Software project management probably is a sector that has witnessed the highest rate of project failure in the world. This is not the case with project management concerned with other disciplines due to better management of their inherent strengths and weaknesses.Hard skills, often described as a science and comprising processes, tools and techniques applied to projects are the main focus of many project management methodologies. Extensive research has been carried out in the project management domain with greater focus on hard skills. Soft skills described as an art, are very often ignored during software project management. Such skills, acquired through experience, are concerned with managing and working with people, ensuring customer satisfaction and creating a conducive environment for the project team to deliver high quality products within budget and on time and exceeding stakeholder expectations. This paper summarizes the soft skills that can possibly improve the success rate of software projects. These projects, if not managed properly can lead to escalation of budget and time schedules beyond expectations. Deterioration of quality may be inevitable while deploying efforts to deal with cost overrun and schedule extension.Research in the field of soft skills required has been carried out at the University of Arkansas. The results show that IT organizations are conscious of the need for soft skills. Furthermore, a number of organizations, like Polaris, Sun Microsystems and Mastek have found it necessary to include soft skills in their training agenda.
Software project management probably is a sector that has witnessed the highest rate of project failure in the world. This is not the case with project management concerned with other disciplines due to better management of their inherent strengths and weaknesses.Hard skills, often described as a science and comprising processes, tools and techniques applied to projects are the main focus of many project management methodologies. Extensive research has been carried out in the project management domain with greater focus on hard skills. Soft skills described as an art, are very often ignored during software project management. Such skills, acquired through experience, are concerned with managing and working with people, ensuring customer satisfaction and creating a conducive environment for the project team to deliver high quality products within budget and on time and exceeding stakeholder expectations. This paper summarizes the soft skills that can possibly improve the success rate of software projects. These projects, if not managed properly can lead to escalation of budget and time schedules beyond expectations. Deterioration of quality may be inevitable while deploying efforts to deal with cost overrun and schedule extension.Research in the field of soft skills required has been carried out at the University of Arkansas. The results show that IT organizations are conscious of the need for soft skills. Furthermore, a number of organizations, like Polaris, Sun Microsystems and Mastek have found it necessary to include soft skills in their training agenda.
It is sometimes very difficult for an organization to adopt a specific software project management methodology in a short space of time. It requires sufficient time, adequate financial support and skilled human resources in order to start with a comprehensive methodology. It is, however, often more appropriate to use a maturity model so as to progress from one maturity level to the next.Assessment of the maturity level of an organization provides a good benchmark to rate the success of its operations. One such exercise was carried out in South Africa in 2003, and the overall average project management maturity was found to be 2.92 (Sonnekus & Labuschagne, 2004) on a scale of 1 to 5. The maturity level was found to be closely linked to the success rate of projects. In this paper we report on a similar exercise conducted in Mauritius regarding the maturity level of software development projects. The average maturity of software development companies in Mauritius can provide a useful indication of, among others, the current status of software project management with a view of bringing about improvement in this sector.Given that Mauritian software development companies are making use of European/Western software project management methodologies, this study has been carried out and a preliminary attempt was made to also assess their ability to deal with factors related to cultural, social, economic and political situation within the local context. These factors, when incorporated into existing project management methodologies, can bridge the gap between developing and developed countries and also contribute towards the globalization of software project management.
It is sometimes very difficult for an organization to adopt a specific software project management methodology in a short space of time. It requires sufficient time, adequate financial support and skilled human resources in order to start with a comprehensive methodology. It is, however, often more appropriate to use a maturity model so as to progress from one maturity level to the next.Assessment of the maturity level of an organization provides a good benchmark to rate the success of its operations. One such exercise was carried out in South Africa in 2003, and the overall average project management maturity was found to be 2.92 (Sonnekus & Labuschagne, 2004) on a scale of 1 to 5. The maturity level was found to be closely linked to the success rate of projects. In this paper we report on a similar exercise conducted in Mauritius regarding the maturity level of software development projects. The average maturity of software development companies in Mauritius can provide a useful indication of, among others, the current status of software project management with a view of bringing about improvement in this sector.Given that Mauritian software development companies are making use of European/Western software project management methodologies, this study has been carried out and a preliminary attempt was made to also assess their ability to deal with factors related to cultural, social, economic and political situation within the local context. These factors, when incorporated into existing project management methodologies, can bridge the gap between developing and developed countries and also contribute towards the globalization of software project management.
Software project management is a relatively recent discipline that emerged during the second half of the 20 th century (Kwak, 2003). Many of the software project management methodologies available today were developed in Western/European countries and research showed that there was a need to formalise a software project management framework for developing countries, in particular Africa (Muriithi & Crawford, 2003).Based on surveys and discussions with software professionals, a methodology for software project management is being proposed. The methodology is based on a maturity model as Mauritius is faced with a shortage in skilled professionals. So far, few organisations in Mauritius have been found to be using software project management methodologies developed in Western/European countries.Most maturity models, for example Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) and Kerzner's maturity model, have five maturity levels. The trend is towards the development of maturity models that have fewer maturity levels. For example, the Organisational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3) and Prince 2 Maturity Model have been developed with three maturity levels.Similarly, the proposed Evolutionary Software Project Management Maturity Model (ESPM 3 ) has three maturity levels and a continuous process improvement group of key process areas (KPAs). ISO 9001:2000 is chosen as the quality management system and each KPA is mapped onto the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle. The model is conceptually represented as a conical structure to better display the evolutionary development of KPAs. KPAs, which are focus areas to be considered for project management, are developed until they attain maturity at a certain level. As organisations have to be responsive to their environments, these KPAs may require further changes even after they have reached maturity. A continuous process group of KPAs helps in adapting to changes in environment.In order to test the proposed methodology, one case study has been included. The application of the methodology to the project could not be discussed in detail in this paper. The development of KPAs in an organisation takes time and the case study was only a snapshot of the application of the methodology.
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