SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN MODULE 2

CHAPTER II: PROJECT SELECTION AND MANAGEMENT

I. OBJECTIVES
At the end of this chapter, the students should be able to:
 Explain how projects are selected in some organizations.
 Describe various approaches to the SDLC that can be used to structure a development
project.
 Explain how to select a project methodology based on project characteristics.
 Become familiar with project estimation.
 Be able to create a project work plan.
 Describe project staffing issues and concerns.
 Describe and apply techniques to coordinate and manage the project.
 Explain how to manage risk on the project.

II. SUBJECT MATTER

Topic: Project Selection and Management
Subtopic: - Project Portfolio Management
- Creating the Project Plan
- Project Management Tasks
- Project work plan
- Project Estimates Require Refinement

III. PROCEDURE
A. Preliminaries
Pre- Assessment
1. Enumerate and discuss how specific projects are chosen and identify possible project
selection issues.
2. Explain the steps in developing a plan for a successful result.
3. Discuss structured systems development.
4. Enumerate and identify the project management tasks needed to launch the project.
5. Define timeboxing.

B. Lesson Proper
This chapter discusses how organizations evaluate and select projects to undertake from
the many available projects. Once a project has been selected, the project manager plans the
project. Project management involves selecting a project methodology, creating the project

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work plan, identifying project staffing requirements, and preparing to manage and control the
project. These steps produce important project management deliverables, including the work
plan, staffing plan, standards list, project charter, and risk assessment.

1. Project Selection

In today's globally competitive business environment, the corporate IT department needs to

carefully prioritize, select, and manage its portfolio of development projects. Investments in
information systems projects today are evaluated in the context of an entire portfolio of projects.
Decision makers look beyond project cost and consider a project's anticipated risks and returns in
relation to other projects. Companies prioritize their business strategies and then assemble and
assess project portfolios on the basis of how they meet those strategic needs.
Project Portfolio management takes into consideration the different kinds of projects that
exist in an organization—large and small, high risk and low risk, strategic and tactical. A good
project portfolio will have the most appropriate mix of projects for the organization's needs.

The approval committee must be selective about where to allocate resources, because the
organization has limited funds. This involves trade-offs in which the organization must give up
something in return for something else in order to keep its portfolio well balanced. If there are
three potentially high-payoff projects, yet all have very high risk, then maybe only one of the
projects will be selected. Also, there are times when a system at the project level makes good
business sense, but it does not at the organization level. Thus, a project may show a very strong
economic feasibility and support important business needs for a part of the company; however, it

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is not selected. This could happen for many reasons—because there is no money in the budget
for another system, the organization is about to go through some kind of change (e.g., a merger,
an implementation of a company-wide system like an ERP), projects that meet the same business
requirements already are underway, or the system does not align well with current or future
corporate strategy.
2. Creating the Project Plan

Once the project is launched by being selected by the approval committee, it is time to
carefully plan the project. The project manager will follow a set of project management
guidelines, sometimes referred to as the project management life cycle, as he or she organizes,
guides, and directs the project from inception to completion. Generally speaking, the project
management phases consist of initiation, planning, execution, control, and closure.
Project Methodology Options
A methodology is a formalized approach to implementing the SDLC (i.e., it is a list of steps
and deliverables). There are many different systems development methodologies, and they vary
in terms of the progression that is followed through the phases of the SDLC. Many organizations
have their own internal methodologies that have been refined over the years, and they explain
exactly how each phase of the SDLC is to be performed in that company. Here we will review
several of the predominant methodologies that have evolved over time.
Waterfall Development Methodology
With waterfall development, analysts and users proceed sequentially from one phase to the
next. The key deliverables for each phase are typically voluminous (often, hundreds of pages)
and are presented to the approval committee and project sponsor for approval as the project
moves from phase to phase. Once the work produced in one phase is approved, the phase ends
and the next phase begin. As the project progresses from phase to phase, it moves forward in the
same manner as a waterfall.

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Parallel Development Methodology

The parallel development methodologies evolved to address the lengthy time frame of
waterfall development. Instead of doing the design and implementation in sequence, a general
design for the whole system is performed. Then the project is divided into a series of subprojects
that can be designed and implemented in parallel. Once all subprojects are complete, there is a
final integration of the separate pieces, and the system is delivered. Parallel development
reduces the time required to deliver a system, so changes in the business environment are less
likely to produce the need for rework.

V- Model Development Methodology

The V-model is another variation of waterfall development that pays more explicit
attention to testing. The development process proceeds down the left-hand slope of the V,
defining requirements and designing sys-tem components. At the base of the V, the code is
written. On the upward-sloping right side of the model, testing of components, integration
testing, and, finally, acceptance testing are performed. A key concept of this model is that as
requirements are specified and components designed, testing for those elements is also defined.
In this manner, each level of testing is clearly linked to a part of the analysis or design phase,
helping to ensure high quality and relevant testing and maximize test effectiveness.

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Rapid Application Development (RAD)

Rapid application development is a collection of methodologies that emerged in
response to the weaknesses of waterfall development and its variations. RAD incorporates special
techniques and computer tools to speed up the analysis, design, and implementation phases in
order to get some portion of the system developed quickly and into the hands of the users for
evaluation and feedback. CASE (computer-aided software engineering) tools, JAD (joint
application development) sessions, fourth-generation/visual programming languages (e.g.,
Visual Basic.NET), and code generators may all play a role in RAD.
RAD may be conducted in a variety of ways. Iterative development breaks the overall
project into a series of versions that are developed sequentially. The most important and
fundamental requirements are bundled into the first version of the system. This version is
developed quickly by a mini-waterfall process, and once implemented; the users can provide
valuable feedback to be incorporated into the next version of the system. System prototyping
performs the analysis, design, and implementation phases concurrently in order to quickly
develop a simplified version of the proposed system and give it to the users for evaluation and
feedback. Throwaway prototyping includes the development of prototypes, but uses the
prototypes primarily to explore design alternatives rather than as the actual new system (as in
system prototyping). It has a fairly thorough analysis phase that is used to gather requirements
and to develop ideas for the system concept. Agile Development is a group of programming-
centric methodologies that focus on streamlining the SDLC. Much of the modeling and
documentation overhead is eliminated; instead, face-to-face communication is preferred.

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3. Project Management Task

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DEVELOPING THE WORK PLAN

Once a project manager has a general idea of the size and approximate schedule for the
project, he or she creates a work plan, which is a dynamic schedule that records and keeps track
of all of the tasks that need to be accomplished over the course of the project.
To create a work plan, the project manager identifies the tasks that need to be
accomplished and determines how long each one will take. Then the tasks are organized within a
work breakdown structure.
Identify Tasks
Remember that the overall objectives for the system were recorded on the system
request, and the project manager's job is to identify all the tasks that will be needed to
accomplish those objectives.

The Project Work Plan

The project work plan is the mechanism used to manage the tasks that are listed in the
work breakdown structure. It is the project manager's primary tool for managing the project.
Staffing the Project
Staffing the project includes determining how many people should be assigned to the
project, matching people's skills with the needs of the project, motivating them to meet the
project's objectives, and minimizing project team conflict that will occur over time.
Motivation
Assigning people to tasks isn't enough; project managers need to motivate the people to
make the project a success. Motivation has been found to be the number-one influence on

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people's performance, but determining how to motivate the team can be quite difficult. You may
think that good project managers motivate their staff by rewarding them with money and
bonuses, but most project managers agree that this is the last thing that should be done. The
more often you reward team members with money, the more they expect it—and most times
monetary motivation won't work.
Refining Estimates
The estimates that are produced during the planning phase will need to be refined as the
project progresses. This does not necessarily mean that estimates were poorly done at the start
of the project; it is virtually impossible to develop an exact assessment of the project's schedule
before the analysis and design phases are conducted. A project manager should expect to be
satisfied with broad ranges of estimates that become more and more specific as the project's
product becomes better defined.
Managing Scope
You may assume that your project will be safe from scheduling problems because you
carefully estimated and planned your project up front. However, the most common reason for
schedule and cost overruns occurs after the project is underway—scope creep. Scope creep
happens when new requirements are added to the project after the original project scope was
defined and “frozen.”

Timeboxing
To resolve this incongruency, a technique called timeboxing has become quite popular,
especially when rapid application development (RAD) methodologies are used. This technique
sets a fixed deadline for a project and delivers the system by that deadline no matter what, even
if functionality needs to be reduced. Time boxing ensures that project teams don't get hung up on
the final “finishing touches” that can drag out indefinitely, and it satisfies the business by
providing a product within a relatively fast time frame.
Managing Risk
One final facet of project management is risk management, the process of assessing and
addressing the risks that are associated with developing a project. Many things can cause risks:
weak personnel, scope creep, poor design, and overly optimistic estimates. The project team
must be aware of potential risks so that problems can be avoided or controlled well ahead of
time.

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ACTIVITY 1: DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Answer each questions and / or statements briefly. Write on the spaces provided below.
1. Suppose that you are an analyst developing a new information system to automate the
sales transactions and manage inventory for each retail store in a large chain. The system
would be installed at each store and would exchange data with a mainframe computer at
the company's head office. What methodology would you use? Why?
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2. Select two estimation software packages and research them, using the Web or trade
magazines. Describe the features of the two packages. If you were a project manager,
which one would you use to help support your job? Why?
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3. In 1997, Oxford Health Plans had a computer problem that caused the company to
overestimate revenue and underestimate medical costs. Problems were caused by the
migration of its claims processing system from the Pick operating system to a UNIX-based
system that uses Oracle database software and hardware from Pyramid Technology. As a

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result, Oxford's stock price plummeted, and fixing the system became the number-one
priority for the company. Pretend that you have been placed in charge of managing the
repair of the claims processing system. Obviously, the project team will not be in good
spirits. How will you motivate team members to meet the project's objectives?
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ACTIVITY 2: CASE ANALYSIS

Read the interactive session and discuss the following questions below.
Source: “Capital Blue Cross,” CIO Magazine, February 15, 2000, by Richard Pastore.
In April 1999, one of Capital Blue Cross' health-care insurance plans had been in the field for three years, but
hadn't performed as well as expected. The ratio of premiums to claims payments wasn't meeting historic
norms. In order to revamp the product features or pricing to boost performance, the company needed to
understand why it was underperforming. The stakeholders came to the discussion already knowing they
needed better extraction and analysis of usage data in order to understand product shortcomings and
recommend improvements.

After listening to input from the user teams, the stakeholders proposed three options. One was to persevere
with the current manual method of pulling data from flat files via ad hoc reports and retyping it into
spreadsheets.

The second option was to write a program to dynamically mine the needed data from Capital's customer
information control system (CICS). While the system was processing claims, for instance, the program would
pull out up-to-the-minute data at a given point in time for users to analyze.

The third alternative was to develop a decision-support system to allow users to make relational queries from a
data mart containing a replication of the relevant claims and customer data.

Each of these alternatives was evaluated on cost, benefits, risks, and intangibles.

Questions
1. What are three costs, benefits, risks, and intangibles associated with each project?

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2. Based on your answer to question 1, which project would you choose? Why?

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