Project management is a crucial part of any software development project. Managing intangible entities like software is a difficult task. Other projects where the product is visible for instance, a civil engineering project, the structure, and the defective parts can be seen that in itself depicts the progress. As compared to these, the software cannot be seen or touched until its completion. Therefore project managers have to rely on the project team to review the progress of the project. Not all software projects are the same. Large-scale projects are usually one-off systems. So a project manager who might have previously worked on large projects and has experienced yet he won’t be able to predict the success or completion as every project is different. With changing times technologies change, which nullifies the experience too. So the outcomes or experiences of old projects are not applicable or transferable to the new ones always. Lastly, the most important factor is the organization the project is developed for. Every business has their own rules, norms, and values. The cultural difference of carrying out processes has a significant impact on the way software processes are conducted. There are numerous reasons that hinder the success and progress of software projects, and often they run into time and budget overruns. Therefore, the job of the project manager is to ensure a set of activities is strictly carried out and monitored so that the success of the project can be measured and mitigation techniques can be applied where needed. Usually, five tasks are on the agenda of a project manager, namely; planning, reporting, risk management, people management and proposal writing. In my next article, I will discuss the details of these tasks.
