Chapter 2:

The Project Management and

Information Technology
Context
Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition
Note: See the text itself for full citations.

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Learning Objectives (1 of 2)

►Define the systems view of project management and how it applies to

information technology (IT) projects
►Summarize organizations, including the four frames, organizational
structures, and organizational culture
►Explain why stakeholder management and top management
commitment are critical for a project’s success

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Learning Objectives (2 of 2)

►Distinguish between project and product life cycles

►Discuss the unique attributes and diverse nature of IT projects

►Summarize recent trends affecting IT project management, including

globalization, outsourcing, virtual teams, and agile project
management

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A Systems View of Project Management

►Projects must operate in a broad organizational environment

►Project managers need to use systems thinking:
• Taking a holistic view of carrying out projects within the context of the
organization

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What Is a Systems Approach?

►A systems approach emerged in the 1950s to describe a holistic and

analytical approach to management and problem solving
►Three parts include:
• Systems philosophy: an overall model for thinking about things as systems
• Systems analysis: problem-solving approach
• Systems management: address business, technological, and organizational issues
before making changes to systems

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The Three-Sphere Model for Systems
Management

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Advice for Young Professionals

►It’s difficult enough trying to understand the various technologies an

organization uses. How can you begin to understand the business and
organizational aspects?
• Make it a priority. Don’t just focus on the technology, no matter how exciting it
seems to you. Even if you take just a few minutes each day learning about other
aspects of the organization, that’s a start.
• Tell your boss or other people you work with that you want to understand how
the entire organization works. Ask important questions like how the company
makes money, who key customers are, what the priorities are for the year, what
meetings you can attend or documents you can read to gain more knowledge,
etc.
• Network, network, network! Find out which people inside or outside of your
organization can help you in developing a systems approach.You might be
surprised how quickly you can move up in your career once you understand the
big picture.

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Understanding Organizations

►Systems approach requires that project managers always view their

projects in the context of the larger organization
►Organizational issues are often the most difficult part of working on
and managing projects
►Important for project managers to develop a better understanding of
people as well as organizations
• To improve the success rate of IT projects

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The Four Frames of Organizations

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What Went Wrong?

►In a paper titled “A Study in Project Failure,” two researchers

examined the success and failure of 214 IT projects over an eight-year
period in several European countries
►The researchers found that only one in eight (12.5 percent) were
considered successful in terms of meeting scope, time, and cost goals
►The authors said that the culture within many organizations is often to
blame
►Among other things, people often do not discuss important
leadership, stakeholder, and risk management issues

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Organizational Structures (1 of 2)

► Three basic organizational structures

• Functional: functional managers report to the CEO
• Project: program managers report to the CEO
• Matrix: middle ground between functional and project structures; personnel
often report to two or more bosses; structure can be weak, balanced, or strong
matrix

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Organizational Structures (2 of 2)

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Organizational Culture (1 of 2)

►Organizational culture is a set of shared assumptions, values, and

behaviors that characterize the functioning of an organization
►Many experts believe the underlying causes of many companies’
problems are not the structure or staff, but the culture

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for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Organizational Culture (2 of 2)

► Ten characteristics of organizational culture:

• Member identity*
• Group emphasis*
• People focus
• Unit integration*
• Control
• Risk tolerance*
• Reward criteria*
• Conflict tolerance*
• Means-ends orientation
• Open-systems focus*

►*Project work is most successful in an organizational culture where

these items are strong/high and other items are balanced.

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Focusing on Stakeholder Needs

►Project managers must take time to identify, understand, and manage

relationships with all project stakeholders
►Using the four frames of organizations can help meet stakeholder
needs and expectations
►Senior executives/top management are very important stakeholders

►See Chapter 13, Project Stakeholder Management, for more

information

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Media Snapshot

►Prior to the 2014 football season, Microsoft paid the NFL $400
million as part of a five-year deal to use their Surface as “the official
tablet of the NFL”
►All 32 NFL teams were involved, and the deal was renewed for a sixth
year in 2017
►Smooth transition?
• During week one of the season at least two television announcers mistakenly
referred to the tablets as iPads, giving Apple unexpected exposure
• Microsoft also had to defend the use of tablets after the New England Patriots
stopped using them

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The Importance of Top Management
Commitment (1 of 2)

►People in top management positions are key stakeholders in projects

► A very important factor in helping project managers successfully lead
projects is the level of commitment and support they receive from top
management
►Without top management commitment, many projects will fail.

►Some projects have a senior manager called a champion who acts as a

key proponent for a project.

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The Importance of Top Management
Commitment (2 of 2)

► How top management can help project managers

• Providing adequate resources
• Approving unique project needs in a timely manner
• Getting cooperation from other parts of the organization
• Mentoring and coaching on leadership issues

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Best Practice

►IT governance addresses the authority and control for key IT activities
in organizations, including IT infrastructure, IT use, and project
management
►A lack of IT governance can be dangerous, as evidenced by three well-
publicized IT project failures in Australia
• Sydney Water’s customer relationship management system
• The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology’s academic management system
• One.Tel’s billing system

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The Need for Organizational
Commitment to Information Technology

►If the organization has a negative attitude toward IT, it will be difficult
for an IT project to succeed
►Having a Chief Information Officer (CIO) at a high level in the
organization helps IT projects
►Assigning non-IT people to IT projects also encourage more
commitment

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The Need for Organizational Standards

►Standards and guidelines help project managers be more effective

►Senior management can encourage
• the use of standard forms and software for project management
• the development and use of guidelines for writing project plans or providing
status information
• the creation of a project management office or center of excellence

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for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Project and Product Life Cycles

► It is good practice to divide projects into several phases

• Because projects operate as part of a system and involve uncertainty
► The same can be said for developing products

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Project Life Cycle (1 of 2)

► A project life cycle is a collection of project phases that defines

• what work will be performed in each phase
• what deliverables will be produced and when
• who is involved in each phase, and
• how management will control and approve work produced in each phase
►A deliverable is a product or service produced or provided as part of a
project

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for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Project Life Cycle (2 of 2)

► In early phases of a project life cycle

• resource needs are usually lowest
• the level of uncertainty (risk) is highest
• project stakeholders have the greatest opportunity to influence the project
► In middle phases of a project life cycle
• the certainty of completing a project improves
• more resources are needed
► The final phase of a project life cycle focuses on
• ensuring that project requirements were met
• the sponsor approves completion of the project

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for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Product Life Cycles (1 of 3)

►Products also have life cycles

►The Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a framework for
describing the phases of developing information systems
►Systems development projects can follow
• Predictive life cycle
• Iterative life cycle
• Incremental life cycle
• Adaptive life cycle
• Hybrid life cycle

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Product Life Cycles (2 of 3)

► Predictive Life Cycle Models

• Waterfall model: has well-defined, linear stages of systems development and
support
• Spiral model: shows that software is developed using an iterative or spiral
approach rather than a linear approach
• Prototyping model: used for developing prototypes to clarify user requirements
• Rapid Application Development (RAD) model: used to produce systems
quickly without sacrificing quality

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Product Life Cycles (3 of 3)

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The Importance of Project Phases and
Management Reviews

►A project should successfully pass through each of the project phases

in order to continue on to the next
►Management reviews, also called phase exits, phase gate reviews, or
kill points, should occur after each phase to evaluate the project’s
progress, likely success, and continued compatibility with
organizational goals
►It is unwise to wait until the end of project or product phases to have
management inputs
• Many projects are reviewed by management on a regular basis

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
What Went Right?

► "The real improvement that I saw was in our ability toin the words of
Thomas Edisonknow when to stop beating a dead horse.…Edison's key to
success was that he failed fairly often; but as he said, he could recognize a
dead horse before it started to smell...In information technology we ride
dead horsesfailing projectsa long time before we give up. But what we
are seeing now is that we are able to get off them; able to reduce cost
overrun and time overrun. That's where the major impact came on the
success rate.”*
► Many organizations, like Huntington Bancshares, Inc., use an executive
steering committee to help keep projects on track.
► Some projects still go on a long time before being killed, like Blizzard’s Titan
game project.

► *Cabanis, Jeannette, "'A Major Impact': The Standish Group's Jim Johnson
On Project Management and IT Project Success," PM Network, PMI,
Sep.1998, p. 7
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The Context of Information Technology
Projects

► Project context
• Has a critical impact on which product development life cycle will be most
effective for a particular software development project
►Several issues unique to the IT industry have a critical impact on
managing IT projects

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The Nature of IT Projects

►IT projects can be very diverse in terms of size, complexity, products

produced, application area, and resource requirements
►The nature of software development projects is even more diverse
than hardware-oriented projects
►IT projects also support every possible industry and business function

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for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Characteristics of IT Project Team
Members

►IT project team members often have diverse backgrounds and skill
sets
►Many companies purposely hire graduates with degrees in other fields
such as business, mathematics, or the liberal arts to provide different
perspectives on IT projects
►Some IT projects require the skills of people in just a few job
functions
• But some require inputs from many or all of them

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Diverse Technologies

►IT projects use diverse technologies that change rapidly

►Differences in technical knowledge can make communication between
professionals challenging
►New technologies have also shortened the time frame many
businesses have to develop, produce, and distribute new products and
services

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for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Recent Trends Affecting Information
Technology Project Management

►Globalization
►Outsourcing: Outsourcing is when an organization acquires goods
and/or sources from an outside source. Offshoring is sometimes used
to describe outsourcing from another country
►Virtual teams: A virtual team is a group of individuals who work
across time and space using communication technologies
►Agile project management

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Globalization

► Issues
• Communications
• Trust
• Common work practices
• Tools
► Suggestions
• Employ greater project discipline
• Think globally but act locally
• Consider collaboration over standardization
• Keep project momentum going
• Use newer tools and technology

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Outsourcing

►Organizations remain competitive by using outsourcing to their

advantage, such as finding ways to reduce costs
►Practice can be unpopular on some countries

►Project managers should become more familiar with many global and
procurement issues

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Virtual Teams (1 of 2)

► Advantages
• Lowering costs because many virtual workers do not require office space or
support beyond their home offices
• Providing more expertise and flexibility or increasing competitiveness and
responsiveness by having team members from across the globe working any time
of day or night
• Improving the work/life balance for team members by eliminating fixed office
hours and the need to travel to work

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for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Virtual Teams (2 of 2)

► Disadvantages
• Isolating team members
• Increasing the potential for communications problems
• Reducing the ability for team members to network and transfer information
informally
• Increasing the dependence on technology to accomplish work
►See text for a list of factors that help virtual teams succeed, including
team processes, trust/relationships, leadership style, and team
member selection

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for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Agile (1 of 2)

►Agile means being able to move quickly and easily, but some people
feel that project management, as they have seen it used, does not
allow people to work quickly or easily
►Early software development projects often used a waterfall approach
• As technology and businesses became more complex, the approach was often
difficult to use because requirements were unknown or continuously changing
►Agile today means using an approach where requirements and
solutions evolve through collaboration

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Agile (2 of 2)

► Manifesto for Agile Software Development

• In February 2001, a group of 17 people that called itself the Agile Alliance
developed and agreed on the Manifesto for Agile Software Development, as
follows:
• “We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping
others do it. Through this work we have come to value:
 Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
 Working software over comprehensive documentation
 Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
 Responding to change over following a plan”*

► *Agile Manifesto.
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Scrum (1 of 4)

►According to the Scrum Alliance, Scrum is the leading agile

development method for completing projects with a complex,
innovative scope of work.
►The term was coined in 1986 in a Harvard Business Review study that
compared high-performing, cross-functional teams to the scrum
formation used by rugby teams.

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for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Scrum (2 of 4)

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Scrum (3 of 4)

► Kanban
• Technique that can be used in conjunction with Scrum
• Developed in Japan by Toyota Motor Corporation
• Uses visual cues to guide workflow
• Kanban cards show new work, work in progress, and work completed

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Scrum (4 of 4)

►The PMBOK® Guide describes best practices for what should be

done to manage projects.
►Agile is a methodology that describes how to manage projects.

►The Project Management Institute (PMI) recognized the increased

interest in Agile, and introduced a new certification in 2011 called
Agile Certified Practitioner (ACP).
►Seasoned project managers understand that they have always had the
option of customizing how they run projects, but that project
management is not easy, even when using Agile.

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for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Chapter Summary

►Project managers need to take a systems approach when working on

projects
►Organizations have four different frames: structural, human
resources, political, and symbolic
►The structure and culture of an organization have strong implications
for project managers
►Projects should successfully pass through each phase of the project life
cycle
►Project managers need to consider several factors due to the unique
context of information technology projects
►Recent trends affecting IT project management include globalization,
outsourcing, virtual teams, and agile project management
Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.