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3 years experience in

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Title: 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!

7
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.

9
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.

10
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.

11
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.

12
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.

13
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.

15
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)

16
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

17
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.

18
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.

19
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.

20
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

21
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

22
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

23
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.

24
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

25
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.

26
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!

27
Additional support to upgrade the course on SPM
  • WUS Project and Textbook for
  • Software project management
  • Mirjana Ivanovic, Zoran Putnik

28
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,

29
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

30
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.

31
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!
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