The course provides an overview of the roles, responsibilities, and management methods of the digital project manager. The course assumes no prior knowledge in management techniques and is intended to teach students how to develop approaches and styles of management for digital projects. The course assumes a basic understanding of software analysis, design and development techniques.

1. To provide students with a clear understanding of the unique risks, issues, and critical success factors associated with digital projects
2. To introduce students to the role and function of project management
3. To explain the stages and process of the project life cycle
4. To understand the various techniques for planning and managing a digital project
5. To examine basic methodologies for software design, development, testing, implementation and deployment
6. To examine various techniques for managing a team working on digital projects
7. To understand the need and techniques for managing users and user expectations
8. To learn project planning and tracking techniques
9. To understand SCRUM as a modern agile approach to Digital Project Management
10. To provide students with hints on how to handle the final stages of a project

Introduction

• Administrative items
• digital transformation
• Fundamentals
• Running a pico-project
• Pico-project results discussion

Classic Mistakes

• A Case Study by McConnel to work on.
• Classic Mistakes by McConnel

Planning

• Digital Project Management fundamentals
• Planning Phase
  
  • phases in details
  • lifecycle planning
  • Matching Lifecycles to Project
  • Project plans
  • Project Survival Test [link]

Requirements

• importance of requirements
• characteristics & Issues
• types
• requirement gathering techniques

Work Breakdown Structures

• Introduction to Planning, Estimating, Scheduling
• Work Breakdown Structures: Types, Formats, Techniques and Guidelines

Estimation

• Measuring size, complexity and effort
• Estimation Methodologies
• Issues & Guidelines

Scheduling

• Fundamentals
• Techniques: Network Diagrams & Bar Charts
• Optimization Techniques

Open Project (part I)

• Epics and User Stories
• Tasks
• Tasks Hierarchies and Relations

SCRUM

• overall process
• user stories: story points and business value
• roles: Scrum Team, Product Owner, and Scrum Master
• Artifacts: Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, and Release Backlog
• tools: Burndown Chart and Task Board
• Meetings: sprint planning, daily scrum, sprint review and sprint retrospective
• Reference: P. Deemer, G. Benefield, C. Larman, B. Vodde (2009). “The Scrum Primer” (free for download).

Change Management

• The Feature-Creep Phenomenon
• Feature Set Control

Risk management

• Risk Assessment: Risk Identification, Risk Analysis & Risk Prioritization
• Risk Control: Risk Management Planning, Risk Resolution & Risk Monitoring

Project Control

• Progress Monitoring
• Status Reporting
• Earned Value Analysis
• Project Recovery

Open Project (part II)

• Estimation (Story Points)
• Backlogs
• Product Backlog and Sprints

People Dimension

• Project Roles
• Staffing profile
• Hiring
• Team models and successful projects
• Optimal team size
• Tools: RAM and Skill Matrix
• Mythical Man-Month

Project Quality Management

• Software Quality Assurance
• Integration
• Test planning
• Types of testing
• Test metrics
• Test Environments

Open Project (part III)

• Assigning resources to tasks
• Scheduling
• Timeline and Burndown Chart

Final phases

• Final Steps: Migration, Roll-Out, Training,.doc, Shipping Details, and Installation
• Maintenance
• Post Project Reviews (Post-mortems)
• Success tips
• Capability Maturity Model (CMM)

Homework assignments

• Homework 1 (5 points): Statement of Work for your project
• Homework 2 (8 points): SCRUM requirements for your project in open project
• Homework 3 (8 points): Write the WBS of a SCRUM sprint in open project
• Homework 4 (10 points): Add estimation to your WBS and schedule it in open project

Acknowledgements

• This course is largely based on Prof. John Musser class notes on "Principles of Software Project Management"
• Original information is available at http://www.projectreference.com/
• Reuse and republish permission was granted.

The exam consist in a practical part (20% of the grade) and a theoretical part (80% of the grade).

The theoretical part will be evaluated with a written and (optionally) an oral test. The written test is composed of questions to be answered in free text, regarding any of the course subjects, and exercises, regarding the more technical content. The oral test consists of a discussion about the written test and the practical part of the exam. It can include also questions on any subject of the course.

The practical part consists in simulating the activities of a digital project manager. This activities will be partially conducted in class during the course and partially at home (as homework). The student will document those activities in written reports. The evaluation is based on the content of those reports and (optionally) on an oral discussion.