Chapter 3

Chapter 3.

TRACKING PROGRESS

Project schedule- describes the software development cycle for a particular project by enumerating the phases or stages of a project and breaking each into discrete tasks or activities to be done. Thus schedule is a timeline that shows when activities will begin and end, and when related development products will be ready.

Deliverables- the items the customers expects to see during project development. Among the deliverables maybe:

*Documents

*Demonstrations of functions

*Demonstrations of accuracy

*Demonstrations of reliability,security or performance

Activity-part of the project that takes place over a period of time

Milestone- completion of an activity—a particular point in time

Work breakdown structure- depicts the project as set of discrete pieces of work.

4 Parameters in describing activity:

*Precursor – is an event or set of events that must occur before the activity can begin; it describes the set of conditions that allows the activity to begin.

*Duration- is the length of time needed to complete the activity

*Due Date- is the date by which the activity must be completed, frequently determined by contractual deadlines

*End Point- usually a milestone or deliverable signifying that the activity has ended

Activity Graph- depicts dependencies; the nodes of the graph are the projects milestones and the lines linking the nodes represent the activities involved.

Real Time or actual time- estimated amount of time required for the activity to be completed

Available Time- is the amount of time available in the schedule for the activity’s completion.

Slack Time or Float – is the difference between the available time and the real time for that activity: Slack Time=available time-real time

Tools to track progress: There aremany tools that can be used to keep track of a project’s progress. Some are manual others are spreadsheet applications.

*Gantt chart depiction of the project where the activities are shown in parallel, with...