[Managing Software Development Life Cycle with Activity Based Costing]

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Acknowledgement

I would take this opportunity to thank my research supervisor, family and friends for their support and guidance without which this research would not have been possible.

DECLARATION

I, [type your full first names and surname here], declare that the contents of this dissertation/thesis represent my own unaided work, and that the dissertation/thesis has not previously been submitted for academic examination towards any qualification. Furthermore, it represents my own opinions and not necessarily those of the University.

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CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY

Research Approach

To examine the feasibility of this approach, we worked closely with a major software developer who had a number of recently completed projects that could be evaluated using an ABC approach. Through a series of on-site interviews and review of contemporaneous documents, we documented a set of completed projects using a prototype ABC approach. These results are presented below. Based on this experience and a survey of the reuse literature, an ABC model and chart of accounts were further developed for a future component-based software development approach.

Methodology

The primary research approach was to investigate a set of field based cases of a major software developer. The selection criteria for the study favored projects thought to represent successful current examples of reuse and those that were using object-oriented tools and methods. A total of fifteen projects were included in the study, of which four are highlighted here merely to illustrate various approaches. The primary data collection approach was a series of semi-structured interviews with project managers and team members from a set of completed or nearly completed object-oriented projects. The focus in these interviews was to capture project management differences developed in the field to aid management of these modern projects. More structured data were also gathered using a standard questionnaire. Altogether we gathered data on staffing, project size, activities performed, allocation of budgeted costs by activity, software development technologies used, the nature of the software being developed, extent and nature of software reuse achieved, budget and schedule conformance, perceived reuse facilitators and inhibitors, and details regarding how reuse was managed (processes, tools, measures, economic models, funding mechanisms, etc.). Of this, the data related to activity costs are most pertinent to the present study.

Project Management Methodologies

Whilst many projects are carried out on a daily basis within a single organisation and with minimal formality, there are at the other extreme, complex projects that are multi-organisational and significant in terms of the resources the project consumes, the outputs the project produces and legacy of outcomes that it leaves.

The 'management of projects' (MoP) school of thought builds on the more traditional execution orientated project management school of thought by broadening the required range of expertise, from the technical to the strategic and by exploring the front-end project issues. MoP is practised widely in a number of sectors such as aerospace, defence, information and communication technology, pharmaceutical, petrochemical, process engineering, and construction. Here, MoP (obviously including first class PM) is business critical to the organisations that exist to serve ...