IT PROJECT ROLES and RESPONSIBILITIE

Projects of different sizes have different needs for how the people are organized.

In a small project, little organization structure is needed.

There might be a primary sponsor, project manager and a project team.

However, for large projects, there are more and more people involved, and it is important that people understand what they are expected to do, and what role people are expected to fill.

The sub sequent slides are presenting about some of the common (and not so common) project roles that may be required for any type of project.

This is the person with authority to manage a project. This includes leading the planning and the development of all project deliverables. The project manager is responsible for managing the budget and schedule and all

project management procedures (scope management, issues management, risk management, etc.).

Below table is giving standard project time schedule under normal conditions and these effort estimated schedules vary according to live situations.

Element % time

30Days

60Days

120 Days

180 Days

365 days

Project Management 15 4 8 16 32 64Analysis 20 6 12 24 48 96Design 15 4 8 16 32 64Development 25 8 16 32 64 128Test 20 6 12 24 48 96Implementation 5 2 4 8 16 32

The Analyst is responsible for ensuring that the requirements of the business clients are captured and documented correctly before a solution is developed and implemented.  In some companies, this person

might be called a Business Analyst, Business Systems Analyst, Systems Analyst or Requirements Analyst.

Major deliverables of BA is Requirements documents,

Functional specifications, Use case diagrams, flow charts, ongoing support to development team and quality team until end of the project.

Business Analyst must be well versed with gathering requirements from the stake holders and should have good understanding of the business.

Need not be good at technical front, but it is always a plus if you have some technical understanding as it will help you while dealing with developers.

after gathering requirements, a Business Analyst will make a fine documentation from those and they are called as functional specifications.

These functional specifications will be given to developers and testers for their understanding of the task in question.

Will have to attend daily ongoing meetings with stake holders and developers to discuss about the progress of the project.

Will act as a bridge between stake holders (Business owners) and developers. If developers got some questions, they reach out to Business Analyst. At the same time if stake holders got a question about development, they reach out to Business Analyst.

Business Analyst will interact with quality team as well to see if the testing process is going smoothly.

Business Analyst will draw flow charts, use case diagrams, business flow, data flow diagrams if necessary. This pictorial representation of business is helpful to both stake holders, developers and quality team.

Agile BA Role•A requirement set can be in a different stage than another requirement set. •It all depends on its priority.•A Business Analyst will need to do different things based on the requirements set being worked on as it may be in a different phase than another set.

3. CHANGE CONTROL BOARD

The Change Control Board is usually made up of a group of decision makers authorized to accept changes to the projects requirements, budget, and timelines. 

This organization would be helpful if the project directly impacted a number of functional areas and the sponsor wanted to share the scope change authority with this broader group.

4. STEERING COMMITTEE

A Steering Committee is a group of high-level stakeholders who are responsible for providing guidance on overall strategic direction.

They do not take the place of a Sponsor, but help to spread the strategic input and buy-in to a larger portion of the organization.

The Steering Committee is usually made up of organizational peers and is a combination of direct clients and indirect stakeholders.

Some members on the Steering Committee may also sit on the Change Control Board.

This is the people (or groups) that are the direct beneficiaries of a project or service.

They are the people for whom the project is being undertaken. (Indirect beneficiaries are probably stakeholders.)

These might also be called "customers", but if they are internal to the company, Lifecycle Step refers to them generically as clients.

If they are outside your company, they would be referred to as "customers".

If the project is large enough, the business client may have a primary contact that is designated as a comparable project manager for work on the client side.

The IT project manager would have overall responsibility for the IT solution.

However, there may be projects on the client side that are also needed to support the initiative, and the client project manager would be responsible for those.

The IT project manager and the client project manager would be peers who work together to build and implement the complete solution.

A Database Administrator is a specialist that models, designs and creates the databases and tables used by a software solution.

This role combines Data Administrator (logical) and DBA (physical).

The designer is responsible for understanding the business requirements and designing a solution that will meet the business needs.

There are many potential solutions that will meet the client's needs.

The designer determines the best approach. A designer typically needs to understand how technology

can be used to create this optimum solution for the client. The designer determines the overall model and framework

for the solution, down to the level of designing screens, reports, programs and other components.

They also determine the data needs. The work of the designer is then handed off to the

programmers and other people who will construct the solution based on the design specifications.

9. DEVELOPER

The Developer is responsible for the actual building of the solution.

11. QUALITY

On a large project, quality management could take up a large amount of project management time.

In this case, it could be worthwhile to appoint someone as quality manager.

The Tester ensures that the solution meets the business requirements and that it is free of errors and defects.

12. TESTERS

A Subject Matter Expert (SME) has superior (expert) knowledge of a discipline, technology, product, business process or entire business area.

10. SMES

The project team consists of the full-time and part-time resources assigned to work on the deliverables of the project.

This includes the analysts, designers, programmers, etc. They are responsible for:

Understanding the work to be completed Planning the assigned activities in more detail if needed Completing assigned work within the budget, timeline and quality

expectations Informing the project manager of issues, scope changes, risk and

quality concerns Proactively communicating status and managing expectations

The project team can consist of staff within one functional organization, or it can consist of members from many different functional organizations.

A cross-functional team has members from multiple organizations. Having a cross-functional team is usually a sign that your

organization is utilizing matrix management.

This is the person who has ultimate authority over the project. The Executive Sponsor provides project funding, resolves issues and scope changes, approves major deliverables and provides high-level direction.

They also champion the project within their organization. Depending on the project and the organizational level of

the Executive Sponsor, they may delegate day-to-day tactical management to a Project Sponsor.

If assigned, the Project Sponsor represents the Executive Sponsor on a day-to-day basis and makes most of the decisions requiring sponsor approval.

If the decision is large enough, the Project Sponsor will take it to the Executive Sponsor for resolution.

15. STAKEHOLDERS

These are the specific people or groups who have a stake, or an interest, in the outcome of the project.

Normally stakeholders are from within the company, and could include internal clients, management, employees, administrators, etc.

A project may also have external stakeholders, including suppliers, investors, community groups and government organizations.

16. USER GROUPS

These are the people who will actually use the deliverables of the project.  

These people may also be involved heavily in the project in activities such as defining business requirements.

In other cases, they may not get involved until the testing process.

Sometimes you want to specifically identify the user organization or the specific users of the solution and assign a formal set of responsibilities to them, like developing use cases or user scenarios based on the needs of the business requirements.

Suppliers and vendors are third party companies or specific people that work for third parties.

They may be subcontractors who are working under your direction, or they may be supplying material, equipment, hardware, software or supplies to your project.

Depending on their role, they may need to be identified on your organization chart.

For instance, if you are partnering with a supplier to develop your requirements, you probably want them on your organization chart.

On the other hand, if the vendor is supplying a common piece of hardware, you probably would not consider them a part of the team.

Prepared By : KVN Pavan KumarSr.Business Analyst

Contact: 9849385640Email : amendsuqare.p@gmail.com

Google Talk : pavanfico73@gmail.comSkype : pavan.fico

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