Software Project Management

UNIT-V

UNIT V STAFFING IN SOFTWARE PROJECTS 9

Managing people – Organizational behavior – Best methods of staff selection – Motivation – The
Oldham-Hackman job characteristic model – Ethical and Programmed concerns – Working in
teams – Decision making – Team structures – Virtual teams – Communications genres –
Communication plans.
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Part B
1. (i) Write short notes on the following Oldham-Hackman Job characteristic model. (April-may
2018) [ APR/MAY 2012, NOV/DEC 2013,APRIL 2014, APR/MAY 2015] (June-2017),
(Nov/DEC 2017)(Nov/dec 2019)
(ii) Write about Stress and its significance in IT projects. [APR/MAY 2012]
2. How to deal with ethical And professional concerns in software project
management.(16)(April-may 2018)
3. Explain the different ways of decision making. [NOV/DEC 2017,NOV/DEC 2012, APRIL
2014, NOV/DEC 2014]
4. Explain how new staff can be selected and inducted into a project. (8) (May - 2013)(Nov
-2011)(8)(June – 2014)(June-2017)
5. Explain the stages of recruitment process(Apr/may2019)
6. Explain to improve group performance. (Page. No.:265) (Nov -2011)(8) (JUNE-2017)
7. (i) Give an example for becoming a team, team development and explain working within groups
with example. [NOV/DEC 2012, APR/MAY 2015] APR/MAY 2019]
8. Explain the role of team in decision making and explain how to reduce the problem in group
decision making. [NOV/DEC 2012, APRIL 2014, NOV/DEC 2014] APR/MAY 2019]
9. Explain leadership and leadership models. (or) Functions of a leader [ NOV/DEC 2013,
APR/MAY 2015]
10. (i) List down the methods for improving motivation. [NOV/DEC 2014, APR/MAY 2015]
APR/MAY 2019]
(ii) How to develop healthy and safety project. [NOV/DEC 2014]
11. For the outline bus ticket reservation system project, (Nov/dec 2019)
1.Estimate the cost using COCOMO model
2.What are the risks involved?
3.Draw the Gantt char for the project.

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1.Managing People In Software Environments
4 main concerns:
 Staff Selection
 Staff Development
 Staff Motivation
 Well-being Staff during course of project
10 PM Skills
 1. Recruiting individuals
 References or media Ads
 What is looked at interviews?
 Attitude
 Presentation ability - GD/Interview
 English Language Skill ( Oral and Written) –
GD/Interview/Aptitude
 Listening Ability - GD/Interview
 Ability to work in a team – GD
 Technical capability – Tech test / Interview
 2. Selecting a team
 Correct mix of people with working chemistry
 Sizing the team ( with no.)
 Correct mix of tech team ( SME, DBA,Tech experts and even CAs)
 3. Team building
 No ‗Yes man‘ – No constructive criticisms / No new idea
 No ‗arguer‘ – arguing for the sake of it – wasting time/ energy
 Mix of
 Introverts
 Extroverts
 Thinkers
 Feelers
 Intuitive and sensing personalities
 Understanding Behavior
 4. Caring for the team
 SW project revolves around human beings
 Emotions, worries about career, personal life style, social status
 Have career growth path plan for everyone
 Recommend loans for car, house, personal expenses etc
 Retain Good people with the project / Organisation
 5. Interaction and Communication
 SW project involves intelligent people
 Keep them informed
 Keep the peers , customers and top mgmt informed
 Periodic review meetings, regular progress reports, Flash reports etc
 6. Effective Meetings
 Planned meetings
 Well defined Agenda
 Moderated effectively ( conflict resolution)
 Purpose of the meeting is to achieve a ‗goal‘
 7. Leadership
 Must have a vision ( dream)
 Make others also to dream that vision
 Trust his /her team
 Caring for the team e.g health of his staff
 8. Negotiation skill
  Convincing his team on matters he believes
 Resolution of conflicts
 Not allowing ‗politics‘ to creep in
 9. Presentation Skills (written and oral)
 PM has to deal with many, officially (peers, team, senior managers,
Sponsors, Customers at various levels , sub contractors etc.)
 Good, simple, business English, speaking - writing
 sense of graphic design
 ability to understand and convey numbers (statistics)
 10. Appraisals
 It is only very human, that some people perform very well and some
others average.
 The system to identity and differentiate the two groups of people is
"Appraisals".
 "Continuous appraisal methods" are far more accurate than once a
year/period appraisals.
 Appraisals always lead to rewards !

Identify the handling of people

 2 approach:
POSITIVIST APPROACH:
 Tends to be objective and empirical
Seeks causes for behaviour
Conduct studies that can be generalised to larger populations

INTERPRETIVIST METHODOLOGY
 More qualitative
Based on smaller samples
View each consumption situation as unique and non-predictive
Look for common patterns across consumption situations

2.Organizational Behavior
 Fredrick Taylor attempted to analyze the most productive way of doing manual tasks.
 Taylor‘s three basic objectives
1. To select the best man for the job.
2. To instruct them in the best methods.
3. To give incentives in the form of higher wages to the best workers.
 The conditions under which the staff worked also affects productivity.
 OB researchers discovered that the state of the minds of the people influenced
productivity.
Understand people - 2 categories
• First category
– Has innate dislike for work
– Need coercion, direction and control and
– Tend to avoid responsibility
• Action
 – Need good Manager to constantly observe, direct, control and get the work done.
• Second category
– Work is natural (like play, enjoy)
– Control, coercion and direction comes from themselves (self-motivated)
– Believes commitment to work  results in self satisfactions and rewards come
automatically.
– Seeking responsibility is a natural process
– Creativity in work  improves organisation‘s work culture

Theory X
 The average human has an innate dislike of work
 There is a need therefore for coercion, direction and control
 People tend to avoid responsibility

Theory Y
 Work is as natural as rest or play
 External control and coercion are not the only ways of bringing about effort directed
towards an organization‘s end
 Commitment to objectives is a function of the rewards associated with their achievement
 The average human can learn to accept and further seek responsibility
 The capacity to exercise imagination and other creative qualities is widely distributed.

3.SELECTING RIGHT PERSON FOR THE JOB

There is no perfect answer, but the interview process can be a tremendous help if you use
it effectively. In order, the key steps to finding the right person to fill a position in your company
include:
 Determining your need to hire a new employee.
 Conducting a thorough job analysis.
 Writing a job description and job specification for the position based on the job analysis.
 Determining the salary for the position, based on internal and external equity.
 Deciding where and how to find qualified applicants.
 Collecting and reviewing a fair amount of applications and resumes and then selecting
the most qualified candidates for further consideration.
 Interviewing the most qualified candidates for the position, based on the job's description
and specification.
 Checking references.
Hiring the best person for the job

General approach for the recruitment process

It is the process of identifying the sources for prospective candidates and to stimulate
them to apply for the jobs. In other words, recruitment is the generating of applications or
applicants for specific positions. It is the process of attracting potential employees to the
company.
  Recruitment is an organizational responsibility, the person recruited, over a period of
time, work in many different parts of the organization.
 Project leaders have little choice about the people who will make up their team
 Eligible candidates have a CV which shows for example the right number of years in
some previous post and right paper qualifications. Suitable candidates can actually do the
job well.

A general approach might be following.

 Create a job specification: Formally or informally the recruitments of the job, including
the types of task to be carried out should be documented and agreed.
 Create a job holder profile: A profile of the person needed to be constructed. The
qualities, qualifications, education and experience required would be listed.
 Obtain applicants: An Advertisement would be placed. To Identify the medium most
likely to reach the largest number of potential applicants at least cost is needed. By
giving salary, location, job scope and any essential qualifications, the applicant will be
limited to the more realistic candidates.
 Examine CVs: Read carefully and campare the job holder profile
 Interviews: Selection technique includes aptitude tests, personality tests and the
examination of samples of previous work. Interviews are the most commonly used
method. More than one interview session-not more than two interviewers-formal scoring
system
 Other procedures: References will need to be taken and a medical examination may be
needed.
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4.MOTIVATION
Motivation is defined as a driving force that initiates and directs human behavior and
empowers one to set targets and successfully achieve the goal.

Models of motivation
The various models of motivation are:
 The Taylorist model
 Maslow‘s hierarchy of needs
 Herzberg‘s two-factor theory
 The expectancy theory of motivation

The Taylorist model:

Taylor had a simple view about what motivated people at work - money. He felt that
workers should get a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, and that pay should be linked to the
amount produced (e.g. piece-rates). Workers who did not deliver a fair day's work would be paid
less (or nothing). Workers who did more than a fair day's work (e.g. exceeded the target) would
be paid more.

The implications of Taylor's theory for managing behavior at work were:

 The main form of motivation is high wages, linked to output
 A manager's job is to tell employees what to do
  A worker's job is to do what they are told and get paid accordingly

Weaknesses in Taylor's Approach:

 The most obvious weakness in Taylor's approach is that it ignores the many differences
between people. There is no guarantee that a "best way" will suit everyone.
 Secondly, whilst money is an important motivation at work for many people, it isn't for
everyone. Taylor overlooked the fact that people work for reasons other than financial
reward.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

The basic human needs placed by Maslow in an ascending order of importance are:
1. Physiological Needs These are the basic needs for sustaining human life itself, such as food,
water, warmth, shelter, and sleep. Maslow felt that until these needs are satisfied to the degree
necessary to maintain life, other needs will not motivate people.
2. Security or Safety Needs These are the needs to be free of physical danger and of the fear of
losing a job property, food, or shelter.
3. Affiliation or Social Needs Since people are social beings; they need to belong, to be accepted
by others. It includes friendship, the need to love and be loved, socializing, etc.
4. Esteem Needs Once people begin to satisfy their need to belong; they tend to want to be held
in esteem both by themselves and by others. This kind of need produces such satisfactions as
respect, power, prestige, status, and self-confidence.
5. Self-actualizationNeeds This as the highest need in the hierarchy. It is the desire to become
what one is capable of becoming—to fully realizes one's potential and to accomplish what one is
capable of achieving.

Herzberg’s two-factor theory:

Job satisfaction by Herzberg and his associates found two sets of factors about a job:
 Hygiene or maintenance factors, which can make you dissatisfied if they are not right
for example the level of pay or the working conditions
 Motivators, which make you, feel that the job is worthwhile, like a sense of achievement
or the challenge of the work itself.
The expectancy theory of motivation
It identifies three influences on motivation
 Expectancy: the belief that working harder will lead to a better performances
 Instrumentality: the belief that better performance will be rewarded
 Valence: of the resulting reward.

• Even if any one factor is zero then it removes the entire motivation ( example)
– Third party sw-bug-no source- Zero expectancy
– Your sw comes up well- customer picks diff sw – zero instrumentality
– Your sw comes up well-all in yr co appreciates- customer blames or does not pay
– Zero perceived value

5.Oldham-Hackman job characteristic model

Oldham and Hackman suggest that the satisfaction that the job gives is based on 5 factors.
They are
 Skill variety: - the number of different skills that the job holder has the opportunity to
exercise.
 Task identity: - the degree to which your work and its results are identifiable as belonging
to you.
 Task significance: - the degree to which your job has an influence on others
 Autonomy: - the discretion you have about the way you to the job.
  Feedback: - the information you get back about results of your work.

Methods of improving motivation

 Set specific goal: These goals need to be demanding and yet acceptable to staff.
Involving staff in the setting goal helps to gain acceptance for them
 Provide feedback :Not only do goals have to be set but staff need regular feedback about
how they are progressing
 Consider job design: Jobs can be altered to make them more interesting and give staff
more feeling of responsibility.

Various measurements of job design:

Simplification of Job:
In job simplification jobs are broken in to very small parts as in assembly line operations
and work can be done by same individual repeatedly and it will increase productivity and
proficiency of individual.

Job Enlargement:
Job enlargement expands job horizontally. It increases job scope; that is, it increases the
number of different operations required in a job and the frequency with which the job cycle is
repeated. By increasing the number of tasks an individual performs, job enlargement, increases
the job scope, or job diversity.

Job Rotation:
Job rotation is the systematic and planned rotation of individuals in pre-
determined jobs (other than their own) so they can gain additional knowledge or skills. It is
done quite a bit for developing managers (because they need to be familiar
with operations overall) and also used with others who want to advance to a new role or become
more knowledgeable in their current job role.
Job Enrichment:
The job holder carries out that are normally done at a managerial or supervisory level. With
programmers in a maintenance team they may given authority to accept requests for changes that
involve then five day‘s work without the need for their manager‘s approval.

It is different from job enlargement (which focuses on increasing the number of tasks a job
holder is responsible for performing more work /tasks to do).

6.Causes of stress encountered in projects.

Stress can be caused by role ambiguity and role conflict.
 Stress can be caused by role ambiguity when staff do not have a clear idea of the
objectives that their work is supposed to be fulfilling, what is expected of them by othes
and precise scope of their responsibilities
 Role conflict can also heighten stress. This is where the person is torn between the
demands of two different roles. The parent of young children might be torn between the
need to look after a sick child and the need to attend an important meeting to win new
business.

7. Working in groups --Becoming a Team

Important characteristics of a good team
• Software job cannot be executed by an individual.
• Always a team work.
• These teams can be of two categories.
• Formal,
– hierarchical management structure, based on department .
• Informal ‗Task groups‘,
– To carry out a specific task.
– Team members are drawn from various departments.
– Once the task is completed, the team is dismantled.

By teams we usually mean groups of people who are working together. A team is created to
carry out a joint assignment. The important characteristics of a good team are
 Everyone participates actively and positively in meetings and projects.
 Team goals are understood by everyone.
 Individual members have thought hard about creative solutions to the problem.
 Members are carefully listened to and receive thoughtful feedback.
 Everyone takes initiative to get things done.
 Each teammate trusts the judgment of the others.
 The team is willing to take risks.
 Everyone is supportive of the project and of others.
 There is plenty of communication between team members.
 Team decisions are made using organized, logical methods.
 Full team acceptance is expected as decisions are made.
 Dissenting opinions are recorded, and may be revisited if future situations dictate.
 Team goals are given realistic time frames.
  Everyone is focused on the ultimate goal of the project, while also digging into the
underlying details.

Various stages of development of a team

 Forming: The members are the group get to know each other and try to set up some
ground rules about behavior
 Storming: Conflicts arise as various members of the group try to exert leadership and the
group‘s methods of operation are being established
 Norming: conflicts are largely settled and feeling of group identity emerges
 Performing: The emphasis is now on the tasks at hand.
 Adjourning: the group disbands
 Storming: The Second Stage of Group Development

When group members get to know each other better, the storming stage begins. Each
group member is wondering whether or not he or she will be respected and this plays out in
competition, tension and disunity.

Relationships become strained and differences become uncomfortable. The leader is

challenged for control. Some issues that must be resolved in order to move on to the next stage
are those of autonomy vs. control, support vs. communication and the amount of influence and
decision-making that any group member might have. Left unaddressed, the work group can
become angry, hostile, and unproductive.

Characteristics of the Storming Stage

 Competition
 Strained relationships
 Leader is challenged
 Tension and disunity
 Differences are uncomfortable
 Issues of autonomy vs. control, support vs. competition, influence, decision-making

Team personalities

• Chair (co-ordinator):
– Good at running meetings, being calm, strong and tolerant
• Plant:
– Good at generating ideas and potential solutions to problems
• Evaluator:
– Good at evaluating ideas and potential solutions and select the best one
• Shaper:
– Good at identifying important issues, well in advance, and directs team attention
to it.
• Team worker (Implementor):
– Good at creating a tension free work environment (i.e. jollying people along)
• Resource investigator:
– Good at locating the best resources and collecting proper information
 • Finisher:
– Good at completing and smoothly finishing the task
• Company worker:
– Good at team playing and willing to undertake less attractive tasks if they are
needed for the team‘s success.
• Specialist:
– Good at technology and its application to projects.

8. Decision making
• Decision makings are generally of two types.
• Structured –
– Routine decision where a rule can be applied in a straight forward way
• Unstructured –
– Complex and requires creativity
• Decisions are made
– with certain amount of risk
– lack of complete information
– Sometimes, too much information.
• Decisions are made
– with Intuitive thinking ( gut feel)
– heuristics (rule of thumb) – prev. experience

Mental Obstacles to Decision making.

 Fault heuristics
 They are based only on information that is to hand, which might be misleading
 They are based on stereotypes, such as accepting a Welshman into a male voice choir
without an audition because of the well-known fact that the Welsh are great singing
nation.
 Escalation of commitment
 Information overload

Obstacles to good group decision making:

 It is time consuming
 It can stir up conflicts within the group
 Decisions can be unduly influenced by dominant personalities.

The measures to reduce the problems in group decision making.

 One method of making group decision making more efficient and effective is by training
members to follow a set procedures.
 The Delphi technique endeavors to collate the judgments of a number of experts without
actually bringing them face to face.

Delphi method
• Set the problem
– Define the problem in crisp, clear and short form.
 – Question form is still better such as ―What service for mobile phones is not
available now, but needed?‖
• Create a background memo
– invitation for the participants with session name, problem in Q form, time, date,
and place
– Think and come with out of the box ( crazy) ideas
• Select participants
• Chairman
• Several core members of the project who have proved themselves.
• Several guests from outside the project, with affinity to the problem.
• One idea collector who records the suggested ideas
• Create a list of lead questions
• During the brainstorm session the creativity may decrease.
• Chairman should stimulate creativity by asking a lead question
• E.g Can we combine these ideas? or How about a look from
another perspective?
• Lead Qs must be prepared in advance.
• Session conduct
– A warm-up session, to expose novice participants to the criticism-free
environment.
– The chairman presents the problem and gives a further explanation if needed.
– The chairman asks the brainstorming panel for their ideas.
– If no ideas are coming out, the chairman suggests a lead to encourage creativity.
– Every participant presents his or her idea, and the idea collector records them.
– If more than one participant has ideas, the chairman lets the most associated idea
be presented first. This selection can be done by looking at the body language of
the participants, or just by asking for the most associated idea.
– The participants try to elaborate on the idea, to improve the quality.
– When time is up, the chairman organizes the ideas, based on the topic goal and
encourages discussion. Additional ideas may be generated.
– Ideas are categorized.
– The whole list is reviewed to ensure that everyone understands the ideas.
Duplicate ideas and obviously infeasible solutions are removed.
The chairman thanks all participants and gives each a token of appreciation.

Given the problem the following procedure is carried out:

 The cooperation of a number of experts is enlisted.
 The problem is presented to the experts
 The experts record their recommendations
 These recommendations are collated and reproduced
 The collected responses are recirculated
 The experts comment on the ideas of others and modify their recommendations if so
moved
 If the leader detects a consensus then the process is stopped, otherwise the comments are
recirculated to the experts.
 9. Department structure
Three broad ways in which a software development can be structured. They are
 Functional format
 Project format
 Matrix format

Functional format:
 In the functional format, the developers are divided into functional groups based on their
specialization or experience. For example, different functional groups of an
organization might specialize in areas such as database, networking, requirement
analysis, design testing and so on.
 Each developer in an organization belongs to some function group depending on his
specialization. For carrying out specific activities, different projects borrow developers
from the corresponding functional groups. Upon the completion of activities the
developers are returned to their respective functional groups.
 advantages
o the use of personnel with greater flexibility, as long as the choice of a suitable
functional departments as the project supervisor, the department will be able to
provide professional and technical personnel required by the project, and
technology experts can also be used by different projects and after completion of
the work can go back to his original work;
o when the project team members leave or leave the company, the functions can be
used as the basis for maintaining the continuity of the project;
o Functional department can provide a normal career path for professionals.
 The disadvantage of this structure is:
o First, projects often lack of focus, each unit has its own core functions of general
business, sometimes in order to meet their basic needs, responsibility for the
project will be ignored, especially when the interest taken in the project brought to
the unit not the same interest;
o such organization has certain difficulties in the inter-departmental cooperation
and exchanges;
o motivation is not strong enough for project participants, they think the project
is an additional burden, and not directly related to their career development and
upgrading;
o In such organizational structure, sometimes no one should assume full
responsibility for the project, often the project manager is only responsible for
part of the project, and others are responsible for the other parts of the project,
which leads to difficulties in coordination situation.
Project format
 The project format designed for realizing task-oriented teams.
 In this format, at the start of every project, a set of developers are assigned to it. It is
assumed that among them the assigned members can carry put various activities required
for project completion.
 The developers remain with the project till the completion of the project. Thus the same
team carries out all the project activities. This is in contrast to a functional format,
where each developer belongs to a functional group and for completing a project activity;
members of the corresponding functional area are assigned to the project temporarily,
which are returned to their respective functional area after completion of the activity.
Advantages:
 Ease of staffing
 Production of good quality documents
 Job specialization
 Effective handling of the problems associated with manpower turnover
 Career planning

Matrix format
 It is an extension of a functional format, and it is intended to provide the advantages of
both the functional and project structures.
 In a matrix format, the pool of functional specialists is assigned to different projects as
needed. Thus the deployment of the different functional specialists in different projects
can be represented in matrix.
 In a matrix organization, the project manager needs to share the project responsibility
with the member of individual managers.

The advantages of this organizational structure:

 Reduces the problem of redundant staff;
  A formal designated project manager will make him give more attention to the project,
and responsible for the coordination and integration work between different units;
 Third, when there are multiple projects simultaneously, the company can balance the
resources to ensure that all the projects can progress to complete their respective costs
and quality requirements;
 Fourth, the anxiety of project members is reduced greatly after the end of the project,
while they are strongly associated with the project, on the other hand, they have a ―home‖
feeling about their functions

The disadvantage is that this organizational structure:

 First, the matrix structure has exacerbated the tensions between functional manager and
project manager;
 Second, under any circumstances, sharing equipment, resources and personnel among
different projects will lead to conflict and competition for scarce resources;
 Third, in the process of project implementation, the project manager must negotiate and
consult with the department managers on various issues, which leads to the delay in
decision making;
 Fourth, matrix management is not according to the principles of unified management,
project members have two bosses, the project manager and functional managers, when
their commands are divided, it will make members at a loss.

10.Team structures
Team structure addresses the issue of organization of the individual project teams. There are
mainly three formal team structures:
 Chief programmer,
 Democratic, and
 The mixed control team organizations
Chief Programmer Team
Chief programmer

Librarian Programmers Specialists

 In this team organization, a senior engineer provides the technical leadership and is
designated as the chief programmer.
 The chief programmer partitions the task into small activities and assigns them to the
team members.
 He also verifies and integrates the products developed by different team members.
Advantage
 The chief programmer provides an authority, and this structure is arguably more efficient
than the democratic team for well-understood problems.
Disadvantage
 However, the chief programmer team leads to lower team morale, since team-members
work under the constant supervision of the chief programmer.
 This also inhibits collective and their original thinking.
 The chief programmer team is subject to single point failure since too much
responsibility and authority is assigned to the chief programmer.
 Since the chief programmer carries out many tasks individually, there is a danger of
information overload on the chief programmer

Democratic Team

(a)
(b)
Management structure Communication path

 The democratic team structure, as the name implies, does not enforce any formal team
hierarchy. Decisions are taken based on discussions, where any member is free to discuss
with any other matters.
 Typically, a manager provides the administrative leadership. At different times, different
members of the group provide technical leadership.
Advantages:
 The democratic organization leads to higher morale and job satisfaction.
  Democratic team structure is appropriate for less understood problems, since a group of
engineers can invent better solutions than a single individual as in a chief programmer
team.
 A democratic team structure is suitable for projects requiring less than five or six
engineers and for research-oriented projects. For large sized projects, a pure democratic
organization tends to become chaotic.
 The democratic team organization encourages egoless programming as programmers can
share and review one another‘s work.
Disadvantages:
 Consequently, it suffers from less man-power turnover

The mixed control team organizations

Project manager

Senior engineers

Junior engineers

(a) (b)
Management structure Communication path

 The mixed team organization, as the name implies, draws upon the ideas from both the
democratic organization and the chief-programmer organization. This team organization
incorporates both hierarchical reporting and democratic set up.
 The democratic connections are shown as dashed lines and the reporting structure is
shown using solid arrows.
 The mixed control team organization is suitable for large team sizes.
 The democratic arrangement at the senior engineer‘s level is used to decompose the
problem into small parts. Each democratic setup at the programmer level attempts
solution to a single part. Thus, this team organization is eminently suited to handle large
and complex programs.
This team structure is extremely popular and is being used in many software development
companies.
 11. Leadership
 Leadership: the ability to influence others in a group to act in a particular way to
achieve group goals.
 A leader is not necessary a good manager or vice versa, as managers have other roles
such as organizing, planning and controlling.
 It is difficult to agree a list of the common characteristics of good leaders, however they
seem to have a
o Greater need for power and achievement
o More self-control and
o More self-confidence than others.
 Leadership is based on the idea of authority or power
 Power may come from either from the person‘s position (position power) , from the
person‘s individual qualities (personal power)
Position power
 Coercive power: The ability to force someone to do something by threatening
punishment
 Connection power: based on having access to those who have power
 Legitimate power: based on person‘s title conferring a special status
 Reward power: the holder can give rewards to those who carry out tasks to his or her
satisfaction
Personal power
 Expert power: comes from being the person who is able to do a specialized task
 Information power: where the holder has exclusive access to information
 Referent power: This is based on the personal attractiveness of the leader.

Leadership styles:
Attempts have been made to measure leadership styles in two axes: directive vs. permissive and
autocrat vs. democrat
 Directive autocrat: makes decision alone, close supervision of implementation
 Permissive autocrat: makes decision alone, subordinates have latitude in implementation
 Directive democrat: makes decisions participatively, close supervision of implementation
 Permissive democrat: makes decisions participatively, subordinates have latitude in
implementation
Another axis is used to measure management styles: task oriented vs. people oriented
 Task oriented:
o The extent to which the execution of the task at hand is paramount
o Team members are relatively inexperienced, a task oriented approach is most
effective
 People oriented:
o The degree to which the manager is concerned about the people around them
o Team members are relatively experienced (matured), a people oriented approach
is most effective
o People oriented manager are better where staff can control the work they do
without referring matters to their line managers.
 12. Virtual Team
Virtual Team also known as a Geographically Dispersed Team (GDT) – is a group of individuals
who work across time, space, and organizational boundaries with links strengthened by webs of
communication technology. They have complementary skills and are committed to a common
purpose, have interdependent performance goals, and share an approach to work for which they
hold themselves mutually accountable.

Geographically dispersed teams allow organizations to hire and retain the best people regardless
of location.

A virtual team does not always mean teleworkers. Teleworkers are defined as individuals who
work from home. Many virtual teams in today‘s organizations consist of employees both
working at home and small groups in the office but in different geographic locations.

Virtual Teams-Overview
 Best employees may be located anywhere in the world.
 Workers demand personal flexibility.
 Workers demand increasing technological sophistication.
 A flexible organization is more competitive and responsive to the marketplace.
 Workers tend to be more productive – less commuting and travel time.
 The increasing globalization of trade and corporate activity.
 The global workday is 24 vs. 8 hours.
 The emergence of environments which require inter-organizational cooperation as well as
competition.
 Changes in workers‘ expectations of organizational participation.
 A continued shift from production to service/knowledge work environments.
 Increasing horizontal organization structures characterized by structurally and
geographically distributed human resources.

7 Basic Types of Virtual Teams

 Networked Teams consist of individuals who collaborate to achieve a common goal or
purpose; membership is frequently diffuse and fluid.
 Parallel Teams work in short term to develop recommendations for an improvement in a
process or system; has a distinct membership.
 Project or Product-Development Teams conduct projects for users or customers for a
defined period of time. Tasks are usually non- routine, and the results are specific and
measurable; team has decision- making authority.

 Work or Production Teams perform regular and ongoing work usually in one function;
clearly defined membership.
 Service Teams support customers or the internal organization in typically a
service/technical support role around the clock.
 Management Teams work collaboratively on a daily basis within a functional division of
a corporation.
 Action Teams offer immediate responses activated in (typically) emergency situations.
Critical Success Factors of Virtual Teams
 The existence of availability standards.
 Ample resources to buy and support state-of-the-art reliable communication and
collaboration tools for all team members.
 The existence of corporate memory systems such as lessons learned databases.
 The existence of written goals, objectives, project specifications, and performance
metrics; results orientation.
 Managers and team members with a better-than-average ability to accurately estimate.
 A lower-than-normal ration of pushed to pulled information.
 Team communication is prioritized by the sender.
 Human resource policies, reward/recognition systems as well as career development
systems address the unique needs of virtual workers.
 Good access to technical training and information on how to work across cultures.
 Training methods accommodate continual and just-in-time learning.
 There are standard and agreed on technical and ―soft‖ team processes.
 A ―high trust‖ culture; teamwork and collaboration are the norm.
 Leaders set high performance expectations; model behaviors such as working across
boundaries and using technology effectively.
 Team leaders and members exhibit competence in working in virtual environments.
13. Communication Planning
Communications management is about keeping everybody in the loop. The communications
planning process concerns defining the types of information you will deliver, who will receive it,
the format for communicating it, and the timing of its release and distribution. It turns out that
90% of a project manager‘s job is spent on communication so it‘s important to make sure
everybody gets the right message at the right time.

The first step in defining your communication plan is figuring out what kind of communication
your stakeholders need from the project so they can make good decisions. This is called the
communications requirements analysis.

All projects require a sound communication plan, but not all projects will have the same types of
communication or the same methods for distributing the information. The communication plan
documents the types of information needs the stakeholders have, when the information should be
distributed, and how the information will be delivered.

The types of information you will communicate typically include project status, project scope
statements and updates, project baseline information, risks, action items, performance measures,
project acceptance, and so on. It‘s important that the information needs of the stakeholders be
determined as early in the planning phase of the project management life cycle as possible so that
as you and your team develop project planning documents, you already know who should
receive copies of them and how they should be delivered.

Communication Plan Template

So how do you create a communication plan?
1. Identify your stakeholders (to whom)
2. Identify stakeholder expectations (why)
 3. Identify communication necessary to satisfy stakeholder expectations and keep them
informed (what)
4. Identify time-frame and/or frequency of communication messages (when)
5. Identify how the message will be communicated (the stakeholder‘s preferred method)
(how)
6. Identify who will communication each message (who)
7. Document items – templates, formats, or documents the project must use for
communicating.

Communication plan template.

PART A

What is ethics? (Nov/dec 2019)

Ethics relates to the moral obligation to respect the rights and interests of others – goes beyond
strictly legal responsibilities
Types:
1. Organizational ethics
2. Financial Ethics
3.Professional ethics

Define a team.(Nov/dec 2019)

The project team are those people who have a role in the same project. Team members can be
grouped but each individual has a certain role and function and thus can be assigned certain
tasks. ... Each team member has certain responsibilities based on their role, function and assigned
tasks.
What are the uses of formal structure.(apr/may 2019)
In organizational structure could be described as the official line of authority and control within
an organization. Project management structures tell us how reporting relationships work in a
particular organization.
Depending on the environment the organization finds itself operating in, the goals they set for
themselves and the nature of work being done, you would find thatorganizations are structured in
3 ways:
 Functional Organizational Structure
 Matrix Organizational Structure – This can be further broken down into – Balanced
matrix, Strong Matrix, and Weak Matrix
 Projectized Organization Structure

What do you understand by virtual team? (April-may 2018)

A virtual team is a group of individuals who work across time, space and organizational
boundaries with links strengthened by webs of communication technology.

Write the importance of ethics for project management. (April-may 2018)

The importance of ethics for project management can be seen from the way in which project
managers have to bid for projectsafter full disclosure of their capabilities and capacities without
resorting to hyperbole or exaggeration and during the bidding process, ensure that they do not employ
underhand means to bag the project. As the rest of the discussion indicates, there are some red flags that
project managers need to be aware of in all phases.

What is the general recruitment process approach?(NOV-2017)

 Create a job specification
 Create a job holder profile
 Obtain applications
 Examine CVs
 Interviews
Other Procedures

Define intrinsic motivation.(MAY-2017)

Intrinsic motivation refers to motivation that is driven by an interest or enjoyment in the task
itself and exists within the individual rather than relying on any external pressure

Outline the strategies for risk reduction ?(NOV/Dec 2017)

Risk mitigation strategies are a term to describe different ways of dealing with risks. These strategies
include risk avoidance, transfer, elimination, sharing and reducing to an acceptable level. We have to
keep in mind that there are always some risks and that‘s why the fundamental question is not how to
eliminate the risk but how to deal with the risk in a way to reduce to the minimum level the impact or the
probability of occurrence.

What is forming? (Nov -2013,apr/may2019)

The first stage encompasses the transition from a group of individuals to a functioning team.
During this time, members build confidence and trust in each other as well as their leader. In this
period of instability, you may initially notice:
 Frequent complaining about the organization
  Inability to focus discussions on relevant tasks
 Silence in meetings
Little or no interaction between members

What is masslow’s hierarchy needs? (MAY -2012) (MAY -2015)

Maslow's Hierarchy is the hierarchy of human behavior that is often used for achieving
management objectives based on psychological and physiological needs. How does this relate to
project management? Read on to find out.

List some obstacles for good group decision making? (May -2013)
 it is time consuming;
 it can stir up conflicts within the group;
 and decisions can be unduly influenced by dominant personalities.
 Experiments have shown that people will modify their personal judgements to conform to
group norms.
People in groups sometimes make decisions that carry more risk than when they make the
decision on their own. This is known as the riskyshift.

Define expectancy theory of motivation. (May- 2016)

Expectancy theory (or expectancy theory of motivation) proposes an individual will behave
oract in a certain way because they are motivated to select a specific behavior over other
behaviors due to what they expect the result of that selected behavior will be.

Define Stress.(NOV -2012)(MAY-2016)

Stress is any circumstance that places special physical and/or psychological demands on a person
such that an unusual or out-of-the-ordinary response occurs.
 The circumstance – the stressor- can be a final exam, a financial problem, or a difficult
boss.
The response- the stress response- may be a physiological or psychological manifestation

1. What is the significance of “working in groups”? [APRIL 2014]

The manager at IBM said ―some work yields better results if carried out as a team while
some things are slowed down if the work is not compartmentalized on as individual basis.
Categorizing group tasks can be done by
(i) Additive tasks
(ii) Compensatory tasks
(iii) Disjunctive tasks
(iv) Conjunctive tasks

2. Draw the hierarchy of the organizational structure. [APRIL 2014]

Project Organization:

Top Management

Project team 1 . ………………………………………. Project team n

 Functional Organization:
Top Management

Functional Groups
Requirements Project team 1
Design
Coding
Testing
Database
Networking Project team n

3. What is “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs”? [APR/MAY 2015, MAY/JUN 2012]

• Physiological Needs - attention turns to safety and security
• Security or Safety Needs- Calculation, Domain, Consulting,
• Affiliation or Social Needs - Developing New Programs
• Esteem Needs- needs for esteem can become dominant
• Self-actualization Needs - include symmetry

4. What do you understand by Egoless programming? [MAY/JUN 2012]

– Restructure the social environment
– Restructure programmers‘ values
– Encourage team members to find faults in code
– A fault must be considered a normal and accepted event
– The team as whole will develop an ethos, group identity
– Modules will ―belong‖ to the team as whole
– A group of up to 10 egoless programmers constitutes a democratic team

5. Define Stress and important causes of stress encountered in projects. [ NOV/DEC

2012, MAY/JUNE 2014, APR/MAY 2015]
Projects are about overcoming obstacles and achieving objectives. Almost by definition
both the project manager and team members will be under pressure. Once a project gets
rolling, you should expect members to be putting in at least 60 hours a week. The project
must except to put in as many hours as possible.
(i) Role ambiguity
(ii) Role conflict

6. What is forming? [NOV/DEC 2013]

The members of the group get to know one another and try to set up some ground rules
about behavior.

7. List some obstacles for good group decision making.[MAY/JUNE 2013]

 Time consuming
 Stir up conflicts within group
 Decisions can be unduly influenced by dominant personalities
  People in groups make decisions carry more risk than where they make decisions
on their own is known as risky shift.

8. Write down any four selection criteria for SCM tools.[MAY/JUNE 2013]
 Multi user support
 Scalability
 Easy to setup
 Process management.

9. Name the six classes of product domain. [ NOV 2010]

 Customer
 Business
 Industrial
 real-time
 really timely
 scientific.

10. Write the difference between project process and product process. [NOV/DEC
2011, NOV 2010]
 Project process-Describe and organize the work of the project.
 Defined by the PMI PMBOK.
 Product process-Specify and create the project product.
 Defined by the life cycle used.
 Defined by the American society of quality(ASQ),
 Certified Software Quality Engineer(CSQE)

11. What is milestone? [ MAY 2010]

 A milestone is a significant event in a project, usually associated with a
major work product or deliverable. Stages or phases are not milestones but are collections
of related product activities.

12. Define Quality Function Deployment(QFD) [NOV/DEC 2011]

It is a method to transform user demands into design quality, to deploy the functions
forming quality and to deploy methods for achieving the design quality into subsystems
and component parts, and ultimately to specific elements of the manufacturing process.

13. Write the stages of Team Formation Model. [NOV/DEC 2011]

o Forming
o Storming
o Norming
o Performing
o Adjourning.

14. What are the three basic objectives of organizational behavior? [NOV/DEC 2014,
MAY/JUNE 2014]
 1. To select the best man for the job.
2. To instruct them in the best methods.
3. To give incentives in the form of higher wages to the best workers.

17. List the steps involved in selecting the right person for the job. [NOV/DEC 2012,
APR 2014, NOV/DEC 2014]
 Create the job specification
 Create a job holder profile
 Obtain applicants
 Examine CV‘s
 Interviews
 Other procedures - references medical examination
 Experience
 Person who can communicate well.

18.What are the different styles of leadership. [ NOV/DEC 2014]

(i) directive autocrat
(ii) permissive autocrat
(iii) Directive democrat
(iv) permissive democrat

19. Differentiate leaders and managers.

Leaders-Set direction, do the righting.
Managers-Follow process, do things right.

20. Give some unites for measuring the size of the software.
Lines of code (LOC), Function points, feature points, number of bubbles on the dataflow
diagram, number of entities on entity relationship diagram.

21. Write the any two advantages of LOC.

1. It is widely used and universally accepted.
2. LOC is easily measured upon project completion.

22. Write the goal of software project planning?

Software estimates or documented for use in planning and tracking the software project.

23. What is Legacy code?

Code developed for a previous application that is believed to be of use for a new
application.

24. What are the characteristics of an organization?

Model, Maturity, Thickness, Size, Structure.

25. Write any five competencies of project management skills.

 Documenting plans
 estimating cost
  estimating effort
 managing risks
 scheduling
 tracking processes.

26. Write any two goals of organizational process focus.

Software process development and improvement activities are coordinated across the
organization.The strength and weakness of the s/w processes used are identified relative to a
process standard.

27. What is knowledge management?

Knowledge management is the combination of activities involved in gathering,
organizing, sharing, analyzing, and disseminating knowledge to improve an organization‘s
performance.

28. What is unstructured data?

Unstructured data are the data drawn from meeting discussions, private conversations,
textual documents, graphical representations and other ―non-uniform‖ sources.

29. What is structured data?

Structured data are numbers and facts that can be conveniently stored and retrieved I an
orderly manner for operations and decision-making.

30. Write some ways to collect information for system requirements.

1. Interviews
2. Questionnaries
3. Examination of documents.
4. On-the-job observation.