This course introduces students to a range of technically-orientated issues in business, engineering and software management. Students are provided with concrete strategies for addressing important issues within practical, relevant and contemporary contexts.

The course comprises slections from one or more of the following topic areas:

• Project Management. This is a major topic for the course. Tools and techniques appropriate to management of both generic and software-specific projects are introduced.
• Business Environments - a systems-thinking approach to understanding the internal and external environments for an organisation will be used to set the stage for work in business planning and management.
• Business Planning - students will gain practical experience of new venture planning
• Ethics and Corporate Responsibility - individual ethics and ethical culture - structured approach to arrive a a normative conclusion
• Planning and Strategic management - management decision-making; risk management
• Organisational Design - alignment with corporate goals; staffing and people management
• Leadership - motivating, influencing, communicating, managing groups and teams
• Control in Organisations and change management
• Quality - definition, value and scope. Quality management techniques
• Understanding Variation - the truth behind the management report, statistical process control (SPC) for managers
• Software specific issues - Choosing or tailoring a software development life cycle. Constructing a software development plan. Applying techniques and tools for determining size, effort and cost of a software development. Constructing a schedule and determining resource requirements and allocations. Identifying, assessing and managing risks (including technical, schedule and resource risks). Choosing and using metrics for different purposes such as monitoring progress, controlling resources and estimating rework.

Upon completion of this course students will have the basic competencies to:

1. Understand software development within a context of business change and enablement and initiate a software development project within that context
2. Evaluate software development strategies against organisational and technical constraints
3. Design key components of software development plans to meet business and technical needs
4. Analyse time and effort for software development tasks
5. Create suitable resource plans and schedules for software development
6. Analyse technical and non-technical project risks, and formulate risk controls
7. Understand good practice for accountable and transparent project reporting
8. Understand good practice for managing and varying software development plans
9. Evaluate and forecast project progress and performance
10. Formulate corrections for underperforming projects
11. Successfully close out and hand over a completed project

written assignment (20%);
oral presentation (20%);
written examination (60%);
progressive exercises

Seventeen two-hour lectures and five three-hour workshop sessions.

12 units of 3000-series IT

Project Management Techniques, Rory Burke

A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, Project Management Institute

Information Technology Project Management, Kathy Schwalbe

Managing and Leading Software Projects, Richard Fairley

Introduction to Project Management, Rory Burke