Chapter No 2 – The Project Management and Information Technology Context

Engineering
Project Management

Compiled By:
Muzammil Ahmad Khan
[email protected]

Sir Syed University of Engineering & Technology

 CE - 315: Engineering Project Management

 Course Description
 Managing Information Technology projects
within an organizational context, including the
processes related to initiating, planning,
executing, controlling, monitoring and closing
a project.
 This course covers topics such as project
integration, scope, time, cost, risk management.

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 CE - 315: Engineering Project Management

 This course intends to give the student a basic

familiarity with Project Management.
 To provide students with a portfolio of project
management tools that can be used in managing
information technology projects.
 To provide students with a real-world project
management experience.

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 Engineering Project Management
Course Learning Outcomes( CLO’s )
CLO
Outcome Statement Level *
No
Understanding the Project Management principles,
1 C2
methods, project life cycle etc.
Apply the responsibilities of an engineer relevant to
2 professional management practices with respect to an C3
engineering project.
Analyze the strengths, weaknesses opportunities and
3 treats in life cycle of an engineering project in context of C4
social, environmental, political and economics.

* Bloom’s taxonomy level. C: Cognitive, P: Psychomotor, A: Affective

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 Books

Text Book
 Information Technology Project Management
7th Edition,
Kathy Schwalbe

Reference Book
 Information Technology Project Management
4th Edition
Jack Marchewka

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 Marks Distribution

 Assignments and Quizzes 20

 Mid Term 30
 Final Examination 50
 Total Marks 100

https://sites.google.com/site/cedssuet

Project Management
 CE - 315: Engineering Project Management

Information Technology Project Management

7th Edition

Chapter No 2:
Project Management and Information Technology Context

Complied By: Muzammil Ahmad Khan

[email protected]
Project Management
 Learning Objectives

 Describe the systems view of project management and how

it applies to information technology (IT) projects
 Understand organizations, including the four frames,
organizational structures, and organizational culture
 Explain why stakeholder management and top management
commitment are critical for a project’s success

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 Learning Objectives

 Understand the concept of a project phase and the project

life cycle, and distinguish between project development and
product development
 Discuss the unique attributes and diverse nature of IT
projects
 Describe recent trends affecting IT project management,
including globalization, outsourcing, virtual teams, and agile
project management

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 Project cannot be run in Isolation

 Projects must operate in a broad organizational environment

 Project managers need to use systems thinking:
 taking a holistic view of carrying out projects within the
context of the organization
 Senior managers must make sure projects continue to support
current business needs

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 A Systems View of Project Management

 A Systems Approach emerged in the 1950s to describe a more

analytical approach to management and problem solving
 Three parts include:
 Systems Philosophy: an overall model for thinking about
things as systems
 Systems Analysis: problem-solving approach
 Systems Management: address business, technological, and
organizational issues before making changes to systems

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 Figure 2-1: 3 Sphere Model for
Systems Management

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 Figure 2-2: Perspectives on Organizations

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 What went wrong ?
 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.
 The researchers found that only one in eight (12.5 percent) were
considered successful in terms of meeting scope, time, and cost
goals.
 The authors said that the culture within many organizations is
often to blame
 Among other things, people often do not discuss important
leadership, stakeholder, and risk management issues
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 Organizational Structures

 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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 Figure 2-3: Functional, Project and
Matrix Organizational Structures

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 Table 2-1: Organizational Structure Influences
on Projects

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 Organizational Culture

 Organizational culture is a set of shared assumptions, values,

and behaviors that characterize the functioning of an
organization
 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

 Member identity *  Risk tolerance *

 Group emphasis *  Reward criteria *
 People focus  Conflict tolerance *
 Unit integration *  Means-ends orientation
 Control  Open-systems focus *

* Project work is most successful in an organizational culture

where these items are strong/high and other items are balanced.

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 Stakeholder Management
 Project managers must take time to identify, understand,
and manage relationships with all project stakeholders
 Using the four frames of organizations can help meet
stakeholder needs and expectations
 Senior executives/top management are very important
stakeholders
 See Chapter 13, Project Stakeholder Management,
for more information

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 Media Snapshots

 The media have often reported on mismanaged IT projects.

 A classic example and popular case study is the baggage
handling system at Denver International Airport (DIA).
 The system was supposed to reduce flight delays, shorten
waiting times at luggage carousels, and save money, but
instead it caused huge problems.
 One important reason for this famous project disaster was the
failure to recognize the project’s complexity.

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 Importance of Top Management Commitment

 People in top management positions are key stakeholders in

projects
 A very important factor in helping project managers
successfully lead projects is the level of commitment and
support they receive from top management
 Without top management commitment, many projects will fail.
 Some projects have a senior manager called a champion who
acts as a key proponent for a project.

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 How Top Management can help Project
Managers

 Providing adequate resources

 Approving unique project needs in a timely manner
 Getting cooperation from other parts of the organization
 Mentoring and coaching on leadership issues

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 Best Practice

 IT governance addresses the authority and control for key

IT activities in organizations, including IT infrastructure,
IT use, and project management
 A lack of IT governance can be dangerous, as evidenced by
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
Information Technology (IT)

 If the organization has a negative attitude toward IT, it will be

difficult for an IT project to succeed
 Having a Chief Information Officer (CIO) at a high level in
the organization helps IT projects
 Assigning non-IT people to IT projects also encourage more
commitment

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 Need for Organizational Standards

 Standards and guidelines help project managers be more

effective
 Senior management can encourage
 the use of standard forms and software for project
management
 the development and use of guidelines for writing project
plans or providing status information
 the creation of a project management office or center of
excellence
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 Project Phases and the Project Life Cycle

 A project life cycle is a collection of project phases that

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

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 Product Life Cycles
 Products also have life cycles
 The Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a framework
for describing the phases involved in developing and maintaining
information systems
 Systems development projects can follow
 Predictive life cycle: the scope of the project can be clearly
articulated and the schedule and cost can be predicted
 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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 Predictive Life Cycle Models
 Waterfall model: has well-defined, linear stages of systems
development and support
 Spiral model: shows that software is developed using an
iterative or spiral approach rather than a linear approach
 Incremental build model: provides for progressive
development of operational software
 Prototyping model: used for developing prototypes to clarify
user requirements
 Rapid Application Development (RAD) model: used to
produce systems quickly without sacrificing quality
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 Figure 2-5: Waterfall and Spiral Life Cycle
Models

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 Agile Software Development

 Agile software development has become popular to describe

new approaches that focus on close collaboration between
programming teams and business experts
 See the last section of this chapter and Chapter 3 for more
information on agile

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 The Importance of Project Phases and
Management Reviews

 A project should successfully pass through each of the

project phases in order to continue on to the next
 Management reviews, also called phase exits or kill points,
should occur after each phase to evaluate the project’s
progress, likely success, and continued compatibility with
organizational goals

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 The Context of IT Projects

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

products produced, application area, and resource
requirements
 IT project team members often have diverse backgrounds
and skill sets
 IT projects use diverse technologies that change rapidly.
Even within one technology area, people must be highly
specialized

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 Recent trends affecting IT Project Management

 Globalization
 Outsourcing: Outsourcing is when an organization acquires
goods and/or sources from an outside source. Offshoring is
sometimes used to describe outsourcing from another country
 Virtual teams: A virtual team is a group of individuals who
work across time and space using communication technologies
 Agile Project Management

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

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 Global Issues

 Outsourcing also has disadvantages. For example, Apple

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

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 Virtual Team Disadvantages
 Isolating team members
 Increasing the potential for communications problems
 Reducing the ability for team members to network and transfer
information informally
 Increasing the dependence on technology to accomplish work
 See text for a list of factors that help virtual teams succeed,
including team processes, trust/relationships, leadership style,
and team member selection

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 Agile Project Management

 Agile means being able to move quickly and easily, but some
people feel that project management, as they have seen it used,
does not allow people to work quickly or easily.
 Early software development projects often used a waterfall
approach, as defined earlier in this chapter. As technology and
businesses became more complex, the approach was often
difficult to use because requirements were unknown or
continuously changing.
 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,
But not all
 Many seasoned experts in project management warn people
not to fall for the hype associated with Agile.
 For example, J. Leroy Ward, Executive Vice President at
ESI International, said that “Agile will be seen for what it is
… and isn’t….Project management organizations embracing
Agile software and product development approaches will
continue to grow while being faced with the challenge of
demonstrating ROI through Agile adoption.” *
*J. Leroy Ward, “The Top Ten Project Management Trends for 2011,” projecttimes.com
(January 24, 2011).
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 Manifesto for Agile Software Development

 In February 2001, a group of 17 people that called itself the

Agile Alliance developed and agreed on the Manifesto for Agile
Software Development, as follows:
 “We are uncovering better ways of developing software by
doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have
come to value:
 Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
 Working software over comprehensive documentation
 Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
 Responding to change over following a plan” *
* Agile Manifesto, www.agilemanifesto.org.
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 Scrum

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

development method for completing projects with a complex,
innovative scope of work.
 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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 Figure 2-6: Scrum Framework

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 Agile, the PMBOK® Guide and a new
Certification

 The PMBOK® Guide describes best practices for what should

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