CRONUS: A TASK MANAGEMENT SYSTEM TO SUPPORT

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

Yura Ferreira

, Sergio Assis Rodrigues

, Divany Gomes Lima

, Márcio Luiz Ferreira Duran

José Roberto Blaschek

and Jano Moreira de Souza

1, 2

COPPE/UFRJ – Computer Science Department, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

DCC-IM/UFRJ – Computer Science Department, Mathematics Institute, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Keywords: Project Management, Software Metrics, Task Management.

Abstract: Currently, information technology professionals have become increasingly interested in factors that may

have an impact on project management effectiveness and the success of projects. This article introduces a

task management tool wich complements traditional tools to support the planning, controlling and execution

of software development projects.

1 INTRODUCTION

There are theoretical and empirical researches that

highlight the importance of metrics and the

appropriate time to use them in software projects

(Riguzzi, 1996). As there is a high probability that

the real project execution differ from what was

initially planned (Boehm, 1996), it is important to

predict whether the milestones will be achieved as

stated in the contractual plan. Keeping project status

information updated demands great effort and high

costs.

The CHAOS report (Standish Group, 2004)

focused on commercial software industry analyzing

50.000 IT projects in 1994 and met that: 31% of the

analyzed projects were cancelled before their

closure, 53% exceeded more than 50% of the

initially estimated costs and only 16% succeeded.

Ten years later, this scenario has slightly improved,

indicating that 29% of software projects were

delivered according to the scope, time and costs

planned, 18% of projects were cancelled before their

closure and 53% had substantial changes in time and

budget. According to those reports, low user

interactions and lack of appropriate monitoring are

among the main causes of software project

problems. The Cronus tool was developed based on

10 years of experience in software project

development to large institutions of Brazilian private

and public sectors. These projects are characterized

by the use of cutting-edge technology and applied

research (Rodrigues et al, 2009). Cronus is a task

organizer, acting as a coordination and

communication tool among the professionals.

Moreover, Cronus enhances the development

process allowing a detailed control by team leaders.

This work presents the Cronus tool, the process on

which it is based and indicates its level of

acceptance by users.

2 APPLIED CONCEPTS

2.1 Project Management

Generally companies select the best practices based

on what succeeds or fails in project management;

however, the best practices are not necessarily the

same in other companies (Kerzner, 2003). Although

some researchers claim that a pre-defined set of

techniques and tools may lead a project to success,

there are evidences that it does not happen even in

projects of a single company (Shenhar, 2005).

Choosing one methodology to each project is a big

mistake. However, the chosen methodology should

be improved so as to follow the changes in project

management due to the constant evolution in the

organizational environment and in technology

(Kerzner, 2003).

Project management tools play an important role

in methodology support. Researches have shown

that since there are not methodologies that cover all

376

Ferreira Y., Assis Rodrigues S., Gomes Lima D., Luiz Ferreira Duran M., Roberto Blaschek J. and Moreira de Souza J. (2009).

CRONUS: A TASK MANAGEMENT SYSTEM TO SUPPORT SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT.

In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - Artiﬁcial Intelligence and Decision Support Systems, pages

376-379

DOI: 10.5220/0002011803760379

 SciTePress

possibilities, the tools are not supposed to play this

role (Soroczak & McDonald, 2006). In the same

way Cronus supports generic project management

methodology although it favors a methodology of

project management that incorporates the

recommendations of the PMBOK (2004) with an

iterative approach, as indicated in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Model of Software Project Management.

2.2 Communication

Communication is the source of many problems in

projects. Generally, teams are formed by people who

have different background and levels of formation,

which makes communication in projects particularly

difficult (Forsberg et al, 2005). Coordination,

visibility, communication and cooperation are

adversely affected by the distance between team

members and, if not properly handled, can lead to

barriers and complexities in the project. The roles

and responsibilities should be clearly indicated so

that difficulties in communicating do not become a

barrier to team’s performance (Casey & Richardson,

2006).

2.3 Software Project Metrics

As you cannot control what you cannot measure

(DeMarco, 1982), metrics data are important to

gauge costs and benefits and emphasize quality.

Software metrics helps the identification and

management of risks before they become critical, the

flow of communication (in the team and

organization), the evaluation of performance and

also supports objective reasons for decision-making

(Goethert and Brad, 2000).

Putnam & Myers (2003) defined 5 basic metrics

that must be clearly defined and standardized: size,

productivity, time, effort and reliability. The authors

show that people working at the same level of

productivity generate a number of functions or work

products based on the reliability level of effort spent

in a period of time.

There are two approaches to achieve the metrics:

collecting of general indicators for managerial

decision or collecting of detailed indicators to

monitor specific aspects of the project. Both

approaches are necessary. However, data should not

be indiscriminately collected since it may be too

expensive and may not offer any benefits (Kelsey,

2006). In fact, it is advisable to define an

architecture of metrics that can express the

monitoring indicators at the project opening as

established in the measurement plan. The

architecture of metrics should be based on basic

measures. These are combined to get the derived

measures that are submitted to a model to generate

indicators (Kelsey, 2006).

3 THE CRONUS SYSTEM

Cronus is a system based on task management

concepts and product oriented monitoring. It does

not substitute traditional project management tools

but intends to complement them. In the system, the

schedule is linked to milestones which reflect the

project deliverables. There are four types of users:

manager, supervisor, developer and administrator.

The manager view concerns managerial reports and

task management. The supervisor profile contains

several reports; task and effort register and

reschedules interfaces. Developers access only

effort register, which can be automatic.

Administrator has wide access.

The Cronus, unlike other tools which restrict the

level of strategic monitoring (activities), covers the

tactical level, managing the control and project

implementation. Figure 2 shows the Cronus

concepts.

Firstly, the work breakdown structure can be

stored in the system or extracted from other types of

management tool (e.g., Microsoft Project, Excel,

dotProject). Secondly, contractual constraints,

human resources, and financial aspects are

registered. Then, it is possible to control the project

execution.

CRONUS: A TASK MANAGEMENT SYSTEM TO SUPPORT SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

377

Figure 2: Cronus architecture.

Along the project a wide amount of data is

gathered and stored in the Data Warehouse module.

Towards a group of managerial reports, the

software uses several metrics to give managers

inputs to identify risks and reschedule the project if

necessary.

Figure 3: Strategic reports.

Cronus offers easy to use interfaces to stimulate

communication and effort registration. From the

effort stored, it is possible to manage project

activities and distribute tasks to idle developers. The

software provides reports extracted from a data

warehouse mechanism. Figure 3 shows an example

of tabulated data with relevant project information

and graphics to facilitate the strategic understanding.

These functionalities help managers to lead the

software project successfully.

4 SYSTEM EVALUATION

Currently almost 150 team members allocate their

effort daily in Cronus. Twenty of them were invited

to evaluate Cronus and answer a questionnaire with

10 questions, 8 objective and 2 subjective. Figure 4

shows the schooling profile of the participants.

Figure 4: Participants’ schooling profile.

When questioned about how difficult it is to use

Cronus, around 60% of people agreed that its

interface is easy or very easy. No one devaluated

the tool and 40% said that the tool was usable.

Almost 90% of Cronus’ users answered they liked to

use it, which means that the tool was well accepted.

Figure 5: Cronus’ usability.

Another important report crosses the

participant’s profile with utility, usability and the

effort register. As mentioned in Table 1, the results

are satisfactory once it is almost unanimous that

Cronus is useful. In respect to usability, Table 1

shows good results and corroborates the Cronus

principle: easy to use.

Figure 6: Cronus’ appreciation.

ICEIS 2009 - International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

378

Table 1: Crossing results.

Utility

No Low Yes Very N.A.

Leader

25% 75%

Developer

8% 83% 9%

Usability

Very

Difficult

Difficult Usable Easy

Very

Easy

Leader

24% 63% 13%

Developer

58% 33% 9%

Effort register acceptance

0-3 4-6 7-9 10

Leader

24% 63% 13%

Developer

17% 83%

5 CONCLUSIONS

This work shows a task management approach and a

computational system to support software

development projects. Towards the efficiency in

metrics, Cronus establishes its architecture in

transforming project planning into activities which

makes the challenge of controlling and monitoring

tasks easier.

Cronus includes several task management tools

to improve the chances to effectively deliver

projects. By the use of this software, the expectation

is to save time and record effort automatically,

improve the deliverable quality, provide transparent

financial reports and track changes, risks and issues.

As previously mentioned the system acceptance

among its user reaches almost 90%. This good

perception is a result of Cronus’ usability and

credibility, once 95% experimental participants

believe in the usefulness of the system.

As future work, new reports will be developed

and the automation of effort recording will be

enhanced, so as to capture not only the period of

time, but also the tools used by developers to

perform the tasks.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was sponsored by Brazilian Defense

Ministry and Armed Forces; Brazilian Planning

Budgeting and Management Ministry; CAPES;

CNPq and COPPETEC Foundation.

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