Project Management and Critical Success Factors - Case Study Example

Boo Too Company Contents 1Task Critical Success Factors 2 1 involvement 4 2Effective Monitoring and Control 4 1.3Training 5 1.4Clear goals 5 1.5Effective Communication 5 2Task 2: Quality Assurance Steps 6 3Step 3: Work Breakdown Structure, Gantt chart, and Network Diagram 8 3.1Figure 1: WBS diagram 10 3.2Table 1: Gantt chart or a network diagram 10 3.3Figure 2: A Generalized Network Diagram 11 Works Cited 12 1 Task 1: Critical Success Factors In the business sector, several significant matters can compete for the attention of the manager to the extent that it may often be difficult to clearly realize what the business needs most. Moreover, it can be tremendously difficult for each and every person in an organization to pull in one direction and concentrate on the actual essentials. At such level, critical success factors can be very helpful for such an organization. Critical success factors are the necessary areas of activity that have to be conducted properly in order to achieve the objectives, mission, and goals of a project or business (Trkman 130). Identifying the critical success factors for a project can generate a common reference point that can help the management to measure and direct the success of the project or business. As a standard reference point, critical success factors enable everyone in an organization to know precisely, the most important aspect that is necessitated by the organization or project. This in turn helps these individuals to carry out their duties in the correct context thereby pulling together towards the common overall aims of the project or organization. Fortune and Diana (55) define critical success factor as an element of managerial activity that is vital to its future success. According to them, Critical success factors may change after some period and may consist of items like product quality, manufacturing flexibility, employee attitudes, and brand awareness. It can also be defined as any of the business aspects that are considered critical for the realization and maintenance of favorable targets. According to this definition, critical success factors are commonly identified in sectors like production processes, technologies, functions and techniques, and employee and organization skills. Other authors have defined critical success factor as a business term referring to an element that is needed by an organization or a project in order to realize its mission (Nah et al., 290). From the above definitions, it is clear that critical success factors are those specific activities, areas and procedures that an organization or a project relies on so as to continually survive. It is important to note that each and every organization has its own unique critical success factors. These factors reflect not only the current business goals but also those of the future. Identifying the critical success factors of an organization requires application of business analytics. Examples of generic critical success factors include effective advertisement, new product development, and proper distribution, delivering on time, all the time, and in full, to your key customers. Prioritizing all the activities that bring in cash quickly from central accounts, implementing innovative and creative ideas from staff very quickly, and initiating value adding projects will contribute to the success. Other factors are recruiting qualified, sustaining a happy, safe and healthy workplace, securing finance for expansion, increasing flexibility and adaptability of personnel and managing disruptions to the project or business. Since this essay looks at the factors that are deemed critical to the success of information technology system project, it aims at identifying a set of factors that will boost the success. In the business sector, information technology is considered to be the various software and hardware used in information systems such as networking equipment and computers. These components and systems that make up information technology can offer significant competitive advantage to a business organization (Fortune & Diana 57). Within the enterprise, tech systems are developed through a process called software development lifecycle. Since it is a complex process, it is usually managed as a project. This study defines a project as a combination of related activities and tasks which consume part of an organization’s limited resources for a fixed period, and has an objective that is measurable as its goal. It can also be defined as a set of planned activities with the aim of achieving the set goals. Normally, projects have a uniform path, beginning with project concept initiation, project planning, developing the plan, project execution, and finally project closeout. A project is considered to be successful if the stated objectives are delivered with the expected quality, within the cost estimates, on time, and if it proves to be profitable to the contractor. Even with the competitive advantage provided by the information technology to the business, plus the fact that projects are usually well defined, several projects still fail. According to research findings, several factors are critical to the success of information technology projects. The successful installation of "Boo Too Company headquarters IT system", therefore, requires the manager to consider the following five critical success factors. 1.1 Customer involvement For this information technology project to be successful, it should take care of the needs of its users while being developed. The customers form part of the stakeholders. The end users of the project must have a say in the process of the project development. Involving the users in the project development is directly linked to the successful implementation of this information technology project. Customer involvement in the implementation design is significant and failure to consider this factor can result in a project failure. Involving clients in this process enables the management to meet the expectations of their users. Also, customer involvement and interaction will result in a better understanding, besides improving the acceptance from the customers since they get to understand the capabilities of the systems. 1.2 Effective Monitoring and Control Sufficient monitoring and control are vital to the quality of the information technology project. Successful information system projects often have some mechanism for effective follow-up and control. Effective control is important since it can help in reducing the planned time as well as reducing ambiguity. Project controlling and monitoring have to be done at all stages of the information system project. Evaluation is also carried both at this point and throughout the project. Additionally, monitoring and control must be proactive, that is, must be employed to prevent incidents and give regular feedback. 1.3 Training Both user and staff training are critical success factors in information technology projects. Adequate training should be conducted. In addition, the help manuals should be complete. This training should be offered to the staff, managers, and end users if the success of the information system project is to be realized. Training users enables them to have more confidence in the information technology system thereby influencing their attitudes towards these systems. Early training of users is also useful in creating a better system. 1.4 Clear goals Well-defined and precise objectives are key critical success factors for a successful Information system project. Realistic and clear goal is very essential for the success of such a project. The success of any project proves the realism of the objectives. These goals should be set as per the requirements of the users. The users should also be concerned about these objectives to bring about a sense of responsibility concerning the goals for the entire team. 1.5 Effective Communication Effective communication enables stakeholders to understand the goals and makes them more accountable for their work. A robust system of communication has to exist between the project manager and the project board. Feedback should be effective to facilitate communication. Communication should be well defined, clear, direct, and should use adequate channels. 2 Task 2: Quality Assurance Steps Despite the critical need to meet quality assurance standards, the information technology project would be caught up in a struggle to beat deadlines, as well as budget constraints. Due to the long chains of processes involved in ensuring quality assurance, the project would take a long time without being completed tremendously. As a manager of the project, it is necessary to devise means of cutting quality assurance corners so as to develop a system that meets its targets, while still maintaining a proper quality assurance regime. However, failing to follow good quality adherence practices may have potential costs to the company. This paper describes quality assurance as a function that is responsible for ensuring that information technology systems adhere to its intended requirements in terms of functionality, staff, date, budget, among other factors. The first quality assurance step that would be taken by the management of the information system project is gathering the requirements for the project early enough. Requirement gathering is considered as the most difficult step in erecting an information system. Therefore, the ability of the management to develop complete, accurate, and precise information technology requirements early enough would be paramount for fruitful and quality information system building. Requirement determination in the process of information system delivery is usually a complex organizational struggle that involves communicative processes and political sense making. Organizational-wide fault data collection is eased by rolling out the organization Change Management solution that enables each and every team to submit the appropriate data straightforwardly through a Web interface. In addition, it assists in the analysis and creates the metrics and reports. In order to realize strategic quality assurance, the information technology organizations would standardize on the appropriate process as well as lifecycle guidelines to ensure that data is consistent. This process, therefore, requires more time rather than hurrying up to have the project completed. After requirement gathering, the management would allow only part of the stakeholders to review these requirements before the next step, identified as presentation for budget approval, to management team. The quality assurance expects that the budget is made available to all the departmental heads to allow them procure the needed resources or to update them in readiness for the very project. These departmental heads are then expected to initiate their unit testing that entails creating code to make the system. In this case, the quality assurance challenge would be eliminated by ensuring discipline in the process. The organization can gather data on the previous projects thereby learning the fault levels that they expect, from these experiences. Through capturing information like the origin of defects, diagnosis of these errors and their costs, the management can pinpoint the weak process areas and therefore focusing on improved budgets with determinate benefits. Another quality assurance step to be employed in order successfully to improve the manner in which information system project is implemented is capturing error as well as detecting them in a centralized and consistent. Through the use of enterprise change management, information system organization can implement a documented, repeatable, and reliable process that captures both change and fault data. This practice can be achieved by making requests of all kinds, from hardware and software, from internal teams and customers. Through provision of a web interface, enterprise change management solutions would ensure that adoption across the enterprise is made easy. Quality assurance should not be limited to testing the final project. Management should outsource functional testing to achieve quality control. Predicting fault levels is another quality assurance step aimed at providing correct schedule estimates and budget. This is important since the cost of fixing an error increases the later it is detected and found intensely. In the project, the cost incurred in correcting a defect that was in the final system testing can go up to two hundred times higher than if it was identified and rectified at the requirement phase. Fault levels should, therefore, be predicted during the various phases of information system life cycle. These stages include requirement analysis, design phase, the implementation phase, unit testing phase, integration testing phase, system testing phase, and finally, customer usage or maintenance phase. Strategic quality assurance helps organizations to be more competitive as well as reaffirming the value of the manager in the organization and the project team. 3 Step 3: Work Breakdown Structure, Gantt chart, and Network Diagram Various steps are involved in the process of developing an information system project. First, the project plan should be well established, and necessary materials gathered before the project is initiated. Requirements have to be identified and then approved by the management and the business owner prior to the commencement of the technical design. In this manner, the owner of the company gets involved in signing off of these requirements. This process should involve the technical team since they should be the ones responsible for the specification of these conditions. Involving the technical team also places them in a better position of understanding what is needed. The requirements specification offers a way of specifying all the requirements as well as the principles that will be employed to accept that these necessities have been met. It is also important in ensuring that the technical staff does not design and construct something that is not definite. Requirement analysis hence ensures that the scope of the project in terms of design and construction is in agreement with the requirements thereby minimizing delays in time as well as cost incurred as a result of engaging in re-work. Requirements analysis also gives requirements specification. It is this specification that states the goals of the project, as well as the data storage, security, data movement, and usage. It also defines the quality together with the non-functional and functional requirements which have to be achieved for the organization to realize its goals that are stated in the business case. For this particular project, requirement analysis would last for 38 days. After analysis of the requirements, a site survey is conducted to verify if the proposed site is ideal for the project. This study is also important since it enables management and the technical team to avoid wastage of resources that would otherwise be incurred if the site proved to be inappropriate after the implementation phase. For the case of the Boo Too Company, the site for the information technology project would be a modern premise in Chelmsford. This site will be surveyed for 27 days. After the review, the project board would agree whether the site will be suitable for the project, and whether the requirements would also be ideal. After survey of the site is completed, a logical typological design is developed. This contains the various tasks that would be performed during the process of erecting the project. This design will be done in 12 days, after which the project board would further approve. After the approval of the logical typological design, a physical typology is developed. This would take the project board 14 days, utilizing the site survey. On completion of the rational layout, an analysis of the server requirements would be done. This practice is scheduled to last 18 days. The project board is then expected to approve this server requirements analysis. The process involved in the project has been represented in the Work Breakdown Structure, Gantt chart, and Network Diagram. 3.1 Figure 1: WBS diagram ID Task name Predecessor Week1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 1 Start 2 A 1 3 B 1 4 C 2 5 D 3,4 6 E 5 7 Finish 5,6 3.2 Table 1: Gantt chart or a network diagram The main path is in red and starts from Monday to Friday. Non-critical activities extend over Saturday and Sunday since they are not considered work days, they have been excluded from the program. Therefore, some bars on this Gantt chart are longer if they cut through a weekend. 3.3 Figure 2: A Generalized Network Diagram Works Cited Fortune, Joyce, and Diana White. "Framing of project critical success factors by a systems model." International Journal of Project Management 24.1 (2006): 53-65. Nah, Fiona Fui-Hoon, Janet Lee-Shang Lau, and Jinghua Kuang. "Critical factors for successful implementation of enterprise systems." Business process management journal 7.3 (2001): 285-296. Trkman, Peter. "The critical success factors of business process management." International Journal of Information Management 30.2 Read More