Compared with the advanced countries in the world, my country's software industry is far behind. The main reason is that software engineering technology has not been widely used. Today, software development is no longer an individual behavior of software developers but a team behavior. It is a huge challenge for software development organizations to deliver software products with quality and quantity within the required time and reasonable investment. Whether in the United States, where the software level is the highest, or in my country, the problems of software development projects overdue, over-budget, and the quality of the final software product cannot satisfy end users are all major problems that plague software development organizations.
The three methods of software quality management involve all aspects of personnel. After multiple production links, a large number of intermediate products are generated, and each link may bring product quality problems; at the same time, because software products are logical entities, they do not have physical visibility. Therefore, it is difficult to measure and grasp the quality. Therefore, how to effectively manage the quality of software products has always been a challenge for software companies. To sum up, software quality management can be roughly divided into three types: post-mortem inspection, total quality management and authoritative certification.
1. postmortem
The method of post-mortem inspection is to carry out quality inspection at the last link of product production. Qualified products are allowed to leave the factory, and unqualified products are treated as defective products. This quality management method is a good quality management method for products with large batches and low manufacturing costs, but it is not suitable for the quality management requirements of software products, because the production of such products does not have batches at all.
management method
Project management is a key activity to ensure that software projects are completed on time, on budget, and with guaranteed quality. It mainly includes the formulation of project plans and the tracking and dynamic adjustment of project execution as planned. The rationality of the plan is an important factor to ensure that the project is executed as planned. Generally speaking, experienced project managers can reasonably arrange project activities, resource allocation and project progress according to the actual needs of the project, the allowable construction period, etc., and accurately foresee the risks that may be encountered during the project, and fully prepare Risk prevention measures, and formulate a complete project plan, so that it is easy to ensure that the project goes smoothly as planned.
Usually, in the course of the project, the project manager should keep dynamic tracking of the actual progress of the project. When there is a situation inconsistent with the plan, the plan should be adjusted reasonably according to the actual situation to ensure the final success. When the project plan changes, analyze its triggering factors, record the relevant data, and use these data to improve the software development process. It can be seen that process management and project management are interactive: the process is the basis of the project plan, and the data generated by the project execution can be used as the basis for process improvement.
2. communication problems
During the course of the project, communication has always been a big difficulty. Usually, the main purpose of communication is to solve the following problems:
●Let project members know exactly how to execute the project;
●Let project members clearly know the overall plan of the project and the specific tasks each member undertakes in the project;
● Provide project team members with the necessary assistance needed to complete their work;
●The project manager can clearly, accurately and timely grasp the progress of the project and the work progress of each member;
●Necessary changes to the project plan can be made known to all members of the project team in a timely manner;
●The actual execution data of the project can be accurately collected and statistically summarized as a reference for decision-making.
At present, in project management, the most lack is standardized, accurate and efficient communication, which greatly affects the project manager's ability to manage the project. Therefore, establishing an effective communication mechanism is a necessary prerequisite for the application of project management technology.
3. Create a management environment
The ancients said: "If you want to do good work, you must first sharpen your tools!" Excellent tools can do more with less. Process management and project management are no exception. With the right tools as support, it can improve efficiency, save investment, and make work efficient and smooth.
Create a management environment
Here, we take ProcessContinuum and Advisor provided by CA as an example to introduce how to establish a complete project management environment.
CAProcessContinuum is a set of tools provided by CA to support engineering management and project management. It provides rich tools to meet all the needs of process management and project management.
The core part of CAProcessContinuum includes three parts: ProcessLibrary, a central repository for storing all processes, ProcessEngineer, a tool for defining and improving processes, and ProjectEngineer, a tool for developing project plans and tracking projects.
In ProcessLibrary, both software processes defined by software development organizations and commercial software processes provided by CA or third-party professional vendors can be stored. These software processes can all be defined or improved with ProcessEngineer. All software processes exist in the form of templates in the process library, and process administrators can complete the process definition through simple customization. When a new project starts, the project manager can select a suitable process template from the ProcessLibrary through ProjectEngineer and apply it to the project according to the specific needs and characteristics of the project. Once the process template is specified, ProjectEngineer will automatically generate a detailed project plan according to the definition in the process template. The project manager only needs to perform simple resource allocation, cost and time estimation, schedule, etc. on this basis to complete a project. planning work. After this, the project manager can have ProjectEngineer generate a project schedule for it.
Advisor can build a web-based work environment for organizations. Using this environment, the project manager can understand the dynamic progress of each project, summarize the progress of the project and the work of project members, and use this information to evaluate in ProjectEngineer as a basis for adjusting the follow-up work of the project.
In addition, in the environment established by Advisor, each member of the project team can visit the TeammemberWebsite, get their own work list and related timetable from this site, and can obtain various help information, fill in the specific completion of each work time, thus forming a communication environment between project members and managers. For the project manager, this can increase the visibility of the project and effectively improve the labor efficiency of team members.
During the process of the project, if it encounters a situation that is inconsistent with the plan, the project manager can adjust the project plan in time, and use the synchronization function between ProjectEngineer and Scheduler to obtain the actual execution data of the project, which can be used as the process manager to improve the process. in accordance with. It should be emphasized that ProcessLibrary is of special significance to those who are just beginning to work on process definition and process improvement, because the commercial process library has high learning and reference value, and it can help us share the industry's best best practice.