IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Presenter:
DR. BEN B.K. AYAWLI
 Course Outline
• Introduction to Project and Project
Management
– Meaning of a project
– Attributes of a project
– The Triple constraints
– Project stakeholders
– Project management framework
• Phases/stages of a project
– Feasibility study,
• The stages of System Development Life Cycle
(SDLC)
– Feasibility study, etc

• Project Planning and Estimating

– Product and Work Breakdown Structures (PBS and
WBS)
– Network analysis
– Critical path analysis; Gantt chart
– Resource allocation
– Principles, methods, advantages and Disadvantages of
Estimating techniques
• Project scope management
• Project time management
• Project cost management
• Project quality management
• Human factors
– Team building theory and practice
– Obtaining skill personal for a project
– Team management , motivation and retention
– Management of stakeholders
– Roles and responsibilities of a IT project manager
– Roles of project boards and other project stakeholders
• Progress monitoring, Project control and
Reporting
– Project control through monitoring
– Plans in project control
– Project reports
– Assessment of implications and impact on the project
deviations
• Risk Management
– Types of risk
– Risk prioritization
– Risk management tactics
– Cost benefit analysis of planned risk reduction
actions
– Risk registers
• Software Quality Management
– Definition of quality and software quality
– Quality management systems: principles and
features
– System quality specification and measurement
– ETC
 References
• Schwalbe K. (2011). IT Project Management
6e. Course Technology, Cengage Learning
 WHAT IS A PROJECT?
• A project is a temporary endeavor
undertaken to create a unique product,
service, or result.
• A project ends when their objectives have been
reached
• Projects can be large or small and involve
one person or thousands of people.
• They can be done in one day or take years to
complete.
• Information technology projects involve
using hardware, software, and/or networks
to create a product, service, or result
 Examples of Information Technology
Projects
• A technician replaces ten laptops for a small department
• A small software development team adds a new feature to an
internal software application for the finance department
• A college campus upgrades its technology infrastructure to
provide wireless Internet access across the whole campus
• A cross-functional taskforce in a company decides what Voice-
over- Internet Protocol ( VoIP) system to purchase and how it
will be implemented
• A television network implements a system to allow viewers to
vote for contestants and provide other feedback on programs
• The automobile industry develops a Web site to streamline
procurement
• A government group develops a system to track child
immunizations
 Attributes of a Project
1. A project has a unique purpose.
– Every project should have a well-defined objective.
– For example, a Director of a Project Management Office might
sponsor an information technology collaboration project to
develop a list and initial analysis of potential information
technology projects that might improve operations for the
company.
– The unique purpose of this project would be to create a
collaborative report with ideas from people throughout the
company.
– The results would provide the basis for further discussions and
projects
2. A project is temporary.
– A project has a definite beginning and a definite end.
– In the information technology collaboration project, the
Director might form a team of people to work immediately on
the project, and then expect a report and an executive
presentation of the results in one month.
 Attributes of a Project (cont)
3. A project is developed using progressive elaboration.
– Projects are often defined broadly when they begin, and as
time passes, the specific details of the project become
clearer.
– A project team should develop initial plans and then
update them with more detail based on new information.
– For example, suppose a few people submitted ideas for
the information technology collaboration project, but they
did not clearly address how the ideas would support the
business strategy of improving operations. The project
team might decide to prepare a questionnaire for people
to fill in as they submit their ideas to improve the quality
of the inputs.
4. A project requires resources, often from
various areas.
– Resources include people, hardware, software, and
other assets
– Many projects cross departmental or other
boundaries to achieve their unique purposes.
– Resources, however, are limited and must be used
effectively to meet project and other corporate goals.
5. A project should have a primary customer or
sponsor.
– Most projects have many interested parties or
stakeholders, but someone must take the primary
role of sponsorship.
– The project sponsor usually provides the direction
and funding for the project.
6. A project involves uncertainty
– Because every project is unique, it is sometimes
difficult to define its objectives clearly, estimate how
long it will take to complete, or determine how much
it will cost.
– External factors also cause uncertainty, such as a
supplier going out of business or a project team
member needing unplanned time off.
– This uncertainty is one of the main reasons project
management is so challenging, especially on projects
involving new technologies.
 Executing a project
• An effective project manager is crucial to a
project s success.
• Project managers work with the project
sponsors, the project team, and the other
people involved in a project to meet project
goals.
 The Triple Constraint
• Every project is constrained in different ways
by its scope, time, and cost goals.
• These limitations are sometimes referred to in
project management as the triple constraint.
• To create a successful project, a project
manager must consider scope, time, and cost
and balance these three often-competing
goals.
 The Triple Constraint (cont)
• Scope: What work will be done as part of the
project? What unique product, service, or result
does the customer or sponsor expect from the
project? How will the scope be verified?
• Time: How long should it take to complete the
project? What is the project schedule? How will
the team track actual schedule performance?
Who can approve changes to the schedule?
• Cost: What should it cost to complete the
project? What is the projects budget? How will
costs be tracked? Who can authorize changes to
the budget?
 Management of Triple Constraint
• Involves making trade-offs between scope, time,
and cost goals for a project.
• For example, you might need to increase the
budget for a project to meet scope and time
goals. Alternatively, you might have to reduce the
scope of a project to meet time and cost goals.
• Experienced project managers know that you
must decide which aspect of the triple constraint
is most important. If time is most important, you
must often change the initial scope and/or cost
goals to meet the schedule. If scope goals are
most important, you may need to adjust time
and/or cost goals.
 the quadruple constraint
• Although the triple constraint describes how the basic
elements of a project scope, time, and cost interrelate,
other elements can also play significant roles.
• Quality is often a key factor in projects, as is customer
or sponsor satisfaction.
• The quadruple constraint of project management,
which includes quality as well as scope, time, and
cost.
• Quality considerations, including customer satisfaction,
must be inherent in setting the scope, time, and cost
goals of a project.
• A project team may meet scope, time, and cost goals
but fail to meet quality standards or satisfy their
sponsor
 Meeting sponsor/customer
satisfaction
• How can you avoid the problems that occur
when you meet scope, time, and cost goals,
but lose sight of quality or customer
satisfaction?
• The answer is good project management,
which includes more than meeting the triple
constraint.
 WHAT IS PROJECT MANAGEMENT?
• Project management is the application of
knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to
project activities to meet project requirements.
• Project managers must not only strive to meet
specific scope, time, cost, and quality goals of
projects, they must also facilitate the entire
process to meet the needs and expectations of
the people involved in or affected by project
activities (stakeholders).
 Project Stakeholders
• Stakeholders are the people involved in or
affected by project activities and include the
project sponsor, project team, support staff,
customers, users, suppliers, and even
opponents of the project
• These stakeholders often have very different
needs and expectations.
•
EXAMPLE
For example, several stakeholders involved in a home
construction project.
• The project sponsors would be the potential new
homeowners. They would be the people paying for the
house and could be on a very tight budget, so they would
expect the contractor to provide accurate estimates of the
costs involved in building the house. They would also need a
realistic idea of when they could move in and what type of
home they could afford given their budget constraints.
• The new homeowners would have to make important
decisions to keep the costs of the house within their budget.
Can they afford to finish the basement right away? If they
can afford to finish the basement, will it affect the
projected move-in date? In this example, the project
sponsors are also the customers and users for the product,
which is the house.
• The project manager in this example would normally
be the general contractor responsible for building the
house. He or she needs to work with all the project
stakeholders to meet their needs and expectations.
• The project team for building the house would include
several construction workers, electricians, carpenters,
and so on. These stakeholders would need to know
exactly what work they must do and when they need to
do it. They would need to know if the required
materials and equipment will be at the construction
site or if they are expected to provide the materials and
equipment.
• Their work would need to be coordinated since
there are many interrelated factors involved. For
example, the carpenter cannot put in kitchen
cabinets until the walls are completed.
• Support staff might include the customer’s
employer, the general contractors administrative
assistant, and other people who support other
stakeholders. The customer’s employer might
expect his employee to still complete their work
but allow some flexibility so he can visit the
building site or take phone calls related to
building the house. The contractors
administrative assistant would support the
project by coordinating meetings between the
customer, the contractor, suppliers, and so on.
• Building a house requires many suppliers. The suppliers
would provide the wood, windows, flooring materials,
appliances, and so on. Suppliers would expect exact details
on what items they need to provide, where and when to
deliver those items, and so on.
• There may or may not be opponents of a project. In this
example, there might be a neighbor who opposes the
project because the workers are making so much noise that
she cannot concentrate on her work at home, or the noise
might wake her sleeping children. She might interrupt the
workers to voice her complaints or even file a formal
complaint. Or, the neighborhood might have association
rules concerning new home design and construction. If the
homeowners did not follow these rules, they might have to
halt construction due to legal issues.
• As you can see from this example, there are many different
stakeholders on projects, and they often have different
interests.
• Stakeholders needs and expectations are
important in the beginning and throughout
the life of a project.
• Successful project managers develop good
relationships with project stakeholders to
understand and meet their needs and
expectations.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK
 Project Management Knowledge
Areas
• Project management knowledge areas
describe the key competencies that project
managers must develop.
• The four core knowledge areas of project
management include project scope, time,
cost, and quality management.
• These are core knowledge areas because they
lead to specific project objectives.
 The four core knowledge areas of project
management
1. Project scope management involves defining
and managing all the work required to complete
the project successfully.
2. Project time management includes estimating
how long it will take to complete the work,
developing an acceptable project schedule, and
ensuring timely completion of the project.
3. Project cost management consists of preparing
and managing the budget for the project.
4. Project quality management ensures that the
project will satisfy the stated or implied needs
for which it was undertaken.
 Project Management Knowledge
Areas (cont)
• The four facilitating knowledge areas of
project management are human resource,
communications, risk, and procurement
management.
• These are called facilitating knowledge areas
because they are the processes through which
the project objectives are achieved.
The four facilitating knowledge areas of
project management
• Project human resource management is concerned
with making effective use of the people involved with
the project.
• Project communications management involves
generating, collecting, disseminating, and storing
project information.
• Project risk management includes identifying,
analyzing, and responding to risks related to the
project.
• Project procurement management involves acquiring
or procuring goods and services for a project from
outside the performing organization.
 Project Management Knowledge
Areas (cont)
• Project integration management, the ninth
knowledge area, is an overarching function
that affects and is affected by all of the other
knowledge areas.
• Project managers must have knowledge and
skills in all nine of these areas.
 Project Management Tools and
Techniques
• Thomas Carlyle, a famous historian and author, stated,
“Man is a tool-using animal. Without tools he is nothing,
with tools he is all”.
• As the world continues to become more complex, it is even
more important for people to develop and use tools,
especially for managing important projects.
• Project management tools and techniques assist project
managers and their teams in carrying out work in all nine
knowledge areas.
• For example, some popular time management tools and
techniques include Gantt charts, project network diagrams,
and critical path analysis.
• &&&&&&&&
 Assignment
• Identify and discuss the nine knowledge areas
of project management.
• As a project manager, briefly discuss how you
would manage the triple constraints of a given
project.