Installation of New IT System - PEH Corporation - Case Study Example

Project and Risk Management Report Project and Risk Management Report Project I: Installation of New IT SystemFish bowl solutions was recently involved in a project where by a leading computer components manufacturer needed to conduct a critical overhaul of the organization’s project management process. This was meant to enable the system to be able to comfortably handle the average of 800 engineering projects and facilities that the organization is able to complete each year. During its 10 years of operations the firms had been using a document-based systems that had the drawback of proving to be extremely fragmented and difficult to organize. Employees using the system were required to navigate between dozens of different documents, systems and forms and this normally resulted in the creation of what was a highly duplicative, disruptive and ultimately frustrating process. In addition to these challenges, users were also required to follow what were rather decision matrices and sets of instructions for the execution and submitting of the various projects that they were involved in (Fishbowl Solutions, 2010). Most of the organization’s project templates and forms consistently proved to be out of synchronization, redundant and the instructions that were required were normally stored in a number of different systems. According to the computer components manufacturer, only about 5 percent of the individual’s using the system ever bothered with keenly following the processes involved in the system as a result of the system’s overall complexity. This practice had the unwanted drawback of creating a considerable number of challenges for consistency and compliance. Using this system, the manufacturer found it to be extremely challenged to achieve efficiency and productivity boosts (Fishbowl Solutions, 2010). When our Information Technology (IT) team conducted a critical analysis of the IT system and conducting some interviews on the staff members that used the system, a number of core issues were duly discovered some of these issues included: The system did not allow for managers within the organization to be able to gain any view of the current status of the various individual projects that the company was undertaking. In addition to this it also failed to show them the overall project management performance and actual through-put. Another pertinent core issue that the team was able to discover was that the numerous disparate documents that were regularly fed into the system could not be automatically consolidated together to provide a general overview of the projects that that the organization was currently undertaking. This had the effect of necessitating that the organization engages in the use of spreadsheets so as to be able to compute some of project factors such as rigor, risk and cost. Due to the fact that the system used a large number of standalone documents, users were frequently required to enter the same information into the system several times. This included information like Project ID and Project Number. This had the effect of not only wasting expensive expert company time on unnecessary duplicate work, but also it served to increase the possibility of employees committing errors when entering data into the system. The organization’s engineering department was subject to a number of internal audit processes and control. However, the system did not provide for an easy way that could be used to show if this department was actually following the correct procedures for the various projects based on their rigor, cost calculations and risk. The Information Technology Team also found that the organization was using what was identified as being a sneakernet workflow approach so as to obtain the necessary approvals and signatures throughout the different phrases of the projects that the organizations was currently involved in. The sneakernet workflow approach caused an unnecessary need for people to walk papers around to a number of different managers and offices so as to obtain the required sign-offs (Fishbowl Solutions, 2010). Solutions After the IT team had recognized the problems within the system, the computer manufacturer’s human resource and Information technology directors formed a project management team that drew its membership from employees drawn from different departments within the organization. The members of the team were required to set a number of project parameters such as the deadline, the budget and the key objectives that the team was supposed to eventually accomplish. After consulting between themselves, the team was able to design and install a new system that successfully tackled all the objectives that the team had set out to accomplish. The team proposed to install a one new system to manage the company’s operations as opposed to the old system that relied on the use of a large number of standalone applications to help it in managing its operations. They believed that creating a new system that relied on the use of standalone applications would only serve to keep crucial project information in silos and as a result of this increase the company’s operating costs as a result of the need for legacy expertise and support. While conducting an analysis on the old system, the team had noted that rigor, risk and cost are key influencers as to whether a project should be rejected or accepted. To help make the system more effective, the team designed a scoring system whereby the amount of risk that is calculated on each project will define the approval and certification process through which a given project will be required to go through. If the risk on a project is calculated as being low, it is only the department head who will be required to approve the given project. Conversely, if a project risk is calculated as being at a relatively high risk, the project must be approved by the company’s Vice President and in some cases it might actually require the direct approval of the President (Fishbowl Solutions, 2010). The new system made it possible to introduce the use of a structured configuration whereby the organization’s personnel were all able to now work together as a combined unit. The extensive fragmentation that had previously been experienced at the organization was successfully reduced. The new system that was designed and implemented by the project management team was able to free the organization’s management from some of the routine details of operations management as it greatly improved the organization’s workflow. In implementing the new system, the project management team decided to adopt a phrase implementation model that would allow for the new system to be implemented in phrases as the organization gradually switched over from the old system to the new system. Adopting the new system in phrases also allowed for the project management team to easily notice and fix the problems associated with the new system. If the new system had not been implemented in phases, it would have been more difficult to detect and fix these problems. Another advantage of adopting the new system in phases is that it made it possible for the organization’s employee to be taught how to use the system and get accustomed to it. In developing a solution that could be used to successfully resolve the inherent problematic issues that were noted to be present in the manufacturer’s system, the Information Technology (IT) team decided to utilize a System approach. Ramo and Clair (1998), describe the System approach as an intellectual discipline that makes it possible for technology and science to be successfully mobilized and used in the attacking of rather complex and large scale problems. According to Nicholas and Steyn (2012), the system approach helps to keep attention on the ultimate goal and the big picture. By using a system approach in project management, it is possible to tackle problems in what is a logical, complete, objective and thoroughly professional manner. By leveraging the relevant feedback, such as the identification of different deviations, corrective action and an assessment of work done, it is possible to use the system approach in project management to effect a number of changes that can be able to better accomplish the tasks in question. A key advantage of using the system approach in this project was that it was possible for the experts drawn from both the technological and non-technological aspects of the problem to critically analyze and develop a solution to the problem. This advantages is highlighted by Badiru (2011) who points out that this is one of the main advantages of using the system approach as it allows for what is essentially a win-win benefit situation. The input derived from the non-technological team members who were tasked with engaging with the system on a daily basis was instrumental as it helped the team to better understand some of the issues that these individuals had to surmount. They were also able to make a number of suggestions as to how they thought the system could be improved to make their work easier and less technical. On the other hand, the technological members of the project management team were able to work on these recommendations and develop a new system that although it was far more simple to sue as compared to the system that had been in use before, the new system was able to amend most of the drawback that were noted to encumber the system that had been in place before. The use of a system approach in designing a new information technology system for the manufacturer had the advantages that it was possible for the individuals leading the project management team to only make decisions and implement a plan only after they had been able to identify the impact that their decisions would have on all sub-groups assigned to different tasks within the project management team. This position is supported by Waldron et al. (2009), who points out that one of the most important contributions to a project that the use of a system approach avails is that it has the effect of greatly improving the decision making process throughout the system. By using a system approach in designing a new system for the computer components manufacturer, it was possible for the project management team to set in place what was an orderly plan of action whereby the team members were tasked with clearly defined responsibilities that interlocked and overlapped to ensure that the absence of a team members had a minimal impact on the overall productivity of the team (Kerzner, 2009). The use of a system approach in designing the new system made it possible for the project management team to be able to obtain feedback from all the different processes in its operations. By using this feedback, the team was able to obtain a good basis of control that was utilized to ensure that all the initial objectives that it had set out to accomplish were eventually accomplished in a successful manner. Although the use of a system approach in developing the new Information Technology system for the computer components manufacturers eventually proved to be successful, there were however a number of disadvantages that the project management team experienced as a result of using this approach, some of these disadvantages included the fact that the use of the system approach caused the team to be greatly rigid (ONeill, 2013). The team reacted quite slowly to any changes in the environment such the adoption of new ideas that were later proposed by the users after the objectives of the team had already been established. It is primarily due to this aspect that the project management team overshot and extended its deadline. Of note however, is that although the team missed its deadline by two weeks, this did not cause considerable problems as the probability had already been factored in during the planning stage and as such, the necessary budgetary allocations had already been allowed for as a contingency measure. To deal with this drawback in its future projects, the project management team be more flexible and ensure that it collects all the necessary information before embarking on the project. This will have the effect of minimizing the number of minimizing the number of additional changes that are requested once the project has reached its execution stage, in addition to this, greater flexibility will ensure that any important changes are immediately incorporated into the system. Project II: PEH Corporation PEH is a Corporation located in Malaysia that was established in 1994. It was gazette on 25th August 1994 and on 30th August of the same year, the corporation became operational. The corporation was established with the aim of providing resettlement training for retiring army personnel by inculcating them with skill, knowledge and the necessary work experience to enable them to comfortably adjust to the relatively new life civilian live environments. PEH is essentially an agency that works under a government body that has been assigned the responsibility of managing, developing and conducing all the necessary skill training for both the retired and retiring army personnel. Most of the army personnel in the country are noted to often retire within ten to fifteen years of service and the training that they are provided with at PEH will enable them to be able to successfully compete with other job seekers in the open market (Lucky et al., 2014). Problem In the past, all the Information that PEH collected relating to its trainees, courses, budgets, training durations, location and other information was all kept at one central location. Having a central database will allow for PEH Corporation to easily upgrade and update the backup system that they use as the centralized database is expected to deal with a huge amount of data and also involve a large number of different system processes. To enable the corporation to successfully keep track of all its activities, PEH used a systematic filing system that was relatively hard to maintain as all the data was managed in a manual manner using forms, cards and letters. Nearly all the information that was fed into the system was typed or hand written and kept in what was a convention filing system. The use of the manual and heavily tasking filing system caused the corporation’s management to be exposed to numerous errors in its operations. These errors resulted in causing the corporation to record low productivity level and high levels of inefficiency. The only computerized operation in the system was the recording of trainee information using the program Microsoft Excel to store the data. In early 1996, the organization’s management eventually decided to setup an appropriate data base to help the organization to better handle all the trainee information that it normally handled. The new system was designed to aid in capturing and storing information on some of the important modules such as courses, budgets, trainee registration details, and some reports. In designing the new system, the system development was done in house under the supervision of the organization’s Information System Department. Solution The organization appointed its Head of IT Department to form a project management team to oversee the development and installation of the new system. During its first meeting, the project management team decided to use the behavioral approach in designing the new information system for the corporation. The decision to use of the behavioral approach was primarily driven by the fact that according to the theories proposed by behaviorists, all behavior is basically just but a response to a stimulus. Behaviorists are of the strong belief that what individuals do happens to be strongly determined by the environment in which they happen to be located (Staats, 1996). The project management team was able to realize that as a result of the minimal support that the new information system was receiving from both the corporation’s management and its employees, it was necessary to try and encourage all the employees to accept and start using the system. By manipulating the corporation’s environment, the project management team hoped that it would be possible to drum up support for the new system and make it possible for the new system to become easily adopted. Before the proposal to design a new system, the idea behind the use of a computer was relatively still new at PEH and most of the corporation’s personnel did not perceive the importance and need of having an effective database system to aid in coordinating the corporation’s activities. This caused the project management team to not receive the necessary support it required to enable it quickly develop and implement the new system. The corporation’s management finally gave the project management team an opportunity to prove that the development of a new computer system could improve the overall data management at PEH. However, the project management head was only able to receive minimal support from the management. The team quickly formed an Ad hoc committee and analyzed the existing system to identify all its inherent problems. While developing the new system, the team quickly realized that one of the most imposing challenges that would experience in developing the new information system for PEH Corporation would be in respect to the organization’s poor software and hardware infrastructure. There was an urgent need to procure a number of modern hardware facilities and ensure that the organization migrates to using new conventional machines. In addition to this, the project management team had to build an appropriate Local Area Network (LAN) for easier communication purposes within the network. The need to upgrade the current hardware infrastructure was found to be in line with the assertion made by Hanseth et al. (1996), who pointed out that a standard and good infrastructure is the backbone of techno-driven business in the modern day business environment. The new system also needed to have a centralized database that would be located within a secure LAN and WAN network. The concerns about the software that was being used by the corporation on its aged computers was based on the probability that the software might probably not be compatible with the new information system. As most of the corporation’s board members believed that the new information system project engulfed a lot of funding with relatively very little result to show for it, it was proved to be rather challenging for the project management team to convince these board members that on the need to phase out the software that was being used in old system in favor of some modern and easier to use software system that would be used in the new system. These board members were unable to understand that sufficient amounts of financial empowerment and funding of new technological acquisitions are required if a business is to remain competitive in the current technological era (Lederer, 2013; Benjamin and Blunt 2012). However, the project management team eventually managed to do this although this was achieved with considerable difficulty. Another critical challenge to the implementation of the new information system at the corporation was the lack of adequate computer skills among the organization’s personnel. Most of the personnel was computer illiterate and required some form of training to enable them to be able to use the new system. To further compound this challenge, most of the organization’s older employees were noted to display a general lack of willingness and interest to learn any computer skills. Robbins, et al. (2014) explains that some of the reason that might prompt an individual to resist change include already established work habits, concerns over personal loss, uncertainty and the strong belief that the change in question is not in the organization’s best interests. It is as a result o this factor that the project management team proposed that it was necessary to recruit new personnel to help in managing the system. However, this proposal also proved to be relatively difficult to accomplish as because PEH was a public corporation, the salaries that were being offered at the corporation were considerably lower than those that individuals could be able to obtain if they worked at other organizations. To help the corporation in improving the computer literacy levels among its employees, the team proposed that a new ICT Lab should be established at PEH for employee training. About a year after the project management team first proposed to design and implement a new system for the organization, the new system was finally ready for implementation. During the first stage of the implementation process, the project management team experienced a number of new challenges key of which being critical user problems where staff members who had already been trained on how to use the system during the system’s testing, kept changing as a result of reasons such as transfers and retirement. To help in tackling this issue and that of end users who were apprehensive on the use of the system, the project management team conducted a special training session on basic computer usage and how the users could be able to use the system. This enabled the Corporation’s employees to become familiar with the new equipment and its system. In addition to this, the project management team also hired a number of new staff members who were already computer literate to help in speeding up the speed of the new system’s implementation. In addition to installing the new computer system, the project management team also developed a website for the organization. The website consisted of an organization chart, a bulletin of the PEH as most importantly, an online registration form that could easily be accessed and completed by the army veterans who wished to apply for the courses being offered. After implementing the new system, the team was able to receive very positive feedback from the employees who now found it considerably easier for them to feed and manage the data that was being collected by the system. The margin of error that the corporation experienced when managing the data it collected also reduced considerably as the automated system was considerably more accurate than the manual system as the use of an automated system allowed for the documentation system to better structured as compared to the use of a manual filing system. The system was also able to receive positive feedback from the retiring army personnel who were progressively becoming younger and more techno savvy. The younger generation of army retirees commended the fact that it was possible for them to apply for the courses from the comfort of their homes and receive regular updates on their courses and classes via the website system that had been set in place. By using the behavioral approach in designing and implementing the new system for PEH Corporation, the project management team was able to benefit from a number of advantages that are seen to be inherent with the use of this system. The first benefit that the team was able to enjoy from using the behavioral approach was that the approach enabled the project management head to attain relatively higher levels of both performance and emotional commitment from the project management team members. Graham (1985) points out that a team will only be able to accomplish relatively very little without the absolute commitment of its members. These team members had a sense of ownership with the system. In addition to this, the use of a behavioral approach was instrumental in enabling the organization to increase the overall level of emotional involvement from the stakeholder in a manner that served to improve both the performance and engagement. This aspect also had the additional benefit of helping to greatly boost the system’s acceptance by the organization in light of the fact that some members of the corporation’s management as well as some of the organization’s staff members did not believe that the new system was required. Another direct advantage of using a behavior-based project management approach is that the approach is that the approach utilizes the use of extensive scientific research that has been conducted to investigate human nature and the individual workplace so as to develop what will prove to be more effective project teams and enable better project delivery. The use of the behavioral approach in this project had the negative drawback of having the project to not have a unifying framework of management as the behavioral approach only addressed a single part of the management structure. To ensure that all the different parts of the management structure are well addressed in future, the project management team can in its future projects incorporate the use a hybrid system that adopts elements of the system approach together with those of the behavioral approach. Bibliography Badiru, A. B. (2011). Project Management: Systems, Principles, and Applications. CRC Press. Benjamin, R., & Blunt, J. (2012). Critical IT issues: the next ten years. Sloan Management. Review, 33 (4). Fishbowl Solutions. (2010). Fishbowl Solutions’ Project Automation Suite & Oracle UCM. Retrieved on Dec 11, 2014 from http://www.fishbowlsolutions.com/fishbowl/groups/public/documents/case_studies/fbw eb_001764.pdf Graham, R. J. 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