Re-Planning for a Successful Project Schedule

Time to market or project duration has increasing significance for commercial software development. We report on a longitudinal study of a project at IBM Hursley Park. The focus of this study was schedule behaviour, however, we explored a range of related factors including planned versus actual progress, resource allocation and functionality delivered. In the course of the twelve-month study, evidence was collected from 8 interviews, 49 project meetings, a number of other project documents and a feedback workshop. The project leader considered the project to be a success, not only in terms of satisfying resource and schedule objectives, but also in the marketplace. Whilst many of the originally planned external commitments were met, it is clear that the project did not adhere to its original (detailed) plan and indeed there were no less than seven re-plans. These re-plans were mainly in response to misestimates in the original

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1999
• Where: METRICS
• Authors: Austen Rainer, Martin J. Shepperd
• Keywords: IBM Hursley Park, METRICS 1999, Project, Project Duration, Software Engineering