Project Management in IT Industry - Essay Example

 I.T. Project Management Areas Introduction Project Management is the discipline that achieves a set of defined goals by using resources such as time, money, people, space, technology, etc. A project is a group of tasks and actions that are performed to achieve a specific objective within the finite period of time. It is an endeavor undertaken for a limited time within which a unique service or product is created. A project always has a start time and a finish time for each and every activity consisting in it (Ahmed 2009) An information technology project has four characteristics. The first characteristic is its temporary nature which means that each and every project is going to live only for a fixed time after which it will finish. The second characteristic is its uniqueness in the results which means that each project ends up by producing a product or service which is distinct and unique. The project result can be an artifact or product, a capability for performing a specific service or a new knowledge through research. The third characteristic is the aims and objectives or purpose of the project which means every project is designed to attain some objectives and aims. The fourth characteristic of a project is limited scale of time which means it has a definite time for executing each and every activity that contains in a project with beginning and ending time (Ahmed 2009) An information technology project has four dimensions referred commonly as Four P’s. These four dimensions include people, process, product and project. People are the human beings used in the project activities. They are organized into effective teams, motivated to perform top quality work and coordinated to fulfill effective communication. Process is the methodology used for managing the activities and getting the tasks completed on time to achieve the set goals and objectives. Product is the needs of the customers constituted into tasks and positioned for action by the software team. Project is the IT enabled services or organization that enables success of the product, process and people (Ahmed 2009) There are three factors which are traded in the management of project. The first factor is time, second is cost and the third is performance. A project is successful only if it is completed on time, meets the performance requirements and it is well within the budget. There are three constraints in managing an IT project that impacts the quality; the project scope, time and cost. All the three constraints determine the quality of the project Appendix A gives illustration of trade-off amongst these three constraints to achieve the quality in the form of a triangle (Ahmed 2009) It is not only important to manage project scope, time and cost but also it is essential to manage the project quality, communication and risks. Quality is the attainment of product or service as per defined specifications. Communication is the exchange of messages amongst the project stake-holders. Risks are the uncertainties associated with the project scope, time and cost (Ahmed 2009) Scope Management Project Scope is the area of work bound by cost and time. The success of the project mostly depends on the understanding of the tasks to be included and excluded from the work-load of the project. It is therefore essential that the scope of the project or in simple words the work-load to be done in a project is well defined and properly comprehended (Warner 2010) Defining scope of the project is the first thing in project management. The quality, cost, time, risks and communication depend heavily on the description of project scope. Any thing missed or over stated in the project scope can create chaos in delivery, budget, resources and risk management (Warner 2010) In light of the significance of scope management it is essential that the best practices are adopted for defining the project scope which includes collection of requirements, defining of scope, preparing structure of work commonly referred as Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), get feedback from the end-users and stockholders verifying the accuracy of requirements and controlling through vigilant monitoring (Warner 2010) Requirements Gathering: Gathering of accurate, precise, clear and correct information about the needs and requirements of the users, stakeholders and management is the first and foremost work in the management of work. There are two most common ways of gathering information; first is through interview with all the stakeholders and users and second through questionnaire (Warner 2010) Information gathering process includes enquiries from key stakeholders about the expected product or services from the project, time expected for the project completion and the limit of affordability and willingness of the top management in funding the project. It is also important to have an interaction with the end-users to understand the capacity and capability of the people and to determine accurate tasks carried out by individuals for execution of his job (Warner 2010) Similarly the knowledge and understanding of the business processes and logics involved in a project are also very important for person who is gathering the information from key stakeholders and end-users (Warner 2010) Defining project scope: The project scope is defined by producing a set of deliverables as listed in Appendix 2 which consist of business requirements, functional specification, non-functional specification, use case diagram and usage scenario (Warner 2010) Structuring work-load: In order to calculate the cost and time of the project, it is necessary to know the work-load of the project. This is done after studying the requirements by preparing a list of activity, its priorities and pre-requisites. This list is generally referred as Work Break-down Structure (WBS). There are many software tools that are used for this purpose for example Microsoft Project, Excel, etc. (Warner 2010) Feedback and verification: The Work Break-Down Structure is discussed with the users and stakeholders to get their feedback which is reviewed and then a final WBS is made defining the complete scope of the project. It is necessary to take the approval of WBS from the stakeholders, end-users and customers since the ultimate objective of the project is customer satisfaction. The cost, deadline and quality are totally dependent on the defined scope of the project and therefore it becomes the most critical component of the project management system (Warner 2010) Scope monitoring and control: It is a common tendency to get new ideas when a project is developing due to lack of understanding of the concepts that are not experienced. Managing the scope of the project is therefore most important. Request for change are handled through established process. Each change request is examined and approved before its implementation. The affect of changes in scope is reflected in budget and delivery schedule by its alteration and they must be approved by the key stakeholder or customer prior to any beginning. A project that is not finished on time or spends more money than expected ends in a failure or disgruntled customers (Warner 2010) Time Management Project time management is the act of using techniques, tools and skills for managing time to achieve project goals and specific tasks. Time is managed appropriately only if the time manager has the knowledge and skill set to control, schedule and plan the project timeline. He should also have competency in using several tools such as Microsoft Project, Visio or Excel to develop plans for time management such as Critical Path, Network Diagram, Resource Plan and Budget Plan. Time management mostly includes defining of activities, its sequencing, estimating the required resources and preparing a schedule for completion and delivery (Warner 2010) Defining Project Activities: Gantt chart is commonly used to outline the entire project activities on a timeline. It is important to focus on the time of completion first instead of dates as at a later stage PERT/CPM techniques are used to find the optimum completion date (Warner 2010) Sequencing Project Activities: There are several activities in the project which can start simultaneously if resources are available but there are many other activities which can not start until completion of a specific activity or pre-requisite. Sequencing of activities is therefore necessary to determine the priorities of each activity. Sequencing is done on the basis of dependencies. A node diagram with start-time and finish time is used to find the critical path based on sequencing (Warner 2010) Resources Estimation: Resources are materials and humans required for completion of the project. Once all the activities are defined a list of available resources are made. The resources are then allocated to each project activity. The starting and finishing date of an activity is planned based on the availability of resources. Resources are always very limited and it is important to utilize them optimally. Allocation of resources is a very critical job as inappropriate allocation can delay the project and raise its cost. Optimum utilization of resources is the main objective of resource estimation (Warner 2010) Preparing and controlling Delivery Schedule: Once all activities and resources are allocated a final delivery plan is made. This is achieved by using software tools like Microsoft Visio, Project and Excel. It contains information about the starting time of each activity, the finishing time, the slack time and the critical path for project completion. The schedule also contains resource allocation and its cost and funds required for utilization of these resources (Warner 2010) The real challenge is the control and maintenance of time schedule for project completion. A constant monitoring and review policy is necessary to ensure timely completion of any project. Cost Management Managing project cost refers to the satisfaction of the three basic requirements of the project: budget, quality and schedule. To estimate needs optimum utilization of resources and time is necessary. Any change in the scope or delivery time significantly affects the project cost. There are several methodologies, tools and best practices that help project management to calculate cost optimally (ExecutiveBrief 2009) Estimation on Modular Basis: The architecture of an application consisting of layers and tiers is once understood, modules can be identified easily and it is necessary to estimate the cost on the basis of modules (ExecutiveBrief 2009) Estimation from Ground Up: The cost should be estimated for all the code-hours required for finishing the job whether the services are rendered within the house or outsourced. In such a case the cost estimated on the basis of application architecture does not match which can be resolved by adding a percentage to the architecture-based estimates (ExecutiveBrief 2009) Role of development language: The language to be used in the development of the project plays important role. Software engineer hired for the project must have competency in the language of the development. If the language of development is a popular language such as Java, .Net, C++, it is easier to get the skilled developers for the development work. Their cost is also very competitive. If the language is lower level such as assembly language the cost of developer would be much higher and also very few people will be available (ExecutiveBrief 2009) Complementary cost from offshore development: The rate of coding per hour is generally cheaper in under developed countries which attract outsourcing of work to an offshore (foreign country) location. Care must be taken while estimating as there are many complementary costs associated with offshore development such as set-up of technical infrastructure, transfer of knowledge and cost of communication (ExecutiveBrief 2009) Using What-if Scenario: Availability of historical data, multiple options of development and powerful software and tools have made it necessary to estimate cost for different scenarios and choose the best of it for final execution (ExecutiveBrief 2009) Break-down of cost: It is important to split the cost of the project on the basis of important project segments. It helps the management to prioritize any part of the system. It may also help to delay or even cancel some part of the project based on new developments. Sponsors and manager of the project must understand the breakdowns of development costs, overhead and technical requirements (ExecutiveBrief 2009) Quality Management Quality of a software project is the value of achievement of product or services corresponding to the defined specifications and goals. Quality Managing refers to the culture in which the processes of quality are focused on innovation, efficiency, competency and continual improvement. Sherrer (2011) referred Deming’s 14 principles for managing quality. Appendix 3 lists all the Deming’s 14 principles Risk Management Risk is the degree of uncertainties about any achievement. Managing of risks in IT project includes identification of risks, communication of risks to all concerned people, consideration of threats and opportunities from risks, clarification on risks ownership, prioritizing of risks, analyses of risks, planning of responses to risks, implementation of risk response plan, documentation of risks in projects and tracking of risks and its associated tasks (Jutte 2011) Communication Management Communication is the process in which a message is sent from the sender to the receiver in a language that is understood by both. The communication is incomplete if the message sent by sender is either not reached or not understood by the receiver. The normal channels of communication include speech, text, emails, letters or discussion. The difference of message sent and message understood is referred as communication gap which is also referred as distortion (Bird 2011) In IT project management, the message that must be understood well and should be communicated to all the people involved in execution of the project completion. If the goals are not clearly communicated and instead distorted the completion, quality and cost of the project is seriously jeopardized. Appendix 4 displays the diagram called ARC of distortion describes major factors that affects the perception of the goals during communication. Managing and controlling the communication is therefore utmost important for a successful implementation of the project (Bird 2011) Conclusion The review of all the six areas of project management clearly defines significance of each area in the execution, delivery and implementation of the software project. Improper, incomplete and false scope definition can produce unacceptable product, higher cost, poor quality and disappointed customers. The project’s delay in completion increases the cost, creates bitter experience with the customers and may end up in his refusal to take delivery. Similarly higher cost of the project result in losses and invite non-payment of additional or balance payment from the customers. Poor quality means unacceptable product or services and it may jeopardize the core relationship with the customer who may end up demanding huge refund or damages. The failure in identifying tasks that are risks-prone may result in a sudden havoc creating huge loss of time, money and quality. The unsuccessful communication of goals to all the people involved in the project allow individuals involved in the development of the project to perceive what ever is found fit by them resulting in the distortion of original goals. In light of all these facts it can be concluded that the success of software project is highly dependent on the quality and efficiency of the project management. References Ahmed, M.J. 2009, CS615 Software Project Management, Course Material, Virtual University of Pakistan, Lahore Bird, P. 2011, ‘The ARC of Distortion’, Project Smart, viewed 2 December 2011 ExecutiveBrief, 2008, ‘Make or Break: Why Accurate Cost Estimation Is Key’, Project Smart, viewed 2 December 2011 ExecutiveBrief, 2009, ‘7 Things You Need to Know About Development Project Estimations’, Project Smart, viewed 2 December 2011 Jutte, B. 2011, ’10 Golden Rules of Project Risk Management’, Project Smart, viewed 2 December 2011 Makar, A. 2010, ‘How to Build a Project Schedule in 5 Easy Steps, Project Smart, viewed 2 December 2011 Marshall, L. 2011, ‘Time Management in a Multi-Project Environment: Time and task management in a multiple concurrent project environment’, Project Smart, viewed 2 December 2011 Nielsen, D. PMP 2009, ‘Controlling Project Scope: How to resist the temptation to “boil the ocean.”, Project Smart, viewed 2 December 2011 Sherrer, J. A. 2011, ‘Deming’s 14 Points and Quality Project Leadership’, Project Smart, viewed 2 December 2011 Sweeney, J.A. 2010, ‘Top Five Communication Skills for Project Managers’, Project Smart, viewed 2 December 2011 Thakore, K. 2010, ‘How Should the Project Manager Deal with Scope Creep?’, Project Smart, viewed 2 December 2011 Warner, L. J. 2010, ‘Best Practices for Scope Management”, Project Smart, viewed 2 December 2011 Warner, L. J. 2010, ‘Four Steps to Project Time Management’, Project Smart, viewed 2 December 2011 Appendix 1: Illustration of Trade-off triangle (Ahmed 2009) Appendix 2: Deliverables of Scope Management Deliverables Process and procedures 1. Business Requirements 2. Functional Specification 3. Non-Functional Specification 4. Use Case Diagram 5. Usage Scenario 1. All the users are interviewed for gathering information about the requirements. 2. The existing software is studied simultaneously. 3. Details of the requirements are noted down 4. A Software Requirement Specification (SRS) document is prepared having several deliverables. Appendix 3: Deming’s 14 principles for Quality Management (Sherrer 2011) Appendix 4: The ARC of distortion (Bird 2011) Read More