A case study on the success of introducing general non-construction activities for project management and planning improvement

  • Authors:

  • Topi Haapio;Jarmo J. Ahonen

  • Affiliations:

  • TietoEnator Telecom & Media, Kuopio, Finland;Department of Computer Science, University of Kuopio, Kuopio, Finland

  • Venue:
  • PROFES'06 Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Product-Focused Software Process Improvement
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

The creation of a proper work breakdown structure (WBS) is essential in performing successful project effort estimation and project management. The use of WBS is required on the level 1 of CMMI. There is, however, no standard WBS available. In this paper, the results of a pilot project in which new activities were introduced into the TietoEnator's WBS are reported. The activities were non-construction activities which are necessary but not directly related to the actual software construction. The study shows that the success of the introduction of such activities very much depends on the naming of the activities and how they are introduced to the employees. Additionally, it turned out that the pre-thought set of non-construction activities included activities that should not have been in the set at all as individual activities.