Development of a graduate software project management degree

Abstract

The shortcomings of the software development industry are well documented and familiar to all computer science faculty members. Many software projects fail to deliver products with adequate functionality or are completed over budget and well past the original expected delivery date. The causes of these problems are also well documented and well known. Most often the causes of software project failure are not related to incompetency among the software developers, but inadequate skills among the project managers. Recently, several universities have begun offering management degree programs in their engineering colleges. Most graduate software engineering programs now include at least some coursework in project management. Our university has taken a different approach to producing graduate software project managers. We have developed a Software Project Management option within our College of Business's MBA program. This paper describes the skills we believe necessary for software project managers and how we cover these skills through a combination of computer science and business courses. We hope this paper will be helpful to educators developing new degree programs and promote discussion about the value of bridging the gap between the two distant academic worlds of engineering and business. RATIONALETo increase the success of software projects, these projects need managers who are knowledgeable about software engineering, management, and general business. While a manager with a business degree is more likely to focus on return on investment and time to market, a manager with a computing degree is more likely to focus on software efficiency and reliability. We believe both types of factors are important to software project success. A manager of software projects, who is effective in the real world where money matters, must understand the importance of software engineering metrics such as testing coverage, and business metrics such as market share. Thus, we believe that degree programs seeking to develop software project management skills must include both software engineering and business coursework.It is accepted that the failure rate of software projects is far too high. Defining software project success as a project that delivers a product on time, within budget, and containing all specified features or services, the Standish Group reported in 1994 an industry success rate of just 16% [11]. By 2004 their annual report showed a success rate that had improved to only 29% [12]. While the Standish Group's statistics have been called in question and the true rate of success is likely somewhat higher [7], everyone can agree that there is ample room for improvement in our rate of project success.Much of software engineering education has focused on product success rather than project success. As Baccarini [3] points out, the two are different. Product success depends on satisfying the user, the organization, and other stakeholders. Project success depends on meeting deadlines, staying within budget, meeting quality goal...

Software Project Management as Team Building Intervention

“…The results of the current study suggested that both individual and group orientations of cohesion are important when student's projects are to be undertaken. Training in this regard will be effective as it is found that "often the causes of software project failure are not related to in competency among the software developers, but inadequate skills" of the team members [40,41].…”

Software Project Management Education: A Systematic Review

“…The education of SPM should be provided in a constructive way and through different productive teaching methods such as Active learning that based on problem base learning, experiential learning and participative learning as well as through simulations which let the students master in technical development skills before that they enter into the workforce and become professionals [6]. Due to the growing importance of SPM in the graduate and post graduate study programs, the researchers have carried out various to explore the SPME from different dimensions [7].…”