Chapter 2

The Project Management

and IT Context
 Learning Objectives
• Describe the systems view of project management
• Understand organizations,
 Four frames, organizational structures
• Understand the concept of a project phase and the
project life cycle
• Discuss the unique attributes and diverse nature of
information technology projects
• Describe recent trends affecting IT project
management, including
 globalization, outsourcing, and virtual teams

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 A Systems View of Project
Management
• Even though projects are temporary
• Intended to provide unique product or service

But
• You cannot run projects in isolation
• System thinking describe complete(holistic) view of
carrying out projects within the context of
organization.

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 A Systems Approach
• A systems approach emerged in the 1950s to describe a more analytical
(logical) approach to management and problem solving
• Three parts include:
– Systems philosophy: an overall model for thinking about things as systems
– Systems are sets of interacting components working within an environment to fulfill some
purpose. For example, the human body is a system composed of many subsystems the
nervous system, the skeletal system, the circulatory system, the digestive system, and so on.
– Systems analysis: problem-solving approach.it include:
– Defining scope of system
– Dividing it into its components
– Identifying and evaluating its problem, opportunities and needs.
– Once this is completed, the systems analyst then examines alternative solutions
for improving the current situation, identifies an optimum, or at least satisfactory,
solution or action plan, and examines that plan against the entire system.

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 A Systems Approach
• Systems management: Address business, technological, and
organizational issues before making changes to systems

• Using a systems approach is critical to successful project management.

– Top management and project managers must follow a systems philosophy to
understand how projects relate to the whole organization.
– They must use systems analysis to address needs with a problem-solving
approach.
– They must use systems management to identify key business, technological, and
organizational issues related to each project in order to identify and satisfy key
stakeholders and do what is best for the entire organization.

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 Understanding Organizations
Structural frame: Deals with
how organization is
structured.
Focuses on roles and
responsibilities to meet goals.
IT issues: Centralize or
decentralize IT staff
Political frame: Address
organization and personal
politics. Politics in
organizations take form of
competition among groups
or individuals for power
and leadership
Human resources frame:
Focuses on providing
harmony between needs of
the organization and needs of
people.
IT Issues: working hours
Skilled IT staff
Symbolic frame: Focuses on
symbols and meanings
related to events.
Was it a good sign that the CEO
came to a kickoff meeting for a
project, or was it a threat?
Culture is important.

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 Organizational Structures

– Functional: functional managers report to the CEO

– FM are specialists in their field.
– Example College and Universities.
– Most colleges and universities have very strong functional
organizations. Only faculty in the business department teach business
courses; faculty in the history department teach history; faculty in the
art department teach art, and so on.
– Project: program managers report to the CEO
– Their staff have variety of skills needed to complete project.
– For example many engineering and consulting organizations
follow this structure.
– Their staff has variety of skills required to complete a project

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Functional and Project Organizational
Structures

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 Project Phases and the Project Life Cycle
• A project life cycle is a collection of project phases that
defines:
– What work will be performed in each phase
– What deliverables will be produced and when
– Who is involved in each phase
– How management will control and approve work
produced in each phase
• A deliverable is a product or service produced or provided as
part of a project such as a technical report, a training session,
a piece of hardware, or a segment of software code,
produced or provided as part of a project.

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 More on Project Phases
• In early phases of a project life cycle:
– Resource needs are usually lowest
– The level of uncertainty (risk) is highest
– Project stakeholders have the greatest opportunity to
influence the project
• In middle phases of a project life cycle:
– The certainty of completing a project improves
– More resources are needed
• The final phase of a project life cycle focuses on:
– Ensuring that project requirements were met
– The sponsor approves completion of the project

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Phases of the Traditional Project Life Cycle

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 Product Life Cycles
• Products also have life cycles
• The Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a framework
for describing the phases involved in developing and
maintaining information systems
• Systems development projects can follow
– Predictive life cycle: the scope of the project can be clearly
expressed and the schedule and cost can be predicted
– Adaptive Software Development (ASD) life cycle:
requirements cannot be clearly expressed, projects are
mission driven and component based, using time-based
cycles to meet target dates

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 Predictive Life Cycle Models

• Waterfall model: has well-defined, linear stages of systems

development and support
• Incremental build model: provides for progressive
development of operational software
• Prototyping model: used for developing prototypes to clarify
user requirements
• Reuse-oriented software engineering: The system is
assembled from existing components.

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 The waterfall model
System services, constraints and goals are established
allocates the requirements to either
hardware or software, identify and
describe the fundamental
software system abstractions and their
relationships software design is realized
as a set of programs or program
units
The individual program units or programs
are integrated and tested as a complete system

The system is installed and put into practical use.

Maintenance involves correcting errors, improving the
implementation and enhancing system with new
requirements
Incremental development
 The process of prototype development

Objectives: (1) To develop a system to prototype the user interface, (2) To develop
a system to validate functional system requirements etc
Functionality: Relax non-functional requirements such as response
time and memory utilization, standards of reliability and program quality

Evaluation: Provision must be made for user training;

prototype objectives should be used to derive a plan for evaluation;
Users need time to become comfortable with a new system and to settle
into a normal pattern of usage
 Reuse-oriented software engineering
Component analysis: a search is made for components to implement that
specification. Usually, there is no exact match
Requirements modification the requirements are analyzed using information about the
components that have been discovered. They are then modified

System design with reuse: Framework of the system is designed or an

existing framework is reused by take into account the components that
are reused. if reusable components not available, some new
software may have to be designed
Development and integration Software that cannot be externally procured is
developed, and the components and COTS systems are integrated to create
the new system.
 Adaptive Software Development
• Rapid Application Development (RAD).
• Replaces the traditional waterfall cycle with a
repeating series of Speculate (Plan),
Collaborate(implementation of the plan) and
learn(technical reviews).

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Should you use Adaptive Software
Development?
• can be a feasible methodology if your organization
prioritizes rapid delivery of products and sees value
in continuously evolving your offerings.

• But if you do not believe it would be feasible to

secure deep involvement from your users, or you are
not willing to add costly continuous testing
throughout your development process, this might
not be the right agile framework for you.

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 The Context of IT Projects
• IT projects can be very diverse in terms of size, complexity,
products produced and resource requirements
• IT project team members often have diverse backgrounds and
skill sets
• IT projects use diverse technologies that change rapidly; even
within one technology area, people must be highly specialized

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 Recent Trends Affecting IT Project
Management
• Globalization: lower trade and political barriers and the digital
revolution have made it possible to interact rapidly with
billions of other people across the planet
• Outsourcing: outsourcing is when an organization acquires
goods and/or sources from an outside source; offshoring is
sometimes used to describe outsourcing from another
country
• Virtual teams: a virtual team is a group of individuals who
work across time and space using communication
technologies

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Important Issues Related to Globalization
• Issues
– Communications
– Since people will be working in different time zones, speak different languages,
have different cultural backgrounds, celebrate different holidays, etc., it is
important to address how people will communicate in an efficient and timely
manner.
– Trust
– It is important to start building trust immediately by recognizing and respecting
others
– Common work practices
– Project managers must allow time for the team to develop these common work
practices.
– Tools

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 Outsourcing
• Organizations remain competitive by using outsourcing to their
advantage, such as finding ways to reduce costs
• Project managers should become more familiar with
negotiating contracts and other outsourcing issues

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 Virtual Teams Advantages
• Increasing competiveness and responsiveness by having a
team of workers available 24/7
• Lowering costs because many virtual workers do not
require office space or support beyond their home offices
• Providing more expertise and flexibility by having team
members from across the globe working any time of day
or night
• Increasing the work/life balance for team members by
eliminating fixed office hours and the need to travel to
work

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 Virtual 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

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 Chapter Summary
• Project managers need to take a systems approach when
working on projects
• Organizations have four different frames: structural, human
resources, political, and symbolic
• The structure and culture of an organization have strong
implications for project managers
• Projects should successfully pass through each phase of the
project life cycle
• Project managers need to consider several factors due to the
unique context of information technology projects
• Recent trends affecting IT project management include
globalization, outsourcing, and virtual teams

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