Evaluation of Basic Project Management Activities - Study in Software Industry

Abstract

In this research the relevance of the guidance of software process models to industry is studied - more precisely, how relevant the basic project management activities are to the industry projects and to the success of these projects.To attain the research aim, a model of basic project management activities was constructed where model elements were derived mostly from the CMMI and ISO/IEC IS 15504, and the relevant ones from various project management literature sources. The model was then provided with metrics and evaluated against the industry data. The data was gathered using a survey questionnaire from 29 software project managers from Finland and Estonia who described the project management activities implemented in the projects they managed.The model was evaluated by triangulating the data three data analysis methods were used. We looked for the relationship between the implementation of the basic project management activities and the project success. Also, we aimed to find whether the characteristics of the project, the project manager and the company affect the intensity with which the basic project management activities are implemented in the industry projects.The findings of the research suggest that the organizations improving their processes with the help of process models may not experience much benefit to their improvement work at the beginning, i.e. not until the processes reach higher capability levels than level 2. The results also indicate that successful software process improvement relies heavily on human factors, skills and teamwork competencies. A project manager has to motivate the team members, coordinate their interactions and supervise them when necessary to create a positive environment for the software development that supports the overall project success.