Improving project management practices in a software development team

Abstract

Software development projects continue to deliver results that fall short on organization’s expectations. The present research was carried out at InfoPortugal, a technological company specialized in Geographic Information Systems and Tourism and Leisure Solutions, where project management practices were underuse. Therefore, the focus of this paper is to describe the proposals and their implementation to enable the improvement of project management practices in a software development team. Guidelines are provided by a matrix with key areas to be improved and related proposed improvement initiatives. The definition and application of a hybrid project management methodology was the most important improvement initiative to address some of the key problems identified in case under study. Traditional plan-oriented methodologies do not have the flexibility to dynamically adjust to the software development process. While, agile methodologies combine iterative and incremental approaches to adapt to high levels of change, with early and continuous delivery.