Management

IT Project Management
} 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 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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Structural frame: Human resources frame:
Focuses on roles and Focuses on providing
responsibilities, harmony between needs of
coordination and control. the organization and needs
Organization charts help of people.
define this frame.

Political frame: Symbolic frame: Focuses

Assumes organizations on symbols and meanings
are coalitions composed related to events. Culture is
of varied individuals and important.
interest groups. Conflict
and power are key issues.

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} 3 basic organization structures
◦ Functional: functional managers report to the
CEO
◦ Project: program managers report to the CEO
◦ 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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} 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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 } Member identity* } Risk tolerance*
} Group emphasis* } Reward criteria*
} People focus } Conflict tolerance*
} Unit integration* } Means-ends
} Control orientation
} 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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} 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

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} 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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} 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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} 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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} 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
encourages more commitment

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} 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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} 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
◦ 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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} 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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} 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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} 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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} Agile software development has become popular
to describe new approaches that focus on close
collaboration between programming teams and
business experts

} Visit www.agilealliance.org for information

} See the companion Web site for Suggested
Readings

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} 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 real improvement that I saw was in our ability to⎯in the words
of Thomas Edison⎯know when to stop beating a dead horse.…
Edison's key to success was that he failed fairly often; but as he said,
he could recognize a dead horse before it started to smell...In
information technology we ride dead horses⎯failing projects⎯a long
time before we give up. But what we are seeing now is that we are
able to get off them; able to reduce cost overrun and time overrun.
That's where the major impact came on the success rate.”*

Many organizations, like Huntington Bancshares, Inc., use an

executive steering committee to help keep projects on track.

*Cabanis, Jeannette, "'A Major Impact': The Standish Group's Jim Johnson On
Project Management and IT Project Success," PM Network, PMI, Sep.1998, p. 7

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} 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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} Globalization: lower trade and political barriers
and the digital revolution have made it possible to
interact almost instantaneously with billions of
other people across the planet
} 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

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} 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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} 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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} 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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} 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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} 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
} Project managers need to consider several factors
due to the unique context of information technology
projects
} Recent trends affecting IT project management
include globalization, outsourcing, and virtual teams

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