Project Management
What are the advantages of having and following a project methodology?
1) A project team can focus on the product or system without having to debate how the work is to be done. 2) Stakeholders understand their role, and these roles can be applied to future projects. 3) Experiences can be documented in terms of lessons learned and integrated into the methodology as best practices. Hopefully, previous successes can be repeated. 4) Past, present, and future projects can be compared with confidence in terms of planning and progress reporting. 5) Valuable time can be saved because approaches, tools, techniques, and templates can be reused across projects. 6) As you will learn in later chapters, following a methodology provides a useful template for planning the project work and associated tasks.
What are the benefits to using a project management approach to developing information systems?
1)deployment a common set of tools and controls which provides a common language to compare projects throughout the organization. 2) the ability to better estimate and control costs and schedules which leads to a more effective conservation of company resources. 3) improved communication and status reports leads giving the developers the ability to manage expectations of stakeholders. 4) competitive advantage for internal developers whose work might have to be outsourced if the quality and cost of their work can be bettered by outside competition. 5) efficiency and effectiveness can often be achieved resulting in shorter development times, lower costs, and higher quality.
Describe the PMBOK® area of project cost management.
According to PMBOK, project cost management includes: Estimate Costs—Based upon the activities, their time estimates, and resource requirements, an estimate can be developed. Determine Budget—Once the time and cost of each activity is estimated, an overall cost estimate for the entire project can be made. Once approved, this estimate becomes the project budget. Control Costs—Ensuring that proper processes and procedures are in place to control changes to the project budget.
What is Total Cost of Ownership?
Ans: (TCO) is a concept that has gained widespread attention in recent years and generally refers to the total cost of acquiring, developing, maintaining, and supporting the application system over its useful life. TCO includes such costs as: Direct or up-front costs—Initial purchase price of all hardware, software, and telecommunications equipment, all development or installation costs, outside consultant fees, etc. Ongoing costs—Salaries, training, upgrades, supplies, maintenance, etc. Indirect costs—Initial loss of productivity, time lost by users when the system is down, the cost of auditing equipment (i.e., finding out who has what and where), quality assurance, and post implementation reviews.
What is a project's scope?
Ans: A Project's scope is the work to be complete by the project team. This may include specific requirements, features, functionality, or standards for the product or system to be delivered, or it could include project-related deliverables like the project's schedule or budget.
What is a business case?
Ans: A business case provides the first deliverable in the project life cycle and is a major theme in the PRINCE2® methodology that was discussed in a previous chapter. It provides an analysis of the organizational value, feasibility, costs, benefits, and risks of several proposed alternatives or options. However, a business case is not a budget or the project plan. A business case must provide senior management with all the information needed to make an informed decision as to whether the project should receive funding in order to continue on to the next phase (5). In the next phase, the project will be planned in much greater detail where another go/no decision is made before the plan is executed or carried out. For larger projects, a business case may be a large, formal document. Less formality may be suitable for smaller projects; however, the process of thinking through why a particular project is being taken on and how it might bring value to an organization is still worthwhile.
Why must stakeholders agree on the project's MOV?
Ans: A clear and agreed upon MOV sets expectations for the project's stakeholders. The MOV must be doable and worth doing. Continuing with the previous example, the project's MOV may not be realistic if management sets a target that 100 percent of the customers must receive a shipping confirmation within two nanoseconds of placing an order. The project team may be set on a path of failure if it cannot deliver on this expectation. On the other hand, not much value may be achieved if a performance target is set too low and achieved easily. Perhaps two minutes or even twenty minutes might be a better performance target for sending out a shipping confirmation. In any case, stakeholders must agree upon an MOV that is both realistic and of value to the organization.
What is economic feasibility?
Ans: Although a cost/benefit analysis will be conducted to look at the alternatives in greater depth, some alternatives may be too costly or simply not provide the benefits envisioned in the problem statement. At this point, an organization may evaluate an alternative in terms of whether funds and resources exist to support the project. For example, although you may be in a market for a new car, the reality of your limited income rules out the fancy sports car. Conducting an economic feasibility should serve as a reality check for each option or alternative.
Why must the MOV be measurable?
Ans: Measurement provides a clear definition of success for all of the project's stakeholders. For example, consider the statement: Our project will be successful if we install a database management system to improve our customer service to world-class levels. Installing a database management system is an activity or a task that may need to be done. While important, the installation of the technology does not guarantee real value to the organization. Moreover, while "world-class" sounds inviting, it is difficult to define and impossible to know if ever achieved. Instead, consider the statement: Our project will be successful if 95 percent of our customers receive a shipping confirmation within two hours after placing an order. The second statement defines the project's purpose and allows the organization to evaluate whether 95 percent of its customers are receiving a shipping confirmation within two hours after placing an order.
What are product-oriented processes? Give one example.
Ans: Product-oriented processes are those which focus on the tangible results of the project. They require specific domain knowledge, tools, and techniques in order to complete the work. An example would be the creation of a software application package.
What is a stakeholder?
Ans: Stakeholders are individuals, groups, or even organizations that have a stake, or claim, in the project's outcome.
What is technical feasibility?
Ans: Technical feasibility focuses on the existing technical infrastructure needed to support an IT solution.
Describe the PMBOK area of project time management.
Ans: The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) area called project time management focuses on the processes necessary to develop the project schedule and to ensure that the project is completed on time. As defined in the PMBOK, project time management includes: Define Activities—identifying what activities must be completed in order to produce the project scope deliverables. Sequence Activities—determining whether activities can be completed sequentially or in parallel and any dependencies that may exist among them. Estimate Activity Resources - identifying the type of resources (people, technology, facilities, etc.) and the quantity of resources needed to carry out project activities. Estimate Activity Durations—estimating the time to complete each activity. Develop Schedule —based upon the availability of resources, the activities, their sequence, and time estimates, a schedule for the entire budget can be developed. Control Schedule —ensuring that proper processes and procedures are in.
Why is it important that the MOV provide value to the organization?
Ans: Time and resources should not be devoted to a project unless it can bring value to the organization. For example, value could be in the form of better customer service if the organization can send a shipping confirmation to 95 percent of its customers within two hours after placing an order. Remember, technology is a means to an end and should not be part of a project's MOV. Technology is an enabler; that is, technology enables organizations to do things like reducing the time to send out a shipping confirmation. Value comes from delivery of the project's product, service, or system that achieves or meets the MOV and not from a particular vendor's software package or from a particular programming language.
Describe how a project's MOV can support an organization's goals and strategies.
As shown by the IT Value Chain, an organizational goal leads to or defines certain organizational strategies. A project's MOV should be designed to align with and support those strategies. At the project's end, the project's results can be compared to the initial MOV. With a successful project, one should see successful execution of organizational strategies and a measurable realization of some organizational goal.
List and describe the four themes (or categories) of the Agile principles.
Customer—Again, Agile takes a strong customer focus, and the customer could be internal (e.g., the user) or external to the organization. The product or system must be developed with the customer in mind; therefore, the customer and developers must communicate and interact effectively in order to work together collaboratively. The team should be collocated for daily face-to-face communication. Product—Only working software brings value, but it must be delivered in the shortest time practical. Although it is important to give customers what they want, it is also important to keep things simple and deliver only the most important features or functionality. Change is not the enemy. It is an opportunity. Project Team—An Agile team should include business people and technical people who are motivated, self-organizing, and mutually accountable. A team should be given the support and resources it needs and then trusted to get the job done. People who work long hours may burn out, get tired, become less motivated, and tend to make more mistakes. Therefore, the team should be able to work at a pace that is constant and sustainable. Performance—The team should have the authority to make adjustments when needed. In addition, a product is complete only when it is designed, tested, documented, and working.
What is organizational feasibility?
Organizational feasibility considers the impact on the organization. It focuses mainly on how people within the organization will adapt to this planned organizational change.
Describe the five basic phases in the systems development life cycle
Planning—The planning phase involves identifying and responding to a problem or opportunity and incorporates the project management and system development processes and activities. Here a formal planning process ensures that the goal, scope, budget, schedule, technology, and system development processes, methods, and tools are in place. Analysis—The analysis phase attempts to delve into the problem or opportunity more fully. For example, the project team may document the current system to develop an " as is" model to understand the system currently in place. In general, systems analysts will meet with various stakeholders (users, managers, customers, etc.) to learn more about the problem or opportunity. This work is done to identify and document any problems or bottlenecks associated with the current system. Here the specific needs and requirements for the new system are identified and documented. Design—During the design phase, the project team uses the requirements and " to be" logical models as input for designing the architecture to support the new information system. This architecture includes designing the network, hardware configuration, databases, user interface, and application programs. Implementation —Implementation includes the development or construction of the system, testing, and installation. In addition, training, support, and documentation must be in place. Maintenance and Support —Although maintenance and support may not be a true phase of the current project, it is still an important consideration. Once the system has been implemented, it is said to be in production. Changes to the system, in the form of maintenance and enhancements, are often requested to fix any discovered errors (i.e., bugs) within the system, to add any features that were not incorporated into the original design, or to adjust to a changing business environment. Support, in terms of a call center or help desk, may also be in place to help users on an as-needed basis.
Describe the different roles and skill sets needed for a project?
Project Manager with team leadership and oversight skills Project Sponsor with the ability to marshal resources and direction and champion the project Subject Matter Expert(s) (SME) who have the specific knowledge, expertise, or insight into the functional areas that support the project Technical Expert(s) who have the requisite technical skills to accomplish the project. These skills may include such areas as systems analysis, networking, programming, graphic arts, and training.
Describe project integration management and its relationship to the other eight Project Management Body of Knowledge areas.
Project integration management is one of the most important Project Management Body of Knowledge areas. It coordinates and integrates the other knowledge areas and all of the project processes. Project integration management is concerned with three areas: (1) project plan development so that a useable, flexible, and consistent project plan is developed, (2) project plan execution so that the project plan is carried out in order achieve the project's MOV, and (3) overall change control to help manage change so that change does not disrupt the focus of the project team.
Describe the criteria that should be used to make a project selection decision.
The decision to approve an IT project requires a number of conditions be met: The IT project must map directly to the organization's strategies and goals. The IT project must provide measurable organizational value that can be verified at the completion of the project. The selection of an IT project should be based upon diversity of measures that include: Tangible costs and benefits Intangible costs and benefits Various levels throughout the organization (e.g., individual, process, department, and enterprise)
What is Total Benefits of Ownership?
Increasing high-value work —For example, a salesperson may spend less time on paperwork and more time calling on customers. Improving accuracy and efficiency —For example, reducing errors, duplication, or the number of steps in a process. Improving decision making —For example, providing timely and accurate information. Improving customer service —For example, new products or services, faster or more reliable service, convenience, and so on.
What are project management processes? Give one example.
Project management processes are an integral component of project management and are concerned with defining and coordinating the activities and controls needed to manage the project. They support all of the activities necessary to create and implement the product of the project. Examples include: Initiating Planning Executing Monitoring and Controlling Closing
Describe the three important roles under Scrum, one of the Agile methods.
Scrum master, product owner, and the development team. The Scrum master is similar to the project manager, while the product owner represents the business side and ensures that the most important features are included in the product. The development team is responsible for delivering a quality product or system.
What are the attributes of a project?
time frame, purpose, ownership, resources, roles, risks and assumptions, interdependent tasks, organizational change, and operating in an environment larger than the project itself.