Question

What are some costs (both hard dollar and soft dollar) that result from improper project management in a software development effort? Identify at least three (3) and provide a thorough discussion of each of them. Note: do not simply describe causes of improper project management – you are to focus costs resulting from poor management. At least one of these three must be a ‘soft-dollar’ cost.

Answer 1

Solution -

In a software development effort there are many costs that are involved. An improper project management of software development projects lead to the following costs -

Hard Dollar Costs -

• Cost of development resources - Software developers and also the tools that are employed for development come at a price and these costs are direct hard costs to the project. An improper management of the project leads to waste of such resources and excessive costs if technical debts are created and require application of more resources for resolution.
• Platform Rentals - A software utilizes some basic infrastructure which are usually provided by the online and offline platform providers. These are like the hardware resources and have heavy costs. These can be accentuated if not managed properly and if duration of projects is increased.

Soft Dollar Costs -

• In a software development project one of the costs that is baked in the development and deployment costs is the cost of testing. An improper project management usually tends to increase timelines and requires the users to test multiple times. Their time that goes in testing the software is a soft dollar cost against this time which they could have utilized in some direct productive activities.