Making fixed price software projects profitable through management training

Case study

Profitability of fixed price software projects

- Results of a project management training program in Wipro Technologies presented in APSEC ‘06

Present co-ordinates of the author:Chief consultant, [email protected]

http://www.acoe.in/

G. Nagaraja

General Manager,

Talent Transformation,

Wipro Technologies

Path FinderPath Finder- A software project - A software project

management competency management competency development initiativedevelopment initiative

ASPEC06 Wipro Technologies Path Finder 3

Overview

Need for a S/W project management training initiative

Challenges

The initiative– Courses

– Best practices

Results– Account interventions and industry publications

Current status


Need for a SPM training initiative

Fixed price projects were running into effort and schedule overruns leading to losses

Root cause analysis showed PM Competency as a key concern area

PMI initiative was launched to improve the project management capability of project managers– PMI initiative was successful; at one point of time, Wipro had the largest

number of certified PMPs in India and was among top 15 globally

– Feedback from PMPs was that PMBOK provides a general perspective on project management and something more applied was needed to manage software project.

Hence a need for training on software project management was felt


Challenges

Software engineering and project management courses are generally considered to be boring and monotonous– Participants have a “We already know this” tendency

Most of these subjects are perceived to as “Good in theory but doesn’t work in practice”– Establishing the relevance of the teaching in the course is a

significant challenge

Project manager’s time– Project managers would find it extremely difficult to spare 8

days for training.


Overview of the Path Finder series

ScopeScope

QualityQuality

CommunicationCommunication

TimeTime

Human Resources

Human Resources

ProcurementProcurement

RiskRisk

CostCost

IntegrationManagement

EstimationMethodologies

RequirementGathering

RequirementModeling

RequirementChange

Management

Advanced Project

Scheduling

EffectiveProject Planning

And tracking

Advanced RiskManagement

Highlights• International Videos • Wipro Case studies and examples

• Home grown innovative solutions• Publication in industry forums


Best practices followed in the curriculum

To make the subjects relevant – – Many case studies, role plays and live examples were included

– Applicability was so stressed that while preparing each course, we followed a two-step procedure – reviewing the content-readiness and then reviewing the applicability readiness.

– We included results of our own research within the organization.

To make the subjects interesting– We formatted the courses in such a way that

• Each course had sufficient visual, auditory and kinesthetic reinforcements.

• A balance between left-brain inputs and right-brain inputs could be achieved

To make it easy for project managers to participate – – We followed a “Rain Model”


Results…

Participant feedback has been overwhelming– Sample qualitative feedback

• The Path Finder program has definitely equipped me to become a more effective PM … a senior Project Manager

• I have gained wonderful experience by completing Path Finder series….Onsite Manager

– Nominations were always full– Covered than 2500 traineesh

Management response– Courses were made

mandatory to all practicing PMs

– Assessments were introduced

Comparing performance before and after This Practice training

Box plot indicating that the scores of those who have undergone training are

significantly higher than the ones who have not undergone the training

Av

era

ge

pe

rce

nta

ge

sco

re

Trained EmployeesUntrained employees

85

80

75

70

65

60

55

50

Boxplot of untrained employees Vs trained employees

Employees in band C1 and above trained in Path Finder

1558

361 334

44218

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

BDC CDC HDC KDC PDC (blank)

Location

Total


…Results…

Internal consulting following training well received– A $ 10 m deal won with the help of our team for estimation

– Helped in achieving clarity and completeness of requirements in many instances

Hi <Faculty1> and <Faculty2>, We have delivered the SRS to the customer and obtained the sign off also. Your guidance in the following helped us to prepare the detailed SRS.1. Requirement Gathering Techniques2. Documentation with Visual Controls(like Site Map, Domain Classes and Process Flow, ER diagram)3. Detailed Review of SRS and various suggestions on the presentation Thank you so much for the support and we look forward the same in our next phases . Regards<<Project Manager name>>


…Results

Correlation between assessment performance and project performance has been established– Observed over a sample of 36 projects, those scoring > 60% in

the assessment have an average effort under-run of 10%– Observed over a sample of > 100 projects, those scoring < 40%

in assessments had an average over run > 3%

Research has been published in industry forums• Nagaraja Gundappa, “MVC Points – a new estimation

methodology for web applications”, PML 2005, May 2005.• Nagaraja Gundappa, “Trends in Estimation methodologies”, SPM

ICON 2005, May 2005.

The initiative is now institutionalized with the establishment of a project management academy


Current status and future

A PM Academy has been established that stream lines project management trainings – both soft skills as well as process skills– Future project managers are identified and go through a series

of soft skill trainings called “Future Manager Program (FMP)”– FMP will be followed by a set of project management trainings– The PM trainings consist of two sets with 6-9 months of gap in

between; the trainees will be mentored during this period– Trainees will be qualified through assessment at the end

Future– Only those qualified to manage projects will be assigned to the

role of project manager– Focus on creating programs for and training senior project

managers enabling them to handle large projects


Thank you

Making fixed price software projects profitable through management training

Software

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