In the first "International Software Industry Project Management Forum", there is such a set of comparative figures that is thought-provoking: the project completion rate of large Indian software companies is over 95% according to the contract; the project completion rate of some domestic software companies is only about 70% according to plan. , of which only 16% of global software development projects are completed as planned. What caused this effect gap? The answer is project management.
Project management, literally, can be understood as "the application of a range of knowledge skills, tools and techniques in project activities to meet or exceed the project requirements of stakeholders". With the advantages of controlling the four factors of work scope, time, cost and quality, project management can standardize the task process, reduce work omissions, ensure the effective use of resources, and ultimately achieve user satisfaction. Currently, project management is widely used by large corporations, governments, and small non-profit organizations. Specific to the software industry, project management has also become a very critical issue. In today's global competition among commercial organizations, software companies increasingly feel that with the continuous growth of user demands, technology is no longer a problem, and standardized management is mentioned in an important position. When domestic software enterprises are constantly seeking new management methods, they have chosen project management one after another. As an important guarantee for software development and project success, project management has become one of the core competencies of recognized IT software companies.
Analysis of the Shenma project management system
Digital China is a well-known IT company in the industry, with 16 years of experience in software development. In 2001, Digital China successfully implemented the strategic move of splitting software and hardware, thereby focusing more on the development and application of industry software. So far, it has formed software represented by Sm@rtBanking, Sm@rtBoss, CTAIS, Yifei, etc. A series of products have been applied and promoted in many fields such as finance, telecommunications, taxation, aviation management, office automation, and enterprise ERP, which have attracted the attention of the industry.
Digital China is one of the IT companies that practiced project management earlier. From small projects to a few man-months to hundreds of man-years, from product R&D projects to project implementation, technical maintenance and other projects, the development environment, The technical route and management model are really different. So how does Digital China carry out effective and timely management of the implementation of such a diversified software project to ensure that the project achieves the established schedule, cost and quality goals?
Digital China has accumulated rich experience in project management implementation and software development in the long-term software development process. On this basis, through continuous summarization and refinement, Digital China has gradually established the company's project management system.
●In 1998, Digital China's software development successfully passed ISO9001 certification, marking that the company incorporated its project management into the ISO management system, so as to further standardize and standardize project implementation; in 1999, the company's system integration passed ISO9001 in an all-round way Certification; In 2001, the company passed the ISO90002000 version of the re-evaluation.
●In June 2000, Digital China released its own project monitoring system (PMS), which carried out unified supervision and management of all running software projects from the company level to ensure that the quality of each project meets the standards.
●In January 2002, Digital China's software product department passed SEI's CMM2 evaluation and implemented the CMM project management system for all software product development projects. This proves the comprehensive improvement of Digital China's software development capabilities, and also marks that Digital China has fully integrated with international standards in the standardized management of the software development process.
Through different stages of work, Digital China's current software project management system has covered all types of software projects within the company, enabling effective management and supervision of software projects at the company, department and project levels to ensure that projects are Within the established time and cost range, achieve the planned goals and meet the needs of customers.
Guarantee of the core idea
Digital China believes that the core idea of the project management system is the integrated management of projects, processes and personnel. How to improve the overall efficiency of software project operation? Digital China mainly through two ways: one is to improve the process ability, and the other is to strengthen the management ability and technical literacy of personnel.
On the one hand, Digital China cultivates and establishes a culture atmosphere of continuous process improvement within the organization, and uses the improvement of process system (ISO9000, CMM and project management monitoring system) to continuously accumulate process wealth. At the same time, pay attention to the knowledge of the organization into the process. On the other hand, the enrichment and accumulation of the process depends on the ability and experience of the personnel. Digital China fully guarantees that the project team members get jobs by virtue of its perfect training system (such as project manager qualification training and certification, special technical training, process training, etc.). necessary skills required. In the practice of the project, process capability and personnel capability play a complementary role, thus forming a cycle of continuous improvement in the process of improving, solidifying, and improving again.
Three-layer monitoring method
The basis of Digital China software project management is the software project plan. The actual execution status of the project is tracked through weekly project reports, milestone reports, etc., and the deviations are compared with reference to the project plan, so as to take corresponding measures to ensure the smooth progress of the software project. During the implementation of Digital China's software projects, the project status is tracked and supervised from the following three levels.
●The project manager writes the Statement of Work (SOW) and the project plan at the beginning of the project, and tracks the progress of the project by managing the daily activities of the project team during the project execution, and updates the project plan according to the actual work completed. If there is a major change in the project plan, it is necessary to apply for a change in the project plan, and execute the work according to the changed project plan.
●The department manager tracks the phase deviation (schedule, cost), quality status, demand change, risk management, etc. of the project according to the project plan, weekly project report and milestone report reported by the project manager, judges the risks existing in the project and takes corresponding measures Measures to deal with the problems that the project team cannot solve. When there is a major deviation in the project, decide whether to change the project plan and take effective measures.
●The project management department at the company level collects weekly project reports and project milestone reports of all projects within the company, and calculates the deviation of project TQC (schedule, quality and cost) through data aggregation and analysis, and then takes corresponding measures according to the deviation. measure. The project management department assigns quality managers (software product projects) or project supervisors (engineering implementation projects) to the project team according to different project types, conducts phase inspections of software projects, judges the implementation of projects, and provides software projects to the company's software project management. compliance with the system.
Unity, flexibility, improvement principles
The foundation of Digital China's software project management system is process improvement based on the IDEAL model, which aims to improve customer satisfaction and ultimately serve the company's business goals. Considering the requirements of process improvement and business objectives, Digital China's project management system follows the following three principles in the process of formulation and maintenance:
The unity of the system requires management needs. For different types of projects, the company has formulated different management processes, and the common processes used by different types of projects are maintained in a unified manner to ensure the consistency and continuity within the system; for the same type of projects with different work content, follow the unified In the process of monitoring and supervising the project, the same comparison benchmark can be used to compare the execution of each project horizontally, such as the deviation of the progress stage of the project and the deviation of the cost stage.
The flexibility of the system requires specific work needs. When the project starts to execute, the software development life cycle model used by the project is determined according to the technical characteristics, business characteristics and risk analysis of the project. The life cycle model defines the software process applicable to the project team. The software process used by the project team, as a subset of the Digital China project management system, is subject to inspection and audit by the quality manager (CMM) or project supervisor (ISO9000) independent of the project team during the implementation process to ensure that the project team implements The process is consistent with the organization-level process.
System Improvement Mechanism The Digital China project management system emphasizes the continuous improvement of the system, and ensures the continuous improvement of the system through local implementation, mechanism design, training and other channels. Collect and summarize experience through the project team, and determine whether it is necessary to modify the process or strengthen training according to the actual situation. In order to achieve a benign improvement mechanism of "comprehensive promotion of strengths and timely strengthening of weaknesses".
Tailored to suit the situation
Digital China's software project management system is suitable for different project types, including product development projects, engineering implementation projects, maintenance projects, ERP implementation and other different project types. According to the characteristics of the project and the need for system improvement, Digital China can adopt different project management methods:
●For product research and development projects, the SWCMM1.1 model defined by SEI is adopted.
●For the ERP implementation project, the project implementation model defined by the ERP manufacturer is adopted.
●For the project implementation project (or custom project) and maintenance project, the model defined by ISO9000 is used for management.
●Using the project monitoring system based on TQC metrics defined by Digital China for unified tracking and supervision of all project types.