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Information Systems Project Management

Information Systems Project Management. ISQS 4350 Zhangxi Lin. Chapter 1: The Nature of Information Technology Projects. Questions. What is a project? What is project management? How does project management relate to other disciplines?

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Information Systems Project Management

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  1. Information Systems Project Management ISQS 4350 Zhangxi Lin

  2. Chapter 1: The Nature of Information Technology Projects

  3. Questions • What is a project? • What is project management? • How does project management relate to other disciplines? • What is the career outlook for project managers in information technology?

  4. What Is a Project? • A project is “a temporary endeavor undertaken to accomplish a unique product or service” (Project management body of Knowledge (PMBOK®) Guide 2000, p. 4) • Attributes of projects • unique purpose • temporary • require resources, often from various areas • should have a primary sponsor and/or customer • involve uncertainty

  5. Case #1: Caleb’s Mission Critical Schedule System (MCSS) for Continental Airlines • If an airline company has to make up a cancelled flight in an emergency, for example, a plane crash, it may take it several hours to reschedule the relevant flights as well as the crew teams, and a couple of days to settle down other legacy problems. Caleb has developed a mission critical schedule system for airline companies, which can find the solution in minutes and solve other legacy problems in a few hours. • Continental Airlines, as a client of Caleb Technology (Austin) for years, has carefully evaluated the system and decided to adopt the application. Delighted by the winning of the contract, Caleb is facing the following several questions: • EDS is the original application developer and will be working with Caleb in the user interface as Continental Airlines required. How to cooperate with Continental Airlines is the key issue. • MCSS must be integrated into existing enterprise information system of Continental Airlines. How this will be done? • How test MCSS in the real environment to guarantee its reliability and availability. • How to switch from old system to the new system integrated with MCSS?

  6. Case #2:Online medical services appointment system • Making the appointment with a PCP or specialist doctor is normally via phone call. Even though e-commerce and many other online services are prevailing, such a service in medical area has never been done yet. We there were such a system, this system would have allowed patents to check the availability of a doctor or any other medical services from the Internet, making and changing the appointment. So, this is a promising system in several ways: • It will greatly make the appointment convenient • It can be connected to other networked medical information services, such as medical insurance. • It will also benefit the medical service providers much in saving costs and improving service quality. • There several issues : • Who will initialize the project? • Who should be involved ? • Who is to be a target buyer of the system? • How this system can be co-operated with other medical information systems? • Is this system really beneficial?

  7. Case #3: Adams Globalization online translation services development • Adams Globalization is a leading translation service company in Austin, Texas. The company provides the translation between English and several other languages, such as Spanish, German, French, Japanese, and Chinese. The company started in 1982. In 1993 it hired 4 employees and in 2003 it hired 40 employees and operating a translator network with more than 1000 freelance translators. The company’s revenue in 2002 was $4,000,000. Adams Globalization has been facing more and more pressures to convert its business model from traditional translations to an Internet-based one: • There is an increasing Internet-based application translation demand. • Intensified Internet usage requests the company to change its business processes • The company is moving towards a global market. • Therefore, there are several reasons for Adams Globalization to adopt e-business. There are several issues: • What is the new business model? • How to develop a web-based business system? • What is the project scope? …

  8. The Software Crisis If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization. -Gerald Weinberg

  9. Status of IT Projects • 31% IT projects were cancelled before completion • 53% were completed, but were over-budget, over-schedule, and did not meet the original requirements. • The average cost overrun of medium-sized projects was 202%

  10. Why Projects Fail – CHAOS STUDY

  11. What is Project Management? Project management is “the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities in order to meet project requirements” (PMI*, Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), 2000, p. 6) *The Project Management Institute (PMI) is an international professional society. Their web site is www.pmi.org.

  12. Improving the likelihood of success • Socio-technical Approach • Cooperation between developers and users • Project Management Approach • Depending more on processes and infrastructure • Resources management • Delivering the outcomes in a professional way as expected • Coping with greater internal and external competition • Improving efficiency and effectiveness • Knowledge Management Approach • lessons learned • best practices

  13. The 2001 Standish Group Report Showed Decided Improvement in Project Success • Time overruns significantly decreased to 163% compared to 222% • Cost overruns were down to 145% compared to 189% • Required features and functions were up to 67% compared to 61% • 78,000 U.S. projects were successful compared to 28,000 • 28% of IT projects succeeded compared to 16%

  14. Why the Improvements? "The reasons for the increase in successful projects vary. First, the average cost of a project has been more than cut in half. Better tools have been created to monitor and control progress and better skilled project managers with better management processes are being used. The fact that there are processes is significant in itself.“* *The Standish Group, "CHAOS 2001: A Recipe for Success" (2001)

  15. Factors For Successful Projects • User involvement • Executive management support • Clear statement of requirements • Proper planning • Realistic expectations • Smaller project milestones • Competent staff ownership • Clear vision & objectives • Hard-working, focused team

  16. Chaos Study

  17. Why do we learn project management? • It is different from system analysis • It will allow you to apply all the knowledge you have learned in IS, such as programming, data management, and system analysis, into the practices • But more – management • Consider you get a programming job. In the first week in the company you are asked: • To work with someone to do some Java programming but you don’t know what it is for; • To join a project group for internal software resource sharing project but you don’t know who are your colleagues before a meeting; or • To look into the latest WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e) technology to see the potential application to your company’s business. You here of it but wonder why • To investigate the search engine market and write a proposal – it is a task for a programmer? • What should you do?

  18. Interdependent tasks Organizational change Operating Environment Time Frame Purpose Ownership Resources Roles Risks & Assumptions The context of project management Project Attributes:

  19. The Triple Constraint of Project Management

  20. Roles in a project • Project Manager • Project Sponsor • Subject Matter Expert(s) (SME) • Technical Expert(s) (TE)

  21. Risks & Assumptions • Internal risk • From the estimation process or from the fact that a key member of the project team could leave in the middle of the project • External risk • Arises from the dependencies on other contractors or vendors • Assumptions • What we used to estimate scope, schedule, and budget and to assess the risk of the project

  22. The Project Life Cycle andIT Development

  23. Definitions • Project Life Cycle (PLC) • A collection of logical stages or phases that maps the life of a project from its beginning to its end for a project • Deliverable • A tangible and verifiable product of work • Phase exits, stage gates, or kill points • Phase-end review of key deliverables that allow the organization to evaluate the project’s performance and take immediate action to correct errors or problems

  24. Generic Project Life Cycle

  25. Phases/Stages of PLC • Define project goal • Plan project • Answer questions (What, why, how, who, et al) • Baseline plan • Execute project plan • Close project • Evaluate project

  26. Systems Development Life Cycle

  27. Systems Development Life Cycle • SDLC: sequential phases or stages an information system follows throughout its useful life. • Phases/Stages • Planning • Analysis • Design • Implementation • Maintenance and Support

  28. Problem • Definition & Feasibility 2. Analysis 6. Operations & Maintenance 5. Implementation 3. Design Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) 4. Development, Coding

  29. Implementing SDLC: Structured Approaches: Waterfall Method

  30. Implementing SDLC: Rapid Application Development (RAD) Approaches: • Prototyping • Develop a small test system in a short time and improve it. • Spiral Development • The project is broken into mini-projects each addressing one or more risks until all risks are addressed • Extreme Programming (XP) • The system is transferred to the users in a series of releases. Each release is a working system that only includes one or several functions.

  31. The PLC vs the SDLC

  32. PLC vs. SDLC • PLC focuses on the processes of managing a project • SDKC focuses on creating and implementing a product – the information system • SDLC is part of PLC – most of SDLC activities occur during the execution phase of PLC.

  33. 6. Operations & Maintenance Enterprise System Implementation Phases 1. Initiation 2. Planning 5. Transition • Analysis & • process design • Realization • (Fulfill ERP)

  34. What is PMBOK • The Project management body of Knowledge (PMBOK) • A document providing a basis for identifying and describing the generally accepted principles and practices of project management • Originally published in 1987 • Available from Project Management Institute (PMI)

  35. Project Management Framework

  36. Project Management Knowledge Areas • Project integration management • Project scope management • Project time management • Project cost management • Project quality management

  37. Project Management Knowledge Areas • Project human resource management • Project communication management • Project risk management • Project procurement management

  38. Sample Gantt Chart The WBS is on the left, and each task’s start and finish date are shown on the right using a calendar timescale. Early Gantt Charts, first used in 1917, were drawn by hand.

  39. Sample Network Diagram Each box is a project task from the WBS. Arrows show dependencies between tasks.The bolded tasks are on the critical path. If any tasks on the critical path take longer than planned, the whole project will slip unless something is done. Network diagrams were first used in 1958 on the Navy Polaris project, before project management software was available.

  40. The Project Management Profession • The job of IT Project Manager is in the list of the top ten most in demand IT skills • Professional societies like the Project Management Institute (PMI) have grown tremendously • Project management research and certification programs continue to grow

  41. Top Ten Most in Demand IT Skills

  42. Project Management Knowledge Continues to Grow and Mature • PMI hosted their first research conference in June 2000 in Paris, France, and the second one in Seattle in July 2002 • The PMBOK® Guide 2000 is an ANSI standard • PMI’s certification department earned ISO 9000 certification • Hundreds of new books, articles, and presentations related to project management have been written in recent years

  43. Project Management Certification • PMI provides certification as a Project Management Professional (PMP) • A PMP has documented sufficient project experience, agreed to follow a code of ethics, and passed the PMP exam • The number of people earning PMP certification is increasing quickly • PMI and other organizations are offering new certification programs (see Appendix B)

  44. Growth in PMP Certification, 1993-2002

  45. Software outsourcing Supplemental material

  46. Offshore Software Outsourcing • In next few years, about 2 million IT jobs will shift to foreign countries because of outsourcing, e.g. to India. • Companies have to do so because of the tough surviving environment. • This is the trend of globalization as the economies in different countries are more dependent of each other. • While India’s position is reasonably secure, there is no room for being complacent. Several upcoming destinations—Argentina, the Czech Republic and China in particular. India scores over China in employee costs, primarily due to that country importing project managers from Hong Kong and Australia. East Europe is home to top-notch engineering talent; it is quite likely that high-end engineering work will flow there.

  47. Software Industry in Developing Countries • Many developing countries have adopted the development of Software Industry as a long-term strategy for economy growth • As software outsourcing is a global trend for developed countries, there are good opportunities for developing countries to speed up their software industry development • The suggested two-stage development strategy for the software industry in developing countries: • Focus on the domestic market first • Go to global market once the software companies are competitive enough • Current two patterns of software industries reflect the two-stage development strategy: • International market oriented – normally providing outsourcing market for the developed countries, which is the pattern for those “early birds”, e.g. India, • Domestic market oriented – for latecomers, e.g. China

  48. The Pattern of Export-Oriented: India • Comparatively, in 2002-2003, the software industry in India was worth US$ 12 billion, of which software export was $9.5 billion with a growth rate of 25.3%. • The software industry is expected to account for something like 20% of India’s exports for 2002-03. (http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20030331/softserv.shtml). • Heeks (1996) indicated that if the software exports grows rapidly, the growth of the domestic market is prevented.

  49. The Pattern of Domestic Market Oriented: China • In the past 10 years China’s software industry revenue has been growing at an annual rate between 20-40%. The revenue of software industry in 2002 reached US$13.3 billion, a 46.5% increase from 2001. • In the last three years its software export almost doubled every year. However, China’s software market is domestic-oriented - nearly 90% software products were sold domestically. • In 2002, China’s application software accounted for 64.5% of the total domestic software products. • Foreign software and system integration still account for 95.3% of the upper software market

  50. India Pattern vs. China Pattern • Comparison of software revenue in 2002: • India: $12.5 billion, with $9.5 billion from the export • China: $13.3 billion, with $1.5 billion from the export • India’s case is a successful example, while China’s case is more representative for the developing countries just started their software industry. • Heeks (1999) outlines some generic approaches to a developing country’s software industry development. Two dimensions, the target market served (Domestic vs. Export) and the types of business intended (Service vs. Packages), are used in analyzing the strategic positioning for a developing country.

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