 In this series of videos, I will talk about software project management. Let's start with introduction. So, what is project management in general? According to the definition from APM body of knowledge, project management is the application of processes, methods, skills, knowledge, and experience to achieve specific project objectives according to a project acceptance criteria within agreed parameters. This is a general definition. What's important is that project is a temporary activity that needs to finish at some point, and it is constrained by the budget. So, project management has final deliverables that are constrained to a finite time scale and budget. Is the software project management any different? Yes, the software product is intangible. It's like building a cloudcast tool. The software cannot be seen or touched. Software project managers cannot see progress by simply looking at the artifact that is being constructed. Many software projects are one-off projects. Large software projects are usually different in some ways from previous projects. Even managers who have lots of previous experience may find it difficult to anticipate problems. It might be difficult to replicate the success. Software processes are variable and organization specific. We cannot reliably predict when a particular software process is likely to lead to development problems. Project management is needed because software development is always subject to budget and schedule constraints that are set by organization developing the software. It is concerned with activities involved in ensuring that software is created within the given budget and is delivered on time and on schedule and in accordance with the requirements of the organization's developing and procuring the software. In this definition, we see the outline project success criteria. Keep overall costs within budget. Deliver the software to the customer at the agreed time. Deliver software that meets the customer's expectations. That's why we need to create software in accordance with requirements. And team, we need to maintain a coherent and well-functioning development team to make it all happen. Many things influence software project management activities. For example, company size, software customers, software size, software type, organizational culture, and software development processes. What I meant to say is that project managers in different organizations may work in quite different ways. There is no single recipe for success. On the other hand, there are universal or fundamental project management activities. We will introduce some of them in separate videos. These activities are project planning. Project managers are responsible for planning, estimating, and scheduling project development and assigning people to tasks. Risk management. Project managers assess the risks that may affect a project, monitor these risks, and take action when problems arise. People management. Project managers have to choose people to their team and establish ways of working that lead to effective team performance. Reporting. Project managers are usually responsible for monitoring, controlling, and reporting progress of a project to their customers and to the managers of a company developing the software. Proposal writing. The first stage in the software project may involve writing a proposal to win a contract to carry out an item of work. The proposal describes the objectives of a project and how it will be carried out. We discussed that the project has to have the final deliverables that are constrained to a finite time scale and budget. Software project management is somewhat specific because the products are intangible, projects are mostly unique, and there are many different software processes. Summerwheel provides a definition for software project management. It emphasizes budget, time, schedule, customer expectations, and team. There is no single recipe for software project management, but there are universal software project management activities such as planning, risk management, people management, monitoring, controlling, reporting, and others. We will explain these activities in other videos. Thank you for watching.