Software Project Planning Associate (SPPA): a knowledge-based approach for dynamic software project planning and tracking

Software project planning can be one of the most critical activities in the modern software development process. Without a realistic and objective software project plan, the software development process cannot be managed in an effective way. Over-runs of 100-200% are common. Some software projects never deliver anything. Managers have difficulty understanding and visualizing the software development process defined in a software project plan. The Software Project Planning Associate (SPPA), developed in the Java programming language, is accessed through standard World Wide Web browsers and designed to assist a software project manager in objectively initializing a software project plan, refining/improving a plan, organizing, staffing, scheduling, measuring, visualizing, controlling, tracking, predicting and data collecting. The resources, tasks, schedules and milestones of the software project are described in the plan. As software development process evolves, measurements are unobtrusively gathered and compliance to the software project plan is reported. Software process effectiveness predictions are made and recommendations are dynamically reported suggesting the software development that should be executed to best comply with the software project plan. The SPPA was developed according to a knowledge-base plan model to allow the manager to keep track of the software plan component. SPPA, with the assistance of a software project planning agent, reports problems and suggests problem solutions to the manager. SPPA helps managers assure that a project is within budget, on time and to customer satisfaction