PM-Net: a software project management representation model

Abstract

A model called PM-Net for representing and monitoring the software development process is presented. This model provides information for progress management, as well as information of project status at different levels of detail, for the benefit of project managers. The model emphasizes bottom-up data collection and top-down information inquiry functions. The Data Flow Diagram (DFD) and Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) techniques are utilized for construction of a hierarchical structure of the software development process. This process can be viewed as a set of activities; each activity can be viewed as a set of subactivities, and each subactivity can be viewed as a set of tasks. Managers can make an inquiry regarding project progress information at process level, activity level, subactivity level or task level, depending on the degree of details they require. The manager can also change the control state operators at the lowest level of activity which will enable a transition for a change of process status at the upper-level activity. This ensures that any large-scale software development project based on PM-Net will be able to represent the most recent project progress status at any time in the project's running duration, so that managers can monitor the project progress more effectively.