Chapter 2: The Project Management and IT Context

PMs need to use systems thinking: taking a …

holistic view of carrying out projects within the context of the organization.

What are the three parts of a Systems Approach?

Systems philosophy, systems analysis, and systems management

What is systems philosophy?

model to think about things as a system

what is systems analysis?

a problem solving approachwh

What is systems management?

address issues before making changes to a system.

What are the three spheres of the Three-Sphere model of Systems Management?

Business, Organization, and Technology.

What are the four frames of an organization?

Structural frame, HR frame, Political Frame, and Symbolic Frame

Roles and responsiblities, coordination and control, and org charts help describe this frame

Structural Frame

Providing Harmony between needs of the organization and the people.

HR Frame

Coalitions inside the organization, and conflict and power are key issues in this framework.

Political frame

Symbols and meaning related to events. Culture, language, traditions, and images are all parts of this frame.

Symbolic frame

Two researchers examnied _ IT projects over 80 years, and found that only _ projects were considered successful in terms of scope, time, and cost goals.

214, 1/8

Researchers say that _ is to blame for most project failures.

culture

What are the three basic organizational structures?

Functional, Project, and Matrix

Functional organizational structure

functional managers report to CEO

Project Organizational Structure

PMs report to CEO

Matrix Organizational Structure

middle ground between functional and project. Personnel often report to two or more bosses.

Organizational culture is a set of…

shared assumptions, values, and behaviors.

What are the 10 organizational characteristics?

Member identity, group emphasis, people focus, unit integration, control, risk tolerance, reward criteria, conflict tolerance, means end orientation, and open systems focus.

Which organizational culture characteristics should organizations put a strong emphasis on to be successful?

Member identity, group emphasis, unit integration, risk tolerance, reward criteria, conflict tolerance, and open systems focus.

Many projects fail without commitment from which group of people?

Top Management

What do you call someone who acts as a key proponent of a project and is from top management?

Champion

How can top management help PMs?

providing adequate resources, approving project needs in a timely manner, helping in getting cooperation from other parts of the organization, mentoring an dcoaching on leadership issues.

Having a _ at a high level helps IT projects.

Chief Information Officer

Standards and _ help PMs be more effective.

guidelines

What are the phases of a project life cycle?

Early, Middle, and Final phase

At which phase of the Project Lifecycle resource requirements are lowest?

Early phase

At which phase of the Project Lifecycle is risk the highest?

Early Phase

At which project lifecycle do stakeholders have the highest influence on the project?

Early phase

At which phase of the project life cycle is certainty of project completion improved?

Middle phase

At which project lifecycle phase are requirements are ensured for completion?

Final phase

What is a kill switch or phase exit?

Management’s review between phases of a project’s lifecycle to ensure projects are going in the right direction.

What is Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) ?

A project lifecycle framework used for describing the phases of developing information systems.

Give 4 examples of Predictive Life cycle Models.

Waterfall model, spiral model, prototyping model, and Rapid Application Development (RAD) model.

What is Prototyping model used for?

to clarify user requirements.

What are the 5 stages of the Waterfall Model?

Analysis, Design, Construction, Testing, and Support.

What are the four areas of the Spiral Model?

Analysis, Design, Implementation, and Testing.

IT projects are _ in terms of size, complexity, products produced, application area and resource requirements.

diverse

What are the four recent trends in IT Management discussed in lecture?

Globalization, Virtual Teams, Outsourcing, and Agile.

What are some issues with Globalization?

Communication, Trust, common work practices, and tools

In Agile, requirements and solution _ thourgh collaboration.

evolve

Scrum is a leading _ development method.

Agile

In Scrum, a _ creates prioritized wish list.

Product Owner.

In Scrum, _ creates sprint backlog.

Project team

Teams have daily scrum meetings during each _ week sprints.

2-4

Kanban can be used in conjunction with _

Scrum

Kanban cards show…

new work, work in progress, and work completed.