Chapter 1: The Nature of Information Technology Projects
Organizations need effective business strategies to be successful, but projects are the planned
organizational changes or means for achieving a chosen strategy. IT projects enable the integration
of technology in new products, services, or processes that can change existing relationships between
an organization and its customers or suppliers, as well as among the people within the organization.
A project is ‘a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result’; a
project manager is ‘the person assigned by the performing organisation to lead the team that is
responsible for achieving the project objectives’. All projects themselves share some common
attributes: they have a definite beginning and end (time frame), they are undertaken to accomplish
something (purpose), can have many stakeholders with a vested interest in its success or failure
(ownership), require resources, require people with skills sets both technical and nontechnical (soft)
skills, include an element of risk, the work requires many interdependent tasks or activities, are
organizational change, and operate in an environment larger than the project itself.
Organizations fund more projects at any given time, requiring a project portfolio. They should seek
to balance it with respect to risk, experience, and technology. It should be managed collectively to
align it with the organization’s strategy. Some projects within the portfolio are independent and not
directly related to one another, but some are managed as a program. These projects’ activities are
coordinated so that the benefits of the program are greater than the sum benefits of the individual
projects. Projects part of a program have a common outcome or capability. Each is to be managed on
itself, but together have a shared governance structure to ensure alignment with the overall program
success.
IT projects support a wide range of organizational activities from maintaining legacy systems to
developing innovative ideas. Risk and reward of these projects is possibly greater than in the past.
Therefore, a solid set of technical, nontechnical, and project management skills founded upon past
experience and adapted to this new, dynamic environment will be needed to successfully manage IT
projects. Senior management will allocate a certain budget to IT projects, quite often lower than the
total funding requests for proposed projects. Hence, any project receiving funding does so at the
expense of another. Funding specific projects is an important management decision, and should be
based on the value the completed project provides the organization.
Managing IT projects is a challenge for many. The overall success rate is low, also recognised by the
Standish Group with a study called CHAOS. Not many
projects were successful, completed on time and
within budget (failed). A lot were cancelled before
completion, or completed but over budget or
schedule, and not meeting specifications
(challenged). A reason for the high failure rates is the
way ‘success’ and ‘failure’ are defined (see article).
But the number of reasons why is unlimited, and a
project often does not fail because of one reason,
but because a whole host of problems and
challenges that build upon one another. Most
reasons can be grouped into 4 categories:
,There are 4 approaches to improve the chances for IT project success:
1. A value-driven approach – success should be measured in terms of value (better customer
service, more efficient business processes, lower costs, or expanded market share). This will
put less pressure on project stakeholders to set unrealistic schedules and budget;
2. A socio-technical approach – focusing on the tools (technical approach) often causes the
development of something no one asked for or needs. Clients are stakeholders, which means
actively seeking and encouraging their participation, involvement, and vision;
3. A project-management approach – better PM is needed and a lot of IT projects even build
systems on an ad-hoc basis. Success or failure depends largely on who is part of the team.
Applying PM principles and tools, however, should be part of a methodology;
4. A knowledge-management approach – systematically acquire, create, synthesize, share, and
use information, insights, and experiences to transform ideas into business value.
Learning from experience is important, but experiences and the knowledge gained from them is often
fragmented throughout the organization. You might never know if someone else has had your ‘unique
problem’ before, but you might want to ask him about it. Knowledge and experience, in the form of
lessons learned, can be documented and made available through applications accessible today. An
organization that learns from its experiences can be more mature in its processes by taking those
lessons learned and creating best practices— doing things in the most efficient and effective manner.
With regard to PM, it allows project teams to do the right thing and do it the right way.
, Chapter 2: Project Methodologies and Processes
Project methodologies provide a systematic way to plan, manage, and execute the work to be
completed by prescribing phases, processes, tools, and techniques to be followed. Although all
projects are unique, the process of managing the project can be quite similar across different projects.
2.1 The project life cycle
All project life cycles have a beginning, middle, and an end. Projects are organized into sequential
phases to make the project more manageable and to reduce risk. Phase exits, phase gates, or kill
points are phase-end reviews allowing the
organization to evaluate project performance and
take immediate action to correct problems or cancel
the project. Fast tracking (starting the next phase
before completion of the current) can reduce the
project’s schedule, but overlapping phases can be
risky and should only be done if the risk is deemed
acceptable. A generic life cycle describes the
common phases shared by most projects (right).
A project starts by defining the project’s goal, to make the envisioned business value explicit. It sets
stakeholders’ expectations and drives the other phases of the project. It provides direction for
planning the project with a project plan involving project objectives (scope, schedule, budget, and
quality), resources (people, facilities, and technology), and controls (ensure that the project goal and
objectives are being met and resources are used efficiently). After approval of this plan, we execute
the project plan, focusing on the design, development, and delivery of the project’s product. At the
end, a completed product is delivered and the project is closed (if agreed on). The project and project
team are then evaluated during a postmortem review to determine whether the project’s goal is
achieved.
During the project, effort (cost and staffing levels) is low at the start and end, but peaks as the project
work is being done. Risk and uncertainty are the highest at the start, as well as the ability for
stakeholders to influence the product’s features. Cost of changing features increases in later phases.
2.2 The project management body of knowledge (PMBOK®)
PMBOK provides a basis for identifying and describing the generally accepted principles and practices
of PM. ‘Generally accepted’ doesn’t mean that they work the same way on each project, but that many
people over time have believed they are useful and have value. Determining what is appropriate is
the responsibility of the team and comes from experience. PMBOK defines 10 knowledge areas for
understanding PM (e.g. project time management, project quality management).
PMBOK defines a project as a set of interrelated actions and activities performed to achieve a pre-
specified product, result, or service. So a process is something you do to achieve a result. Processes
are an integral part of projects, supporting all activities necessary to plan, create, and manage all
project activities. They differ from PLC phases because they are actions or tasks. Product-oriented
processes create the project’s product – in an IT project, all processes required to design, build, test,
document, and implement an application system. There should be a balance between PM processes
