Project Management W3

Project Integration Management

refers to the processes required to ensure that the various elements of the project are properly coordinated. In short, itis the tying together of all of the other aspects involved in a project to make it a success.

Strategic Planning and Project Selection

Identifying long-term objectives through the following:

• analyzing the organization’s strengths and weaknesses;

• studying opportunities and threats in the business environment;

• predicting future trends; and

• projecting the need for new products and services.

SWOT Analysis

• Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats

• used as aid in strategic planning

Business Area Analysis

• outlines documents the business processes that are vital to achieving strategic goals, sand aids in discovering which ones could most benefit from IT

Methods for Selecting Projects

• Focusing on broad organizational needs

• Categorizing IT projects

• Performing NPV or other financial analyses

• Using weighted scoring model

• Implementing balanced scorecard

Focusing on broad organization needs

• Top managers need to focus on achieving the various needs of the organization when deciding what projects to undertake, when to undertake them, and to what level.

• One method for project selection based on broad organizational needs is determining whether they meet the first three important criteria: need, funding, and will.

Categorizing IT Projects

• Problems

• Opportunities

• Directives

Problems

• These are unwanted situations that prevent an organization from achieving its goals.

Opportunities

• These are chances to improve the organization.

Directives

• These are new requirements imposed by management, government, or some external influence.

Net Present Value

• the method of calculating the expected net monetary gain or loss from a project by discounting all expected future cash inflows and outflows to the Net Present Value (NPV) present point in time

A positive NPV means the return from a project exceeds the cost of capital - the return available by investing the capital elsewhere.

• Determine the cash inflows and outflows for the project.

• Determine the discount rate.

  • A discount rate is the minimum acceptable rate of return on an investment. It is also referred to as the capitalization rate or opportunity cost of capital.

• Calculate the NPV.

  • The mathematical formula for NPV is: NPV = Σt=0…n At / (1+r)t where t =year of the cash flows, A = amount of cash flow each year, and r =discount rate.

Return of Investment (ROI)

• income divided by investment

• required rate of returnfor projects

• the minimum acceptable rate of return on an investment

• based on the return that the organization could expect to receive else where for an investment of comparable risk

• formulas for calculating financial ROI for an IT project or any other investment

Payback Period

Is the amount of time it will take to recoup the net amount invested in a project in the form of net cash inflows.

Payback Analysis

• Determines how much time will lapse before accrued benefits overtake accrued costs.

When does Payback occurs?

• It occurs when the net discounted cumulative benefits and costs reach zero.

Weighted Scoring Model

• Is a tool that provides a systematic process for selecting projects based on various criteria:

  • Meeting broad organizational needs;

  • Addressing problems, opportunities, or directives;

  • The amount of time it will take to complete the project;

  • The overall priority of the project; and

  • The projected financial performance of the project.

These are needed to identify the criteria required to the project selection process:

• Support for key business objectives

• Has strong internal sponsor

• Has strong customer support

• Uses realistic level of technology

• Can be implemented in one year or less

• Provides a positive net present value

• Has low risk in meeting scope, time, and cost objectives

Weights

Indicate how much you value each criterion or how important each criterion is.

Who developed a methodology called balanced scorecard?

Drs. Robert Kaplan and David Norton

Balanced Scorecard

• Aids in the selection and management of projects in alignment with the business strategy.

• It is used to convert an organization’s value drivers, such as , innovation, operational efficiency, and financial performance, into a series of defined metrics.

Metrics

were analyzed and recorded by the organizations to determine how well the projects have helped them in achieving strategic goals

Project Charter: INPUTS

1. Project statement of work

2. Business case

3. Contract

4. Enterprise environmental factors

5. Organizational process

Project Charter: TOOLS & TECHNIQUES

1. Expert Judgement

Project Charter: OUTPUT

1. Project Charter

Statement of Work (SOW)

• Is a narrative description of products and services to be delivered by the project.

• References the business need, product scope description and strategic plan

Business Case

Is a document that provides the required information from a business perspective to determine whether or not the project is worth investing for.

Contract

Specifies if the project is being done for an external customer.

The enterprise environmental factors that can influence the development of project charter include, but are not limited to:

• Government or industry standards

• Organization infrastructure

• Marketplace conditions

The organizational process assets that can influence the development of project charter include, but are not limited to:

• Organizational standard processes, policies, and standardized process definitions to be used in the organization

• Project charters templates

• Historical information and lessons learned knowledge base

Expert Judgement

Is used to evaluate the inputs that are used to develop the project charter.

Project Charter

• Formally recognizes the existence of a project and provides direction on the project’s objectives and management

• Allows a project manager to use the organizational resources to complete the project

• Should be signed by key project stakeholders to acknowledge agreement on the need for and the intent of the project

• Inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs

• It specifies the following:

  • business needs;

  • current understanding of the customer’s needs; and

  • the new product, service, or result

Project Management Plan

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

• It documents project planning assumptions and decisions regarding choices, facilitate communication among stakeholders, define the content, extent, and timing of key management reviews, and provide a baseline for progress measurement and project control

• It is dynamic, flexible, and subject to change when the environment or project changes

• It assist the project manager in leading the project team and assessing the project status

• Its common elements are:

  • introduction or overview of the project

  • description of how the project is organized

  • management and technical processes used on the project

  • sections describing the work to be done, schedule, and budget information

Stakeholder Analysis

Documents information such as key stakeholder’s names and organizations, their roles on the project, unique facts about each stakeholder, their level of interest in the project, their influence on the project, and suggestions for managing relationships with each stakeholder.

Project Execution

• Involves managing and performing the work described in the project management plan

• Project manager and the project management team direct of the planned project activities, and manage the various technical and organizational interfaces that exist within the project

• The main function of creating project plans is to guide project execution.

• Having a good plan would result to good products and it should document the good work results included in it.

• o improve the coordination between project plan development and execution, follow the rule: Those who will do the work should plan the work.

Tools and Techniques in Project Execution

• Project management methodology

• Project management information systems

Project management methodology


It follows a methodology describing not only what to do in managing a project, but how to do it

Project management information systems


Various organizations are using powerful enterprise project management systems that can be accessed via the internet

Monitoring and Controlling Project Work


• It involves the following to determine what process improvements can be made:

  • collecting, measuring, and disseminating

  • performance information;

  • assessing measurements; and

  • analyzing trends

Project Performance

Should be monitored continuously by the project team to assess the overall condition of the project and to identify the areas that require special attention.

Tools and Techniques for Monitoring and Controlling Projects

• Project management methodology

• Project management information systems

• Expert judgment

• Earned value management

Inputs necessary to monitor and control project work:

• Project management plan

• Work performance information

• Performance reports

• Change requests

Outputs in Monitoring and Controlling Project Work:

• Corrective actions

• Preventive actions

Integrated Change Control


It identifies, evaluates, and manages changes throughout the project life cycle

Objectives of Integrated Change Control

• Influencing the factors that create changes to ensure that changes are beneficial

• Determining that a change has occurred

• Managing actual changes as they occur

Inputs of Integrated Change Control

• Project management plan

• Work performance information (in a form of performance reports)

• Requested changes

• Recommended preventive and corrective actions

• Recommended defect repair

• Deliverables

Outputs of Integrated Change Control

• Approved and rejected change requests

• Approved corrective and preventive actions

• Approved and validated defect repair

• Deliverables

• Updates to the project management plan

Change Control System

• Refers to a formal, documented process that describes when and how the official project documents may be changed

• It describes the people who are authorized to make changes, the for the change, and any automated or manual tracking systems that will be used by the project

Control Board (CCB)

• It is a formal group of people who are responsible for approving or rejecting changes on a project.

• It provides guidelines for the following:

  • preparing change requests

  • evaluating change requests

  • managing the implementation of approved changes

• It consumes time in making decisions on proposed changes because they often meet only once a week or once a month and may not be able to make decisions in one meeting.

Configuration Management

• It ensures that the descriptions of the project’s products are correct and complete, and concentrates on the management of technology by identifying and controlling the functional and physical design characteristics of products and their support documentation

• Configuration Management specialists identify and document configuration requirements, control changes, record and report changes, and audit the products to verify conformance to the requirements

Communication

• It is a written and oral performance reports are used by project managers to aid in identifying and managing project changes

• Stand-up meetings are performed by project managers once a week to communicate what is most important on the project

Closing Projects

• To close a project, all the activities must be finalized and the completed or cancelled work must be transferred to the appropriate people

• Major Outputs:

  • Administrative closure procedures;

  • Contract closure procedures;

  • Final products, services, or results; and

  • Organizational process asset updates.