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Abstract

Content

Introduction

In place of paper technology comes the so-called "Paperless", based on the use of computer technology and telecommunications. One of the them are electronic documents. They have become widely applied in many areas [6].

The leaders realized that with proper and full use of information technologies, possible to optimize the performance of their enterprise. The advantage of modern technology is obvious.

The ability to make the right decision and to react to a situation depends not only on talent and experience of managers. The efficiency of enterprise management depends on how wisely was organized management of the work. Inefficient use of existing information, or lack of it ordering can lead to loss of control and flexibility, as a consequence, the loss of efficiency. A unreceived information in time - is lost money, time and missed opportunities.

1. Theme urgency

Master's work is devoted to the actual topic at the present time, as the project management system is required tool for the development of any software, regardless of the size and type.

Electronic document management systems have made a real revolution in working with documents, helping to cope with the ever-increasing flow of information. Their number is growing steadily. And reliability, usability, compatibility is growing quickly too.

2. Goal and tasks of the research

Creating new own good management system is the goal of research.

Main tasks of the research:

  1. review major development methodologies, the most relevant today;
  2. based on analysis of existing sources to identify the main algorithms that can be used in your application;
  3. conduct a comparative review of existing popular trackers, to bringing the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Research object: project management system.

Research subject: methodologies that underlie the popular project management systems.

3. Review of Research and Development

Project management system usually implements one of the methodologies of software development. It uses of the terms and implements a standard this methodology.

The modern organization is able to survive and successfully compete in the market only if the constant adaptation to changing business conditions. This means that the company's management, planning and achieving certain goals, constantly faced with the relevant management issues. How to plan work in time by a certain date, what and how many resources will require, how much will it cost. When we have to pay and when to us.

3.1 Overview of international sources

Pivotal Tracker - this is an interesting and handy tool to collaborate on software projects. The general form tracker is shown in Figure 1.

Work в Pivotal Tracker

Figure 1 – Work in Pivotal Tracker

After creating the project, add the problem or error. Next, problem needs to be estimated. Estimate is made in storypoints, which means that the relative complexity and duration of the task. As a rule, "weight" of the problem depends on others. After that, the task is assigned to a performer.

A task has comments. The manager and the developer can discuss all issue's details. New comments notification will come via email. If the developer and the manager are logged in the system, they can discuss problems in chat - comments are updated in real time. In addition, it's possible to attach files and screenshots. All tasks can be marked tags that allows you to quickly looking task of a particular element developed software.

The manager can setup the term iteration (eg 1 week). In the setting of the project the manager can set how many points the complexity can be realized for this period. Based on these data, the system issues provide to the project manager a schedule that indicates when the project will finish and how well the developers have followed the plan. And for the developer, such a system allows to display only tasks in the current iteration.

After completing work on a task, the developer changes its status, and a manager sees tasks for checking Then he can either accept a job, or send a task to completion. If the task wasn't performed fully, it divides into two parts. A uncomplete part goes to the Back Log again. [7].

Adding a task in Pivotal Tracker showed on pic. 2.

Adding a task in Pivotal Tracker

Figure 2 – Adding a task in Pivotal Tracker

3.2 Overview of national sources

RedMine is a free tool, developed on Ruby on Rails. Next we consider the main advantages of the system.

  1. Nice interface surpasses free competitors, but also some paid tool.
  2. Infinite hierarchy of tasks. The existing problems always can be separated to subtasks. It is convenient in practice.
  3. Ability to add child project. You can build a hierarchy of programs, the benefit of the parent project displays data from its subsidiaries.
  4. You can change the workflow, add custom fields to issue ticket, change the rules of access and notification.
  5. There is a possibility of integration with version control systems. There are plugins to integrate with server builds.
  6. A good report for the consideration of time. Even better than in some paid versions. But there is drawback. It's a problem with exporting.
  7. There are many plug-ins that allow you to turn the system into a powerful management tool.

There are drawbacks too, of course. The main ones were found immediately after a brief test. It should be noted that due to the different needs, the concept of weaknesses is subjective. Consider now the main drawbacks[7].

  1. Plugins work extremely unstable. Most plug-ins developed under one version, do not work under the next one.
  2. There is a problem with exporting data in this system . Even the standard uploading CSV and Excel does not always work. There are serious flaws with the export of Russian beeches in pdf.
  3. There is no binding with MS Project. In such a case it's difficult to properly plan, consider the utilization of resources. Some functionality for planning are unuseful.
  4. workflow and issue ticket applies to all projects at once, which is not always necessary.
  5. Standardization management. In the case of the customer, it may be their claims to the processes and then it can be a problem.
  6. functional of issue tracker is clearly not finalized. But it does not matter if you use for development without including the support.

General view of the system is shown in Figure 3.

Work in RedMine

Figure 3 – Work in RedMine

If the organization is not large, the similar defects can be easily ignored - in fact a single process for all projects. For a more complex structure of the enterprise may need flexibility [8].

We can conclude that the Redmine is a good alternative of the free systems. It is good solution for small companies (up to fifty people), with product development. This decision could approach, under one condition. It requires person who knows how to program on Ruby and will keep the system because it is quite unstable.

It is believed that the free products behind in matters of stability. I think it's true. If project is designed for long-term, using an unstable system - the risk and possible loss of extra time for the team[7].

It should be noted that the quality management system - not the only factor influencing the speed of development. It is important to know and use to the maximum all the possibilities of the system.

3.3 Review of local source

In the Donetsk National Technical University, unfortunately, are not addressed such important aspects of development, as software development methodologies. However, curricula are vary, maybe, over time, this deficiency will be corrected.

Among the local sources, the greatest interest publications of E. Volchenko[ 1 - 3 ]. They are interesting doubly, as they covered both approaches in the field of genetic algorithms, and work with graph theory. In the developed system, the theory of graphs is given a leading place in the context of the data.

Agarkov A. in his publication offers decent algorithms to work in graph theory [5].

The problem of expert management of objects in which there is no clear formalization, widely covered in the publication V. Reznikov and E. Pryanichnikova [4].

4. Developing own management system

There are a lot of existing systems for managing projects. But many companies prefer to write their own. The reasons for rejection of ready-made systems, it is often that the logic operations is contrary to the approaches in team's work That is why there is no perfect system. Each tracker is based on one of the methodologies for the design. And, accordingly, it must coincide with the chosen methodology for the team. On the basis of the studied methodologies and examples, was formulated the general ideas on which should be based developed the system.

  1. We should give up all the excess. Very often is used only a small proportion of the system. Unused functionality only complicates the system, makes it unusable.
  2. Developers are ignoring some parameters. Therefore, you should remove everything that is not suitable in real life. If anything used formally and will be broken, it should be removed from the project.
  3. system must have functionality that provides a covering of the whole process. This means that when system is used to manage the project should not even be a very small part of the process carried out this the system.

The developed system must support at all stages of development. We divide the management of the project into 3 phases.

  1. Planning. On the basis of, in the previous step (in the previous iteration) results, the manager project produced an optimal distribution of tasks among staff members. The system shall provide for the manager all available information about its employees. The distribution should take working time of the employee, his performance, and level. Of course, the final choice belongs to the manager. The system should also learn from their mistakes, remember, when it proposed options were rejected.
  2. Working. Employees update the status of their tasks synchronically with starting them . Allowed to make changes to the work plan during the operation, removal or replacement of other tasks
  3. Analysis. Collection of statistics. Statistics should show a deviation from the planned schedule, the boundary parameters. Calculation of fees is carried out employees based on their rate value per hour. Also, on the basis of this analysis system on the next iteration should be involved in the planning new challenges.

abstract algorithm for calculation accuracy is shown in Figure 4.

Developing own management system

Figure 4 – Developing own management system

Sometimes the job might be to search for information. Even high-level expert can not accurately to say how soon he would find something to finish the task. There are cases when to complete a task depends on third parties. For example, it is necessary to obtain confirmation or any information from the customer service or support. Each employee has a tendency to exaggerate or underestimate the complexity of the problem, based on personal qualities.

The human factor also affects on the inaccuracy in the assessment. Everybody makes occasional mistakes. Sometimes for finding them takes a lot of extra time. Developers estimate the time for development of new functionality, forgeting to add time to connect the new module with the main project or writing tests for new code, documentation, etc. This leads to the fact that after some time developer will should to return to this problem, complicates the process of planning and spoils the statistics, and spoil the real situation on the state of the system.

Stage, which is the task of setting it up to the closure shown in Figure 5.

Диаграмма состояний задачи на трекере PivotalTracker

Figure 5 – State diagram of the problem on PivotalTracker
(animation: 9 parts, 5 repeat cycles, 137 Kb)

Obviously it is impossible for the system to replace a good leader. The human factor has always been and will remain crucial. Developed system is not intended to replace the project manager. But when the staff a lot, and it is physically impossible to control everyone every day. Here, statistics can warn manager to get attention to issue.

Possible that in some cases, this information about employees will be useless. There are a lot of reasons for that. Part of these tips will be ineffective. But the basic idea is that even if certain functions will be ineffective, it will not harm the process, because we should pay anything for obtaining this information.

Conclusion

A software development company does not need a large ERP-system. The good project management system, which could also replace the paper work is quite enough for the software development. [10].

In project management you need to constantly monitor their condition and execution. Management project is an integral part of the daily activities of the managers at various levels. When on a project employs a large number of people, convenient control system is a way to control for it. However, it can help to plan development, splitting complex tasks into subtasks, and setting the execution order. It should work in the small development team too.

It can help to more fully consider the project risks, use resources optimally and to monitor for the implementation of a plan.

Development of a new project management system should be conducted with a constant eye on the working systems and methodologies. Their design is result of many years experience of project management.

We can conclude the following based on analyzing a number of systems. The ideal program to automate the project management, meeting all the requirements without exception, does not exist. But by adding elements of analysts, we can give the opportunity to analyze the actual indicators and to make timely corrections to the progress of work; accumulate, analyze, and use experience of completed projects. Thus, the next step in the project management system should be added analysis tools for project managers.

Master's work is devoted to actual scientific problem of project management In the trials carried out:

  1. аn overview of the major development methodologies, the most relevant today;
  2. вased on analysis of existing sources, was found algorithms that can be used in the application you;
  3. а comparative review of existing popular trackers, with advantages and disadvantages of each of them.

Further studies focused on the following aspects:

  1. quality improvement of the proposed algorithms to compute the performance of heuristic described;
  2. designing the most user-friendly system interface;
  3. adaptation of known techniques in project management for my application;
  4. design web application that implements described functions and approaches.

This master's work is not completed yet. Final completion: January 2013. The full text of the work and materials on the topic can be obtained from the author or his head after this date.

References

  1. Волченко Е.В. Метод формирования обучающей выборки мета-объектов // Искусственный интеллект. – 2007. – №3. – С.284-289.
  2. Волченко Е.В. Анализ эффективности выбора условий формирования обучающей выборки метаобъектов // Вестник Хмельницкого национального университета. – 2007. – № 2, Том 1: Технические науки. – С. 85-89.
  3. Волченко Е.В. Генетический алгоритм биссекции графов // Искусственный интеллект. – 2007. – №1. – С.233-237.
  4. Резников В.А., Пряничникова Е.А. Об экспертном управлении плохо формализуемыми объектами // Искусственный интеллект. – 2007 – №2. С.40-47.
  5. Агарков А.В. Поиск изоморфных пересечений двух графов за полиномиальное время // Искусственный интеллект. 2007. – No.2. – С.62-74.
  6. Электронные документы как доказательства по уголовным делам / Виталий Вехов // – Режим доступа к статье: http://www.crime–research.ru/articles/Wechov3/
  7. Pivotal Tracker – сказка для управления софтверными проектами / Н.А. Наумов // Livebusiness – 2010. – Режим доступа к статье: http: //www.livebusiness.ru/news/8817
  8. Записки PM'a о RedMine / П. Мант // LiveJournal – 2007. – Режим доступа к статье: // http://pmant.livejournal.com/18169.html
  9. Установка RedMine / П. Мант // LiveJournal – 2007. – Режим доступа к статье: // http://pmant.livejournal.com/18150.html
  10. Мухин В.А. Исследование систем управления документов / В.А. Мухин. – М.: Экзамен, 2003.