Structural

SAD
Compiled by: Hundaol B.
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 Chapter Two
Managing the Information Systems
Project

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1.2 Managing the Information Systems Project

• Project management is an important aspect of the development of

IS and a critical skill for a systems analyst.
• The focus of project management is to ensure that system
development projects meet customer expectations and are
delivered within budget and time constraints.

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 Cont…
• The project manager is a systems analyst with a diverse set of
skills:
• Management,
• Leadership,
• Technical,
• Conflict management, and
• Customer relationship
• Creating and implementing successful projects requires managing
resources, activities, and tasks needed to complete the IS project.

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 Cont…
• A project is a planned undertaking of a series of related
activities, having a beginning and an end, to reach an
objective.
• The project management process involves four phases:
1. Initiating the project
2. Planning the project
3. Executing the project
4. Closing down the project

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 1. Initiating the Project
• Project initiation is the first phase of the project management process in
which activities are performed to assess the size, scope, and complexity of the
project and to establish procedures to support later project activities.
• The types of activities you will perform when initiating a project are:

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 1. Initiating the Project …
1. Establishing the project initiation team. This activity involves organizing
an initial core of project team members to assist in accomplishing the
project initiation activities.
2. Establishing a relationship with the customer. A thorough understanding
of your customer builds stronger partnerships and higher levels of trust.
3. Establishing the project initiation plan. This step defines the activities
required to organize the initiation team while it is working to define the
scope of the project.
4. Establishing management procedures.
 When establishing procedures, you are concerned with developing team
communication and reporting procedures, job assignments and roles, project
change procedures, and determining how project funding and billing will be
handled. 7
 1. Initiating the Project …
5. Establishing the project management environment and project
workbook. The focus of this activity is to collect and organize the
tools that you will use while managing the project and to construct
the project workbook.
Diagrams, charts, and system descriptions provide much of the project
workbook contents.
• Project workbook serves as a repository
• can be stored as an online electronic document, a Web site, or in a
large three-ring binder.
• It is used by all team

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Project Workbook

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 1. Initiating the Project …
6. Developing the project charter.
– The project charter is a short, high-level document prepared for the customer that describes
what the project will deliver and outlines many of the key elements of the project.
– A project charter can vary in the amount of detail it contains, but often includes the following
elements:
• Project title and date of authorization
• Project manager name and contact information
• Customer name and contact information
• Projected start and completion dates
• Project description and objectives
• Key assumptions or approach
• Key stakeholders, roles, responsibilities and signatures
• The project charter ensures that both you and your customer gain a common
understanding of the project.
• It is also a useful communication tool
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 2. Planning the Project
• Project planning involves defining clear, discrete activities and the
work needed to complete each activity within a single project.
• It often requires you to make numerous assumptions about the
availability of resources such as hardware, software, and personnel.

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 2. Planning the Project …
• The types of activities that you can perform during project
planning are:

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 2. Planning the Project …
1. Describing project scope, alternatives, and feasibility.
– The purpose of this activity is to understand the content and complexity of
the project.
– During this activity, you should reach agreement on the following
questions:
• What problem or opportunity does the project address?
• What are the quantifiable results to be achieved?
• What needs to be done?
• How will success be measured?
• How will we know when we are finished?
– After defining the scope of the project, your next objective is to identify and
document general alternative solutions for the current business problem or
opportunity.
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 2. Planning the Project …
2. Dividing the project into manageable tasks.
– Here, you must divide the entire project into manageable tasks and then
logically order them to ensure a smooth evolution between tasks.
– The definition of tasks and their sequence is referred to as the work
breakdown structure (WBS).
– Work breakdown for these activities is represented in a Gantt chart.
– Gantt chart simply show when an activity should begin and end.
3. Estimating resources and creating a resource plan.
– The goal of this activity is to estimate resource requirements for each
project activity and use this information to create a project resource plan.
– The resource plan helps assemble and deploy resources in the most
effective manner.
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 2. Planning the Project …
4. Developing a preliminary schedule.
– During this activity, you use the information on tasks and resource
availability to assign time estimates to each activity in the work breakdown
structure.
– These time estimates will allow you to create target starting and ending dates
for the project.
– Target dates can be revisited and modified until a schedule produced is
acceptable to the customer.

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 2. Planning the Project …
5. Developing a communication plan.
– The goal of this activity is to outline the communication procedures among
management, project team members, and the customer.
– The communication plan includes when and how written and oral reports
will be provided
6. Determining project standards and procedures:
– During this activity, you specify how various deliverables are produced and
tested by you and your project team.
– Setting project standards and procedures for work acceptance is a way to
ensure the development of a high-quality system.
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 2. Planning the Project …
7. Identifying and assessing risk:
– The goal of this activity is to identify sources of project risk and to estimate
the consequences of those risks.
– Risks might arise from the use of new technology, prospective users’
resistance to change, availability of critical resources, competitive reactions
or changes in regulatory actions due to the construction of a system, or team
member inexperience with technology or the business area.
– You should continually try to identify and assess project risk.

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 2. Planning the Project …
8. Creating a preliminary budget:
– During this phase, you need to create a preliminary budget that outlines the
planned expenses and revenues associated with your project.
– The project justification will demonstrate that the benefits are worth these
costs.
9. Developing a project scope statement.
– Project scope statement is developed primarily for the customer: describes
what the project will deliver.
– The project scope statement is useful to make sure that you, the customer,
and other project team members have a clear understanding of the intended
project size, duration, and outcomes.

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 2. Planning the Project
10. Setting a baseline project plan:
– This baseline plan provides an estimate of the project’s tasks and resource
requirements and is used to guide the next project phase: execution.
– As new information is acquired during project execution, the baseline plan
will continue to be updated.
– At the end of the project planning phase, a review of the baseline project
plan is conducted to double-check all the information in the plan.

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 3. Executing the Project
• Project execution puts the baseline project plan into action
• Within the context of the SDLC, project execution occurs
primarily during the analysis, design, and implementation
phases.
• Five key activities during project execution are:

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 1. Executing the baseline project plan:
• As project manager, you oversee the execution of the baseline
plan: You initiate the execution of project activities, acquire
and assign resources; orient and train new team members, keep
the project on schedule, and ensure the quality of project
deliverables.

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 2. Monitoring project progress against the baseline
project plan:
• While you execute the baseline project plan, you should
monitor your progress.
• If the project gets ahead of (or behind) schedule, you may have
to adjust resources, activities, and budgets.
• Monitoring project activities can result in modifications to the
current plan.

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 3. Managing changes to the baseline project plan:
• You will encounter pressure to make changes to the baseline plan.
• In addition to changes occurring through formal request, changes
may also occur because of events outside of your control.
• In fact, numerous events may initiate a change to the baseline
project plan, including the following possibilities:
– A slipped completion date for an activity
– A failed activity that must be redone
– The identification of a new activity that becomes evident later in the project
– An unexpected change in personnel due to sickness, resignation, or
termination
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 4. Maintaining the project workbook:
• The workbook provides the documentation new team members
require to assimilate project tasks quickly.
• It explains why design decisions were made and is a primary
source of information for producing all project reports.
5. Communicating the project status:
• The project manager is responsible for keeping all team members:
system developers, managers, and customers.
• Clear communication is required to create a shared understanding
of the activities and goals of the project.
• Procedures for communicating project activities vary from formal
meetings to informal hallway discussions. 25
 Two types of information are routinely exchanged throughout
the project:
• (1) Work results, or the outcomes of the various tasks and activities
that are performed to complete the project, and
• (2) The project plan, which is the formal comprehensive document
used to execute the project.
• The project plan contains numerous items including the project
charter, project schedule, budgets, risk plan, and so on.
• Communication helps to ensure project success.

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 4. Closing down the Project
• to bring the project to an end
• Projects can conclude with a natural or unnatural termination.
• A natural termination occurs when the requirements of the project
have been met: the project has been completed and is a success.
• An unnatural termination occurs when the project is stopped before
completion.
• Several events can cause an unnatural termination of a project.
• The most likely reasons for the unnatural termination of a project
relate to running out of time or money, or both.
• Regardless of the project termination outcome, several activities
must be performed: 27
 1. Closing down the project:
• When closing down the project, it is also important to notify all
interested parties that the project has been completed and to
finalize all project documentation and financial records so that a
final review of the project can be conducted.
• You should also celebrate the accomplishments of the team.
• The goal is to celebrate the team’s effort in bringing a difficult
task to a successful conclusion

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 2. Conducting post project reviews:
• Once you have closed down the project, final reviews of the project
should be conducted with management and customers.
• The objective of these reviews is to determine the strengths and
weaknesses of project deliverables, the processes used to create
them, and the project management process.
• It is important that everyone understands what went right and what
went wrong, in order to improve the process for the next project.

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 3. Closing the customer contract.
• The focus of this final activity is to ensure that all contractual terms
of the project have been met.
• A project governed by a contractual agreement is typically not
completed until agreed to by both parties, often in writing.
• Closedown is an important activity.
• A project is not complete until it is closed, and it is at closedown that
projects are estimated a success or failure.

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 Representing and Scheduling Project Plans
• Representing and scheduling project plans is crucial for effective project
management and coordination.
• There are various techniques and tools available to represent and schedule
project plans.
• Here are some commonly used approaches:
 Gantt Charts: Gantt charts are popular visual representations of project
schedules.
 They display project tasks as horizontal bars along a timeline. Gantt charts
illustrate task dependencies, durations, and milestones, allowing project
managers to track progress, identify critical paths, and allocate resources
effectively.
 Many project management software tools provide built-in Gantt chart
functionalities. 31
 Representing and Scheduling Project Plans …
 Work Breakdown Structure (WBS): A WBS breaks down the project into
hierarchical components, providing a structured representation of tasks and
deliverables.
 It organizes work into manageable units, making it easier to assign responsibilities,
estimate effort, and schedule activities.
 The WBS can be complemented with additional scheduling techniques to create a
comprehensive project plan.
 Network Diagrams: Network diagrams, also known as PERT (Program
Evaluation and Review Technique) or CPM (Critical Path Method) charts, depict
project activities as nodes connected by arrows representing dependencies.
 They visualize the sequence and interdependencies of tasks, helping project
managers identify critical paths, estimate project duration, and manage scheduling
constraints. Network diagrams often include time estimates and slack (float)
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calculations.
 Representing and Scheduling Project Plans …
 Critical Chain Method (CCM): CCM is a project scheduling technique that focuses on
resource optimization and managing uncertainties.
 It identifies task dependencies, resource constraints, and buffers to account for uncertainties
and delays. CCM aims to prevent resource overloading, mitigate project risks, and improve
project completion times.
 Project Management Software: Project management software tools, such as Microsoft
Project, Asana, or Trello, offer comprehensive features for representing and scheduling project
plans.
 These tools often include Gantt charts, task management functionalities, collaboration features,
and resource allocation capabilities.
 They provide a centralized platform for managing project schedules, tasks, and team
collaboration.
 Kanban Boards: Kanban boards are visual tools used for tracking and managing work tasks.
They typically consist of columns representing different stages of work (e.g., to-do, in
progress, completed) and cards representing individual tasks.
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 It provide a visual representation of the project's workflow, allowing team members to