2. Objectives of Project Management
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The important goal is to deliver a quality product that
meets the business needs on time, every time with an
affordable budget.
There are 3 basic constraints that needs to managed to
achieve this. They are :
Time
Scope
Cost
3. SOME DEFINITIONS
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Project
A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a
unique product or service. It typically is a one time
initiative that can be divided into related activities that
require coordination and control, with a definite beginning
and ending.
Project Management
The application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques
to a broad range of activities in order to meet the
requirements of a particular project.
4. SOME DEFINITIONS
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Program
A group of projects managed in a coordinated way to obtain
benefits not available from managing them individually.
Program Management Office
An organizational unit with full-time personnel to provide
full range of standard approaches to project management
support and services that are utilized across projects;
lessons learned from each project are collected from post-
project reviews and shared across project managers.
5. IT PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT
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Its typically the responsibility of a committee of senior
business managers and IT leaders of an organization to
prioritize, manage and maintain the approved IT projects.
Decision making about any important aspects in the project
are made here.
It is the responsibility of the organization to maintain a
trusted relation with the business, and also monitor the
progress of the approved projects.
6. PROJECT PRIORITIZATION
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The idea of prioritization on different projects is based on
organizational standards and vision of implementation.
Most organizations prioritize their projects based on the
investment, financial returns and obviously the strength in
personnel, and the technologies that can actually handle
the project.
7. PROJECT PRIORITIZATION
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According to Denis et al(2004) prioritization is of four
types:
Absolute Must A mandate due to security, legal, regulatory,
or end-of-life-cycle IT issues.
Highly Desired/Business-Critical Includes short term
projects with good financial returns and portions of very
large projects already in progress.
Wanted Valuable, but with longer time periods for returns
on investment.
Nice to have Projects with good returns but with lower
potential business value.
8. PROJECT MANAGEMENT
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New projects requests are typically submitted using an
organizational template.
9. PROJECT MANAGEMENT ROLES
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Usually every project in an IT organization may contain 3
roles in common.
Project Manager
Project Sponsor
Project champion
However the role of project manager is more critical in
every project management.
10. PROJECT MANAGER
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Any systems project is typically led by an IT project
manager demonstrated with both technical and managerial
skills.
He is responsible for managing relationships with the
project sponsors and other stake holders, as well as
initiating, planning, executing, controlling and closing a
project.
He is the one who is responsible to identify, and manage
risks during any phase of project execution.
11. PROJECT MANAGER
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Project manager is the one who should maintain the
metrics and monitor the progress of project.
He is the one who should make sure all the deliverables are
delivered to the business as per the schedule.
He also maintains the project budget and work towards
improving financial returns on the project.
He takes care of scheduling, and staffing the resources.
12. PROJECT MANAGER
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Effective project manager should not only have technical
expertise, but also should possess some non technical skills.
14. PROJECT SPONSOR
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Project Sponsor is a high level fiscal owner of the project.
He is typically a business manager who financially “owns”
the project (i.e., the person who “writes the check” for the
project).
For systems projects that will be implemented in multiple
business functions or business units, the sponsor is likely to
be the officer of the company(e.g., a CFO or COO) or
designated owner of major business process (e.g., a supply
chain manager).
15. PROJECT CHAMPION
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The project champion is a business manager with high
credibility among the business users who will be impacted
by the new system.
Project champions are usually business analysts who have a
very good knowledge on the domain and the workflow of
the customers.
For some projects project sponsors may also play a role of
project champion.
16. THE PROJECT LIFE CYCLE
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There are four different phases in which any project life
cycle is categorized into. They are:
Project Initiation
Project Planning
Project Execution and Control
Project Closing
17. PROJECT INITIATION
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This is the first phase in which the project is formally
authorized and a determination is made as to whether the
project should actually proceed or not.
The important deliverable in this phase is a Project
Charter.
Project Charter is a document that describes a project’s
objectives, scope, assumptions, and estimated benefits.
18. PROJECT INITIATION
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Project feasibility is assessed in various dimensions here.
Like :
Economic – Positive Financial Return?
Operation – Impact on Organizational operation?
Technical – Technology and required expertise?
Schedule – Time constraints and impact?
Legal or Contractual – Legal conflicts?
Political – positive support from all stake holders?
19. PROJECT PLANNING
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The objective of project planning process is to ensure that the
project goals are achieved in the most appropriate way.
The 3 major components of project planning are:
Scheduling
Budgeting
Staffing
These components are obviously interrelated, and poor planning
for one component can severely effect the another.
20. SCHEDULING
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Project Scheduling usually starts with work breakdown
analysis.
Work breakdown is a basic management technique that
systematically subdivides blocks of work down to level of
detail at which the project can be controlled.
Once the work is broken down, estimates are given for each
and every task based on the past experience.
A master schedule is defined with Project milestone dates
and deliverables.
21. BUDGETING
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It documents the anticipated cost for the whole project.
There are two traditional approaches to estimating project
costs:
Bottom-up approach – costs estimated based on the tasks
in project plan and are then integrated.(Most preferred)
Top down approach – used when not much information is
known in the project or not very clear about the tasks.
22. BUDGETING
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According to Frame(1994), inexperienced estimators
typically fall into 3 estimation traps:
Too optimistic about what is needed to do the job.
Tend to leave components out of estimates.
Do not use a consistent methodology for estimations.
Good training in how to estimate project estimates should
be mandatory for all the PMs involved in estimations.
23. BUDGETING
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Sometimes project estimates are done inaccurate
purposefully and can have adverse effect on the project.
They are :
Highballing(budget padding) – Overestimating project
costs on purpose.
-- Projects may not be approved sometimes because of this.
Lowballing– Underestimating project costs on purpose.
-- Sometimes helps in gaining project approval, but can result
in failed projects due to over budget.
24. STAFFING
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Project team must have a mix of IT skilled resources to be a
successful one.
PM should be capable enough to estimate the skill type,
proficiency level, quantity and time required for a resource
to complete a particular task.
Appropriate “knowledge transfers” are done for a specific
project.
Established COE to achieve skilled resources for future
projects.
Provide incentives to retain high skilled resources.
Ensure proper knowledge on business is delivered to
resources from SMEs.
25. STAFFING
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Staffing must include exercises which help in “team
building” to inculcate motivation and team spirit among all
team members.
Some resources must be assigned full time for the project,
and some can be hired on contract based on the skillset
required for the project.
However having employees on contract is not always
advisable because of the risks and standards of the
organization from which they are hired.
26. PLANNING DOCUMENTS
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Two primary deliverables from the Planning phase
Statement of Work(SOW) – A high level document for
the customer that describes what the project will deliver
and when.
Project Plan – A formal document that includes the
project schedule, budget, and assigned resources that is
used by the project manager to guide the execution and
control of project.
27. PLANNING DOCUMENTS
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Other common planning documents are : (1) PERT or CPM
charts (2) Gantt chart.
PERT(Program Evaluation or Review Technique) or
CPM(Critical Path Method) graphically models the
sequence of project tasks and interrelationships using a
flow chart.
28. PLANNING DOCUMENTS
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A Gantt chart graphically depicts the estimated times (and
later, the actual times)
Overlapping tasks can be easily seen.
29. PROJECT EXECUTION AND CONTROL
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The objective of the execution process is to effectively
coordinate all the resources as the project plan is carried
out.
Most projects exhibit the following characteristics:
Risk and uncertainty are highest at the start of the project
The ability of the project stakeholders to influence the
outcome is highest at the start of the project
Cost and staffing levels are lower at the start of the project
and higher toward at the end
The deliverable for this phase is the completed project.
30. PROJECT EXECUTION AND CONTROL
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Good communication among the team members are also
critical for task coordination and integration
Communications with other stake holders should be simple
and accurate
31. PROJECT EXECUTION AND CONTROL
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Request for change (RFCs) are something which effects the
project flow.
All the changes are to be
documented with the RFCs so that
we will have a record of the cost,
and schedule being effected.
32. PROJECT EXECUTION AND CONTROL
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Be considerate about people-related and process-related
“early warning signs”.
People related “Early warning signs”
Required business stakeholder may be unavailable
sometimes
Process related “Early warning signs”
Lack of documentation
33. MANAGING PROJECT RISKS
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Reduce the risk of failing to achieve the project’s objectives
34. MANAGING BUSINESS CHANGE
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Change Management is the ability to successfully
introduce change to individuals and organizational units.
According to Lewin/Schein most of business changes have
their roots in 3 stages.
Unfreezing Stage – Should be in “safe to change”
environment.
Moving Stage – Requires KTs for necessary information
Refreezing stage – Changing the original setup.
35. MANAGING BUSINESS CHANGE
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Kotter change management model:
Establish a sense of urgency
Form a powerful guiding coalition
Create a vision
Communicate the vision
Empower others to act on the vision
Plan for and create short term wins
Consolidate improvements and produce still more change
Institutionalize new approaches
36. PROJECT CLOSING
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Project closure includes a post-project review session.
Discussions during post project review:
What went good?
What went bad and how can be overcome that in future?
What are the lessons learned through this project?
37. MANAGING COMPLEX IT PROJECTS
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Most of the times experienced IT PMs in an organization
are asked to handle complex IT projects.
Three high level factors that are critical for a complex IT
projects are:
The business vision was integral part of project
A testing strategy was used at the program level
The projects used a phase release approach.
38. MANAGING VIRTUAL TEAMS
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Outsourcing IT applications
Virtual teamwork can also introduce new IT project risks
due to 3 related factors:
Difference in communication norms
Unfamiliarity with different cultures
Lack of trusting relationships across team members.
However this strategy is encouraging because of cost
effectiveness.
39. LESSONS LEARNED
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Most IT projects are successful when they actually follow all
the standards that are defined for the project.
Be pro active in every phase of project until closure.
PMs are important and should be hired with appropriate
knowledge.
Document everything as it would be used for other teams
following the same standards.
Managing different teams would be a risk but can be
handled if dealt properly.
Risks should always be kept in mind in every phase.