3 years experience in

1
3 years experience in Software project
management Mirjana Ivanovic, Zoran Putnik
2
Introduction

• Originaly created in the winter 2005., through
  DAAD support, during prof. Ivanovic stay in
  Berlin
• Course was presented since the schoolyear
  2005/06, for the third time this year
• Course is held during the VIII (last) semester, 2
  hrs lecture, 1 hr exercises

3
Course Organization

• During the year 2005, there was 14 students.
• The course was obligatory, for a program
  Business Informatics, which at the time was our
  smallest group.
• During the year 2006, there was 14 official
  students, enrolled into Business Informatics
  program.
• Yet we had a significant number of volunteers
  7 students concluded that course could be useful
  for them.
• Based on experience and advice from the previous
  generation (?)

4
Course Organization

• During the year 2006, one important decision was
  made concerning this course
• In a new curriculum, adjusted to Bologna
  declaration, this course became elective
  course.
• With still relatively small number of students
  enrolled in Business Informatics, there was a
  possibility a threat maybe, that there will be
  no students!
• During the year 2007, there was again (our lucky
  number) 14 students, who chose to listen to this
  course
• Based on experience and advice from the previous
  generations !!!

5
Course Organization

• According to Bologna declaration, a course in
  Software Project Management has continuous
  assessment
• Maximal number of points is 100
• Students can gain up to 12 points for attending
  the classes
• Students must perform one practical project
  (which will be explained in more details later)
  where they can earn up to 18 points
• Students have 3 tests during the semester, each
  one worth 10 points, for a total of 30 points.

6
Course Organization

• According to Bologna declaration, a course in
  Software Project Management has continuous
  assessment
• Maximal number of points is 100
• Finally, at the end of the semester, students
  have oral exam, where they earn a portion of the
  remaining 40 points.
• For those who didnt attend, failed, or are not
  satisfied with their result on some of the tests,
  at the end of the semester there is a one time
  offer to fix their marks, when they can repeat
  their tests!

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Content of Course Lectures

• The course consists of the following lectures
• Introduction 
• General overview of PM BOK
• IT management
• CMM and process improvement 
• Cost estimation and COCOMO 
• Software measurement and metrics
• Planning (Exercise)
• Using tools - Microsoft project (Exercise)
• Ethical issues (Exercise)
• Human resources and management

8
Organization of Exercises

• The course is in practice divided vertically, and
  not horizontally in other words, exercises are
  organized on-the-need bases.
• At the beginning, students were introduced to the
  body-of-knowledge for the subject, so there was
  nothing to practice on.
• Later on, professor and assistant held
  alternating lectures/exercises depending on the
  subject taught.
• The first real exercises were held in
  connection with the Planning topic.

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Organization of Exercises

• The topic of Planning was organized as follows
• 3-hour class of theory about planning in general
• 3-hour exercise class presenting abilities of MS
  Project software. This exercise included
  presentation of several representative examples
• 3-hour exercise class presenting one real-life
  problem, management of a (software) project of
  Organization of a scientific conference, which
  is to be solved by students, as a part of the
  exam.

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Organization of Exercises

• Several things were given to students in order to
  help them solving this assignment
• Written material how conferences are organized
  in a real life.
• Document listing a set of use-cases for all of
  the activities in connection with the conference
  organization.
• Requirements specification for a potential
  software that would help conference organization.

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Organization of Exercises

• Course Software Project Management, same as the
  most of the courses held by the members of our
  chair, has a support from eLearning system
  Moodle.
• Since we are using Moodle for several years now,
  all of the students who applied for this course
  already used Moodle system for some of the
  courses, and have the appropriate knowledge.
• The most important parts of MS Project Help
  system were translated, adjusted, and transformed
  into a Moodle eLesson.

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Organization of Exercises

• Still, to be honest, the great majority of
  students, at their homes, already have
• computer,
• installed Moodle system,
• installed MS Project software.
• So, in practice, the most of the students
  finished their work on the project at home,
  submitted it electronically, by e-mail, and
  (after a couple of iterations) received enough
  points to pass that part of the exam.

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Organization of Exercises

• The second real set of exercises was held on a
  topic of ethics.
• Again, this part of the course started with
  3-hour class of Introduction to Computer Ethics
• Next, a 3-hour discussion exercise was held
  10 situations from a programmers real or
  imaginary life were presented to the students.
• Stories were read and discussed during a class,
  each new one receiving bigger and better
  reception and response.

14
Final Exam Results

• Results for the previous 3 years are as follows
• Not too much 10s, we admit!
• Yet, not too much 5s (5 is non-passable mark)
• P.S. All of the 5s from previous years, passed
  the exam in the meantime.

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Students Opinion Questionnaire

• Effort 
• Attendance  5 - 100 1 - 20  
• Post-processing lectures   Hours
• Post-processing assignments Hours
• Students attended 50 of the lectures on the
  average, and it took them 1.7 hour
  post-processing time for lectures and the
  assignments. (2005)
• .. more than 80 . 2.7 hours! (2006)
• Stabilization again 80 this time 2.6 hours.
  (2007)

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Students Opinion Questionnaire

• Contents 
• Amount of knowledge  5 - Too much 1- Too few
• Contents  5 - Too easy 1 - Too difficult
• Course well structured 5 - Very well 1
  Unstructured
• Students assessed that they received (2005)
• perfect amount of knowledge, (3,00)
• almost perfect content, (3,20)
• but the structure of the course was just
  average. (2,86)
• Almost the same! (2006). The only difference was
  the improvement in the structure (it was 3,20).
• 2007 Amount and Content are again around
  perfect.
• The structure improved a bit more (3,33) but
  were working on some more advancements

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Students Opinion Questionnaire

• Needed pre-knowledge? 
• After a three year of almost repeated answers by
  students, we can conclude that in general
• No pre-knowledge is needed, or as students
  usually say, a little bit of everything,
  experience ,
• Earlier mentioned Software Engineering
  pre-knowledge needed is not a problem any more
  SE course finished in winter semester, while SPM
  starts in summer semester, and
• The only pre-knowledge really needed for about
  40 of students (each year!) is English
  language.

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Students Opinion Questionnaire

• Which topics in Serbian? 
• Percent of students thinking that they need
  slides in Serbian is still relatively high, but
  not as high as it was last year.
• All students have two courses in English basic,
  and advanced. Yet, it was veeery long ago (2
  years), or even longer for those who are studying
  a bit longer that needed
• We are still working on slides improvements, but
  it seems that well have to consider this
  problem.

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Students Opinion Questionnaire

• Style of the lectures According to the
  questionnaire, we improved on almost every issue
• Mark (last years) Wanted mark
• Lecturer familiar  4.20 (4.1, 4.0) 5
• Lectures well prepared  4.20 (4.1, 3.5) 5
• Lecturer engaged  4.10 (4.1, 3.6) 5
• Willingness to answer
• students' questions  4.70 (4.5, 4.9) 5
• Presentation  4.60 (4.5, 4.7) 3
• Presentation style encourage
• to follow the lecture 3.20 (3.0, 2.9) 5
• Remarks
• Last year, we had one interesting idea some
  of the lectures should be given to students
  that would be more interesting and engaging
• This year, we exercised this idea. Yes, it was
  interesting, engaging, and useful.

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Students Opinion Questionnaire

• Using media 
• Amount of info on 5 - Very well 1 - Not so
  much
• slides adequate 
• Slides well structured 5 - Very well 1 - Not
  so much
• and clearly organized
• For the first year, marks were not that
  great 3.13 and 3.29
• For the second year, after some improvements,
  marks were significantly higher 4.50 and 3.90
• This year, we managed to keep the same level
• Amount of info adequate 4.50
• Slides well structured and organized 4.00

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Students Opinion Questionnaire

• Assignments 
• Difficulty  5 -Too high 1 -Too low
• Motivating   5 -Very much 1 -Not so much
• Similar with the assignments
• The first year 2.36 and 3.14
• The second year 3.14 and 3.29
• This year
• difficulty to solve 3.75
• motivating 3.40

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Students Opinion Questionnaire

• Benefit of the course 
• New things learned  5 Much 1 -Not so
  much
• Contents useful  5 Completely 1 -Not so much
  
• Overall rank of the course   5 - Very well
  1 - Bad
• Average marks for a course improved
• Year 2005 2006 2007
• New things learned 3.25 4.00 4.00
• Contents useful 3.75 3.70 3.80
• Overall rank 3.83 4.10 4.00

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Students Opinion Questionnaire

• Remarks
• Overall comments of the course, for the year
  (2005) were
• Everything OK. Everything according to
  curriculum. Good and useful. Very useful, but
  also
• Pure theory, not connected to real life. Lack of
  practical lessons evident. Not connected to
  students experiences (?)
• The next year (2006), comments were
• Ethical issues and Human resources interesting
  and very important
• This year (2007), reading between the lines of
  students comments it can be noticed that they
  are either
• very satisfied with very useful material, or
• do not see why they needed any of this stuff at
  all.

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Lecturers Opinion about the course

• Positive
• Material, and topics covered are good and
  representative
• Used slides are of acceptable quality, they
  converge towards the final version
• Additional topics are prepared in parallel, that
  might be included during the following years
• Risk management,
• Agile project management,
• Methodologies of Software Project Management, etc

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Lecturers Opinion about the course

• Negative
• Slides are prepared using a lot of different
  sources some further refinement is still
  needed.
• Slides are generally of a static structure, with
  a bit too much text. Introduction of some
  animation and graphics would be useful.
• Also, further deeper readings and involvement in
  the whole material would be useful, same as the
  introduction of other software tools for PM and
  SPM.

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Conclusion

• We are still working on a course upgrading, so
  some additional support would be appreciated.
• Further improvement of topics and material is
  needed/expected/on the way.
• Results of students questionnaire show continual
  improvements. Of course, there is still place for
  additional advancements.
• Our permanent problem(s) still exist
• We work on better and more student-oriented
  organization of practical work and exercises.
  Tough job!
• We would love very much to have a chance to put
  students to work in a real environment. Not
  possible, yet!

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Additional support to upgrade the course on SPM

• WUS Project and Textbook for
• Software project management
• Mirjana Ivanovic, Zoran Putnik

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WUS Project

• One year project that was supposed to help the
  modification and upgrade of the existing course
• What we have promised
• The course will cover the following topics (the
  order will be influenced by the order of
  practical assignments)
• Introduction to project management
• Communications management
• Software process models
• Deeper coverage of some software process models
• Quality of software development process and its
  standardization
• Project management processes according to PMBOK
  and life-cycle processes
• Assessment procedures ISO, SPICE, PSP, TSP, CMM,
  SPICE,

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WUS Project - Before

• What we have promised
• The course will cover the following topics (the
  order will be influenced by the order of
  practical assignments)
• Project management Feasibility study, Cost
  estimation and COCOMO model, Risk analysis,
  Tracking (tools, metrics, )
• Methodologies of Software Project Management
  RUP, Prince, ...
• Software process metrics
• Maintenance and maintenance metrics
• Advanced topics in Professional Responsibilities
  and Computer Ethics

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Teaching Methodology

• Lectures will be supported by animated,
  multimedia power-point' slides.
• Handouts for these slides will be delivered to
  students after the lecture.
• We also plan to write and publish a textbook for
  the course.

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Teaching Methodology

• During practical exercises students (divided into
  teams) will 'simulate' the real-world process of
  managing the software project.
• During the life of the project teams would
  exchange roles in order to better appreciate
• the role of proper documentation throughout the
  life of project and
• the difference between managing and 'doing'.

32
Teaching Methodology

• Complete teaching material
• copies of presented slides,
• text of practical assignments,
• documents produced by students groups
• will be available on the web-site (after the
  presentation of certain lectures).

33
Examining Methodology

• Constant review of practical work done during
  practical exercises (work on the project.) This
  will be conducted continuously during the
  semester.
• Short tests on theoretical aspects taught during
  the lectures.

34
Examining Methodology

• Discussion on documents and solutions produced
  during the work on the project.
• Oral exam covering topics taught during lectures,
  at the end of the semester - for the students
  unsatisfied with a grade acquired throughout the
  semester.

35
WUS Project - Textbook

• For the last several years, the most often
  mentioned objection given by students for courses
  that are product of DAAD JCSE project was
  lack of a textbook
• Both Software Engineering and Software Project
  Management courses had PowerPoint presentations
  prepared and available to students after each of
  the topics is presented.

36
Difficulties with courses

• Besides, each year we progress with usage of
  e-Learning facilities at our Department.
• Everything started 3 years ago with Moodle
  e-Learning system used as a repository of
  teaching material.
• Step by step, every year, more and more of
  teaching material is transformed into much more
  than just a simple PDF file for reading.

37
Difficulties with courses

• Cooperation between lecturers and students
  within a course E-Learning, which will be
  presented with much more details during the
  workshop helped this transformation.
• Courses existing on lower years, attended by
  higher number of students, had enough candidates
  to be completely, or almost completely converted
  into e-Learning lessons.

38
Difficulties with courses

• Even Software Engineering, course for the 4th
  year students, had enough students that it is
  almost completely available in a form of
  electronic lessons.
• The only problematic course left was Software
  Project Management as mentioned, presented for
  3 years, with a total of 42 students.
• Definitely not enough help from students to
  transform it.

39
WUS Project - Textbook

• WUS foundation offers several things as a part of
  their projects
• Support for course development
• Support for provision of literature
• Support for (small) travel expenses
• Support for purchase of hardware (exceptionally),
  and
• Support for textbook publishing.

40
WUS Project - Textbook

• From a list of topics we were covering in our
  course, we picked a set that we will include in
  our textbook
• Lack of time prevented us from covering all of
  topics, and
• We wanted book to be more than a textbook, we
  wanted it to be a reading material interesting
  both for our students, and for others involved in
  (software) project management.

41
WUS Project - Textbook

• Topics covered in our textbook are
• Introduction to project management,
• Software project management,
• Planning of project activities and phases,
• MS Project,
• An example of MS Project usage for project
  planning,
• Capability Maturity Model,
• Cost estimation for software project,
• Human resources management,
• Ethical questions within SPM

42
WUS Project - Textbook

• Textbook has about 230 pages, little bit more
  than 120 pictures, and around 25 tables.
• Literature used in preparation of this textbook
  consisted of both books purchased as a part of
  this same WUS project, and of user manuals for MS
  Project software.
• Since we had a chance to pick literature
  ourselves, those were a very nice and up-to-date
  books ?.

43
WUS Project - Textbook

• To the greatest pleasure of our students WUS
  project has one additional requirement for
  project members.
• In order to be financed by WUS, textbook must be
  presented to students, as a gift ?.
• All they must do is write down their name and
  dossier number, and book belongs to them.

44
WUS Project - Textbook

• It was their first experience of this type, so
  they were very pleased.
• As one important consequence, for the first time
  in 3 years, we had a positive response from
  students in our questionnaires about the
  textbook!
• Finally ?!

45
WUS Project - Conclusion

• Even though WUS project is a very small sized
  project only 3 participants, very small amount
  of funds it was of a significant help to us.
• We managed to purchase a nice set of modern,
  contemporary books on a subject,
• We forced ourselves to work more on improvement
  of our slides,
• We managed to write and publish a textbook for
  our students.
• Quite enough from such a small project!