Assessing Software Project Management Complexity: PMCAT Tool

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
New Trends in Networking, Computing, E-learning, Systems Sciences, and Engineering

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering ((LNEE,volume 312))

Abstract

Software projects are complex endeavors that quite often fail to satisfy their initial objectives. As such the need to systematically study and assess the complexity of software projects is quite important. This study presents a systematic framework for assessing complexity of software projects that is based on the study of project management subject areas as defined in Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK). The presented framework is based on a model that combines the concepts of project, complexity model, complexity factor etc. is an attempt to systematically assess and compare the complexity of software projects. The whole concept has been implemented within Project Management Complexity Assessment Tool (PMCAT) and it is available as a software service over the web.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
EUR 32.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or Ebook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
EUR 29.95
Price includes VAT (Germany)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
EUR 160.49
Price includes VAT (Germany)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
EUR 213.99
Price includes VAT (Germany)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free ship** worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
EUR 213.99
Price includes VAT (Germany)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free ship** worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Holmes A, (2001) Failsafe IS. Project delivery, Aldershot: Gower.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Flyvbjerg B., Bruzeliusm N., Rothengatter W., (2003) Megaprojects and Risk. An Anatomy of Ambition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  3. Morris, P.W.G., Hough, G.H., (1987) The Anatomy of Major Projects: a Study of the Reality of Project Management. John Wiley, Chichester.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Bosch-Rekveldt, M., Jongkind, Y., Mooi, H., Bakker, H., Verbraeck, A., (2011) Gras** project complexity in large engineering projects: The TOE (Technical, Organizational and Environmental) framework. International Journal of Project Management, 29, 728–739.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Geraldi J., and Adlbrecht G., (2006) On faith, fact, and interaction in projects, Project Management Journal, 38(1), 32–43.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Hass, K., (2007) Introducing the project complexity model. A New Approach to Diagnosing and Managing Projects—Part 1 of 2. PMWorld Today, IX(VII), pp. 1–8.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Maylor, H., Vidgen, R., Carver, S., (2008) Managerial complexity in project based operations: a grounded model and its implications for practice. Project Management Journal, 39, S15–S26 Supplement

    Google Scholar 

  8. Vidal, L.-A., Marle, F., (2008) Understanding project complexity: implications on project management. Kybernetes, 37(8), 1094–1110.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Williams, T.M., (2002) Modelling Complex Projects. John Wiley & Sons, London.

    Google Scholar 

  10. The Standish Group, (2009) CHAOS Summary 2009 The 10 Laws of CHAOS, The Standish Group International [Online] Available at: < www.statelibrary.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/…/chaos_summary_2009_pdf>, [Accessed: Dec. 10, 2010].

  11. The Standish Group, (1995) Charting the Seas of Information Technology—Chaos. West Yarmouth, MA: The Standish Group International.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Charette R., (2005) Why Software Fails, [Online] Available at: <http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/why-software-fails>, [Accessed: Nov, 15, 2010].

  13. Kitchenham, B., (2010) What’s up with software metrics? – A preliminary map** study. International Journal of Systems and Software, 83, 37–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Fitsilis P., A. Kameas and L. Anthopoulos, (2010) Classification of Software Projects’ Complexity, Information Systems Development, 2011, 149–159.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Laird L., Brennan, M., (2006) Software Measurement and Estimation. A Practical Approach, John Wiley and Sons.

    Google Scholar 

  16. PMI, (2008) A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge: PMBOK guide, Project Management Institute, Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  17. IPMA, (2008) IPMA Competence Baseline, Version 4.0. PMI Publishing

    Google Scholar 

  18. OGC, (2009) Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2 (2009 ed.), TSO (The Stationery Office).

    Google Scholar 

  19. Pant, I., Baroudi, B., (2008) Project management education: The human skills imperative. International Journal of Project Management, 26, 124–128.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Morris, P. W. G., Jamieson, A., Shepherd, M. M., (2006b) Research updating the APM Body of Knowledge 4th edition. International Journal of Project Management, 24, 461-473

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Thomas, J., Mengel, T., (2008) Preparing project managers to deal with complexity - Advanced project management education. International Journal of Project Management, 26, 304-315

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Winter, M., Smith, C., Morris, P. & Cicmil, S., (2006) Directions for future research in project management: The main findings of a UK government funded research network. International Journal of Project Management, 24, 638–649.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Turner, J. R., Muller, R., (2005) The Project Manager’s Leadership Style as a success factor on Projects: A literature review. Project Management Journal, 36, 49–61.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Cicmil, S., Marshall, D., (2005) Insights into collaboration at the project level: complexity, social interaction and procurement mechanisms. Building Research & Information, 33, 523-535.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Thamhain, H. J., (2004) Linkages of project environment to performance: lessons for team leadership. International Journal of Project Management, 22, 533–544.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Morel, B., Ramanujam, R., (1999) Through the looking glass of complexity: the dynamics of organizations as adaptive and evolving systems. Organization Science, 10(3), 278–293.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Schlindwein, S. L., Ison, R., (2004) Human knowing and perceived complexity: Implications for systems practice. Emergence: Complexity & Organization, 6, 27–32

    Google Scholar 

  28. Sinha, S., Thomson, A. I., Kumar, B., (2001) A complexity index for the design process. Proceedings of the International Conference on Engineering Design, ICED’01. Glasgow, Professional Engineering Publishing, Bury St Edmunds.

    Google Scholar 

  29. ** the complexity of IS development projects. Communications of the ACM, 47(5), 69–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Vidal, L. A., Marle, F., Bocquet, J.C., (2011) Using a Delphi process and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to evaluate the complexity of projects, Expert Systems with Applications, 38, 5388–5405.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Latva-Koivisto, A. M., (2001) Finding a complexity measure for business process models, Research report Helsinki University of Technology, Systems Analysis Laboratory. Available: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.25.2991&rep=rep1&type=pdf

  32. Whitty, S.J., Maylor, H., (2009) And then came Complex Project Management (revised). International Journal of Project Management, 27(3), 304–310.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Baccarini D., (1996) The concept of project complexity – A review, International Journal of Project Management, 14(4), 201–204.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Williams, T.M., (1999) The need for new paradigms for complex projects. International Journal of Project Management, 17(5), 269–273.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Geraldi J., (2008) Patterns of complexity: The thermometer of complexity, Project Perspectives, IPMA 29, 4–9.

    Google Scholar 

  36. Geraldi J., (2008) The balance between order and chaos in multi-project firms: A conceptual model, International Journal of Project Management, 26, 348–356.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Sedaghat-Seresht, A., Fazli, S., Mozaffari, M. M., (2012) Using DEMATEL Method to Modeling Project Complexity Dimensions. Journal of Basic and Applied scientific Research, 2(11), 11211–11217

    Google Scholar 

  38. Fitsilis P., G. Stamelos, (2007) Software Project Management. Hellenic Open University Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  39. Hughes B., Cotterell, M., (1999) Software Project Management, McGraw Hill.

    Google Scholar 

  40. Kiountouzis E., (1999) Software Project Management, Stamoulis Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  41. Williams, T.M., (2005) Assessing and moving on from the dominant project management discourse in the light of project overruns. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 52(4), 497–508.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Neleman, (2006) Shell gaat diep. FEM Business, 9 (4), 30–34

    Google Scholar 

  43. Cooke-Davies, T., Cicmil, S., Crawford, L., Richardson, K., (2007) We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto: map** the strange landscape of complexity theory, and its relationship to project management. Project Management Journal, 38(2), 50–61.

    Google Scholar 

  44. Kerzner, H., (2011), PROJECT MANAGEMENT METRICS, KPIs, AND DASHBOARDS A Guide to Measuring and Monitoring Project Performance. Publishing by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

    Google Scholar 

  45. Boehm, B., Abts, C., Brown, A. W., Chulani, S., Clark, B. K., Horowitz, E., Madachy, R.,Reifer, D. J., and Steece, B. (2000) Software Cost Estimation with COCOMOII. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs.

    Google Scholar 

  46. McCabe, T. J., and Butler, C. W. (1989). Design complexity measurement and testing. Communications of the ACM, 32(12), 1415–1425.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The research presented in this paper has been co-financed by the European Union (European Social Fund) and Greek National funds through the Operational Program “Education and Lifelong Learning” of the National Strategic Reference Framework. Research Funding Program: ARCHIMEDES III. Investing in knowledge society through the European Social Fund. Further, we would like to thank Costas Athanasiou that contributed significantly with the implementation of PMCAT tool.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Vyron Damasiotis .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this paper

Cite this paper

Damasiotis, V., Fitsilis, P. (2015). Assessing Software Project Management Complexity: PMCAT Tool. In: Elleithy, K., Sobh, T. (eds) New Trends in Networking, Computing, E-learning, Systems Sciences, and Engineering. Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, vol 312. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06764-3_30

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06764-3_30

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-06763-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-06764-3

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Navigation