Exam 2: Project Management

From a practical point of view, to estimate effort using use-case points, the use cases and the class diagrams must have been created.

Sergei, the project manager, is worried about completing the project on time. To increase the productivity of his 15-person team he should create subteams with no more than 10 people on a subteam.

Economic feasibility focuses on whether the system can be built by examining the risks associated with the users' and analysts' familiarity with the application, familiarity with the technology, and project size.

The unadjusted total function points of a system are frequently adjusted to reflect the complexity of the system. Describe two ways to determine the appropriate complexity adjustment factor.

Adding staff to a project to shorten the project's length is usually a wise move, because adding staff normally translates into increased productivity.

A function point is a measure of program size based on the number and complexity of inputs, outputs, queries, files and program interfaces.

Christine does not have the skills that her project manager feels are necessary and no money has been budgeted for outside consultants. Mentoring is a good option to improve Christine's skills in this situation.

Peter is the vice president of accounting and finance. For the past year he has solely provided the resources necessary to get the just-in-time accounting system through the planning and analysis phases of the SDLC. Other managers have openly stated that the JIT system is not worth the investment. The SEC has just placed Peter under investigation for insider trading and the board has asked him to resign. This project is failing _____ feasibility analysis.

Creating a work plan requires three steps: identify the tasks that need to be accomplished, estimate the time that it will take to complete the tasks, and record the task completion time in a Gantt Chart.

Usually, a functional lead oversees the progress of a group of programmers and more technical staff members.

It is not necessary to assign dollar values to intangible costs and benefits; it is almost impossible to come up with reasonable numbers for all of the costs and benefits that haven't happened yet.

Development costs that are examined during feasibility analysis include costs for software licenses and software upgrades.

_____ is the process of planning and controlling the development of a system within a specified time frame at a minimum cost with the right functionality.

Jane, the head nurse on the surgery recovery floor, is going to place a request for a system that will create a report from data already in the patient record system. This report should be sent to new printers (cost per printer is approximately $2,000) located just outside each of 12 patient's rooms and the central nurse's station. Jane feels that a graphical report that combines the patient record of pain and pain medication received is absolutely necessary for the doctors and nursing staff to make proper medical decisions concerning patient recovery. Nurses already record the date, time, and severity of pain each time the patient complains or notifies them of discomfort. The pharmacy nurse records the amount of pain medication administered to each patient immediately after administration. Jane feels that combining these two pieces of information will improve medical decision making and provide better care to the patient. The IS manager has approved $50,000 for the development of the system and estimates that maintaining the system for the next five years will cost $2,000 per year. In addition, this method will increase the accuracy of reporting by 10% per year for three years and reduce pharmacy costs (cost of pain reducing drugs) by 15% in the first year of introduction. Current expenses credited to inaccurate data gathering are $100,000 per year. Pharmacy costs are currently $10 million. Identify the costs and benefits in the four financial categories assessed during a feasibility analysis.

The champion is a high-level IS executive who initiates the system request and supports the project by providing time, resources, and political support within the organization by communicating the importance of the system to other organizational decision makers.

Integrated CASE, or I-CASE, contains functionality found in both upper CASE and lower CASE tools in that it supports tasks that happen in the software design, the implementation and the software testing.

Explain the concept of timeboxing.

Explain four different dimensions that a technical feasibility analysis should consider.

Explain the role of the project champion.

The three steps of project management are _____.