Planning Proposal

From ZenWiki

Contents 1 Purpose 2 Point of Contact 3 Plans 3.1 Project Plan 3.2 Semester and Iteration Plan 3.2.1 Objectives 3.2.2 Approach 3.2.3 Methods 3.2.4 Analysis 3.3 Estimation 3.3.1 Objective 3.3.2 Approach 3.3.3 Methods 3.3.4 Analysis 3.4 Risk Management 3.4.1 Objective 3.4.2 Approach 3.4.3 Methods 3.4.4 Analysis 4 Reflection 5 Glossary 6 Deliverables 6.1 Fall 2006 7 References

Purpose

This document details the methods and techniques which will be used by Team Zen to plan for the studio project. This proposal will contain details regarding project planning, estimation, scheduling, and tracking. It will also include details on scoping and risk analysis. It will contain comments by the team as to why a particular activity/tool was chosen, whether it worked or didn’t and the reasons for the same.

This document is a work in progress and will be updated as relevant.

Point of Contact

The point of contact for this document is Somakala Jagannathan. Questions and/or comments can be emailed to somakala@cmu.edu.

Plans

A plan consists of milestones and deliverables for the specified time-frame. The software development process we plan to follow is a tailored version of ACDM

Project Plan

The overall plan for the project will be architecture centric. The main target are the 3 semesters

• Fall 2006
• Spring 2007
• Summer 2007

Each semester is made up of iterations. Tasks will be identified for each iteration and these tasks will be completed for each iteration. In case of complex tasks, there will be set deliverables for an iteration and the same task will be taken forward to the next iteration. Based on the time frame available for the 3 semesters, the current plan is to have the following number of iterations.

• Fall 2006 - 3 Iterations
• Spring 2007 - 4 Iterations
• Summer 2007 - 3 Iterations.

Details about planning for semester, iterations and tasks are mentioned below.

Semester and Iteration Plan

The semester plan covers a single semester in detail. Each semester is broken down into iterations. The iteration plan covers fine grained details about the activities planned for the semester.

Objectives

The objectives of the semester plan are to follow well structure project management activities.

• Divide the project activities into manageable tasks based on the architecture
• Estimate for each task
• Schedule the tasks based on available resources
• Identify milestones and deliverables for the project
• Provide a mechanism to track the progress of the project
• Act as a communication mechanism between the client, mentors and the team members to report status.

Approach

1. Identify goals for the semester - We should identify the major goals for the semester. This includes
   • List of artifacts to be submitted, either to the client or as a part of studio deliverables
   • List of tasks to be accomplished, in our case the architecture centric approach and its related tasks
   • Individual goals, which are quantifiable and measurable, to ensure that our individual goals does not conflict with team goals
   • Team goals, which are quantifiable and measurable, to identify what it is we want to accomplish as a team at the end of the semester
2. Identify resource availability
   • We should know what resources are available and when and calculate the total time. To do this we need to track the following
     • working hours per member for studio related activity
     • working hours for the whole team (includes individual and group working hours)
     • working hours which get scheduled as need arises
       • meetings (status, informal, client, architecture related)
       • presentations and their preparation (MOSP and EOSP)
   • These figures will help us to balance and manage working time during the semester. We will continually recalculate time as more tasks are scheduled. This will help manage our work and hence ensure better quality of customer deliverables.
3. Identify iterations
   • Iterations are set time periods (in our case, 4 weeks), in which tasks are to be completed
   • There are three iterations for Fall 2006. The timelines are as follows.
     • Iteration 1 - 7.Sep.2006-4.Oct.2006
     • Iteration 2 - 5.Oct.2006-1.Nov.2006
     • Iteration 3 - 2.Nov.2006-29.Nov.2006
     • Extra Weeks - 30.Nov.2006-16.Dec.2006
   • There are three iterations for Spring 2007. The timelines are as follows.
     • Iteration 1 - 15.Jan.2007-16.Feb.2007
     • Iteration 2 - 19.Feb.2007-23.Mar.2007
     • Iteration 3 - 26.Mar.2007-27.Apr.2007
     • Extra Week - 30.Apr.2007-4.May.2007
4. Identify deliverables for each iteration, tasks and task allocation
   • The plan will include tasks to be completed in each iteration. There will be milestones within the iteration. Milestones are timelines to achieve goals or to develop artifacts. They are usually found at the end of an iteration, but not necessarily so.
   • Startup phase for each iteration will identify major tasks, all the deliverables, either physical artifacts or results of experiments or prototypes.
   • The tasks will be based on architectural components. Milestones by when these tasks have to be completed or artifacts delivered will be identified. The tasks may include work on more than one high-level architectural component.
   • The tasks will be broken down into detailed portions. Members will be assigned to tasks and all will be working towards the miletone, which will account time for integration.
   • There will be a reflection phase at the start of each iteration, which will identify what went right and what went wrong to be better prepared for the next iteration.
5. Roles and responsibilities of members
   • The team lead will plan and track each iteration. The lead will
     • identify the deliverables
     • allocate the tasks based on the architecture to the members
     • track the time for the team using a timesheet
     • track the progress on the tasks and the deliverables
   • There will be leads for each task identified. The task lead will break the tasks using ETVX into smaller pieces.

Methods

1. Tracking time

Time for the team and the individuals will be tracked via a timesheet maintained in Microsoft Excel. This will be used for calculating available hours and actual hours spent. The group meeting times, individual times spent on studio will be maintained in a shared Google Calendar. This will be useful to identify time for meeting for activities which crop up from time to time.

2. Tracking tasks, action items and progress

MS Project will be used to track tasks. MS Project is a web based and has options to view PERT chart and Gantt chart. MS Project will be used to track the project performance, dependencies and critical path and the progress so far.

3. Tracking team status

The team should submit a status report every week on the Zen Wiki. This will be accessible by other members and mentors. This will list

• Activities done so far
• Status of the activities
• Pending tasks
• Risks
• Dependencies

Analysis

1. Are the time sheets being filled regularly? Do they reflect the actual working hours?
2. Are the tasks being scheduled properly in MS Project? Do the PERT and Gantt charts help in tracking the tasks and their progress?
3. Are the status reports being submitted regularly?
4. Do all the above activities help in project planning? Is there any tool which needs to be changed? Any other activity which needs to be included?
5. How long did project planning activity take? How long did the measurement and tracking activity take?

Estimation

Objective

• Estimate for the tasks to be completed by end of semester
• Record estimations and use for future semesters
• Track project progress based on estimated and actual effort

Approach

Based on the tasks identified on the overall architecture and the milestone deadlines, estimates for the individual tasks will be arrived at. We will use the Wideband Delphi technique. Each person involved in the task will estimate and there will be two rounds of discussions. More rounds will be included if there is wide variance. It can be finalized in one round, in case the variance is very low. Values for wide and low variance will be refined as and when the team starts its estimation cycles.

Methods

Microsoft Excel will be used to record of the estimated hours. This will be loaded into MS Project while finalizing the plan. At the end of each phase, the data stored in Excel will be compared to the actual time taken and both this will be recorded in Excel. This will act as historical data for estimating better in milestones ahead.

Analysis

1. Was the Wideband Delphi technique effective?
2. Was it too time consuming?
3. Did the estimate data get captured effectively?
4. How do the estimates and the actual data compare? Are they close or is there a wide variance? What can be done to improve?

Risk Management

Objective

• Follow the steps for Risk Management as defined in Operations Proposal - Risk Management Process.
• Analyze the impact and plan for avoiding them.

Approach

Based on the risk analysis session, in the beginning of each milestone, the top 3 priority risks and their mitigation will be identified. The plan will account for the mitigation strategies.

Methods

• The plan will have tasks which identify that it has been planned for a particular risk.
• There need to be buffers in place for risks which have been missed and have turned into problems.

Analysis

• What were the risks which were mitigated? What risks were missed and which turned out into problems?
• Was the time allotted for mitigation adequate? If not why not and how can this be improved next time?
• Was the time allotted as a buffer used? If it was used, was it adequate? How can buffers be planned next time?

Reflection

Reflection on the effectiveness of these processes will be performed at the beginning of each iteration.

Details for reflection on Iteration 2 and Iteration 3 can be seen at Reflections on Planning Proposal

Glossary

ZEN Project Glossary

Deliverables

Fall 2006

1. Proposals
2. SOW
3. Architecture

References

• Ethan Urie, Swaroop Choudhari, Saul Jaspan, Zach Mouri, Yudi Nagata, "Planning Proposal," Team Simulacrum, 2005