Project engineering

About: Project engineering is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 609 publications have been published within this topic receiving 8869 citations.

It's all about process: project-oriented teaching of software engineering

Abstract: Process considerations are a central part of the material for a software engineering course; they are also central to accomplishing full-lifecycle, team-based systems development projects in such a course. This paper discusses the ways in which we have achieved an effective process structure within an academic context of full-year project courses. The key features are a kernel project plan and a process management mechanism. The project plan is a schedule including eight milestones with fixed due dates and quite explicit deliverables. The management is accomplished through an advanced full-year course, whose participants guide the project teams through the process.

Experiences with a software maintenance project course

Abstract: A report is made on an experience of teaching a senior-year course on software maintenance, centered around a maintenance project. For the course, students organized themselves into groups and worked on adaptive and perfective maintenance of selected real-world software products. The projects involved such issues as code understanding, requirements engineering and maintenance design, and dealt with both open-source and proprietary software. The main triumphs and pitfalls of the course are recounted, and recommendations are made on project selection and general course conduct.

A specific decision support system (SDSS) to develop an optimal project portfolio mix under uncertainty

Abstract: A specific decision support system (SDSS) than can be used as a methodology for choosing an optimal portfolio mix of information systems projects is described. The SDSS is developed by applying a number of well-known management science techniques. A net present value (NPV) of the projects is maximized within limited resources, and the solution of the model provides the optimal project start period, system development language, and staff size. The SDSS conducts a risk analysis on those variables that are deemed critical when determining the optimal solution. The final phase of the SDSS establishes the value of perfect information on these critical variables. To demonstrate the usefulness of the model an example consisting of five information system (IS) projects is presented. It is shown that, given the estimates of the exogenous parameters of the IS project environment, the model can determine when to begin the project development, which systems development language to use, and the number of systems development staff assign to each project. The degree of the variability of the estimates of exogenous parameters is evaluated through empirical probability distributions. >

Methodology for modelling a project management control environment

Abstract: Control must be interpreted in its widest sense if its substantial body of knowledge and those who have helped to establish this are to remain gainfully employed in the solution of realworld engineering problems. Many of these, in an age properly described as large-scale, are found in the field of project management. Herein lie control problems of the most challenging nature, to the extent that researchers are proposing an essentially different control strategy than has hitherto been realisable: that of the intelligent knowledgebased system (IKBS). The paper aims to formalise the expertise of a project manager, regarding the two specific problems of bidding control and expedition control, and hence to develop a suite of user-friendly computer-based tools embodying this knowledge. The paper proposes an original and powerful methodology for modelling projects. This is based on an information system represented by a type of associative network. The authors have made an important modelling decision to classify all information into distinct planes in terms of project specifics, project environments and project generalities. Project knowledge is seen as potential control action, and this is modelled as a reverse-chaining inference system attached to slots of frames. Reasoning with uncertainty is provided for as is an explanation facility. The means of representing intelligence is unique in that the inferencing, instead of operating from a central database containing evidence and hypotheses, works in conjunction with the information system which maintains both. Two IKBSs are described which are aimed at the problems of bid proposal and project expedition, respectively. These systems have emerged from a background of extensive consultations with industries intimately concerned with project management.