Project management in new domains through process-oriented collection and analysis of effort data

The planning and control of software development projects in new domains such as the emerging field of wireless services represent a special challenge: On the one hand, new technologies open up possibilities whose constraints are unclear at the beginning of such a project; on the other hand, there is no proven knowledge regarding domain-specific problems and risks as well as the effort needed to deal with those. Some of the consequences to be expected are unreliable project planning, incorrect effort estimation, and unsuitable risk management with respect to the processes, resources, and technologies to be used. This article describes how the descriptive process modeling approach can be combined with process-oriented collection and analysis of effort data for identifying domain-specific problems and risks. This combined approach is illustrated with examples from real projects. Benefits as well as potential difficulties encountered with the approach are discussed.