Project Management Essay: Importance, Planning, Monitoring, Risks, And Implementation.

Introduction to Project Management for ABCD Software

The computer virus is referred to as malicious codes that have the ability to replicate it-self through copying itself with other programs, booting sector or any other documents. Without knowingly or unknowingly the information stored in the office network could be hijacked due to lack of protection from the external attackers In order to protect confidential information from the external attack, it is necessary for the business organizations to install proper antivirus software to defense the information stored in the server. This kind of software might be bought or could even be developed by the business organization it-self (Schwalbe 2015).

This paper depicts the importance of developing antivirus “abcd software” in a business organization to protect confidential information from the hijackers. In order to develop such software certain benchmarks must be followed like proper activities in the project planning phase, monitoring and controlling of the project, change control, quality management, and risk management. In addition to this, accurate contract management, communication plan and implementation plans are also required to be developed by the project manager (Abrahamsson et al. 2017). The steps through maintaining, which the “abcd software” can be implanted successfully, are elaborated in this paper.

In order to develop “abcd software” in the project planning phase the main activities those are required to be followed are as followed (McLeod et al.  2010):

Planning: This is the initial phase for software development in any business organization. In this phase the software development head must analyze and calculate the details of the organizational background and its other requirements accordingly.  Based on the strength, weaknesses the antivirus software should be developed that affects the project progress properly.    

Analysis: In this step the project is required to be analyzed properly, including the requirement of the organization and need for data protection. For further implementation theses steps are needed to be followed accurately.  

Design: In this phase the project coder and model developer should develop the outline of the design.

Development and implementation: The actual software development task starts in this phase. Once the software is prepared, rest other stages and product components would be confirmed accordingly. Before the implementation of the software, the software development authority should also adopt accurate implementing processes (Gido and Clements 2015).

Testing: The software testing approach is divided into two parts unit testing and integrated testing. After development of the software components each part should be tested through unit testing and after integrating all the components accordingly the integrated part must be tested again through integrated testing. Other two testing methodologies like white box testing and box testing should also be applied to ensure the necessary changes those must be brought for successful implementation of the project.  

Project Management Planning for ABCD Software

Maintenance: Project maintenance is the most important part which takes 60 percent of the total expense. Though based on the features of the software the price or total expense varies. In order to reduce the maintenance cost the other factors of project development should considered at the very initial project initiation phase.    

In order to measure that whether the “abcd software” development project is beneficial from the business and consumer’s aspects or not can be measured with the help of  different project monitoring tools and techniques (Simon 2010). For monitoring and controlling this particular project the tools and techniques those must be applied include earned value management, forecasting, variance analysis, performance analysis and to-complete performance index.

After analyzing the details of the antivirus “abcd software” for a business organization, the change management processes those are undertaken include the following steps (Volter et al. 2013):

Phase 1: Preparation for change

• Development of different change management strategies
• Preparation for the change management
• Sponsorship model development

Phase 2: Management of change

• Development of change management plan
• Implementation of action plan and implementation plan

Phase 3: Reinforce change

• Analysis of collected feedback
• Resistance management for diagnosis gap
• Implementation of corrective action

The qualities of the software are required to be satisfactory to the consumers and also must be beneficial to the development organization. The qualities of the project those should be present include the following (Schwalbe 2014):

• Real time scanning capability
• Automatic update power
• Protection of several applications
• Auto cleaning approach
• Fighting ability against different antivirus

In order to estimate the “abcd antivirus software” different techniques are there however, the main budget is allotted to hire extremely skilled and knowledgeable project team members. It would help the project manager to gain effective as well as measurable success and budget related profit accordingly. Another component for which the budget is estimated is the resource selection. For estimating the task, the techniques those are applied include Delphi technique, work breakdown structure, Functional point method and three point estimation (Hughes 2012).   

The risk management steps those must be adopted for this project include (Winston and Albright 2011):

• Risk identification
• Risk analysis
• Risk evaluation

The other risks are as follows:

In order to organize the “abcd software “project the necessary 5 steps those are highlighted are as follows (Pham and Pham 2011):

• Set up a project management plan
• The project paper work must be organized accurately
• The project management plan must be taken under action
• Attention to progress with the project management plan
• Ensuring about the project is meeting the determined project goal

For this particular “abcd software” development project the project manager must use open communication approach because in this particular approach the project manager and the project team member would be able to share their point of views with each other. Through this particular process the creative ideas and out of box thinking could be shared among each other.

For developing the antivirus “abcd software” a SLA (Software Level Agreement) and cloud based SaaS (Software as a Service) platform contract is required to be adopted by the project manager and sponsors as well.

Development of antivirus software is a very much complex approach, as already there are much antivirus software available in the market thus this software must have follow necessary processes (Haynes 2012). For implementing “abcd software” project which would be used for protecting confidential information of other business organizations, the steps those are undertaken are as follows:

• Development of security improvement activities
• Identification of security requirements
• Security training to the project team members
• Minimizing the software attack surface
• Development of threat model
• Developing security code
• Code review
• Testing planning
• Audit of the security details
• White box testing
• Black box testing
• Deployment or implementation
• Documentation of post implementation software maintenance plan

Conclusion

Therefore, from the above discussion it can be concluded that proper evaluation of different project management concepts are necessary for successful implementation of a project. The paper discusses the different project management phases that are needed to be considered for successful implementation of the antivirus ‘abcd software’. Project planning, monitoring and testing the software before its release are a major aspect of project management. The paper discusses the need and the process of quality management of the software under development along with a thorough analysis of the risks that the project might face while execution. Having a proper communication plan is a necessary consideration of a project and an important part of project management.

References 

Abrahamsson, P., Salo, O., Ronkainen, J. and Warsta, J., 2017. Agile software development methods: Review and analysis. arXiv preprint arXiv:1709.08439

Gido, J and Clements, J 2015, Successful project management, 6th edn, South-Western, Boston, MA.

Haynes, E 2012, Project management: get from the idea to implementation successfully, 5th edn, Axzo Press, New York.   

Hughes, B 2012, Project Management for IT-Related Projects, 2nd edn, BCS Learning & Development Ltd., UK.

McLeod, R jnr, Jordan, E and McLeod, R 2010, Systems development: a project management approach, Wiley, Brisbane.

Pham, A and Pham, P 2011, Scrum in action, Course Technology PTR, Boston, MA.

Pinto, JK 2012, Project management: achieving competitive advantage, 3rd edn, Pearson Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ.

Schwalbe, K 2014, Information technology project management, 7th edn, Course Technology, Mason, OH.

Schwalbe, K., 2015. Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.

Simon, P 2010, Why new systems fail: an insider's guide to successful IT projects, Course Technology PTR, Boston, MA.

Volter, M., Stahl, T., Bettin, J., Haase, A. and Helsen, S., 2013. Model-driven software development: technology, engineering, management. John Wiley & Sons.

Winston, WL and Albright, SC 2011, Practical management science, 4th edn, South-Western College, Mason, OH.