Information Technology Project Management – Week 1 Lecture

Introduction to Project Management

What is a Project?

A project is a temporary endeavor, aside from normal business operations, with a goal of developing a particular product, or service, or attaining a desired result. A project has limited resources regarding people, time, and supplies. During project activities, members of the project team are held accountable for the achievement of goals and completion of the project tasks. A project begins with a planned schedule, a specified outcome, which is its scope, and a planned budget. The schedule, scope, and budget limit the time allotted for project completion, the features and functionality of the final product, and the cost of the project, respectively. These three limitations are called the triple constraint.

Projects can be gigantic and complex, medium-sized, or small. Projects can involve thousands of people, hundreds, or just one individual. Projects might span decades, years, weeks, days or just one day. IT projects may include marketing, sales, hardware, software, communication networks, and distribution. Professionals from various areas are assembled into a project team to realize a project from its conception to its close.

Project Attributes

Some project attributes are:

1. A project has a unique goal
2. A project is temporary
3. A project is developed using progressive elaboration. In the beginning, projects are broadly defined. As time passes, more people, who can explain the project details concerning their areas of expertise, become involved. As a result, the project details become clearer. Project requirements become well-defined as time passes. For this reason, projects should be developed incrementally.
4. Projects require resources from various areas - IT projects include people across departments and other organizational boundaries. Projects can cross external boundaries and include people from partner companies, or outside consultants.
5. A project should have a primary customer or sponsor -A sponsor or primary customer provides funds for a project and executive support, which is crucial for project success
6. Uncertainty is involved in a project -External factors can cause uncertainty such as suppliers going out of business or team members leaving the company, or needing unplanned time off. This type of uncertainty is a significant challenge to project management (Schwalbe, 2015).

Introduction to Project Management Supplemental Video

Please view the following five-minute video that gives a brief introduction to project management. Introduction to Project Management (KNOLSKAPE, 2013).

Triple Constraint

A project has limited resources in terms of time, human resources, and supplies. There is a specified schedule that limits the time allowed for a project. There is a specified scope that limits the goals or objectives of a project. Another limitation is cost. A project takes place within the limits of its goals or objectives, its schedule, and its budget. Project managers refer to these three limitations as the triple constraint.

 

The triple constraint limits the quality of a project’s outcome. If a project has unlimited time, scope, and budget, the quality of its resulting product would be very high. A goal of a project manager is to balance the time, budget and scope constraints to produce a product or service that meets a project's quality standards.

What is Project Management?

A project manager is a person authorized by a sponsoring organization to oversee a team that will be held accountable for realizing project goals and objectives. According to the Project Management Institute, project management is the application of knowledge skills tools and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements (Project Management Institute, 2013). Project managers must not only meet the scope, time, cost, and quality goals; they must also facilitate the entire process. Project managers must meet the expectations of all stakeholders, those involved in project activities and those affected by a project (Project Management Institute, 2013).

Stakeholders

Stakeholders are people involved in or affected by project activities. Stakeholders include the project sponsor, the project team, customers, users, suppliers, support staff, and even opponents of a project. Anyone affected by the project is a stakeholder. Stakeholders have different project expectations. The sponsors expect the project outcome to meet their business objectives. The users of the product delivered, expect satisfaction with the quality and the ease-of-use. The project team or the organization as a whole, expects project activities to stay within the bounds of the scope, schedule, and budget.

Project Management Tools and Techniques

To manage projects, project managers use some of tools and techniques listed on in Figure 2.

A Gantt chart, a tool used by project managers to manage project schedules, is shown in Figure 3. The chart was created with Microsoft Project 2013.

A network diagram is another useful tool for managing project schedule. An illustration of a network diagram created with Microsoft Project 2013 is shown in Figure 4.

Measuring Project Success

According to a CHAOS study, the success of a project depends on the factors listed below in Figure 5 in order of significance (Manifesto, 2013).

 

Performance metrics are used to quantify project progress. Project metrics often include customer satisfaction, return on investment, the percentage of the schedule depleted and the amount of the budget spent. Project managers do not assume that their criteria for success are the same as the sponsor and stakeholders. Project managers take the time to understand the sponsor and stakeholder expectations and track project performance based on success criteria of different stakeholders.

Program Management

According to the Project Management Institute (2013), “A program is a group of related projects, subproject programs, and program activities managed in a coordinated way to obtain benefits and control not available from managing them individually.” It is economical to group projects to streamline management, staffing, purchasing, and other efforts. Companies use programs and project portfolio management to ensure that projects are aligned with the enterprise goals. Program managers often review important information with project managers and coordinate functional groups, suppliers, and operations support staff between projects in a program.

Project Portfolio Management

Projects and programs can be grouped and managed as a portfolio of investments that contribute to the entire enterprise’s success. Portfolio managers help make investment decisions by helping to select and analyze projects from a strategic perspective.

A portfolio manager addresses questions like, “Are we working on the right projects?” “Are we investing in the right areas?” “Do we have the right resources to be competitive?” Before each project begins questions, “Is this project still relevant to the enterprise?” “And, should we go ahead and start on it now, or not?” should be asked by a portfolio manager. These are strategic questions that a portfolio manager must ask.

References

KNOLSKAPE. (2013). Introduction to Project Management. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOU1YP5NZVA

Manifesto, C. (2013). Think Big, Act Small. The Standish Group International Inc.

Project Management Institute. (2013). A guide to the project management body of knowledge: (PMBOK® Guide). Newtown Square, Pa.: Project management institute.

Schwalbe, K. (2015). Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.