managing it projects - gonzaga...

1

John Wiley & Sons, Inc. & Dr. Chen, Information Systems – Theory and Practices

Chapter 11

Managing IT Projects

Jason C. H. Chen, Ph.D.

Professor of MIS

School of Business Administration

Gonzaga University

Spokane, WA 99258

[email protected]


Learning Objectives

• List the elements of a good project.

• Understand why many IT projects fail to meet their targeted goals.

• Explain the relationship between time, scope, and cost of a project.

• Explain why Gantt charts are popular for planning schedules.

• Define RAD and explain how it compares to the SDLC.

• Be able to identify when it is time to pull the plug on a project.

• Two critical management areas for project success: risk management and change management

2


Opening Case - Rural Payments Agency Case

• Rural Payments Agency (RPA), UK, blamed poor

planning and lack of system testing for delays in

paying out 1.5billion pounds of EU subsidies.

– Only 15% were paid out by the end of 2006.

• The RPA had to make substantial changes to the

system post implementation.

– Testing did not take into account the real environment,

leading to unanticipated work to populate the database in

the first place.

• The system had not been properly managed.

– Costs were at 122 million pounds, and were originally

estimated at 46.5 million.3


Three Types of People with PM

• What are the three types of people should

be always involved for a successful PM ?

– 1. Specialist (e.g., IT or marketing etc.)

– 2. Management (top or middle why?)

– 3. Users (why?)

4


Failed IS Projects

• Standish Group found that ____ percent of all

software projects are challenged

– Late,

– over budget or

– fail to meet performance criteria.

• Even one failure could endanger a firm!

• Managing a business project means managing

an information systems project.

– Why?

– Many systems use or integrate the Internet.

67

5


Successful IS Projects

• To succeed, “a” general manager must be a

project manager and must learn how to

manage this type of risk.

• Executive management no longer has an

option but to consider skilled IT project

management as fundamental to business

success.

6

2


WHAT DEFINES

A

PROJECT

7


What Defines a Project?

• Organizations combine two types of work—projects

and operations (Figure 10.1).

• Both types are performed by people and require a flow

of limited resources.

• Both are planned, executed, and controlled.

• Figure 10.1 compares characteristics of both project

and operational work.

• “[A] project is a _________ endeavor undertaken to create a

________ product or service. Temporary means that every

project has a definite beginning and a definite end. Unique

means that the product or service is different in some

distinguishing way from all similar products or services.”

• -Project Management Institute (1996)

temporary

unique

8


Project vs Operations

Characteristics Operations Projects

Purpose Sustain the firm Reach a goal

When to change When operations no

longer serve the goals

When a goal is

reached

Quality control Formal Informal

Tasks Repetitive Unique

Duration Ongoing Temporary

9

Figure 11.1 Characteristics of operational and project work


Project Stakeholders

• Anyone (or any firm)

– Involved

– With affected interests

• Obvious players:

– Project manager, project team

– Project sponsor (general manager funding it)

– Customers (huge variety)

– Employees

10


Programs vs Projects

• A program is a set of related projects that

accomplish a strategic objective

• Examples: TQM; workplace safety

11John Wiley & Sons, Inc. & Dr. Chen, Information Systems – Theory and Practices

• What are the three elements

in the “Project Triangle”?

• What is the center in the

triangle?

12

3


Figure 11.2 Project Triangle

(Project Management Trade-offs)

Time Cost

Scope

The objective of the PM is to define project’s scope realistically and ultimately

deliver quality of product/service on time, on budget and within scope.

The center of

project triangle is

QUALITY

13

If pick any two!

(trade-offs)


Picking any two

• Fast and cheap: It won’t be good!

– Slapped together or using interns

• Fast and good: It won’t be cheap!

– Purchase solution/hire “rock star” skilled team

• Cheap and good: It won’t be fast!

– This option is possible if you would wait for

open source solution or use

14


What is Project Management?

• Project management:– Applying knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project

activities in order to meet or exceed stakeholder needs and

expectations.

– Involves continual trade-offs managed by the project manager.

• Trade-offs can be subsumed in the project triangle (Fig. 11.2).

– 1) Scope may be divided into:

• Product scope: the detailed description of the product’s

quality, features, and functions.

• Project scope: the work required to deliver a product or

service with the intended product scope.

– 2) Time refers to the time required to complete the project.

– 3) Cost encompasses all the resources required to carry out the project.

• Cost vs. Quality

– The quality of a system will normally impact its cost.15


Project Management versus Process Management

“Ultimately, the parallels between process and project management give way to a fundamental difference: process management seeks to _________ variability whereas project management must _______ variability because each project is unique.”

Elton, J. & J. Roe. “Bringing Discipline to Project

Management” Harvard Business Review

16

eliminateaccept


Why do Projects Fail?

Studies have shown that the following factors

contribute significantly to project failure:

• Improper focus of the project management system

• Fixation on first estimates

• Wrong level of detail

• Lack of understanding about project management tools;

too much reliance on project management software

• Too many people

• Poor communication

• Rewarding the wrong actions


The Need for Project Management

• Critical for companies today – the ability to adapt

existing business processes and system to change

and to produce innovative ideas faster than the

competition.

• Typical adaptation projects include the following:

– ___________ the organization

– _______________ business processes

– _________ more comprehensive, integrative processes

– ____________ new information technologies.

Rightsizing

Re-engineering

Adopting

Incorporating

18

4


Project Management Software

• Top five PM systems

– Microsoft Project

– Atlassian Jira

– Podio

– Smartsheet

– Basecamp


Project Management Office

• Project support

• Project management process and methods

• Training

• Project management home base

• Internal consulting and mentoring

• Project management software tools and support

• Portfolio management (managing multiple

projects)

20


PROJECT

ELEMENTS

21


Essential Project Elements

• There are four components essential for any project and

necessary to assure a high probability of project

success:1. Project ___________

– A project sponsor and a project manager are needed so that project can be

coordinated and executed appropriately

2. A project _______.– to ensure all parts of the project come together effectively and correctly

(make sure to clearly define the teams objectives).

3. A project cycle plan.– The methodology and schedule to execute the project (Gantt charts,

CPM, and PERT diagrams).

– The sequential steps of organizing and tracking the work of the team.

– Method and schedule

4. A common project ___________.– so all team members can communicate effectively (very important as

many are new

management.

team

vocabulary

22


Element 1: Project Management - Key

Players

• The project __________– liaises between the project team and other stakeholders.

– is a project champion providing leadership.

– is a senior C-level executive with influence with the key

stakeholders and C-level team.

– provides the financial resources for the project.

• The project _________:– Requires a range of management skills to make the project

successful.

sponsor:

manager


The Project Manager Skills

• A Project Manager’s skills include:1. Identifying requirements of the systems to be delivered.

2. Providing organizational integration by defining the team’s

structure.

3. Assigning team members to work on the project (team mgt.)

4. Managing risks and leveraging opportunities.

5. Measuring the project’s status, outcomes, and exception to

provide project control.

6. Making the project visible to general management and other

stakeholders (visibility)

7. Measuring project status against the plan,

often using project management software.

8. Taking corrective action when necessary

to get the project back on track.

9. Project ________.leadership

The major focus of the status element of

management is “proactive” as there is a need

“strong” of project leaders to help the

organization develop project competency to

begin with.

guide

24

Require

planning

Require

taking

action

5


Project Manager’s Role

• The project manager will typically be involved in:

– Ensuring progress of the project according to defined metrics..

– _____________

– Ensuring progress toward deliverables within _____ and

_________________

– Running coordination meetings.

– Negotiating for resources on behalf of the project.

• Business projects are often initiated because of a

successful business case.

– A successful project begins with a well-written business case

(i.e., spells out components of the project.)

Identifying risks.

time

resource constraints

But, not to determining the best fit of the project in the organizations vision

25


Project leadership

• Lack of leadership can result in unmotivated or

confused people.

• Strong project leaders skillfully manage team

composition, reward systems, and other techniques to

focus, align, and motivate team members.

• Figure 11.3 shows strong processes trade off against

strong leadership.

• Factors influencing the project managers and team’s

performance:– Organizational culture (team composition)

– Socioeconomic influences (reward systems)

26


Figure 11.3 Project leadership vs. project management (PM) process.

(need less leadership)(need more leadership) 27


Element 2: Project Team

• A project team consists of those people who work

together to complete the project.

• Teamwork should:– Clearly define the team’s objectives.

– Define each member’s role in achieving these objectives.

– Have norms about conduct, shared rewards, a shared

understanding of roles, and team spirit.

• Project managers should leverage team member– skills,

– knowledge,

– experiences, and

– capabilities.

• Team members should share information about (and

represent) their departments.28


Element 3: Project Cycle Plan• The project cycle plan organizes discrete project activities,

sequencing them into steps along a time line.

– Therefore, the project delivers according to the requirements of customers and stakeholders.

• Identifies critical beginning and ending dates and breaks the work spanning these dates into phases

• The three most common approaches (and software tools) are:

– Project Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) (Figure 11.4):

• Estimates about the time needed to complete project tasks, calculating the optimistic, most probable, and pessimistic time requirements for completing each task.

– Critical Path Method (CPM): deterministic task times.• If any activity on critical path _______, the overall project time

will be _________.

– Gantt chart: displaying time relationships of project tasks and monitoring the progress toward project completion (Figure 11.5)

delayedincreased

29


PROJECT

CYCLE PLAN (cont.)

30

6


Project Cycle Plan Software

• PERT:– Identifies the tasks, orders the tasks in a time sequence,

identifies their interdependencies, and estimates the time

required to complete the task.

• Critical tasks - must be performed individually; together

they account for the total elapsed time of the project.

• Non-critical tasks - can be built into the schedules without

affecting the duration of the entire project.

• CPM:– A tool that is similar to PERT.

– Incorporates a capability for identifying relationships

between costs and the completion date of a project as well as

the amount and value of resources that must be applied in

alternative situations.


Figure 11.4 PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) chart

Shows dependencies

between tasks

32


CPM - Node Configuration

1 0 3

3 0 3

Activity number

Activity duration

Earliest start

Latest start

Earliest finish

Latest finish


1 0 3

3 0 3

2 3 5

2 3 5

3 3 4

1 4 5 5 5 6

1 6 7

4 5 8

3 5 8

6 6 7

1 7 8

7 8 9

1 8 9

Start

Design house

and obtain

financing

Select pain

Lay foundations

Select carpet

Build house

Finish work

Order and receive

materials

Activity of Latest Start and Finish Times

#9, LF =9LS=LF-t=9-1

#2, LF = min(LS followings) = min(5,6) = 5LS = LF-t = 5-2 = 7

34


1 0 3

3 0 3

2 3 5

2 3 5

3 3 4

1 4 5 5 5 6

1 6 7

4 5 8

3 5 8

6 6 7

1 7 8

7 8 9

1 8 9

Start

Design house

and obtain

financing

Select pain

Lay foundations

Select carpet

Build house

Finish work

Order and receive

materials

CRITICAL PATH

Earliest finish

Latest finish


Figure 11.5 Gantt Chart

Milestone

critical vs. non-critical Shows time estimates of tasks

A milestone represents an event or condition that marks the

completion of a group of related tasks or the completion of

a phase of the project.

36

7


Project Milestone

• A milestone represents an event or condition that

marks the completion of a group of related tasks or

the completion of a phase of the project.

• It is an interim goal or checkpoint in the project. It

is like a task with duration of zero.

• Purpose: Milestones help us organize tasks into

logical groups or sequences. They also help us note

the progress of the project.


Element 4: Common Project Vocabulary

• Make sure everyone knows what the following

mean (accountant vs. others):

– “End of year”

– “Divestment” vs “sale”

– “Acquisition” vs “purchase”

– “Customer” vs “user”

• Good management of the common project

vocabulary as well as project management, project

team, and project life cycle are all essential to

project success

38


IT Projects and Difficulties

• IT projects are a specific type of business project.

– The more complex the IT aspect of the project, the higher

the risk of failure of the project.

• IT projects are difficult to estimate and most fail to meet their schedules and budgets– Highly interactive, complex sets of tasks

– Closely interrelated with each other (coupled)

• Most projects cannot be made more efficient simply by adding labor:

39

Requires more communication

and coordination

Some are actually slowed down

(Brooks’ Law)

Adding more people

creates diseconomies of

scale (Brooks’ Law) “Adding more people to

a late project makes the

project later.”


IT PROJECT

DEVELOPMENT

METHODOLOGIES

40


IT Project Development Methodologies

and Approaches

• The choice of development methodologies and

managerial influences distinguish IT projects from

other projects.

• The systems development life cycle (SDLC) - a

traditional tool for developing IS or implementing

software developed by an outsourcing provider or

software developer.

• Other development approaches:

– Agile development

– Prototyping

– Rapid applications development (RAD)

– Joint applications development (JAD)41


Systems Development Life Cycle

(Waterfall)

• Systems Development: a set of activities used to create

an IS.

• Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC): the process

of designing and delivering the entire system.

• The SDLC generally is used in one of two distinct ways: as a general project ____ of all activities required for the

entire system to operate.

• Plan includes the analysis and feasibility study, the

development or acquisition of components, the

implementation activities, the maintenance activities,

and the retirement activities.

as a process to design and _______ system software.

• Process is highly structured, disciplined, and formal.

plan

develop

42

8


Systems Development Life Cycle

SDLC typically consists of seven phases

1. Initiation of the project

2. The requirements definition phase

3. The functional design phase

4. The system is actually built

5. Verification phase

6. The “cut over” where the new system is put in operation and all links are established. Possible conversion methods

a) _________

b) Direct (plunge)

c) Phased in/out

d) ________

7. The maintenance and review phase

See Figure 11.7 for more information on each step.

Which one is the best

approach?

Parallel

Pilot

43

2. Design

1. Analysis

3. Im

plem

enta

tion

4. Maintenance

4P’s

John Wiley & Sons, Inc. & Dr. Chen, Information Systems – Theory and Practices44

System Conversion Approaches (4Ps)

1. _______ • Complete new and old systems run simultaneously

• Very safe, but expensive

2. ________

• Implement entire system in limited portion of business

• Advantage: limits exposure to business if system fails

3. _______ • System is installed in phases or modules.

• Each piece is installed and tested.

4. ________ (or direct) • High risk if new system fails, no old system to fall back on

• Only used if new system is not vital to company operation

Pilot

Phased

Parallel

Plunge


Installation Conversion Methods: 4 Ps

Old System New System

Old System

New System



Parallel

Pilot

Phased

Plunge/

Direct

Cut-over time


Limitations of SDLC

• Traditional SDLC methodology for current IT projects

are not always appropriate:– Sometimes costs are difficult to estimate

– Sometimes uniqueness makes previous experience hard or

impossible to find

– Objectives may reflect a scope that is

Too broad (can’t solve it), or

Too narrow (not ambitious enough)

– Might take too long when the business environment is very

dynamic

– Newer methodologies designed to address these concerns

use an iterative approach (Figure 11.8).

46


• Iterative approaches enable evolutionary development

47

Figure 11.8 Iterative approach to systems

development - alternative Approaches for speed


Prototyping

• SDLC may not work for all situations, requires a lot of planning and is difficult to implement quickly.

• Definition: A prototyping is a small, but working system that contains only those important (not complete) features.

• Prototyping is a type of evolutionary development.

• Builds a fast, high-level version of the system at the beginning of the project.

• Advantages include:– User involvement and comment early on and throughout

the development process.

• Disadvantages include:– Documentation may be difficult to write.

– Users may not understand the realistic scope of the system.The final prototype may not be scalable to an operational version.

48

9


Prototyping

• Prototpying is one of the most

popular rapid application

development (RAD) methods.

• It is an iterative process of

system development in which

requirements are converted to

a working system that is

continually revised through

close work between analysts

and users.

A prototyping is a

small, but working

system that contains

only those important

(not complete) features.

49


Other Approaches

• Prototyping

– Build a high-level version of the system very quickly and get feedback

– Advantages:

• User involvement early and throughout the development process

– Disadvantages:

• Documentation may be difficult to write

• Users may not have a realistic scope of the system while making decisions

• RAD (Rapid Application Development) prototyping + 4-step SDLC– Like prototyping, RAD uses iterative development tools to

speed up development:• GUI, reusable code, code generation, databases, testing, debugging

– Goal is much faster building of the system

50


Other Approaches (continued)

• JAD (Joint Application Development) – IBM

– Users are involved throughout the process

• “Agile” approaches speed things up

– XP (Extreme Programming), Scrum, etc.



User-centered design

• Focuses on usability but uses many of the tools of RAD, JAD,

Agile, prototyping

• Users participate and continuously evaluate usability

• Usability.gov provides 209 guidelines

• Technology is advancing so they are dated (e.g., touchscreen

tablets are not included)

• “How or why” for touch PC O/S not yet settled

• Requires multidisciplinary approach: psychology, graphic art,

Internet technologies, business needs, etc.

52



Open source approach• Software is open source software (OSS) if it is

released under a license approved by the Open Source

Initiative (OSI).

• Uses crowdsourcing

• Code is available for all to see and improve

• Linux: the basis for – Android

– Some Garmin GPS

– Some Sony TVs

• OS/X is based on BSD

• BSD and Linux come from Unix


Figure 11.9 Comparison of IT development methodologies

Methodology Advantages Disadvantages (Limitation)

SDLC Structured approach

Phase milestones and approvals

Uses system approach

Focuses on goals and trade-offs

Emphasizes documentation

Requires user sign-offs

Systems often fail to meet objectives

Needed skills are often difficult to obtain

Costs are difficult to estimate

Scope may be defined too broadly or too

narrowly

Very time consuming

Agile

Development

(Iterative

Process)

Good for adapting to changing

requirements

Works well when user requirements

change continuously

Allows face-to-face communication

and continuous inputs from users

Speeds up development process

Users like it

Hard to estimate system deliverables at

start of project

Under-emphasizes designing and

documentation

Easy to get project off-track if user goals

are unclear

Prototyping Improved user communications

Users like it

Speeds up development process

Good for eliciting system

requirements

Provides a tangible model to serve as

basis for production version

Often under-documented

Not designed to be an operational version

Often creates unrealistic expectations

Difficult-to-manage development process

Integration often difficult

Design flaws more prevalent than in SDLC

Often hard to maintain

54

10


IT

Efficiency/

_________raise

_____

increase

IT and its Influences

Productivity

Risk

55

(need Risk Management)


What Makes a Project Risky?

• IT projects are often distinguished from many non-IT projects on the basis of their high levels of risk.

• Risk Framework (a function of the following):

– ___________

• Many parts? Impacts on rest of system? Global? Unfamiliar

hardware/software/databases? Changing requirements?

– ________

• Hard to define the purpose, input, and output?

– ______

• Cost, staff, duration, team, departments affected, lines of code

• They are geometric, not linear (additive):

– Having all three of these would be much more than three times as bad as one of these.

56

Complexity

Clarity

Size


Assessing Project Risk

Technology

LowCompany-

Large Project

RelativeSmall Project

HighCompany-

Large Project

RelativeTechnology Small Project

Low Structure High StructureLow risk

(very susceptible tomismanagement)

Low risk

Very low risk(very susceptible to

mismanagement)Very low risk

Very high risk Medium risk

High risk Medium-low risk

NManaging IT Reosource Thru Strategic Partnerships; A Portfolio Approach to IT Development

TM -57

Clarity


Managing Risk from Complexity

• Strategies to deal with complexity:

– Leverage the Technical Skills of the Team such as

having a leader or team members who have had

significant experience

– Rely on Consultants and Vendors – for additional

expertise

– Integrate Within the Organization such as

• Having frequent team meetings

– Extensive documentation

– Regular technical status reviews

58


Managing Risk from Clarity

• Strategies to deal with low clarity

– Rely more heavily upon the users to define

system requirements

– Manage stakeholders by balancing the disparate

goals

– Sustain Project Commitment


Figure 11.10 Project Commitment –

Important for project success

Determinant Description ExamplesMore likely for

commitment if:

Project Objective attributes

of the project

Cost, benefits, expected

difficulty, and duration

There is a large potential

payoff.

Psychological Factors managers

use to convince

themselves things

are not so bad

Previous experience, personal

responsibility for outcome,

and biases.

There is a previous history

of success.

Social Elements of the

various groups

involved in the

process

Rivalry, norms for

consistency, and need for

external validation

External stakeholders have

been publicly led to believe

the project will be

successful.

Organizational Structural

attributes of the

organization

Political support, and

alignment with values and

goals

There is strong political

support from executive

levels.

Cultural Cultural attributes Appreciation for teamwork or

a focus on technical issues

There is a culture of

teamwork.

60

11


Pulling the Plug

• Often projects in trouble persist long after they

should have been abandoned - Pull the plug!

– Many projects are 99% complete for 50% of the

project!

• People can go to great lengths to sustain a

doomed project when there are

– Sunk costs

– High penalties for failure

– Emotional attachment to the project by powerful

individuals


Gauging Success - Four dimensions of success

• At the start of the project, the general manager should: – consider several aspects based on achieving the business goals

(should be measurable)

– Assess the metrics (derived from requirements) if the system meets

the specifications and project requirements laid out in the project

scope.

• Shenhar, Dvir and Levy’s (1998) four dimensions of

success:– Resource constraints: does the project meet the time and budget

criteria?

– Impact on customers: how much benefit does the customer

receive from the project?

– Business success: how high and long are the profits produced by

the project?

– Prepare for the future: has the project enabled future success?

Future impact?62


Figure 11.11 Success dimensions for various project types


POOR PROJECT

MANAGEMENT

• ________ OVERRUNS

• _______ SLIPPAGE

• TECHNICAL SHORTFALLS IMPAIR

PERFORMANCE

• FAILURE TO OBTAIN ANTICIPATED

BENEFITS

Dr. Chen, Managing IT Reos. Thru Strategic Partnerships; A Portoflio Approach to IT Development TM -64

COST

TIME

64


Summary

• General manager fulfills an important role in project

management.

• Project management involves continual trade-offs.

• Four important project elements: Common vocabulary,

teamwork, project cycle plan, and project management.

• Important to understand the complexity of a project.

• SDLC, prototyping, JAD and RAD are used for

development of IS systems.

• Manage project risk carefully.

• The PMO can be very useful.

65


END OF CHAPTER 11

66

managing it projects - gonzaga...

Documents