Chapter No 2 – The Project Management and Information Technology Context

CE- 403: Computer Engineering Project Management

ƒ Course Description

Project Management ƒ Managing Information Technology projects within

an organizational context, including the processes
related to initiating, planning, executing,

Compiled By: controlling, monitoring and closing a project.

Muzammil Ahmad Khan ƒ This course covers topics such as project
muzammil.ssuet@yahoo.com
integration, scope, time, cost, risk management.
Sir Syed University of Engineering & Technology Project Management 2

Project Management
Course Objective
Course Learning Outcomes( CLO’s )
CLO
ƒ This course intends to give the student a basic No
Outcome Statement Level *

Identifying basic concepts of Project Management, thus, enabling

familiarity with Project Management. 1 him/her to functionally utilize these skills in his/her future C1
Information Technology (IT) bases project practices.
ƒ To provide students with a portfolio of project
Describing and understanding the Project Management concepts,
management tools that can be used in managing 2 principles, methods, project life cycle and the knowledge that is C2
required for managing the IT projects.
information technology projects. Applying and analyze the different processes of each knowledge
3 area with its Inputs, Outputs, Tools and Techniques. C3
ƒ To provide students with a real-world project Applying project management techniques for IT projects to
management experience. initiate, plan, execute and evaluate a project and work in teams to
4 C3
create a project plan for a project scenario that includes key tasks,
critical path, dependencies and a realistic timeline

Project Management Project Management * Bloom’s taxonomy level. C: Cognitive, P: Psychomotor, A: Affective
3 4

Books Marks Distribution

Text Book
ƒ Information Technology Project Management
ƒ Assignments, Quizzes & Project 20
7th Edition, ƒ Mid Term 30
Kathy Schwalbe
ƒ Final Examination 50
Reference Book
ƒ Information Technology Project Management
ƒ Total Marks 100
4th Edition
Jack Marchewka https://sites.google.com/site/cedssuet

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 CE - 403: Computer Engineering Project Management
Learning Objectives

Information Technology Project Management ƒ Describe the systems view of project management and how
7th Edition it applies to information technology (IT) projects

Chapter No 2: ƒ Understand organizations, including the four frames,

Project Management and Information Technology Context organizational structures, and organizational culture
ƒ Explain why stakeholder management and top management
commitment are critical for a project’s success

Complied By: Muzammil Ahmad Khan

muzammil.ssuet@yahoo.com
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Learning Objectives Project cannot be run in Isolation

ƒ Understand the concept of a project phase and the project ƒ Projects must operate in a broad organizational environment
life cycle, and distinguish between project development and ƒ Project managers need to use systems thinking:
product development ƒ taking a holistic view of carrying out projects within the
ƒ Discuss the unique attributes and diverse nature of IT context of the organization
projects ƒ Senior managers must make sure projects continue to support
ƒ Describe recent trends affecting IT project management, current business needs
including globalization, outsourcing, virtual teams, and agile
project management

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Figure 2-1: 3 Sphere Model for

A Systems View of Project Management
Systems Management
ƒ A Systems Approach emerged in the 1950s to describe a more
analytical approach to management and problem solving
ƒ Three parts include:
ƒ Systems Philosophy: an overall model for thinking about
things as systems
ƒ Systems Analysis: problem-solving approach
ƒ Systems Management: address business, technological, and
organizational issues before making changes to systems

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 Figure 2-2: Perspectives on Organizations What went wrong ?
ƒ 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.
ƒ The researchers found that only one in eight (12.5 percent) were
considered successful in terms of meeting scope, time, and cost
goals.
ƒ The authors said that the culture within many organizations is
often to blame
ƒ Among other things, people often do not discuss important
leadership, stakeholder, and risk management issues
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Figure 2-3: Functional, Project and

Organizational Structures
Matrix Organizational Structures
ƒ 3 basic organization structures
1. Functional: functional managers report to the CEO
2. Project: program managers report to the CEO
3. 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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Table 2-1: Organizational Structure Influences

Organizational Culture
on Projects
ƒ Organizational culture is a set of shared assumptions, values,
and behaviors that characterize the functioning of an
organization
ƒ Many experts believe the underlying causes of many
companies’ problems are not the structure or staff, but the
culture

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 10 Characteristics of Organizational Structure Stakeholder Management

ƒ Member identity * ƒ Risk tolerance * ƒ Project managers must take time to identify, understand,
and manage relationships with all project stakeholders
ƒ Group emphasis * ƒ Reward criteria *
ƒ Using the four frames of organizations can help meet
ƒ People focus ƒ Conflict tolerance *
stakeholder needs and expectations
ƒ Unit integration * ƒ Means-ends orientation
ƒ Senior executives/top management are very important
ƒ Control ƒ Open-systems focus *
stakeholders
ƒ See Chapter 13, Project Stakeholder Management,
* Project work is most successful in an organizational culture
for more information
where these items are strong/high and other items are balanced.

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Media Snapshots Importance of Top Management Commitment

ƒ The media have often reported on mismanaged IT projects. ƒ People in top management positions are key stakeholders in
ƒ A classic example and popular case study is the baggage projects
handling system at Denver International Airport (DIA). ƒ A very important factor in helping project managers
ƒ The system was supposed to reduce flight delays, shorten successfully lead projects is the level of commitment and
waiting times at luggage carousels, and save money, but support they receive from top management
instead it caused huge problems. ƒ Without top management commitment, many projects will fail.
ƒ One important reason for this famous project disaster was the ƒ Some projects have a senior manager called a champion who
failure to recognize the project’s complexity. acts as a key proponent for a project.

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How Top Management can help Project

Best Practice
Managers

ƒ Providing adequate resources ƒ IT governance addresses the authority and control for key
IT activities in organizations, including IT infrastructure,
ƒ Approving unique project needs in a timely manner
IT use, and project management
ƒ Getting cooperation from other parts of the organization
ƒ A lack of IT governance can be dangerous, as evidenced by
ƒ Mentoring and coaching on leadership issues
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, and One.Tel’s billing system)

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 Need for Organizational Commitment to
Need for Organizational Standards
Information Technology (IT)

ƒ If the organization has a negative attitude toward IT, it will ƒ Standards and guidelines help project managers be more
effective
be difficult for an IT project to succeed
ƒ Having a Chief Information Officer (CIO) at a high level in ƒ Senior management can encourage
the organization helps IT projects ƒ the use of standard forms and software for project
management
ƒ Assigning non-IT people to IT projects also encourage more
commitment ƒ the development and use of guidelines for writing project
plans or providing status information
ƒ the creation of a project management office or center of
excellence
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Project Phases and the Project Life Cycle More on Project Phases

ƒ A project life cycle is a collection of project phases that ƒ In early phases of a project life cycle
ƒ resource needs are usually lowest
defines
ƒ the level of uncertainty (risk) is highest
ƒ what work will be performed in each phase ƒ project stakeholders have the greatest opportunity to
ƒ what deliverables will be produced and when influence the project
ƒ who is involved in each phase, and ƒ In middle phases of a project life cycle
ƒ the certainty of completing a project improves
ƒ how management will control and approve work produced
ƒ more resources are needed
in each phase
ƒ The final phase of a project life cycle focuses on
ƒ A deliverable is a product or service produced or provided as ƒ ensuring that project requirements were met
part of a project ƒ the sponsor approves completion of the project
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Figure 2-4: Phases of the Traditional

Product Life Cycles
Project Life Cycle
ƒ Products also have life cycles
ƒ The Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a framework
for describing the phases involved in developing and maintaining
information systems
ƒ Systems development projects can follow
ƒ Predictive life cycle: the scope of the project can be clearly
articulated and the schedule and cost can be predicted
ƒ Adaptive Software Development (ASD) life cycle:
requirements cannot be clearly expressed, projects are mission
driven and component based, using time-based cycles to meet
target dates
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 Figure 2-5: Waterfall and Spiral Life Cycle
Predictive Life Cycle Models
Models
ƒ Waterfall model: has well-defined, linear stages of systems
development and support
ƒ Spiral model: shows that software is developed using an
iterative or spiral approach rather than a linear approach
ƒ Incremental build model: provides for progressive
development of operational software
ƒ Prototyping model: used for developing prototypes to clarify
user requirements
ƒ Rapid Application Development (RAD) model: used to
produce systems quickly without sacrificing quality
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The Importance of Project Phases and

Agile Software Development
Management Reviews

ƒ Agile software development has become popular to describe ƒ A project should successfully pass through each of the
new approaches that focus on close collaboration between project phases in order to continue on to the next
programming teams and business experts ƒ Management reviews, also called phase exits or kill points,
ƒ See the last section of this chapter and Chapter 3 for more should occur after each phase to evaluate the project’s
information on agile progress, likely success, and continued compatibility with
organizational goals

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The Context of IT Projects Recent trends affecting IT Project Management

ƒ IT projects can be very diverse in terms of size, complexity, ƒ Globalization

products produced, application area, and resource ƒ Outsourcing: Outsourcing is when an organization acquires
requirements goods and/or sources from an outside source. Offshoring is
ƒ IT project team members often have diverse backgrounds sometimes used to describe outsourcing from another country
and skill sets ƒ Virtual teams: A virtual team is a group of individuals who
ƒ IT projects use diverse technologies that change rapidly. work across time and space using communication technologies
Even within one technology area, people must be highly ƒ Agile Project Management
specialized

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 Important Issues and Suggestions related to
Outsourcing
Globalization
ƒ Issues ƒ Organizations remain competitive by using outsourcing to their
advantage, such as finding ways to reduce costs
ƒ Communications
ƒ Trust ƒ Their next challenge is to make strategic IT investments with
ƒ Common work practices outsourcing by improving their enterprise architecture to ensure
ƒ Tools that IT infrastructure and business processes are integrated and
ƒ Suggestions standardized (See Suggested Readings)
ƒ Employ greater project discipline ƒ Project managers should become more familiar with negotiating
ƒ Think global but act local contracts and other outsourcing issues
ƒ Keep project momentum going
ƒ Use newer tools and technology
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Global Issues Virtual Team Advantages

ƒ Increasing competiveness and responsiveness by having a
ƒ Outsourcing also has disadvantages. For example, Apple
team of workers available 24/7
benefits from manufacturing products in China, but it had big
problems there after its iPhone 4S launch in January 2012
ƒ Lowering costs because many virtual workers do not require
office space or support beyond their home offices.
caused fighting between migrant workers who were hired by
scalpers to stand in line to buy the phones. ƒ Providing more expertise and flexibility by having team
members from across the globe working any time of day or
ƒ When Apple said it would not open its store in Beijing, riots
night
resulted and people attacked security guards. The Beijing
Apple Store has had problems before. In May 2011, four ƒ Increasing the work/life balance for team members by
people were injured when a crowd waiting to buy the iPad 2 eliminating fixed office hours and the need to travel to work.
turned ugly.
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Virtual Team Disadvantages Agile Project Management

ƒ Isolating team members ƒ Agile means being able to move quickly and easily, but some
ƒ Increasing the potential for communications problems people feel that project management, as they have seen it used,
does not allow people to work quickly or easily.
ƒ Reducing the ability for team members to network and transfer
ƒ Early software development projects often used a waterfall
information informally
approach, as defined earlier in this chapter. As technology and
ƒ Increasing the dependence on technology to accomplish work businesses became more complex, the approach was often
ƒ See text for a list of factors that help virtual teams succeed, difficult to use because requirements were unknown or
including team processes, trust/relationships, leadership style, continuously changing.

and team member selection ƒ Agile today means using a method based on iterative and
incremental development, in which requirements and solutions
evolve through collaboration.
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 Agile makes sense for some projects,
Manifesto for Agile Software Development
But not all
ƒ Many seasoned experts in project management warn people ƒ In February 2001, a group of 17 people that called itself the
Agile Alliance developed and agreed on the Manifesto for
not to fall for the hype associated with Agile.
Agile Software Development, as follows:
ƒ For example, J. Leroy Ward, Executive Vice President at ƒ “We are uncovering better ways of developing software by
ESI International, said that “Agile will be seen for what it is doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have
… and isn’t….Project management organizations embracing come to value:
Agile software and product development approaches will ƒ Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
continue to grow while being faced with the challenge of ƒ Working software over comprehensive documentation
demonstrating ROI through Agile adoption.” * ƒ Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*J. Leroy Ward, “The Top Ten Project Management Trends for 2011,” projecttimes.com ƒ Responding to change over following a plan” *
(January 24, 2011).
* Agile Manifesto, www.agilemanifesto.org.
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Scrum Figure 2-6: Scrum Framework

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

development method for completing projects with a complex,
innovative scope of work.
ƒ 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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Agile, the PMBOK® Guide and a new

Chapter Summary
Certification
ƒ Project managers need to take a systems approach when
ƒ The PMBOK® Guide describes best practices for what should working on projects
be done to manage projects.
ƒ Organizations have four different frames: structural, human
ƒ Agile is a methodology that describes how to manage projects. resources, political, and symbolic
ƒ The Project Management Institute (PMI) recognized the ƒ The structure and culture of an organization have strong
increased interest in Agile, and introduced a new certification implications for project managers
in 2011 called Agile Certified Practitioner (ACP). ƒ Projects should successfully pass through each phase of the
ƒ Seasoned project managers understand that they have always project life cycle
had the option of customizing how they run projects, but that ƒ Recent trends affecting IT project management include
project management is not easy, even when using Agile. globalization, outsourcing, virtual teams, and Agile
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