Lesson 02

Chapter 2:
The Project Management and

Information Technology Context
Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition
Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part,
except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom
use.
Learning Objectives (1 of 2)
• Define the systems view of project management and how it applies to

information technology (IT) projects
• Summarize 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
use.
Learning Objectives (2 of 2)
• Distinguish between project and product life cycles

• Discuss the unique attributes and diverse nature of IT projects
• Summarize recent trends affecting IT project management, including
globalization, outsourcing, virtual teams, and agile project
management
use.
A Systems View of 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
use.
What Is a Systems Approach?
• A systems approach emerged in the 1950s to describe a holistic and

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
• Initial was SDLC- waterfall, spiral etc
use.
The Three-Sphere Model for Systems Management
use.
Understanding Organizations
• Systems approach requires that project managers always view their

projects in the context of the larger organization
• Organizational issues are often the most difficult part of working on
and managing projects
• Important for project managers to develop a better understanding of
people as well as organizations
• To improve the success rate of IT projects
Logical grouping of all the needed items
use.
What Went Wrong?
• 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
use.
Organizational Structures (1 of 2)
• Three basic organizational 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
use.
Organizational Structures (2 of 2)
use.
Organizational Culture
• Ten characteristics of organizational culture:

• Member identity*
• Group emphasis*
• People focus
• Unit integration*
• Control
• Risk tolerance*
• Reward criteria*
• Conflict tolerance*
• Means-ends orientation
• Open-systems focus*
• *Project work is most successful in an organizational culture where

these items are strong/high and other items are balanced.
use.
Focusing on Stakeholder Needs
• 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
use.
The Importance of Top Management Commitment (2 of 2)
• 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
use.
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
• One.Tel’s billing system
use.
The 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
use.
AZURE DEVOPS DEMO
Organization
Project - setting options
Choose model- basic, agile, scrum, CMMI
Invite team members
Boards- KANBAN BOARD – visualize and track
Work item
Sprints
Queries to filter
Delivery plan
Other Tools like – JIRA, GIT, Jenkins, spiceworks etc

Project
• It is good practice to divide projects into several phases

• Because projects operate as part of a system and involve uncertainty
• The same can be said for developing products
use.
Project Life Cycle (1 of 2)
• 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
use.
Project Life Cycle (2 of 2)
• 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
use.
Product Life Cycles (1 of 3)
• Products also have life cycles

• The Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a framework for
describing the phases of developing information systems
• Systems development projects can follow
• Predictive life cycle
• Iterative life cycle
• Incremental life cycle
• Adaptive life cycle
• Hybrid life cycle
use.
• 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
• Prototyping model: used for developing prototypes to clarify user
requirements
• Rapid Application Development (RAD) model: used to produce systems quickly
without sacrificing quality
use.
use.
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, phase gate reviews, or
kill points, should occur after each phase to evaluate the project’s
progress, likely success, and continued compatibility with
organizational goals
• It is unwise to wait until the end of project or product phases to have
management inputs
• Many projects are reviewed by management on a regular basis
use.
What Went Right?
• 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.
• Some projects still go on a long time before being killed, like Blizzard’s Titan
game project.
• *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
use.
Characteristics of IT Project Team Members
• IT project team members often have diverse backgrounds and skill sets
• Many companies purposely hire graduates with degrees in other fields
such as business, mathematics, or the liberal arts to provide different
perspectives on IT projects
• Some IT projects require the skills of people in just a few job functions
• But some require inputs from many or all of them
use.
Diverse Technologies
• IT projects use diverse technologies that change rapidly

• Differences in technical knowledge can make communication between
professionals challenging
• New technologies have also shortened the time frame many
businesses have to develop, produce, and distribute new products and
services
use.
Virtual Teams (1 of 2)
• Advantages
• Lowering costs because many virtual workers do not require office space or
support beyond their home offices
• Providing more expertise and flexibility or increasing competitiveness and
responsiveness by having team members from across the globe working any
time of day or night
• Improving the work/life balance for team members by eliminating fixed office
hours and the need to travel to work
use.
Virtual Teams (2 of 2)
• 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
use.
Agile vs waterfall
• In AGILE- Time frame for each phase and progress can be seen
Traceability, collaboration, sprints, feedback, backlogs can be seen
More customer satisfaction
• Waterfall – 5 phases
Fixed time, cannot be recreated
Less chances of customers satisfaction
use.
Agile (1 of 2)
• 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 technology and businesses became more complex, the approach was often
difficult to use because requirements were unknown or continuously changing
• Agile today means using an approach where requirements and
solutions evolve through collaboration
use.
Scrum (1 of 4)
• 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.
use.
Scrum (2 of 4)
use.
Scrum (3 of 4)
• Kanban
• Technique that can be used in conjunction with Scrum
• Developed in Japan by Toyota Motor Corporation
• Uses visual cues to guide workflow
• Kanban cards show new work, work in progress, and work completed
use.
Scrum (4 of 4)
• 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.
use.
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
• 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, virtual teams, and agile project management
use.

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Chapter 2:

The Project Management and

• Define the systems view of project management and how it applies to

• Distinguish between project and product life cycles

• Projects must operate in a broad organizational environment

• A systems approach emerged in the 1950s to describe a holistic and

• Initial was SDLC- waterfall, spiral etc

• Systems approach requires that project managers always view their

Logical grouping of all the needed items

• Three basic organizational structures

• Ten characteristics of organizational culture:

• *Project work is most successful in an organizational culture where

• Project managers must take time to identify, understand, and manage

• How top management can help project managers

• IT governance addresses the authority and control for key IT activities

• Standards and guidelines help project managers be more effective

Other Tools like – JIRA, GIT, Jenkins, spiceworks etc

• It is good practice to divide projects into several phases

• A project life cycle is a collection of project phases that defines

• In early phases of a project life cycle

• Products also have life cycles

• Predictive Life Cycle Models

• A project should successfully pass through each of the project phases

• IT projects use diverse technologies that change rapidly

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

• Project managers need to take a systems approach when working on

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