1. Software Engineering Process - II
Unit 6:
Managing People

2. Before You Begin…
What are your expectations from this unit?

3. Unit Objectives Define critical factors in people management.
Explain staff selection.
Describe how to motivate people.
Define how to manage groups.
Explain group composition.
Define a cohesive group and its advantages.
Explain group communication and organization.
Describe working environments.
Explain the People Capability Maturity Model (P-CMM).

4. Managing People – Critical Factors
Consistency: All team members should be treated in a comparable way.
Respect: Managers should respect the fact that people have different skills and should be given an opportunity to contribute.
Inclusion: People contribute effectively when they feel their view are considered.
Honesty: Managers need to be honest about the status of the project.
Begin the class by telling the students that people working in a software organization are its greatest assets as they represent the intellectual capital.
The job of a software manager is to ensure that the organization gets the best possible return on its investment in people.

5. Selecting Staff
You can add that often project managers do not have a free choice in selecting people as the right people may not be available within the organization and the project manager may be working under budget constraints.

6. Factors Governing Staff Selection
Application domain experience
Platform experience
Programming language experience
Problem solving ability
Educational background
Communication ability
Adaptability
Personality/Attitude
If the project manager has a choice, the given list of factors should help him take the right decision.
You can further explain these factors by using Figure 25.2 on page 595 from Software Engineering.

7. Class Activity - 1
List the constraints that a project manager may face while selecting team members?
You can divide the class in groups of five students for doing this activity. Compile their points and present to the class.
The next slide contains some of the constraints that a project manager may face while selecting team members.

8. Selection Constraints
Managers might face problems while selecting the skills for the project. Some of these include:
People with specific skills may be working on some other project.
A wide choice for specific skills, such as user interface design and hardware interfacing, may not be available.
Recent graduates, though available, may not have specific skills.
It may not always make sense to employ the most proficient technical person for a technical job.

9. Motivating People
Motivation involves organizing the work and the environment so that people are stimulated to work effectively.
Maslow suggests that people are satisfied if their needs are fulfilled.
These needs are arranged in a series of levels.
Explain the human needs from the diagram shown on the next slide.

10. Human Needs You can explain these needs as follows:
The lowest levels represent the needs for food, rest, and security.
Social needs are concerned with the need to feel part of a group.
Esteem needs are the needs to feel respected by others.
Self-realization needs are concerned with personal development.
Human priorities are to satisfy needs from the lowest level to the highest level.
Software organizations have to focus on providing social, esteem, and self- realization needs.

11. Human Needs (cont.)
To satisfy social needs, provide time and place for get-togethers and meetings.
To satisfy esteem needs, show people that they are valued by the organization by recognizing their achievements.
To satisfy self-realization needs, give them demanding but achievable responsibilities and provide suitable trainings.

12. Human Needs (cont.)
Task-oriented people are motivated by the work they do.
They are technicians who like the challenge offered by software development.
Self-oriented people are motivated by personal success and recognition.
They often have long-term goals such as career progression.
Interaction-oriented people are motivated by the presence and actions of co-workers.
They like to work as part of a group.
Discuss the three types of professionals. To encourage discussion and participation in the class, a suggested exercise is to ask the students to classify themselves as one of the professionals.

13. Managing Groups
Successful groups are more than a collection of individuals with right balance of skills.
A good group has a team spirit and people are motivated by group success as well as their own.
You can explain the group factors as follows:
Group composition requires the right balance of skills, experience, and personalities.
Group cohesiveness defines whether it is a team or a collection of individuals.
Group communication is good when all team members communicate effectively with each other.
Group organization should ensure that everyone in the team feels satisfied and valued.

14. Group Composition A group should have complementary personalities.
People who are motivated by work are likely to be technically sound.
Self-oriented people will be good at pushing the work.
Interaction-oriented people facilitate communication within the group.
Sometimes, it is difficult to select people who have complementary personalities in a group. In such situations, all group members can participate in each stage of the project.
You need a better control and may have to appoint group leaders who report to project manager and keep day to day track of all activities.
It may be effective to separate technical leadership and project administration.

15. Group Cohesiveness
Members of a cohesive group are loyal to the group and can identify with group goals.
They attempt to protect the group from outside interference.
The group can cope with problems and changes by providing mutual support.

16. Group Cohesiveness - Advantages
A group quality standard can be established by consensus and is more likely to be observed.
Members work closely and mutual learning is encouraged.
Members get to know each other’s work and can take over if a person leaves.
Egoless programming can be practiced.
You can ask the students to recall from SEP-I that egoless programming is a style where designs, programs, and documents are group’s property. In egoless programming, people are more willing to offer their work for inspections and criticism.

17. Just a Minute
Name a software development approach where egoless programming is practiced?
The answer is:
Extreme programming – constant improvements to the code are done irrespective of who wrote the program.

18. Class Activity - 2
You learned the advantages of a cohesive group. Do you think a cohesive group might have some limitations? Why?
You can divide the class in groups of five students and then present a comprehensive list of points identified by each group.
Limitations of a cohesive group are:
Resistance to change of leadership.
Critical abilities of the group members take a back seat and group loyalty takes over. Proposal favored by majority may be adopted.

19. Group Communication
Group members need to communicate on the status of their work, design decisions, and changes.
The factors that affect group communication are:
Group size
Group structure
Group composition
Physical work environment
You can explain these factors by referring to page 604 of Software Engineering.

20. Group Organization
Groups can be organized informally where all group members discuss the work and tasks are allocated according to the ability of individuals.
Groups can be build around a highly skilled chief programmer.
Augment a group of people having generic skills, such as language experience and problem-solving, with experts as required by project.
You can explain the problems associated with these groups as follows:
In an informal group that consists of mostly inexperienced members, no definite authority exists to direct the work and can cause a lack of co-ordination.
The chief programmer team has serious problems as it is over-dependent on one person. Other team members may become unmotivated as they feel that their skills are being underutilized.

21. Class Activity - 3
Identify the benefits and problems associated with informal groups and chief programmer groups.
The benefits associated with these groups can be as follows:
Informal groups can be successful when most of the members are experienced and competent. They take decisions by consensus which can further improve group cohesiveness and performance.
A skilled and experienced worker is responsible for software development and does not have to waste time on routine matters.
The problems associated with these groups can be as follows:
In an informal group that consists of mostly inexperienced members, no definite authority exists to direct the work and can cause a lack of co-ordination.
The chief programmer team has serious problems as it is over-dependent on one person. Other team members may become unmotivated as they feel that their skills are being underutilized.

22. Working Environments
Important factors suggested by McCue’s design study are:
Privacy: Programmers require quiet areas where they can concentrate.
Outside awareness: People prefer to work in area with a view of outside environment.
Personalization: People prefer an environment which can adopt different working practices.
More often people like individual offices that they can organize to suit their needs and that have less interruption.

23. Working Environments (cont.)
Development groups also need meeting areas where they can sit and discuss project issues formally as well as informally.
The figure shows the schematic for a suitable work environment which combines individual rooms with common area.
The key requirement is to provide both individual and group space so that people can work alone or as a group.

24. P-CMM
P-CMM is developed by Software Engineering Institute (SEI) to support its Capability Maturity Model (CMM).
It can be used as a framework for improving the way in which human assets are managed by an organization.
You can tell the students that the Integrated CMM will be covered in Unit 10.

25. P-CMM (cont.) P-CMM is a five level model:
Initial: Informal people management processes.
Repeatable: Established processes for people capability development.
Defined: Standardization of best people management practices.
Managed: Quantitative goals for people management.
Optimizing: Improving individual competence and motivating staff.
You can tell the students that the Integrated CMM will be covered in Unit 10.

26. P-CMM (cont.)

27. P-CMM (cont.) The objectives of P-CMM are:
To improve the organization capability by improving the capability of the workforce.
To ensure that software development is an attribute of the organization and not of few individuals.
To align the motivation of individuals with that of the organization.
To retain people with critical knowledge and skills within the organization.

28. Summary
What was your key learning from the unit?