ICT Project

Management
 Units
Competency 1 : ICTPMG603 Manage ICT project planning
Elements
• Establish project control plans
• Determine appropriate methodology
• Develop project schedule Finalise project budge
 Units
Competency 2 : ICTPMG606 Manage ICT project quality
Elements
• Establish a quality management plan
• Perform IT quality assurance processes
• Perform quality control
 Units
Competency 3 : ICTPMG609 Plan and direct complex ICT projects IT project quality
Elements
• Identify the strategic and operational needs of the IT project during the planning phase
• Prepare the IT project plan
• Assemble the IT project team and commence work
• Manage the IT project
• Finalise the IT project
• Use the IT project to contribute to improved policies and processes
Assessment Summary:
 What is a “Project?”

A series of activities and tasks that

• Have a specific objective to be completed within
certain specifications;
• Have defined start and end dates;
• Have funding limits (if applicable);
• Consume resources (i.e., money, people, & equipment)
 What is “Project Management?”
• Project management is the planning, organizing, directing, and controlling of
company resources for a relatively short term objective that has been
established to complete specific goals and objectives.
 Business Strategy
What is strategy?
• A strategy is a business approach to a set of competitive moves that are designed to
generate a successful outcome.
• "A plan of action resulting from strategy or intended to accomplish a specific goal".
• In a business context we define strategy as having some sort of goal for the future.
• Business strategy incorporates having a strategic plan.
 Strategic Planning
• Determining long-term objectives by analysing the strengths and weaknesses
of an organisation, studying opportunities and threats in the business
environment, predicting future trends and projecting the need for new
products and services.
• The strategic plan will set out how objectives will be achieved. Larger
organisations however, approach strategic planning more formally. Strategic
planning will usually be performed by management and/or the board of
directors in an organisation.
 Strategic Planning
Being strategic means: In the strategic planning process, an organisation's purpose, vision and
values shape its mission statement, which leads to goals, objectives,
• Being clear about the business operations and results that affect the stakeholders of the
organisation's objectives. organisation.
• Being aware of the organisation's
resources.
• Incorporating both into being
responsive to a dynamic
environment.
 Steps in Strategic planning
There are four main steps involved in strategic planning:

1. Identifying: Identifying involves looking at the organisation's current mission and vision. A mission
statement summarises the what, how and why of an organisation's work. Vision is usually defined as a
desirable future state where details have not yet been determined.
 Steps in Strategic planning
2. Diagnosing:
Assessing the Situation->Situation assessment means obtaining current information about
the organisation's strengths, weaknesses and performance (opportunities and threats). This
information will highlight the critical issues that the organisation faces and that its strategic plan
must address.
Environmental Analysis-> The purpose of environmental analysis is to identify significant
characteristics that exist within the industry environment. By identifying these characteristics the
organisation can make decisions regarding which of these areas will be critical to their future
success.
 Steps in Strategic planning
3. Conceiving(Plan or Idea)
Strategic Analysis-> It is important to first review the environmental analysis you conducted on the organisation, in
particular you will need to review the opportunities and threats (from the external environment) and the strengths and
weaknesses (from the internal environment).
With the elements of the SWOT analysis (ie, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats), you are trying to find
relationships between them.
• Strength to Opportunity
• Weakness to Opportunity
• Strength to Threat
• Weakness to Threat
 Steps in Strategic planning
Strategic Objectives-> "Strategic objectives are those
objectives that refer to and affect, the entire organisation Performance Targets-> When setting performance
and deal with the relationship between the organisation and targets, take each strategic objective in turn and
its environment." specify the requirements which enable the strategic
objective to be achieved
Strategic objectives, like all objectives should be SMART
objectives, that is, the objectives should be:
• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Timely
 Steps in Strategic planning
4. Realising:
Action Plans-> Action planning is carefully laying out how the strategic goals will be accomplished. You
will be specifying activities and listing the expected results which enable the strategy to be implemented.
Compare Information-> An examination and comparison of the current strategic plan of the
organisation and their operational practices enable to highlight IT gaps.
Current operational practices-> The current operational practices of an organisation may include the
policies they have in place, the procedures they follow to complete tasks, or the system they use to
perform day-to-day processing.
 Examine the strategic plan
Examination of the current strategic plan enables you to understand the goals of your organisation
and how those goals will be achieved. It represents each critical with four elements.
Example Four Elements of Critical Issues
Strategic Analysis: lists SWOT elements to highlight a critical issue
Strategic Objective: the goal the organisation wants to achieve
Performance Target: To do list of what the organisation wants to achieve.
Action Plan: Specific activities that enable the strategy to be implemented
Complete alignment between business strategy and IT strategy is the most important
determinant of success.
Strategic Planning-SWOT
 Strategic Planning-PEST
• A method called a PEST analysis can be used to help analyse the Political,
Economic, Social and Technological framework when conducting strategic
planning activities.
• This tool can help to understand market growth or decline, business
position, potential and direction for operations.
• It is sometimes useful for an organisation to compete a PEST analysis before
commencing work on their SWOT analysis.
 Strategic Planning-PEST
• A PEST analysis differs from a
SWOT analysis as the PEST
assesses a market, including
competitors, from the standpoint
of an organisation where SWOT
is an assessment of an
organisation, whether your own
or a competitor’s.
 IT gaps between current practices and future
goals
• By examining the current strategic plan and current practices of the
organisation, it may be possible to see some gaps. The gaps may be in what
the organisation currently does and what they hope to do in the future.
 Gap analysis
• Gap Analysis is all about evaluating and improving business performance.
• A gap is sometimes spoken of as "the space between where we are and
where we want to be." Gap analysis is undertaken as a means of bridging
that space.
Gap Analysis Steps
 Gap Analysis Steps
1. Review System: Review of the current information system or application in order to understand the
processing, features or system currently in place.
2. Develop Requirements: Development of the requirements needed by the 'new system'. This may be
in the form of a strategic objective that the organisation wishes to implement.
3. Comparison: A comparison of the current element of the system and the new system requirements
or objectives will give an idea of whether a 'gap' exists.
4. Implications: Implications of introducing the item being evaluated. The risks and impacts of
introducing/ implementing the item.
5. Recommendations The last step in the gap analysis is to make recommendations to identify the
items or solutions needed to 'fill' the gap, if a gap exists.
 Gap Analysis Report
• A gap analysis report should list all of the possible solutions that may be
implemented to fill gaps. When defining measures to take to fill a gap,
consider how to implement solutions in a way that will cause the least
amount of disruption to normal business operations.
 Example gap analysis table
The gap analysis table shown below is an example of a template that can be
used to conduct a gap analysis.