Enterprise-level project portfolio management is a dynamic decision-making process. Projects in the process are always evaluated, selected, and ranked. Projects may be promoted, canceled, or downgraded. Resources are reallocated again and again. It is often accompanied by this combination decision-making process. Opportunities for uncertain and changing information dynamics, multiple strategic goals, interconnected projects, multiple decision makers, and more. The project portfolio management process includes a series of business decision-making processes, such as periodic project evaluation, pass / fail decision-making, evaluation of new strategies, and allocation of execution strategy resources.

Enterprise-level project portfolio management has a wide range and high complexity. Therefore, software tools must be used to help the group manage the entire planning, execution, monitoring, measurement, analysis, and decision-making process. With the successful application of project portfolio management methodologies in the fields of IT and new product development in recent years, the enterprise-level project portfolio management software market has also begun to enter a period of rapid development, and project portfolio management has developed into a new discipline and software category.

"The PPM market has become the ERPofIT"-Forrester Research

Engineering project management software refers to the construction process of the project as the core, time schedule control as the starting point, the use of

The function of project management software should be based on the nine knowledge systems of PMBOK project management as the foundation and core, with cost schedule quality management as the ultimate goal, comprehensive management of cost human quality time schedule procurement communication overall risk