Chapter 11: Project Planning and Project Management

why do we need PMs?

• Needed bc lots of projects fail! 

  • ⅓ - ½ of projects are challenged or fail in the recent years

3 categories of project success

• Successful projects – on time, within budget, on scope

• Challenged projects – failure in one area

• Failed projects – cancelled or not used

• “triple constraint” concept used by PMs

Time, Budget, Scope

common reasons for project faliure

• Undefined project management practices

• Poor IT management and poor IT procedures

• Inadequate executive support for the project

  • You need buy in from the top! 

• Inexperienced project managers

  • Affects communication of what is being done properly and things

• Unclear business needs and project objectives

• Inadequate user involvement

  • Ensures the client or users actually USE what you made (ensures intuitive, easy to use, etc)

what is project management

• Organizing and directing other people to achieve a planned result within a predetermined schedule and budget

• The processes used to plan the project and then to monitor and control it.

what is a project manager

• Great need for effective project managers

• Internally managing people and resources

• Externally conducting public relations

what makes the role of PM especially difficutl

PM is Difficult role bc u have to get people to do work for you! Often outside of their normal scope

PM internal responsibilities

• Developing the project schedule

• Recruiting and training team members

• Assigning work to teams and team members

• Assessing project risks

• Monitoring and controlling project deliverables and milestones

  • “Checks and balances” of project management 

PM external responsibilities

• Reporting the project’s status and progress

• Working directly with the client (the project’s sponsor) and other stakeholders

  • Both internal and external stakeholders 

• Identifying resource needs and obtaining resource

what is a stakeholder

anyone who is involved, as a vested interest, or is affected by the project

client, oversight committee, and users

• Client

  • the person or group that funds the project

• Oversight Committee

  • clients and key managers who review the progress and direct the project

• Users

  • the person or group of people who will use the new system once deployed

THEY ALL REPORT/COMMUNICATE WITH THE PM!

what is level of formality or ceremony

a measure of the amount of documentation generated, the tracebility of specifications, and the formality of the project;s decision making processes

• small projects usually have low ceremony (ex. meet at the water cooler and little written documentation)

• larger or more complex ones have high ceremony (ex. predefined meetings schedule, specifications documented, meeting agendas)

10 parts of PMBOK

• Project Integration Management

• Project Scope Management

• Project Time Management

• Project Cost Management

• Project Quality Management

• Project Human Resource Management

• Project Communications Management

• Project Risk Management

• Project Procurement Management

• Project Stakeholder Management

Project Integration Management—

• Integrating all the other knowledge areas into one seamless whole

  • How do you integrate all the other knowledge areas?

  • Glue that holds the project together

  • Ensures that all other knowledge areas get equal weight

agile project management diagram

Project Scope Management

Defining and controlling the functions that are to be included in the system as well as the scope of the work to be done by the project team

Project Time Management

Creating a detailed schedule of all project tasks and then monitoring the progress of the project against defined milestones

Project Cost Management

• Calculating the initial cost/benefit analysis and its later updates and monitoring expenditures as the project progresses

  • Initial baseline budget

Project Quality Management

• Establishing a comprehensive plan for ensuring quality, which includes quality control activities for every phase of a project

  • Are you putting out a quality piece of software?

Project Human Resource Management

• Recruiting and hiring project team members; training, motivating, and team building; and implementing related activities to ensure a happy, productive team

  • How do we get people to work on the project? The right talent?

Project Communications Management

• Identifying all stakeholders and the key communications to each; also establishing all communications mechanisms and schedules

  • Communicating effectively, right model, technical form, printing vs emailing reports etc

Project Risk Management

• Identifying and reviewing throughout the project all potential risks for failure and developing plans to reduce these risks

  • Identify what could go wrong and how to then mitigate

Project Procurement Management

• Developing requests for proposals, evaluating bids, writing contracts, and then monitoring vendor performance

  • Happens when you have to go outside the firm for resources

    • Ex. if you need to procure a consultant for software development of a project bc ur team doesnt have one

Project Stakeholder Management

• Identifying and communicating with the stakeholders of the new system

  • Ensures communication and transparency between PM and stakeholders

PM vs VA

“Project Manager (PM) oversees strategy, timelines, and overall project outcomes

Virtual Assistant (VA) executes day-to-day administrative and operational tasks“

Activities of Core Process 1

• Identify the problem and obtain approval

  • also quantify approval factors,

  • feasibility/risk analysis,

  • review and approve w/client

Activities of Core Process 1 - How to identify the problem

IS projects usually

Projects are often a response to a problem, data, or popularity of a service

Some projects may respond to an external directive

Ex. in response to a new tax law

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Respond to an opportunity

• Strategic initiative

• Something that provides competitive advantage

Resolve a problem

• Operational issues keep coming up

• User needs aren’t being met

Respond to an external directive

• Legislation requires new form of reporting

• Changes in tax laws or regulations

Activities of Core Process 1 - How to identify the problem w/ a systems vision document + its 3 parts

Problem Description

• What is the problem and idea for the solution?

System Capabilities

• What are the capabilities the new system will have?

• Helps define the scope

Business Benefits

• The benefits that accrue to the organization

• Tangible (in dollars) and intangible benefits

Activities of Core Process 1 - quantifying estimated time for completion

3 key project approval factors

• est. time for project completion

• est. cost for project and system

• anticipated benefits from deloyment of the system

Activities of Core Process 1 - quantifying estimated cost for development

Activities of Core Process 1 - estimated cost for support

quantify project approval factors - anticpated benefits from new system

Opening up new markets with new services, products, or locations

Increasing market share in existing markets

Enhancing cross-sales capabilities with existing customers

Reducing staff by automating manual functions or increasing efficiency

Decreasing operating expenses, such as shipping charges for “emergency shipments”

Reducing error rates through automated editing or validation

Reducing bad accounts or bad credit losses

Reducing inventory or merchandise losses through tighter controls

Collecting receivables (accounts receivable) more rapidly

quantify project approval factors - tangible “dollar” benefits and what are they used for

used for Cost/Benefit Analysis--process of comparing costs and benefits to see whether investing in a new system will be beneficial--

what is a cost benefit analysis

Cost/benefit analysis, your returns on investment or ROI

• comparing costs and benefits to see if the net result is plus or minus

• If I give you X, what do i get in return, is it positive, and how positive?

what is Net Present Value (NPV)

• NPV discusses time value of money

• So is it better to invest the money for a 10% return, or invest it in your project?

• The goal is to get a better return overall, so your project should give a better investment return than the current investment strategy for that money 

• Companies pick the project with the highest NPV 

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the present value of dollar benefits and dollar costs of a particular investment

what is the break-even point

point in time at which benefits and costs are equal

what is the payback period

• When do we get paid back from the project?

• The sooner the better!

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When the dollar benefits have offset dollar costs in time

cost benefit analysis types- what is a tangible benefit

a benefit that can be measured or estimated in terms of dollars

• The NPV after 5 years is $1,713,097

• Payback Period is 2 years and 128 days

cost benefit analysis types- what is an intangible benefit

A benefit that accrues to an organization but that can’t be measured quantitatively or estimated accurately

• Increased levels of service (in ways that can’t be measured in dollars)

• Increased customer satisfaction (not measurable in dollars)

• Survival—need to do it to compete

• Need to develop in-house expertise (such as a pilot program with new technology)

GENERAL CONCEPT- what does determining project risk and feasibility include?

What can go wrong and how can we mitigate?

Determine the organizational risks and feasibility

• How well does the new system fit the organizational culture? Risk of negative impacts?

Evaluate the technological risks and feasibility

• Can we do this? Do we have the talent or a true understanding of it?

• Can the system be built by the team using technology needed? Training available?

Assess the resource risks and feasibility

• Are the needed resources available? Skilled people?

Identify the schedule risks and feasibility

• Can the system be built in the amount of time available? Fixed Deadline?

people risks

• Ex. we need 10 devs, but we only have 3 → risk = we dont have enough talent

• We mitigate it by hiring consultants, but consultants have a cost!

GENERAL CONCEPT- what does review with client and obtain approval include?

Executive committee reviews and approves

Board must review and approve for very large projects

Involved stakeholders need to understand what is expected of them

IS department needs to know what to do for staffing and support

Whole organization should be made aware of the project and its importance

Activities of core process 2:

plan and monitor the project

• establish the project environement

• schedule the work

• staff and allocate resources

• evaluate work processes

• monitor progress and make connections

What does it mean to establish the project parameters and work environment

tailor and operationalize the methodology being used

Recording and communicating—internal and external

• Who, what, when, and how

Work environment - support/facilities/tools

• Workstations, software development tools (IDE), servers and repositories, office and meeting space, support staff

Process and procedures followed

• Reporting and documentation, programming approach, testing, deliverables, code and version control

example of digital repository of information in a project environment

electronic digital repository diagram example from establish the project environment

info stored in repositories for team member use

establish the project environment - work environment tools

• Pm should establish the who what when and hows

• How are we doing this (computers, softwares, systems)

• Milestones, reporting, documentation

• Should always be consistent (same set of parameters and standardization between projects to ensure efficiency)

• Key table parameters: Info captured, electronic tools, who can update/view

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Personal computer(s) and/or workstation(s)

Personal development software and tools

Development server with repositories, sandboxes, and communication tools

Office space, conference rooms, and equipment, including printers, scanners, and projectors

Support staff

establish the project environment - processes and procedures

• Reporting and documentation—What is done? How is it done? Who does it?

• Programming—Single or pair programming? How is work assigned? By whom?

• Testing—Programmer tests or user tests? How do you mark items ready for testing?

• Deliverables—What are they? How and when are they handed over to users? How are they accepted?

• Code and version control—How is the code controlled to prevent conflicts? How do you coordinate bug fixing with new development? How and when are deliverables released?

schedule the work - project iteration schedule and detailed work schedule

these must be constantly adjusting:

Project Iteration Schedule

• The list of iterations and use cases or user stories assigned to each iteration

Detailed Work Schedule

• Within an iteration, the schedule that lists, organizes, and describes the dependencies of the detailed work tasks

• As each iteration is finished, a detailed work schedule is prepared for the next iteration

• The next detailed work schedule takes into account the changes necessary based on feedback/progress

schedule the work - three steps of developing a detailed work schedule

Develop a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

• The list or hierarchy of activities and tasks used to estimate the work to be done in a project or iteration

Estimate effort and identify dependencies

• Task times

• Tasks that must be completed before another task begins

• Critical path--a sequence of tasks that can’t be delayed without causing the entire project to be delayed

Create a schedule using a Gantt chart

• Bar chart that portrays the schedule by the length of horizontal bars superimposed on a calendar

Critical path

• Critical path--a sequence of tasks that can’t be delayed without causing the entire project to be delayed

tasks for the work breakdown schedule - 3 key guidelines of how detailed individual tasks should be

• There should be a way to recognize when the task is complete.

• The definition of the task should be clear enough so you can estimate the amount of effort required.

• As a general rule for software projects, the effort should take one to five working days.

staff and allocate resources

• 5 tasks of staffing activity

• Developing a resource plan for the project

• Identifying and requesting specific technical staff

• Identifying and requesting specific user staff

• Organizing the project team into work groups

• Conducting preliminary training and team-building exercises

what does it mean to monitor project progress and make corrections

process to monitor and control project execution

sample issues tracking log

(monitor project progress and make corrections)

retrospective

after each iteration, team member evaluate how well they worked together and how they can improve their effectivmness and performance as a team

• discuss deadlines, communication method/quality, relationship with user, major issues and future accordances bc of it, what went well, bottlenecks

what is a gnatt chart?

a visual project management tool that maps out a project schedule along a horizontal timeline

• Vertical Axis: Lists project tasks, subtasks, or phases in order.

• Horizontal Axis: Shows the project timeline broken down into days, weeks, or months.

• Horizontal Bars: Represent each task's start date, duration, and end date. The length of the bar shows how long the task takes.

• Dependencies: Lines or links showing which tasks must be finished before others can start.

• Milestones: Markers for major deadlines, meetings, or key deliverables. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Portfolio

Portfolio is a collection of programs

Program

Program is a collection of projects

project approval factors - time estimate table items

• Time estimate table items: Subsystem, fundamental requirements, iterations required, estimated time, at the bottom have total project time!

• ^^^ in a table 

• Also can include whos involved, and how much the project will cost

• This is a very high level thing

Estimated cost for support table - in quantify project approval factors

• Include totals for costs/money stuff! 

• Estimated cost for development table items: Expense category → amount

• Estimated cost for support table items: Recurring expense → amount

• Tangible dollar benefits → benefit or cost saving → amount

Purpose:

• Give stakeholders enough info to make good decisions

• Some companies use formulas to calculate this, and it also depends how far we are into the project life cycle

tangible benefits

things we can see and count!

intangible benefits

based on intuition, experience, survey data, increased level of service, things that are not counted numerically or measured