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project

a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result

project sponsor

usually provides the direction and funding for the project

stakeholder

project sponsor

stakeholder

banks and other financial institutions

stakeholder

project manager

stakeholder

project team

stakeholder

support staff

stakeholder

suppliers

stakeholder

opponents to the project

strategic goals for perfect portfolio management

are we working on the right projects?

are we investing in the right areas?

do we have the right resources to be competitive?

programs

a group of related projects, subsidiary

programs, and program activities that are managed in a

coordinated way to obtain benefits not available from

managing them individually

portfolios

a collection of projects, programs,

subsidiary portfolios, and operations managed as a

group to achieve strategic objectives

project management institute (PMI)

an international professional society for project managers founded in 1969. Reporting more than 500,000 members worldwide.

Project Management Professional (PMP)

PMI provides this as a certification. someone who has documented sufficient project experience and education, agreed to follow the PMI code of professional conduct, and demonstrated knowledge of project management by passing a comprehensive examination

Ethics

a set of principles that guide our decision making based on

personal values of what is “right” and “wrong”.

Systems thinking

describes this holistic view of carrying out projects within the context of the organization. To handle complex situations effectively, project managers need to take a holistic view of a project and understand how it relates to the larger organization

Structural Frame

deals with how the organization is structured (usually depicted in an

organizational chart) and focuses on different groups’ roles and responsibilities to meet the goals and policies set by top management.

Human Resource Frame

focuses on producing harmony between the needs of the organization and the needs of people. It recognizes that mismatches can occur between the needs of the organization and those of individuals and groups, and works to resolve any potential problems

Political Frame

addresses organizational and personal politics. Politics in organizations take the form of competition among groups or individuals for power, resources, and leadership

Symbolic Frame

focuses on symbols and meanings. In this frame, the most important aspect of any event in an organization is not what actually happened, but what it means.

Organizational Structure

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

Organizational culture

a set of shared assumptions, values, and behaviors that characterize the functioning of an organization

internal project stakeholders

project sponsor

project team

support staff

internal customers of the project

top management

other functional managers

external project stakeholders

project’s customers

competitors

suppliers

other external groups potentially involved in the project or affected by it, like gov officials or concerned citizens

In early phases of project life cycle

resource needs are usually lowest

level of uncertainty (risk) is highest

project stakeholders have the greatest opportunity to infuence the project

virtual team

group of individuals who work across time and

space using communication technologies

Advantages of virtual teams

• Lowering costs

• Providing more expertise and flexibility

• Team members from across the globe working

any time of day or night

• Improving the work/life balance for team

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

process

a series of actions directed toward a particular result.

Initiating Processes

include defining and authorizing a project or project phase. Initiating processes take place during each phase of a project

Planning Processes

include devising and maintaining a workable scheme to ensure that the project addresses the organization’s needs. The schemes include the scope management plan, schedule management plan, cost management plan, and procurement management plan.

Executing Processes

include coordinating people and other resources to carry out the various plans

and create the products, services, or results of the project or phase

Monitoring and controlling processes

include regularly measuring and monitoring progress to ensure that the project team meets the project objectives. The ideal outcome of the monitoring and controlling process group is to complete a project successfully by delivering the agreed-upon project scope within time, cost, and quality constraints

Closing processes

include formalizing acceptance of the project or project phase and ending it

efficiently

Executing processes

Executing takes the longest.The best project managers spend more time on every process group, except

executing, and almost twice as much time on planning as other project managers. Spending more time on planning should lead to less time spent on execution and reduce the time and money spent on projects

Six Sigma methodologies

Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control (DMAIC) is used to improve an existing business process

Six Sigma methodologies

Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, and Verify (DMADV) is used to create new product or process designs to achieve predictable, defect-free performance.

Project Integration Management

Develop project charter

project planning

Planning is often the most difficult and unappreciated process in project management.

The main purpose of project plans

is to guide project execution. To guide execution, plans must be

realistic and useful, so a fair amount of time and effort must go into the planning process.

Directing and managing project work (project Integration management)

involves carrying out the project management plan by performing the activities

included in it.

Steering committee

develops an IT strategic plan that is tied to the organizations overall strategic plan

Project Planning Process

1. Steering committee develops an IT strategic plan that is tied to the organizations overall strategic plan

2. Outlining the business processes central to achieving strategic goals and which could most benefit from IT

3. Define the scope, benefits, and constraints of potential IT projects

4. Choose which projects to do and assigning resources for working on them

Categorizing IT Projects

A method for selecting

projects is based on various

categorizations, such as the

project’s impetus, time

window, and general

priority

• Problems are undesirable

situations that prevent an

organization from achieving its

goals.

• Opportunities are chances to

improve the organization.

• Directives are new requirements

imposed by management,

government, or some external

influence

Organizations can also categorize IT

projects as having high, medium, or

low priority based on the current

business environment. An organization

should always complete high-priority

projects first, even if a low- or

medium-priority project could be

finished in less time.

weighted scoring model

a tool that provides a

systematic process for

selecting projects based on

many criteria

• Identify criteria important to the

project selection process

• Assign weights (percentages) to

each criterion so they add up to

100%

• Assign scores to each criterion for

each project

• Multiply the scores by the weights

and get the total weighted scores

project charter

a document that formally recognizes the existence of a project and provides direction on the project’s objectives and management. It is a key output

of the initiation process

Many projects fail because

of unclear requirements and expectations, so starting with a project charter makes a lot of sense. If project managers are having difficulty obtaining support from project stakeholders, for example, they can refer to the agreements listed in the project charter.

project management plan

a document used to coordinate all project planning documents and help guide a project’s execution and control.

The majority of time and money is

usually spent on execution

Project managers need to possess

product, business, and application area knowledge to execute projects successfully. It is often helpful for IT project

managers to have prior technical experience

change control system

formal, documented process that describes when and how official project documents may be changed. It describes the people authorized to make changes, the paperwork required for these changes, and any automated or manual tracking systems the project will use.

Project scope management

includes the processes involved in defining and controlling what work is or is not included in a project

Scope

refers to all the work involved in creating the products of the project and the processes used to create them

deliverable

a product created as part of a project

Collecting requirements (process of project scope management)

defining and documenting the features and functions of the products produced during the project as well as the processes used for creating them

Defining scope (process of project scope management)

reviewing the project charter, requirements documents, and organizational process assets to create a scope statement

requirements traceability matrix (RTM)

a table that lists requirements, their various attributes, and the status of the

requirements to ensure that all are addressed.

Project scope statements

should include at least a product scope description, product user

acceptance criteria, and detailed information on all project deliverables.

As time progresses

the scope of a project should become more clear and specific.

Work Package

a task at the lowest level of the WBS. A work package also represents the

level of work that the project manager monitors and controls. It should be defined at the proper level so the project manager can clearly establish an estimate of the effort needed to complete it, estimate the cost of all required resources, and evaluate the quality of the results when the work package is finished.

Approaches to developing a WBS

• Analogy approach: review WBSs of similar projects and tailor to your project

• Top-down approach: start with the largest items of the project and break them down

• Bottom-up approach: start with the specific tasks

• Mind mapping: uses branches radiating out from a core idea to structure thoughts and ideas

WBS dictionary

a document that provides detailed information about each WBS item. It is a

definition of the work involved in the task—a clarification that makes the summary description in the WBS easier to understand in terms of the approach taken to complete the work

Scope Creep

he tendency for project scope to keep getting bigger and bigger. it is very important to verify the project scope with users throughout the life of the project and develop a process for controlling scope changes. many IT projects suffer from scope creep

Variance

the difference between planned and actual performance

Planning schedule management (main process of project schedule management)

involves determining the policies, procedures, and documentation that will be

used for planning, executing, and controlling the project schedule

Sequencing activities (main process of project schedule management)

involves identifying and documenting the relationships between project activities. Requirements, a resource breakdown structure, and project documents updates.

Controlling the schedule (main process of project schedule management)

involves controlling and managing changes to the project schedule

Project schedules grow out of the basic documents that initiate a project.

The project charter often mentions planned project start and end dates, which serve as the starting points for a more detailed schedule

activity list

a tabulation of activities to be included on a project schedule

activity attributes

provide schedule-related information about each activity

milestone

on a project is a significant event that normally has no duration but requires the completion of multiple activities to reach a milestone.

dependency or relationship

pertains to the sequencing of project activities or tasks. There are

several types of dependencies.

Mandatory dependencies

inherent in the nature of the work being performed on a project,

sometimes referred to as hard logic

Discretionary dependencies

defined by the project team, sometimes referred to as soft logic and should be used with care since they may limit later scheduling options

External dependencies

involve relationships between project and non-project activities

Internal dependencies

involve relationships between project activities within the projects

team’s control

network diagram (PERT chart)

a schematic display of the logical relationships among project activities

and their sequencing. two main formats of networking diagrams are the arrow and the precedence diagramming methods

ultimate goal of developing a realistic project schedule is

to provide a basis for monitoring project progress for the time dimension of the project

Gantt charts

provide a standard format for displaying project schedule information by listing

project activities and their corresponding start and finish dates in calendar form.

Black diamond (Gantt Charts)

milestones

Thick black bars (Gantt Charts)

summary tasks

Light gray horizontal bars (Gantt Charts)

durations of tasks

Arrows (Gantt Charts)

dependencies between tasks

Crashing activities

by obtaining the greatest amount of schedule compression for the least

incremental cost

Fast tracking

involves activities by doing them in parallel or overlapping them

Main outputs for schedule control

• work performance information

• schedule forecasts

• change requests

• project management plan updates

• project documents update