EVALUATION
OF PMBOK AND SCRUM PRACTICES FOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT IN THE VISION OF
SPECIALISTS
Elton Fernandes Gonçalves
Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil.
E-mail: eltonfg82.rj@gmail.com
Geisa Meirelles Drumond
Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil.
E-mail: gmdrumond@vm.uff.br
Mirian Picinini Méxas
Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil.
E-mail: mirian_mexas@vm.uff.br
Submission: 03/01/2017
Accept: 12/01/2017
ABSTRACT
In project management, the challenge for software development is
to achieve success for the proposed projects, using methods such as PMBOK and
Scrum. Knowledge of the advantages of these methods are critical success
factors for product development. Therefore, the proposal of this study was to
verify the perception of specialists of the area of software development on
practices of project management. The used methods in this study were the
bibliographic, exploratory and qualitative research, with the construction of a
questionnaire with 14 items on the advantages of project management practices
of various natures, size and complexity, which were applied in 90 specialists.
The results of the research demonstrated that all the experts agreed with the
advantages of the project management practices, identified based on the
literature review, for software development, thus validating the proposed items
of the questionnaire. It is recommended for future researches the
accomplishment of case studies that explore practical models of evaluation of
the use of the practices studied in the scope of software development. It is
important in the future studies that metrics and indicators be drawn for each
of the advantages cited in the present study.
Keywords: Project
management, Software development, PMBOK, SCRUM
1. INTRODUCTION
The
context in which organizations around the world operate is becoming
increasingly complex and competitive. The speed at which cultural, political,
economic, and social changes are taking place naturally presents opportunities
and threats that impact the achievement of the organizational mission, whether
of public administration organizations, business entities or non-profit
entities (HORTA, 2009).
Organizations
often experience partial or total failure with regard to the scope, quality,
timing, and cost planned in their projects and programs. In spite of the
existence of vast literature on the subject and intense work of international
organizations such as the International Project Management Association (IPMA),
the Project Management Institute (PMI) and the Association for Project
Management (APM), which bring together professionals of different backgrounds
and performance in several countries of the world (BARRETTO et al., 2008), it
is still possible to verify a large percentage of project failure, which
according to Shenhar and Dvir (2007), in the field of organizational
strategies, these initiatives have failed suggesting that Projects Management
such as discipline and methodology has been largely neglected.
Thomsett
(2001) states that a project can address a number of quality considerations,
and these vary according to how each stakeholder sees the project. The
development team cares about the technical aspects while business analysts and
project managers care about managerial aspects. Among the technical aspects can
be mentioned the specification of functionalities, the data model, the test
plan and the project documentation, etc. The managerial aspects are those
dealing with aspects such as resource allocation, project priorities, risk
analysis, return on investment and cost estimates, etc. In this way, the
selected methodology must support the interests of both groups.
According
to Cockburn (2000), every project needs its own methodology and each
methodology has a specific weight. The weight, according to the author, is
composed of two components: the size that corresponds to the number of elements
in the methodology and the density that corresponds to the "rigour"
with which these elements must be realized.
Practices
involving identification and prior treatment regarding risks and uncertainties
that may affect project performance are of fundamental importance in the
business environment, where pressure for results is one of the major factors
involved because of the competitive nature of this scenario. (DEY; CLEGG; BENNETT,
2010).
One
challenge is to make every software development project achieve success for it.
In this sense, the search for a proper methodology for each project becomes a
fundamental issue for their success (COCKBURN, 2000).
Within
this context, the correct choice of methodology in software development becomes
a critical factor for success in this segment.
Thus,
the proposal of this study was to verify the perception of specialists on
project management practices, identified based on the literature review, for
the area of software development.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
This
section presents concepts about the software development process and its
relationship with project management.
2.1.
Software
Development Process
According
to Sommerville (2004), a software development process can be defined as a set
of activities, methods, practices and transformations that people employ to
develop and maintain software and associated products (for example,
project plans, project documents,
design, code, test cases, user manual).
For
Pressman (2006), the software process is the set of partially ordered
activities that a project must follow to perform some task. This task should
aim to achieve a certain goal and is usually, associated with the development
of one or more products.
Some
models of software development can be cited:
·
Classic model or Waterfall, one of the
most widespread and used, was the first model of software development. This model uses a
systematic and sequential approach in software development and uses the following
steps: (1) Requirements analysis, (2) Analysis, (3) Design, (4) Coding, (5)
Testing and (6) Maintenance (PRESSMAN, 2006).
·
Prototyping model allows the developer
to create a model of the software that will be developed. It is based on the
following steps (1) Listen to the client, (2) Build / revise the prototype and
(3) Test / evaluate the prototype (PRESSMAN, 2006).
·
Incremental model assumes that a given
software does not have to be completed in its entirety in order to be delivered
to users, this model seeks to divide the development process into parts, called
incremental, functional, thus anticipating the user's contact with the product
being developed. This model was developed from the classic model, including the
interactive prototyping philosophy (PRESSMAN, 2006).
·
Spiral model was developed in order to
contain the best characteristics of the classic models and prototyping, with
the addition of the risk analysis. The spiral model uses four quadrants (1)
Planning, (2) Risk analysis, (3) Engineering and product development, and (4)
Customer assessment. At the end of each iteration around the spiral (starting
from the center and advancing outward), progressively more complete versions of
the software are generated (PFLEEGER, 2004).
·
Fourth-generation techniques, this
paradigm focuses on the ability to specify software close to the natural
language. This model uses the following steps (1) Requirements collection, (2)
Project strategy, (3) Implementation using 4th Generation Techniques and (4)
Test (PRESSMAN, 2006).
Software development
processes act as guides for the execution of all projects within an
organization.
2.2.
Project
Management
To
better understand project management it is fundamental to understand the concept of design. Schwalbe (2002) defines a project as
a temporary enterprise with the objective of producing a single product or
service.
The definition given by
Dinsmore and Silveira Neto (2005, p.1)
A project is a temporary effort made to
create a unique product or service, unlike any other, of all other products and
services, with beginning and end, defined, which uses resources, is managed by
people and obeys the parameters of cost, time and quality.
In
this way, a project can be defined as a non-repeatable enterprise, with a clear
and logical sequence, with defined beginning and end and with the specific and
defined objective. In turn, being conducted by people respecting the predefined
parameters of cost, time, resources involved and quality, as stated by Martins
(2002).
Project
Management practices are presented as methods or guides, known as Traditional
Methods and Agile Methods (SHENNAR; DVIR, 2007), which are a set of actions,
techniques and tools to manage projects.
Among
the traditional methods, we highlight the Project Management Body of Knowledge
(PMBOK), which divides a project into a set of phases, which it calls the
project life cycle. Life cycles, in turn, have phases that link the beginning
and end of a project. The transitions that occur between phases usually involve
some type of delivery, or a technical transfer. Usually the project life cycles
define what work will be done in each phase, as well as the involved ones and
the procedures regarding the control and approval of each phase (PROJECT
MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE, 2013).
In
addition, the PMBOK has five groups of project management processes that are
interdependent. Thus, in process groups, the outputs of a process become inputs
to another process or are deliveries of the project. The PMI also describes
that these activities are overlapping and occur at varying levels of intensity
throughout the project. Thus, for projects that are divided into phases, the
process groups interact within a project phase and may cross several phases of
the project, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1:
Process groups interact in a phase or a project.
Source: PMI (2013).
For
scenarios characterized by constant changes of requirements and the need to
perform deliveries in a short time, it is recommended to use agile methods for
product development.
In
general, agile methods divide development into several short iteration cycles,
and at the end of each cycle deliveries are made, so that “[...] the customer
(internal or external) receives a version that adds value to their
business" (DANTAS, 2003, p.37). In this way, developers can track
requirements changes at the beginning of each cycle. This provides customer
feedback to the development team, which reduces project risk.
The
principles of lean manufacturing, implemented by Honda and Toyota companies,
and Takeuchi and Nonaka (2004) and Senge (1990) knowledge management strategies
strongly influenced these methods.
Among
the agile methods of product development, we highlight the Scrum method, which
aims to define a project development process focused on the people of the team
(SCHWABER; BEEDLE, 2002).
The
Scrum method is indicated to manage the software development process in
environments where the requirements undergo constant changes (ABRAHAMSSON et
al., 2002).
The
Figure 2 illustrates the evolution of the cascade process model for Scrum,
showing adaptability used in agile methods in contrast with the inherent
predictability to prescriptive or traditional models.
Figure 2:
Evolution of the Cascading Model for Scrum.
Source: Beck (1999).
The
legend (a) presents the waterfall model having its activities distinguished in
grayscale, showing that it is a cycle with long duration. In (b), the cycles
are shorter. The evolution of iterative development to agile methods is
observed in Scrum in (c), where analysis, design, coding and testing activities
are combined in short periods throughout the project.
3. METHODOLOGY
In
this study, the bibliographic research in the SciELO and Scopus bases was used
to identify a set of advantages related to the management practices of projects
of various natures, size and complexity, characterizing, in this sense, as an
exploratory research.
Based
on the literature review in the aforementioned databases, the data collection
instrument was proposed: a questionnaire to evaluate the perception of project
management professionals regarding the advantages of the PMBOK and Scrum
practices. The authors in which the advantages of the PMBOK and Scrum practices
were identified were: Carvalho and Mello (2012), Cervone (2011), Eder et al. (2012,
2015), Ghosh et al. (2012), Kaiser et al. (2015), King (2014), Lacerda et al.
(2011), Landaeta et al. (2011), Machado et al. (2015) and Nascimento et al. (2014).
Table
1 shows the 13 criteria that were used in the questionnaire of this research,
in order to obtain the users' perceptions of the process regarding their degree
of agreement. The criteria were consolidated using similarity of the
nomenclature used by different authors.
Table
1: Evaluated criteria in the questionnaire applied
|
Criteria |
Criteria Description |
|
Detail
of Planning and Control proposed by the PMBOK |
Further
documentation on the planning and control aspects of the project progress. |
|
Improved
communication among team members. (Scrum
and PMBOK) |
Improvement
of communication where all team members use a common language for
communication. |
|
Short-term
learning through Iteration Retrospective (Scrum) |
Learning
faster, after completing the iteration. |
|
Ease
of use of Scrum |
Ease
of use of Scrum practices due to its flexibility of application. |
|
More
detailed documentation by PMBOK. |
Detailed
control of various processes relevant to the project. |
|
Product
running in short periods in Scrum. |
Delivery
of product ready and working at the end of each iteration. |
|
Increased
team motivation resulting from the use of Scrum practices |
Increased
motivation of team members resulting from Scrum practices. |
|
Increased
control of project activities resulting from Daily Meetings resulting from
the use of Scrum practices. |
Greater
control of activities, daily resulting from Daily Meetings. |
|
Improved
collaboration among stakeholders from the use of Scrum practices. |
Greater
involvement and collaboration among team members. |
|
Visibility
of activities by all team members resulting from the use of Scrum practices. |
Visibility
of project activities by all team members. |
|
High
agility for requirement adjustment at design time. |
Ease
of adjustment of requirements at design time due to short deliveries of
product running. Feedback speed |
|
Scrum
practices can contribute to project closure faster. |
Closure
of the project more quickly, mainly due to feedback generated by the short
deliveries. Thus avoiding rework. |
|
Scrum
practices can contribute to lower project costs. |
Decrease
in project costs mainly due to the rapid feedback generated by short
deliveries. |
A Likert scale was used
to collect data on the degree of agreement of the research participants
regarding the proposed criteria, according to Table 2. This scale was adopted
based on Likert (1932) and Costa (2010).
Table
2: Judgment applied to the degree of agreement aspect
|
Totally Agree |
Partly Agree |
Don't
agree nor disagree |
Partly Disagree |
Totally Disagree |
|
5 |
4 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
The questionnaire was
applied to 90 specialists related to the development of new software products
and that are located in companies of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, belonging to
the private initiative or to the government.
The data obtained were
treated using descriptive statistics techniques, whose objective, according to
Larson and Farber (2007) is "to make it easier to understand the data and
to see trends, averages and variations in them".
4. ANALYSIS OF RESULTS
This section deals with
the analysis and results of this study and is organized in the following
subsections: identification of respondents and analysis of the advantages of
using project management practices using PMBOK and Scrum methods in the area of
software development.
4.1.
Identification of Respondents
The characterization of
the respondents was obtained based on the following items:
1.
Segment of the institution where you
work
2.
Practice Area
3.
Experience time in the area
The graphics 1, 2 and 3
show the answers of the respondents according to these items.
Graphic 1: Segment of the institution where you work
As for the first item,
it was verified that the highest incidence of responses is concentrated in the
area of Technology and Innovation with 42%, the second most selected option
with 27% was industry, construction and engineering, the third most selected
option was Education and scientific Development with 19%. The trade and
services option obtained only 2%, while the option “others” reached 10%.
Graphic 2: Practice Area
As for the second item,
the most answered that works on the Information Technology or
Telecommunications sector, totaling 68%. The second option with expressive
volume of responses was Strategy, Process, Planning, Management or Project
Management Office (PMO) with a total of 21%. The other options and engineering
obtained 2% each, while technological development obtained 7%.
Graphic 3: Experience time in the area.
As for the third item,
it can be verified that the absolute majority of the respondents has more than
10 years of experience, being a point that can be considered very positive,
since it is a survey of opinion and perception. Altogether 62% of the
respondents have more than 10 years of experience followed by 31% of
respondents in the range of 5 to 10 years. The remaining 7% have less than 5 years’
experience.
4.2. Analysis of the advantages of using
PMBOK and Scrum practices
In the Table 3, the
results obtained, as well as the evaluated items of the questionnaire applied
to specialists in the area of software development, are presented.
Table
3. Summary of
respondents' perceptions – Advantages
|
|
Rated
Items |
Likert Scale |
||||
|
5 |
4 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
||
|
1 |
Detail of Planning and Control proposed by the PMBOK |
26% |
54% |
7% |
12% |
1% |
|
2 |
Improved communication among team members. (Scrum
and PMBOK) |
52% |
36% |
8% |
4% |
0% |
|
3 |
Short-term learning through Iteration retrospective
(Scrum) |
52% |
37% |
8% |
3% |
0% |
|
4 |
Ease of use of Scrum |
40% |
43% |
12% |
5% |
0% |
|
5 |
Further documentation by
PMBOK
|
36% |
30% |
16% |
16% |
2% |
|
6 |
Product running in short periods in Scrum. |
46% |
36% |
13% |
5% |
0% |
|
7 |
Increased team motivation due to the use of Scrum
practices |
38% |
36% |
21% |
5% |
0% |
|
8 |
Increased team productivity resulting from the use
of Scrum practices |
40% |
44% |
12% |
4% |
0% |
|
9 |
Increased control of project activities resulting
from Daily Meetings resulting from the use of Scrum practices |
49% |
32% |
8% |
10% |
1% |
|
10 |
Improved collaboration among stakeholders from the
use of Scrum practices |
44% |
39% |
14% |
3% |
0% |
|
11 |
Visibility of activities by all team members
resulting from the use of Scrum practices |
60% |
27% |
11% |
2% |
0% |
|
12 |
High agility for requirement adjustment at design
time [Scrum] |
34% |
41% |
14% |
8% |
3% |
|
13 |
Scrum practices can contribute to project closure
faster |
34% |
42% |
17% |
4% |
3% |
|
14 |
Scrum practices can contribute to lower project
costs |
23% |
41% |
24% |
6% |
6% |
According to the data
presented, it was verified that the majority of the respondents totally agreed
with eight of the advantages and agreed partially with six advantages. This
confirms the total convergence of the specialists in relation to the data from
the literature review.
When analyzing the
advantages of using project management practices in software development, it
was found that the majority of the respondents, 80%, agreed that the PMBOK
offers a detail of planning and control, and about 88% agreed that both the
PMBOK and Scrum practices promote improved communication among team members.
It is worth mentioning
that 89% of the respondents considered the occurrence of learning in a short period
provided through retrospectives of the Scrum iteration.
On the ease of use of
Scrum a total of 83% agreement was obtained, while 66% of the respondents
pointed the greater documentation provided by the PMBOK. In addition, 82% of
respondents agreed on the advantage of having product running in short periods
in Scrum.
It was also evidenced
that 74% of the specialists answered that they agree with the increase of
motivation of the team resulting from the use of Scrum practices.
In relation to the
productivity increase of the Scrum practices a total of 84% was obtained, while
81% of the respondents agreed with the increased control of the project
activities resulting from the daily meetings resulting from the Scrum
practices;
The results also
indicated that 83% of respondents agreed on improved collaboration between
those involved in using Scrum practices. In addition, it was noted that: 87% of
respondents agreed that Scrum practices provide visibility of activities by all
team members; 75% of respondents agreed that Scrum provides high agility for
requirement adjustment at design time; 76% of respondents agree that Scrum
practices can contribute to project closure more quickly. In relation to the
reduction of project costs resulting from the use of Scrum practices, a total
of 64% of agreement was obtained.
It was observed that
the degree of agreement in all items was expressive, that is, above 60%, which
indicates that these items have a positive evaluation of the experts regarding
the proposed study.
5. CONCLUSION
Through the literature
review, it was possible to identify 14 advantages related to the project
management practices in several areas of application, which were submitted to
the evaluation of specialists in the area of software development, to verify
the degree of agreement of these experts on these criteria.
Based on these results,
the present study is considered as an important contribution tool for the
development of scientific knowledge about the advantages of the project
management practices in software development.
Therefore, the main
contribution that can be drawn from this work is a list of advantages
identified based on the literature review on PMBOK and Scrum project management
practices in software development. This study allowed the validation of these
criteria identified by the specialists of the software development sector,
corroborating the importance of this study.
Finally, the
recommendation for future research is to carry out empirical studies of the
case study that explore practical models of evaluation of the use of the
practices studied in the scope of software development. It is important in the
future study that metrics and indicators should be drawn for each advantage
cited in the present study.
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