SIT Chapter 9

Using Project Management to Deliver Successful Projectsu

-Primary reasons for project failure: -Unclear or missing business requirements, skipping SDLC phases, failure to manage project scope (Scope creep: occurs when the scope increases, Feature creep: occurs when extra features are added), failure to manage project plan, changing technology

Project Charter

-a concise written description of the project's intended work -kill switch: a trigger that enables a project manager to close the project before completion

Waterfall Methodology

-a sequence of phases in which the output of each phase becomes the input for the next -prototyping: a modern design approach by which the designers and system users use an iterative approach to building the system -discovery prototyping: builds a small-scale representation or working model of the system to ensure that it meets the user and business requirements

Methodology

-a set of policies, procedures, standards, processes, practices, tools, techniques, and tasks that people apply to technical and management challenges -firms use to manage the deployment of technology with work plans, requirements, documents and test plans

Gantt Chart

-a simple bar chart that lists project tasks vertically against the project's time frame, listed horizontally -scope creep: the tendency to permit changes that exceed a project's scope and may wreak havoc on the schedule, work quality and budget -scope creep parking lot: a list of additional ideas or bells and whistles proposed during a project -project spotlight chat: a monitoring dashboard that uses red, yellow and green color coding to indicate the status of each project task -work breakdown structure (WBS): a plan that breaks down a project's goals into the many deliverables required to achieve it

Agile Methodology

-aims for customer satisfaction through early and continuous delivery of useful software components developed by an iterative process using the bare minimum requirements -iterative development: consists of a series of tiny projects -goals: rapid prototyping or rapid application development methodology, extreme programming methodology, rational unified process methodology, scrum methodology

The Cost of Finding Errors in the SDLC

-an error found during the analysis and design phase is relatively inexpensive to fix -the exact same error found during the testing or implementation phase will cost organizations an enormous amount to fix because it has to change the actual system

Using Project Management to Deliver Successful Projects

-analysts predict investment in MIS projects worldwide is over $1 trillion; 70% will be lost due to failed projects -the consequences of failed projects include: damaged brand, lost goodwill, dissolution of partnerships, lost investment opportunities, low morale

Project Management Institute (PMI)

-develops procedures and concepts necessary to support the profession of project management and has 3 areas of focus: ethics, standards and accreditation -defines a project as a temporary activity a company undertakes to create a unique product, service or result -project management: the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements -project plan: a formal, approved document that manages and controls the entire project; should be easy to understand and read, communicated to all key participants, appropriate to the project's size, complexity and criticality and prepared by the team -project manager: an individual who is an expert in project planning and management, defines and develops the project plan and tracks the plan to ensure that the project is completed on time and on budget -project scope: describes the business need and the justification, requirements and current boundaries for the project

Intangible benefits

-difficult to quantify or measure -improved decision making -improved community service -improved goodwill -improved morale

Balance of the Triple Constraint

-displays relationships among the 3 primary and interdependent variables in any project: time, cost and scope -if any one changes, at least one other is likely to be affected

Tangible Benefits

-easy to quantify and typically measured to determine the success or failure of a project -decreased expenses, decreased processing errors, decreased response time, increased quantity or sales, increased quality

Rapid Application Development (RAD) Methodology

-emphasizes extensive user involvement in the rapid and evolutionary construction of working prototypes of a system to accelerate the systems development process -prototype: asmaller-scale representation or working model of the users' requirements or a proposed design for an information system; an essential part of the analysis phase when using a RAD methodology

Phase 1: Planning

-established a high-level of the intended project and determines project goals -the first and most critical phase of any systems development effort -change agent: a person or event that is the catalyst for implementing major changes for a system to meet business changes -brainstorming: a technique for generating ideas by encouraging participants to offer as many ideas as possible in a short period without any analysis until al the ideas have been exhausted

Phase 3: Design

-establishes descriptions of the desired features and operations of the system including screen layouts, business rules, process diagrams, pseudo code, and other documentation -Pseudocode: meaning fake code, an informal description of how the computer program should work

Phase 5: Testing

-involves bringing all the project pieces together into a special testing environment to eliminate errors and bugs, and verify that the system meets all of the business requirements defined in the analysis phase -bugs: defects in the code of an information system -test conditions: detail the steps the system must perform along with the expected result of each step

Phase 7: Maintenance

-involves performing changes, corrections, additions, and upgrades to ensure the system continues to meet its business goals -corrective maintenance: makes system changes to repair design flaws, coding errors or implementation issues -preventive maintenance: makes system changes to reduce the chance of future system failure

Phase 6: Implementation

-involves placing the system into production so users can begin to perform actual business operations with it -user documentation: created that highlights how to use the system and how to troubleshoot issues or problems -online training: runs over the Internet or on a CD or DVD, and employees complete the training on their own time at their own place -workshop training: held in a classroom environment and led by an instructor -help desk: group of people who respond to users' questions

Phase 4: Development

-involves taking all of the detailed design documents from the design phase and transforming them into the actual system -software engineering: a disciplined approach for constructing information systems through the use of common methods, techniques or tools -Control objects for information related technology (COBIT): a set of best practices that helps an organization maximize the benefits of an information system at the same time establishing appropriate controls to ensure minimum errors -programming language: refers to a unique set of keywords along with a special syntax for organizing program instructions that execute computer commands -scripting language: a programming method that provides interactive modules to a website -object-oriented languages: group data and corresponding processes into objects -fourth-generation languages (4GLs): programming languages that look similar to human languages

Changing Technology

-many real-world projects have hundreds of business requirements, take years to complete and cost millions of dollars

Rational Unified Process (RUP) Methodology

-provides a framework for breaking down the development of software into four gates 1. Gate One: Inception- ensures that all stakeholders have a shared understanding of the proposed system and what it will do 2. Gate Two: Elaboration- extends on the agreed upon details of the system, including the ability to provide an architecture to support and build it 3. Gate Three: Construction- includes building and developing the product 4. Gate Four: Transition- questions address ownership of the system and training of key personnel

Outsourcing Projects

1. Onshore outsourcing: engaging another company within the same country for services 2. Nearshore outsourcing: contracting an outsourcing arrangement with a company in a nearby country 3. Offshore outsourcing: using organizations from developing countries to write code and develop systems

System Implementation Methods

1. Parallel implementation: uses both the legacy system and new system until all users verify that the new system functions correctly 2. Plunge implementation: discards the legacy system and immediately migrates all users to the new system 3. Pilot implementation: assigns a small group of people to use the new system until it is verified that it works correctly; then the remaining users migrate to the new system 4. Phased implementation: installs the new system in phases until it is verified that it works correctly

Types of Organizational Projects

1. Sales: deploying a new service to help up-sell a current product 2. Marketing: creating a new TV or radio show 3. Finance: requesting a new report summarizing revenue across departments 4. Accounting: adding system functionality to adhere to new rules or regulations 5. MIS: upgrading a payroll system or adding a new sales force management system

Software Development Methodologies

1. Waterfall 2. Agile 3. Rapid application development (RAD) 4. Extreme programming 5. Rational unified process (RUP) 6. Scrum

Fundamentals of RAD

1. focus initially on creating a prototype that looks and acts like the desired system 2. actively involve system users in the analysis, design, and development phases 3. accelerate collecting the business requirements through an interactive and iterative construction approach

Issues with Waterfall Methodology

1. the business problem: any flaws in accurately defining and articulating the business problem in terms of what the business users actually require flow onward to the next phase 2. the plan: managing costs, resources, and time constraints is difficult in the waterfall sequence 3. the solution: it assumes users can specify all business requirements in advance

PERT Chart (Program Evaluation and Review Technique)

a graphical network model that depicts a project's tasks and the relationships between them -critical path analysis: a project diagramming method used to predict total project duration -critical path for a project is a series of activities that determine the earliest time by which the project and the maximum amount of time it will take you to finish -slack: the amount of time an activity may be delayed without delaying a succeeding activity or the project finish date

Dependency

a logical relationship that exists between the project tasks, or between a project task and a milestone

Technical review

a meeting in which an independent team of experts provides an in-depth analysis of project results to ensure that team members did the work accurately, completely and to the right quality standard

Outsourcing

an arrangement by which one organization provides a service or services for another organization that chooses not to perform them in-house

Project management office (PMO)

an internal department that oversees all organizational projects; must formalize and professionalize project management expertise and leadership

Legacy system

an old system that is fast approaching or beyond the end of its useful life within an organization

Project deliverable

any measurable, tangible, verifiable outcome, result, or item that is produced to complete a project or part of a project

Extreme Programming Methodology

breaks a project into four phases, and developers cannot continue to the next phase until the previous phase is complete

Responsibility matrix

defines all project roles and indicates what responsibilities are associated with each role

Communication plan

defines the how, what, when, and who regarding the flow of project information to stakeholders and is key for managing expectations

Project requirements document

defines the specifications for product/output of the project and is key for managing expectations, controlling scope, and completing other planning efforts

Project Assumption

factors considered to be true, real, or certain without proof or demonstration

Project stakeholder

individuals and organizations actively involved in the project or whose interests might be affected as a result of project execution or project completion

Project scope statement

links the project to the organization's overall business goals; describes the business need and the justification, requirements and current boundaries for the project

Software customization

modifies software to meet specific user or business requirements

Status report

periodic reviews of actual performance versus expected performance

Project objectives

quantifiable criteria that must be met for the project to be considered a success

Project Milestone

represents key dates when a certain group of activities must be performed

Project Constraint

specific factors that can limit options, including budget, delivery dates, available skilled resources, and organizational policies

Off-the-shelf application software

supports general business processes and does not require any specific software customization to meet the organization's needs

Executive sponsor

the person or group who provides the financial resources for the project

Conversion

the process of transferring information from a legacy system to a new system

In-sourcing (in-house-development)

uses the professional expertise within an organization to develop and maintain its information technology systems

Phase 2: Analysis

-the firm analyzes its end-user business requirements and refines project goals into defined functions and operations of the intended system -business requirements: the specific business requests the system must meet to be successful -Requirements management: the process of managing changes to the business requirements throughout the project -Requirements definition document: prioritizes all of the business requirements by order of importance to the company -Sign-off: the users' actual signatures indicating they approve all of the business requirements -Process modeling: involves graphically representing the processes that capture, manipulate, store, and distribute information between a system and its environment -Data flow diagram (DFD): illustrates the movement of information between external entities and the processes and data stores within the system -Computer-aided software engineering: tools are software suites that automate systems analysis, design, and development

Skipped Phases

-the first thing individuals tend to do when a project falls behind schedules is to start skipping phases in the SDLC

Feasibility

-the measure of the tangible and intangible benefits of an information system -types: 1. economic: measures the cost-effectiveness of a project 2. operational: measures how well a solution meets the identified system requirements to solve the problems and take advantage of opportunities 3. schedule: measures the project time frame to ensure that it can be completed on time 4. technical: measures the practicality of a technical solution and the availability of technical resources and expertise 5. political: measures how well the solution will be accepted in a given organization 6. legal: measures how well a solution can be implemented within existing legal and contractual obligaitions

Unclear or missing business requirements

-the most common reasons systems fail is because the business requirements are either missing or incorrectly gathered during the analysis phase

Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC)

-the overall process for developing information systems from planning and analysis through implementation and maintenance -the foundation for all systems development methods and hundreds of activities are associated with each face -begins with a business need, proceeds to an assessment of the functions a system must have to satisfy the need, and ends when the benefits of the system no longer outweigh its maintenance costs -composed of 7 distinct phases

SMART Criteria for Successful Objective Creation

-useful reminders on how to ensure that the project has created understandable and measurable objective

Scrum Methodology

-uses small teams to produce small pieces of deliverable software using sprints, or 30-day intervals, to achieve an appointed goal; each day ends or begins with a stand-up meeting to monitor and control the development effort

Different Forms of System Testing

1. Alpha testing: assess if the entire system meets the design requirements of the users 2. Development testing: test the system to ensure it is bug-free 3. Integration testing: verify that separate systems can work together passing data back and forth correctly 4. System testing: verify that the units or pieces of code function correctly when integrated 5. User acceptance testing (UAT): determine if the system satisfies the user and business requirements 6. Unit testing: test individual units or pieces of code for a system

Methods for Gathering Business Requirements

1. Conduct a joint application development (JAD) session where employees meet, sometimes for several days, to define or review the business requirements for the system 2. Interview individuals to determine current operations and current issues 3. Make observations to determine how current operations are performed 4. Review business documents to discover reports, policies and how information is used throughout the organization

factors driving outsourcing growth

1. Core Competencies 2. Financial Savings 3. Rapid Growth 4. The Internet 5. Globalization

Overview of Programming Languages

1. First Generation: machine language difficult for people to understand 2. Second Generation: assembly language difficult for people to understand 3. Third Generation: high-level programming languages, like C+ and Java 4. Fourth Generation: programming languages that look similar to human languages 5. Fifth Generation: programming languages for artificial intelligence and neural networks

Outsourcing Benefits

1. Increased quality and efficiency of business processes 2. Reduced operating expenses for head count and exposure to risk for large capital investments 3. Access to outsourcing service provider's expertise, economies of scale, best practices, and advanced technologies 4. Increased flexibility for faster response to market changes and less time to market for new products or services

Examples of System Reports

1. Internal Report 2. Detailed Internal report 3. Summary Report 4. Exception Report 5. Information System Control Report 6. Information System Audit Report 7. Post-implementation report

Outsourcing Challenges

1. Length of Contract: most companies look at outsourcing as a long-term solution with a time period of several years (difficulties in getting out of a contract, problems in foreseeing future needs, problems in reforming an internal IT department after the contract is finished) 2. Threat to competitive advantage: the outsourcer could share the company's trade secrets 3. Loss of confidentiality: information on pricing, products, sales and customers can be a competitive asset and often critical for business success