The risks of failure associated with development projects involving ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) are still of as much concern as they were ten years ago when the first edition of this book was published. The main concern of the book throughout its various editions has been to inculcate the fundamental practices of good project management needed by ICT practitioners as one of the foundations of their professional education. While it is hoped that current practitioners will find much that will be helpful, the main target audience for the book are computing and information systems students on undergraduate and masters programmes.
The decision to write and adapt material for a new edition was triggered by developments in software project management which merited the expansion of some aspects of the book. Some of these developments are listed below.
• Advances in electronic communication have been exploited to support projects where the project team is geographically dispersed.
• Associated with the above, the practice of outsourcing software development to third world countries, particularly to India, has accelerated. It is significant that special Indian and Chinese editions of this book have appeared.
• A number of new and expanded international standards have appeared which address the assessment of the quality of both software products and the processes that create them. This needs to be seen in the context of the ‘off-shoring’ because where this happens, the quality of the software products being delivered will be a concern.
• The interest in agile methods has continued to grow, particularly extreme programming (XP). Once again this can be set in the context of the increasing move toward off-shore development of software. Software developers in the west need to find ways of competing with low-cost developers and among these might be an increased responsiveness to client needs along with the improved speed of delivery that XP seems to offer.
In addition to responding to external developments, the old text was reviewed by a number of lecturers who had used the book on their courses. Wherever possible, their suggestions have been incorporated. One example is the material in the Chapter 7 on Goldratt’s critical chain management technique. In some cases we have been unable to incorporate ideas for additional topics as we have run out of both space and time, but hope to add the material to the supporting website.
Some topics that were previously covered in Appendices, such as the ISO/IEC 12207 standard and programme management, have now largely been made part of the main text. It was also felt that the material on the various project management qualifications and ‘bodies of knowledge’ (BOK) would be better placed on the supporting web-site.
During the course of preparing the new edition we have made use of materials produced by Abdullah Al Shehab and David I. Shepherd in the chapter on risk. David also offered some advice on the developments in earned value analysis. Our thanks go to them and to our colleagues at Brighton, especially Marian Eastwood and Joe Wilkinson for their advice and support. Particular thanks go to our reviewers for the time and trouble they have taken in providing us with valuable feedback.
2006 McGraw-Hill Education Europe