Four Special Topics
Neil Siegel · 2019
This chapter discusses four separate topics: starting a project, projects with large amounts of software, the agile software development methodology, and ending a project. All projects, but most especially big projects – whether agile or not – require plans, infrastructure, and processes. As the project manager, one has to see to the creation of them all. The project start-up process is an important and non-trivial activity, which requires planning, time, and resources. A special task within the project start-up process is the creation of the schedule and cost baselines, and getting through the corresponding auditing process. The most important engineering projects operate at large scale, and the project start-up process is where the foundations for the capacity to operate at a large scale are created and institutionalized. Engineering projects usually contain large amounts of software and software development, because software has proven to enable certain desirable characteristics to be incorporated into the end product.