Lecture 2

Week 2

Review of Lecture 1• What is a Project? - a planned undertaking of related

activities to reach an objective that has a beginning and an end

• What is a Stakeholder? - a person or organization who has interest in a new or existing project

• What is a Project Manager? - a person with a diverse set of skills – general management, leadership, technical, conflict management, and customer relationship management – who is responsible for initiating, planning, executing, controlling and monitoring and closing down a project.

Why projects fail?

- Lack of executive support- Lack of user involvement- Inexperienced project manager- Inexperienced team members- Unclear business objectives- Unreliable estimates- Lack of effective project management methodology- New software infrastructure- Unstable organizational environment- Unreliable outside suppliers

What is Project Management?

The application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to

project activities to meet project requirements.

What are Project Management Life Cycle Phases:

1. Initiate – potential projects are identified and evaluated in terms of importance to the organization

2. Plan – scope, time, cost and risk management planning takes place

3. Execute – project plan is followed

4. Control – project performance is measured against the project plan

5. Close – final paper work completed and sign off by all stakeholders

- Describe the project management life cycle- Describe the five parts of the information systems development life cycle - Understand the project management context - Read Gantt Charts and project network diagrams - Understand the basics of software that supports project management- Comprehend project management processes

Open Source Project Management software:- DotProject- Open Workbench- Gantt PV- Achievo- others

Projects are divided into smaller pieces called Phases. The information systems life cycle has 5 phases:Planning and selectionAnalysisDesignImplementationMaintenance

The end of a phase is marked by a review of the deliverable. These review points are sometimes called phase exits or stage gates or kill

points.

Cost and staffing levels are low at the beginning and at the end. The probability of successfully

completing the project is lowest at the beginning so risks are the highest. The stakeholders’ ability to influence the product final characteristics are the highest at the beginning and lowest at the

end.

The 5 process groups of project management are:

InitiatingPlanningExecutingControllingClosing

System development life cycle (SDLC) – a common methodology

for systems development that marks the phases or steps of

information systems development.

Phase 1: Systems Planning• The first phase of the SDLC, where the need for a

new or enhanced system is identified and the proposed system’s scope is determined.Identifying the need

Information systems need may result of problems with current system, desire to perform additional tasks, discovery that an IS may make an existing operation more efficient.

Determining the scope

The team produces a specific plan for developing the project.

Phase 2: Systems Analysis• The second phase in the SDLC, where the systems

requirements are determined, alternative solutions are developed, and one is chosen that best meets those requirements given the costs, labor, and technical resources the organization is willing to commit.Analysts will work with users to determine what exactly

the users will want from a proposed system. Includes careful examination of existing system.

2. Analysts study the requirements3. Analysts generate variations of initial design to meet the

requirements. Compare the alternative and determine which one best meets the requirements given costs, labor and technical resources. The output is a description of the solution finally recommended by the analysis team.

Phase 3: Systems Design

• The third phase in the SDLC, where the descriptions of the recommended alternative are converted into a logical description and then into physical system specifications.

• Logical design – focuses on the business aspects of the system, how the system will function within the organization. (Specifications)

• Physical design – converts the logical design into physical or technical such as choosing the programming language, the database system, the operating system, the hardware, the network environment). The final product of the design phase is the physical system specifications presented in a form that is ready to turn over to programmer and other system builders for construction.

Phase 4: Systems Implementation

• In the fourth phase system specifications are turned into a working system that is tested and then put into use. Implementation includes coding (programmers write the programs), testing (test individual program sand entire system to find and correct errors) and installation (the new system becomes part of the daily activities of the organization).

Phase 5: Systems Maintenance

• The fifth and final phase of the SDLC is systems maintenance. During maintenance , programmers make the changes that users ask for and modify the system to reflect the changing business conditions.

The Project Management Context

• Project Stakeholders• Organizational Influences: organization’s culture, its structure and the role of its project

management office (if it has one)Organizational culture: aggressive such as brokerage firms, financial institutions that handle merges

and acquisitions; relaxed such as software development companiesOrganizational structure: 3 categories

Functional: traditional hierarchical organization (resembling a pyramid) Projectized: a type of organization structure where people from different functional backgrounds work with each other

throughout the lifeline of the project Matrix: a type of organization that typically crosses functional design with some other design characteristics.

Project Management Office: an organizational unit created to centralize and coordinate the projects within an organization.

• Social, Economic and Environmental Influences:Standards and regulations: they might dictate the inclusion of additional processes in the project itself,

such as safety testing.Internationalization: globalization. It is increasingly common that many project members are located

elsewhere. Time zone differences, national and religious holidays, political differences.Culture: project members might have different backgrounds and views in such areas as politics,

economics, ethnic origins, demographics and religion. These differences might affect the project members, hence, the ptoject.

Social-economic-environmental sustainability: all projects are planned and implemented within a larger social, economic and environmental context that extends beyond the project, the organization and even the nation where the project work was completed.

Key General Management Skills: finance and accounting,

purchasing, marketing contracts and commercial law,

manufacturing. Also, logistics and supply chain, strategic, tactical and

operational planning, health and safety and information technology.

Project management also calls for leading, communicate effectively,

negotiate and manage conflict, problem solver, motivate people,

influence the organization.

Leading: to establish direction, align people with that direction, motivate people to work hard in

that direction, inspire them to succeed, often by example.

Communicating: has many forms (written, oral, speaking and

listening, internal or external, vertical or horizontal). Includes choosing the appropriate media

establish a clear and precise style.

Negotiating: coming to terms and reaching an agreement.

Problem solving: involves problem definition and decision making.

Influencing the organization: Project managers must understand the organization context and

influence the organization in the project’s favor.

Motivating people: need to determine how to get others to complete tasks successfully.

Technology and Techniques to Support the Project Management

Life Cycle.

Project Management techniques are used to document project plans.

- Graphical reports - Textual reports

Graphical reports are most commonly used: Gantt charts and network diagrams.

Gantt charts:

• Depicts duration of tasks

• Depicts the time overlap of tasks

• Some charts can depict slack time available

Network diagrams:

• Depicts sequence dependencies between tasks

• Does not show time overlap but shows which tasks can be done in parallel

• Shows slack time by the data contained in the activity rectangle

Network Diagrams and Project Life Cycles: use a network

diagrams when tasks are well defined and have a clear beginning

and endpoint, can be worked on independently of other tasks, are

ordered.

Critical Path: represents the shortest time in which a project can

be completed.

Slack time: the amount of time that an activity can be delayed without

delaying the project.

Estimating Project Times using PERT PERT: Program Evaluation Technique A technique that uses optimistic, pessimistic and realistic time estimates to calculate the expected time for a particular task.

Project Management Processes

• Project Processes: a series of continuous actions that bring about a particular result, end or condition.

• A project is a series of processes.

Process Groups:-Initiating: this involves the authorizing of a project or process to begin. -Planning: defining goals, selecting the ways to achieve them. -Executing: carrying out the plan. -Monitoring and Controlling: monitor and measure progress, take corrective actions when necessary. -Closing: project is brought to an end.

Relationship between the groups (process interactions): The output from one group often becomes the

input to the next one.

Initiating – 2 processes

- Develop project charter- Develop preliminary project scope statement (summary of what the project is all about)

Planning – 21 processes - Develop project management plan (transforming the idea into a Project Management Plan) - Scope planning (developing a project scope management plan) - Scope definition - Create WBS (work breakdown structure) - Activity definition - Activity sequencing -Activity resource estimating -Activity duration estimating -Schedule development -Cost estimating -Cost budgeting - Quality planning -Human resource planning -Communications planning -Risk management planning -Risk identifications -Qualitative risk analysis -Quantitative risk analysis -Risk response planning -Plan purchases and acquisitions -Plan contracting

Executing – 7 processes

-Direct and manage project execution -Perform quality assurance - Acquire project team -Develop project team - Information distribution -Request seller responses - Select sellers

Controlling - 12 processes -Monitor and control project work -Integrated change control -Scope verification -Scope control -Schedule control -Cost control -Perform quality control -Manage project team -Performance reporting -Manage stakeholders -Risk monitoring and control -Contract administration

Closing - 2 processes

-close project -contract closure

Mapping Project Management Processes to process groups

Questions

Assignment

• Read chapters # 1, 2 & 3