Towards a Scenario Based Project Management Paradigm

Complex software development is a risky job. The number of unsuccessful projects largely surpasses the number of successful developments. Many studies relate this situation to non-technical problems, especially to inadequate project management. This thesis intends to develop a scenario based project management paradigm, which is based on separately describing a software project expected behavior and potential problems that can affect this behavior. Risk management, formal process modeling, and simulation support the proposed project management paradigm. The scenario based project management approach conveys a risk management process, which organizes risk-related information as scenarios and describes a technique to apply this information upon a development project. System dynamic models of software development projects are used to support risk analysis and evaluation. Each development project defines and maintains a project model, which is described by its project elements, such as activities, developers, and artifacts. The project model can be integrated to separately defined scenario models, which affect the software project original behavior. The integration of scenario combinations within the project model allows project behavior estimation over several different situations.