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Chapter 13: Managing Changes to the Software Project 275 When you know your cost variance, you can start taking steps to get the costs back in line, if necessary. Along with bringing the costs back in line, don t forget to follow the meticulous communication plan that you documented during your planning phase. In that communication plan, you indicated the appropriate stakeholders with whom to communicate regarding costs variances, and more. Controlling the Project Schedule When creating the project schedule during the planning phase of your software project, you probably spent a large portion of your time gathering information. You probably did most or all of the following: Spoke to project managers who had managed similar projects Gathered requirements from appropriate stakeholders and worked with them and your project team to prioritize and sequence the tasks Built the schedule from the ground up focusing on each of the project activities, their definition, their sequencing, and estimating their durations Considered the appropriate resources required to complete the project successfully in the desired timeframe Built in contingency time in the event that a phase of the project runs over Created a schedule management plan that defined how you would control the project schedule and manage project time variances Taking your time with gathering requirements, speaking to the appropriate resources, and crafting a thoughtfully considered schedule management plan will save you a lot of time in the long run. Armed with these requirements, you can proactively ward off schedule issues and variances before they get insurmountable. Managing project time variances Say you did everything right: You created an extremely thorough work breakdown structure (WBS), you spoke to the appropriate people to gather their insight and wisdom, you spent a suitable amount of time gathering requirements, and you created your project network diagram. Everything should flow flawlessly, right? Right! In the Ivory Tower Project World everything
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274 Part IV: Controlling Your Software Project Estimating the cost of change When you estimate the cost of a change, you should consider not just the part of the project that you re changing, but also other affects of this change. For example, making a change to the project schedule could affect project costs with either a cost increase or cost decrease, depending on how you are modifying the schedule. Likewise, making a change to the project costs may also affect the quality of the project or product. Take all of these costs into consideration when estimating the cost of any change. During the planning phase of your software project, when you create your cost management plan, you identify the methods you might use to identify cost changes in your project. Don t forget to also identify ways to have these changes approved, and don t forget to identify who s in charge of approving these changes (perhaps you need a CCB, as described in the section Creating and following a change control system, earlier in this chapter). It would be a harmonious idea to also identify during the planning phase the methods you would use for estimating the cost of project changes. This should all be decided and documented during the project planning phase in your cost management plan. Forecasting variance In Chapter 14, we tell you how to measure and monitor your costs (and schedule) using earned value management (EVM), so now you have something to look forward to. At any point in time during your project, you should be able to determine how much your actual costs vary from your projected costs. Forecasting variance can be useful for several reasons, but the most important is that your stakeholders will expect this information from you and you will want to know whether and when you need to take corrective action to bring your project costs back in line. If you know your earned value (EV) and you know your actual cost (AC), then you can calculate your cost variance (CV). Here s the least you need to know: To determine the AC, simply add up all the costs for the time period that you are measuring. To determine the EV, look at the amount you budgeted for the work your team has completed at a particular time in the project schedule. To determine the CV, subtract the AC from the EV (CV = EV AC). This difference is how much you vary in the costs that you expected to incur at this point in time and your actual costs for the same time period.
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Chapter 13: Managing Changes to the Software Project 273 If you allow your costs to vary from your original plan without going through the appropriate processes to identify the need for changes, gain the appropriate approval, and follow the identified change control processes, you won t just affect the cost of your project, but you could also negatively affect other areas of the project as well. You could also use this documentation as part of your lessons learned. Managing project cost variances During the planning phase of your software project, you gather information you need to create your cost estimates, budgets, and baselines (see Chapter 9). Chances are that with a software project, most of your costs will be associated with resources required to complete the project, including programmers, analysts, software engineers, application testers, and other personnel. Throughout the project, you need to be aware of variances in what you planned for your project to cost, compared to actual costs. For example, if you planned to have a certain percentage of experienced programmers and a certain proportion of junior or associate programmers, this ratio will be affected if a junior programmer is removed from the project and you replace her with a senior programmer. This action will affect your project costs and create a variance. Aside from the cost of resources creating project cost variance, other actions or decisions can also potentially create a project cost variance. For instance, say you start to run out of time on your project and instead of creating a thoughtful and innovative plan of corrective action, you decide to sweep the problem under the rug by just eliminating one phase of system testing. After all, if there were bugs or problems in the software, wouldn t they have been caught in one of the previous phases of testing? Besides, you say to yourself as you justify this craziness, I ll be the hero of Projectville when the client sees how much time and money I m saving by skipping one small system testing phase of the project! This ingenious decision to eliminate some system testing could result in added time to the project due to recoding, eliminating bugs, and then more thorough testing. Adding and removing resources creates cost variances, but your bad decisions can also create cost variances. Be careful of the project decisions you make; they can, and probably will, have lasting implications, not just for this one particular part of your project, but also for future phases.
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272 Part IV: Controlling Your Software Project You can take certain steps to keep potential mistakes to a minimum: 1. During the planning processes, spend the appropriate amount of time gathering project requirements. You may be tempted to hurry through this phase so that you can quickly get to the fun stuff, but the time you spend here will save you time later. 2. Follow your well-defined communication management plan. You can avoid many mistakes if you proactively communicate with the appropriate stakeholders. 3. Create a comprehensive risk management plan. When potential risks materialize, you will be ready to deal with them instead of being caught by surprise. 4. Define and document your scope management plan. Your project team will be less likely to misunderstand the scope and potentially make mistakes if the scope is clearly defined, documented, and communicated. One way or the other, you and your project team members will probably make mistakes during the course of your software project. The main thing to know is that (usually, anyway) no single mistake is the cause of a major disaster. Of course, lots of little mistakes are never good for a project either. Controlling Project Costs Earlier in this chapter, we mention the Project Management Institute (PMI) project management process groups. The project management process group that is concerned with controlling project scope, costs, schedule, quality, and risks is the controlling process group. Just like the other parts of the Iron Triangle, scope and timelines, controlling costs is essential. In this section, we talk a little bit about the methods you can use to control your project costs. You can t change one of the sides in the Iron Triangle without affecting the other sides. For example, if you start cutting costs by eliminating personnel, you will probably increase the timeline. If you add bells and whistles to the scope, then you will most likely increase the time and the cost of the project. Get it? By the way, we talk about costs in more detail in Chapter 9.
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Chapter 13: Managing Changes to the Software Project 271 Be sure to define what constitutes an emergency change: If you re creating software in the healthcare industry, an emergency change may be anything that, if left alone, could affect patient care or patient safety. In some firms, an emergency change is anything that, left alone, may cause the organization to lose money. The project team members need to understand the attributes that cause a change to be considered an emergency. Documentation is crucial in the event of a system problem. You can quickly view the documentation for all changes that were done just prior to the problem and use the information to perform a root cause analysis. Determining the value of the proposed change When project changes are proposed, you need to determine the cost of implementing the change, as well as the value that the proposed change will add to the project. For example, if it will cost $500 to implement a change but that change will add a value of $10,000 to the overall project, you may have a better chance of getting that change approved than if the cost of your change is $10,000 and only brings $500 in added value. Of course, you re not guaranteed that a change will get approved just because it adds more value to your project than it costs. You still have to consider the other parts of your Iron Triangle time and scope. Maybe your proposed change will add $10,000 in value to your project, but if it completely changes the scope or adds six months to an already tight timeline, then those areas will also need to be taken into consideration when determining whether or not to implement a change. Correcting mistakes At times, you ll be required to make project changes in order to correct mistakes either in coding or software testing or because of misunderstandings, miscommunications, or any number of other reasons. If you have the appropriate change control system in place and you complete the appropriate project planning processes, making corrections is a more manageable experience.
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270 Part IV: Controlling Your Software Project You can use a spreadsheet to further track the changes after they ve been approved. You can record when changes are implemented into the various system environments so that you can monitor the consistency of the different system environments. This documentation could also be used for a root cause analysis if you encounter system problems after changes are implemented. As an example, a typical change control spreadsheet could look similar to Table 13-1. Table 13-1 Change Control Spreadsheet Change Request Owner Accept/ Reject Factors Date in Test Environ- Date in QA Date in Production ment Add functionality for secure Sara K. A 05/02 05/15 05/17 e-mail of student progress reports Remove Discipline field from teacher conference page Amanda M. R Would affect other areas using Discipline field N/A N/A N/A Create report to notify principal of teacher s average classroom grade of 72% Adam D. A Approved by client, stakeholder, and sponsor 08/22 08/30 08/30 Define your change control system early in the project. You don t want to be confronted with proposed changes without having the appropriate processes in place to deal with them. Also, make sure that all of the appropriate stakeholders are aware of and understand the steps to take in order to follow the appropriate change control processes. Don t forget to include emergency change requests in your change control system. Although normal changes may require CCB approval during its regularly scheduled meetings, you may want to create a separate process for emergency changes. For example, a stakeholder who has a change that is considered an emergency may be able to take the change request to one of three or four individuals who are authorized to approve the emergency change. Even though you may have a separate approval process for this, make sure that stakeholders complete the appropriate documentation so that you have a record of who approved the change and why it was implemented without CCB approval.
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Chapter 13: Managing Changes to the Software Project 269 Every time the scope changes, you must, must, must document the change as well as its potential impact on costs and timelines and then make sure the client signs off. This is significant because it forces both you and the client to examine and progressively elaborate the scope, agreeing on changes before they are documented as part of the scope. But most importantly, you have proof for later, when the client acts surprised that the project took longer and cost more than originally planned. Creating and following a change control system You must create an effective change control system because changes are inevitable and even at times necessary. One way to prepare for these changes is to create and follow (and set the expectation that others will also follow) an effective change control system. The purpose of the change control system is to identify, monitor, and learn from the changes occurring in your project. Your change control system may consist of tools, such as a database or spreadsheet to record your proposed changes, and you may also have a change control board (CCB) to review and approve changes in your firm. Project team members would document their proposed changes and present them to the CCB for evaluation and approval. If you do have a CCB, then all project changes would need to go before the CCB. The CCB might have just two members or it could be a large committee. The number of members varies from firm to firm. If you have too many members on your CCB, though, making decisions may take longer. Although you may only be concerned with your own proposed change, the CCB is aware of all project changes and could determine whether your change may affect other portions of the software project. In effect, the CCB keeps everybody honest. Instead of, or in addition to, a CCB, you might also track changes with a change control database where project team members or other stakeholders may enter their proposed changes. The CCB or SPM can then review and either approve or deny each requested change. If your software project is relatively small, you may not need a whole database. Why bother with all that infrastructure stuff when a simple spreadsheet will do? Stakeholders simply record changes on the spreadsheet, and later the CCB (or another review body) lists each project change request as approved, rejected, or on hold for further investigation.
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268 Part IV: Controlling Your Software Project to generate a software program that constructs online report card applications for a local school system. Initially, you and the client agree that the project should include methods for Allowing each teacher to document scores for individual students Preventing a teacher from adding or changing scores of students who are not in his or her class Enabling teachers to print individual reports for their classes Sending automatically generated reports to the principal Generating reports that show trends in students scores, as well as classroom averages Allowing teachers to input scores for both midterm and final grades Permitting parents to log on to view daily homework assignments Later, after facilitating several of the efficient customer meetings that you documented so thoroughly in your project communication plan, you and your client agree that the scope of the project now must also include new methods for the following: Generating communication to parents when a student s average score for any class goes below a predefined level Generating e-mails to the principal and department chair whenever a teacher has a classroom average that reaches a predefined level (for instance, the average student grade in one teacher s class is 72 percent) Allowing teachers to input documentation from parent/teacher conferences Allowing teachers and guidance counselors to document student behavior problems Forcing teachers to change their passwords every 30 days Creating a password-controlled, secure area where parents can log on to view their child s grades and progress Dialing the pizza parlor on the corner to have them automatically deliver a large sausage and mushroom pizza to the teacher s lounge each Friday (just wanted to see if you were alert) Now that you and the client have reexamined the scope and agreed that it needs to change, you should document these changes and follow a predefined change control process.
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Chapter 13: Managing Changes to the Software Project 267 creep when you begin hearing people express expectations that certain functionality that you never planned for ought to be included. With project management experience, you will start to notice the types of activities that precipitate requests for changes. For example, during project meetings, certain stakeholders may start talking about functionality that wasn t included in the scope. They may talk about these extras as if adding them is no big deal. They may even act as if everyone knew that this functionality was expected all along. If you re past the planning phase and you ever hear a stakeholder say, Why don t we consider adding something new to the interface, or other words to that effect, such as Well, while we re doing X, we might as well do Y, beware. The stakeholder may make it sound as if both activities go hand in hand, but only one of the items is actually part of the project scope. It s up to you to manage and control the scope before you end up having to add all kinds of unplanned bells and whistles. With each project that you manage, tactics like these become more obvious and easy to recognize. Just be aware of them and add them to your very own lessons learned document so that you only have to deal with them once. Also keep in mind that scope refers to all the work and only the work that your team needs to accomplish to successfully complete the project. If an item isn t part of the documented scope, then your team shouldn t be doing it. Any other response to scope creep can get you into trouble. The biggest dangers, not surprisingly, have to do with the other two sides of the Iron Triangle, the timeline and the budget. Additional factors include adding chaos and disharmony to your team s dynamic. Can you say new job search? Examining the project scope The project scope includes all of the work and only the work that needs to be completed to successfully bring the project to fruition. You have several opportunities to examine your scope as you progressively elaborate the project scope. Progressive elaboration occurs when you develop the scope through several stages making the scope more complete with each pass-through. You and your stakeholders must continue to examine the project scope, which is actually what you and your customer agree at any particular point in time is the work that needs to be completed. As an example, at the start of the project when you are beginning to gather project requirements, you and your client may agree that the project scope is
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266 Part IV: Controlling Your Software Project Introducing the Controlling Process Group According to the Project Management Institute, the project management process group that deals with managing change is the controlling process group. You will discover a lot more about process groups if you decide to move forward in your career and take the PMP (Project Management Professional) exam (see the appendix for information about this certification exam). The controlling process group is used to measure and compare where you are with where you planned to be. The controlling process group is concerned with monitoring and controlling the following factors: Scope Schedules Costs Risks Communication Team member performance Contract administration Quality Controlling the Project Scope As the project manager, it is your responsibility to remain constantly aware of all the details surrounding the scope of the project. The best way to get off to a good start in this department is to clearly and thoroughly define the scope at the start of the project. In this section, we talk about controlling the scope you set up earlier (if you want more information on defining project scope, check out Chapter 3). If you have a thorough, well-planned scope to begin with, others will find misinterpreting the scope later more difficult. You need to be aware of the potential for scope creep, which is an odd phenomenon in which some stakeholders lose perspective and begin to make requests that were never part of the original plan. You can recognize scope
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