The effect of OO life cycle on software project management

The successful development of a software system must consider appropriate management practices, regardless of the software life-cycle adopted: object-oriented or structured. The structured analysis and design (SAD) and object-oriented (OO) software development life-cycles are introduced. The impact of the OO life-cycle model on various software project management activities, such as planning, resource allocation, scheduling, estimation, and staffing, is discussed. The management factors that are adaptable from SAD with little or no modification, and the new ones specific to OO are addressed. For example, management needs to introduce changes in the project team roles and activities, and create new staff such as class designer and implementor, and class library manager to maintain and manage reusable classes. The issues that the management must consider before adopting OO technology as the basis for future development of the application systems are highlighted.