Risks in Estimating and Managing Software Development Projects Technical Memo

Software Engineering

Issues and challenges in estimating project effort. Examine the characteristics of software projects that make them a challenge to partition. Examine roles and responsibilities in a software team, and management issues of teams.

Douglas Troy

Chapter 2 "The Mythical Man-Month" from Essays on Software Engineering by Fredrick P. Brooks

Memo

Less than a week

Writing
Reading

Research
Project management

Many software development projects are delivered late, or fail all together, due to mismanagement. One aspect of effective management is to make realistic estimates of the effort (or time) needed to create a software product. Another aspect is effective team management. This reading presents some rules of thumb from a leader in the software engineering community. In this memo to your supervisor, you will identify what you consider to be the most important point in helping to reduce risks in the development process.

In an internship or in your career you will likely be called upon to estimate the effort required for a project. This knowledge will give you a head-start in your internship or job situation.

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