Chapter 2:

The Project Management

and Information
Technology Context
 Learning Objectives
 Understand the systems view of project
management and how it applies to information
technology projects
 Analyze a formal organization using the structural,
human resources, political, and symbolic
organizational frames
 Explain the differences among functional, matrix,
and project organizational structures
 Explain why stakeholder management and top
management commitment are critical for a
project’s success
2
 Learning Objectives – Cont..
 Understand the concept, development,
implementation, and close-out phases of
the project life cycle
 Distinguish between project development
and product development
 Discuss the unique attributes and diverse
nature of information technology projects
 List the skills and attributes of a good
project manager in general and in the
information technology field
3
 Projects Cannot Be Run
in Isolation
 Projects must operate in a broad
organizational environment
 Project managers need to take a holistic or
systems view of a project and understand
how it is situated within the larger
organization.

4
 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:
1. Systems philosophy: View things as systems,
interacting components working within an environment to
fulfill some purpose. For example, the human body is a
system composed of many subsystems.
2. Systems analysis: problem-solving approach that
requires defining the scope of the system, dividing it
into components, and then identifying and evaluating its
problems, opportunities, constraints, and needs.
5
A Systems View of Project Management

3. Systems management: Address business,

technological, and organizational issues associated
with creating, maintaining, and modifying a
system.
Using a systems approach is critical to successful
project management. Top management and
project managers must follow a systems
philosophy to understand how projects relate to
the whole organization.

6
Figure 2-1. Three Sphere Model for
Systems management

7
 Understanding Organizations

 The 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. For example, many people
believe that most projects fail because of company
politics. Project managers often do not spend
enough time identifying all the stakeholders
involved in projects, especially the people opposed
to the projects.
 Understanding Organizations

 Also, project managers often do not spend

enough time considering the political context
of a project or the culture of the organization.
 To improve the success rate of IT projects, it
is important for project managers to develop
a better understanding of people as well as
organizations
We can analyze a formal organization using
the following 4 (four) frames;
Structural frame: Human resources frame:
Focuses on roles and Focuses on providing
responsibilities, harmony between needs of
coordination and control. the organization and needs
Organizational 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
of varied individuals and language, traditions and
interest groups. Conflict image are all part of this
and power are key issues. frame.
10
 What Went Wrong?
Many enterprise resource planning (ERP) projects fail due to
organizational issues. For example, Sobey’s Canadian
grocery store chain abandoned its two-year, $90 million ERP system due
to organizational problems.
As Dalhousie University Associate Professor Sunny Marche states, “The
problem of building an integrated system that can accommodate different
people is a very serious challenge. You can’t divorce technology from the
sociocultural issues. They have an equal role.” Sobey’s ERP system shut
down for five days and employees were scrambling to stock potentially
empty shelves in several stores for weeks. The system failure cost
Sobey’s more than $90 million and caused shareholders to take an 82-
cent after-tax hit per share.*
*Hoare, Eva. “Software hardships,” The Herald, Halifax, Nova Scotia (2001)
11
 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
made the following conclusions about factors that contribute to a project’s failure:
“Our evidence suggests that the culture within many organisations is often such
that leadership, stakeholder and risk management issues are not factored into
projects early on and in many instances cannot formally be written down for
political reasons and are rarely discussed openly at project board or steering group
meetings although they may be discussed at length behind closed doors. … Despite
attempts to make software development and project delivery more rigorous, a
considerable proportion of delivery effort results in systems that do not meet user
expectations and are subsequently cancelled. In our view this is attributed to the
fact that very few organisations have the infrastructure, education, training, or
management discipline to bring projects to successful completion.”
Many Organizations Focus on
the Structural Frame
 Most people understand what
organizational charts are
 Many new managers try to change
organizational structure when other
changes are needed
 3 basic organizational structures
 functional
 project
 matrix
13
Basic Organizational Structures

14
 Table 2-1. Organizational
Structure Influences on Projects

The organizational structure influences the project manager’s

authority, but project managers need to remember to address the
human resources, political, and symbolic frames, too. 15
 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.
Ten Characteristics of
Organizational Culture
 Member identity
 Group emphasis Project work is most
 People focus successful in an
 Unit integration organizational culture
where these
 Risk tolerance
characteristics are highly
 Reward criteria prevalent and where the
 Control other characteristics are
 Conflict tolerance balanced.
 Means-ends orientation
 Open-systems focus
 Stakeholder Management

 Recall that project stakeholders are the people

involved in or affected by project activities.
Stakeholders can be internal or external.
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 and top management are very
important stakeholders
18
 Need for Top Management
Commitment
 Several studies cite top management commitment
as one of the key factors associated with project
success
 Top management can help project managers
to;
 secure adequate resources,
 get approval for unique project needs in a timely manner.
 receive cooperation from people throughout the
organization.
 learn how to be better leaders
19
 What Helps Projects Succeed?
According to the Standish Group’s report “CHAOS
2001: A Recipe for Success,” the following items
help IT projects succeed, in order of importance:
 Executive support
 User involvement
 Experienced project manager
 Clear business objectives
 Minimized scope
 Standard software infrastructure
 Firm basic requirements
 Formal methodology
 Reliable estimates 20
 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
encourages more commitment
21
 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 22
 Project Phases and the Project
Life Cycle
 A project life cycle is a collection of project
phases
 Project phases vary by project or industry,
but some general phases include
 Concept, Development, Implementation,
Support
 A deliverable is a product or service produced
or provided as part of a project.
23
 Distinguishing Project Life
Cycles and Product Life Cycles
 The project life cycle applies to all projects,
regardless of the products being produced
 Product life cycle models vary
considerably based on the nature of the
product
 Most large IT systems are developed as a
series of projects
 Project management is done in all of the
product life cycle phases
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Phases of the Project Life Cycle

figure 2.3 phases of a traditional project lifecycle.

25
 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 models: the scope of the project can be clearly
articulated and the schedule and cost can be predicted
 adaptive models(adaptive Software Development
(ASD)life cycle): projects are mission driven and
component based, using time-based cycles to meet target
dates

26
 Predictive Life Cycle Models
 The waterfall model has well-defined, linear
stages of systems development and support
 The spiral model shows that software is developed
using an iterative or spiral approach rather than a
linear approach
 The incremental release model provides for
progressive development of operational software
 The prototyping model is used for developing
prototypes to clarify user requirements
 The Rapid Application Development (RAD)
model is used to produce systems quickly without
sacrificing quality 27
 Adaptive Life Cycle Models
 Extreme Programming (XP): Developers
program in pairs and must write the tests for
their own code. XP teams include developers,
managers, and users
 Scrum: Repetitions of iterative development
are referred to as sprints, which normally last
thirty days. Teams often meet every day for a
short meeting, called a scrum, to decide what
to accomplish that day. Works best for object-
oriented technology projects and requires
strong leadership to coordinate the work
28
 Why Have 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
29
 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 30
 Table 2-2. Fifteen Project
Management Job Functions*
 Define scope of project  Identify and evaluate risks
 Identify stakeholders, decision-  Prepare contingency plan
makers, and escalation  Identify interdependencies
procedures  Identify and track critical
 Develop detailed task list (work milestones
breakdown structures)  Participate in project phase
 Estimate time requirements review
 Develop initial project  Secure needed resources
management flow chart  Manage the change control
 Identify required resources and process
budget  Report project status
 Evaluate project requirements
*Northwest Center for Emerging Technologies, "Building a Foundation for
Tomorrow: Skills Standards for Information Technology,"Belleview, WA, 1999 31
 Suggested Skills for Project
Managers
 Project managers need a wide variety of skills
 They should be comfortable with change,
understand the organizations they work in and
with, and be able to lead teams to accomplish
project goals
 Project managers need both “hard” and “soft”
skills. Hard skills include product knowledge
and knowing how to use various project
management tools and techniques, and soft
skills include being able to work with various
types of people 32
 Suggested Skills for a
Project Manager
 Communication skills: listening, persuading
 Organizational skills: planning, goal-setting,
analyzing
 Team Building skills: empathy, motivation
Leadership skills: set examples, be energetic,
have vision (big picture), delegate, be positive
 Coping skills: flexibility, creativity, patience,
persistence
 Technological skills: experience, project
knowledge

33
 Table 2-3. Most Significant Characteristics
of Effective and Ineffective Project
Managers
Effective Project Managers Ineffective Project Managers
 Lead by example  Set bad examples
 Are visionaries  Are not self-assured
 Are technically competent  Lack technical expertise
 Are decisive
 Are good communicators  Are poor communicators
 Are good motivators  Are poor motivators
 Stand up to upper
management when necessary
 Support team members
 Encourage new ideas 34
 Further reading
 Discuss how the following recent trends
affect IST projects.
 Globalisation
 Outsourcing
 virtual teams,
 Agile project management
 Review question
 Question one:
 Explain the concept of “A Systems View
of Project Management’’ in your own
words. Also refer to the three-sphere model
of systems management as well as any other
references pertaining to the question you can
find.
 Assignment one
 Question one:

Using the Internet and other sources, review at

least three different project manager job
descriptions. explain any anomalies you can
find in different job descriptions.
 Assignment one conts
 Question two:
 Review and summarise one recent research
article/paper relating to IT/IS/software
development projects success or failure.
 Title of the paper and authors. Year of
publication