MANAGING

INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
FIFTH EDITION
CHAPTER 12

IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT
E. Wainright Martin Carol V. Brown Daniel W. DeHayes
Jeffrey A. Hoffer William C. Perkins

IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT
IT Project management requires knowledge of
system development methodologies:

SDLC
Prototyping
RAD
Purchasing life cycle

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IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Project Management Institute (PMI)

International society of project workers

Certified thousands of professionals since 1984
PM competencies certified by PMI include eight
areas:

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Figure 12.1 Eight Project Management

Competencies

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IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Most projects share common characteristics:
1.
2.
3.

Risk and uncertainty highest at project start

Ability of stakeholders to influence project greatest at
project start
Cost and staffing levels lower at project start and
higher toward end
(PMI, 1996)

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IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Project:

Temporary endeavor to create unique product or service

Typically is a one-time initiative
Can be divided into multiple tasks
Requires coordination and control
Has a definite beginning and end

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IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Project:

Temporary endeavor to create unique product or service

Typically is a one-time initiative
Can be divided into multiple tasks
Requires coordination and control
Has a definite beginning and end

Program a group of projects managed in a coordinated

way to obtain benefits not available from managing them
(PMI, 1996)
individually

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IT PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT
IT Portfolio set of IT project initiatives currently in
progress, as well as requests for IT projects that have not
yet been funded

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IT PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT
Project categories to help with prioritization:

Absolute must
issues

A mandate due to security, legal, regulatory, or end-of-life-cycle IT

Highly Desired/Business-Critical
returns

Wanted

Nice to Have

Includes short-term projects with good financial

Valuable, but with longer time periods for ROI (more than 12 months)
Projects with good returns, but with lower potential business value

(Denis, et al., 2004)

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PROJECT INITIATION
Project charter
Scope statement
Feasibility analyses

Economic
Operational
Technical

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PROJECT INITIATION
Economic feasibility

Formal cost-benefit analysis usually conducted

ROI calculated when benefits can be easily measured
Alternatives to ROI:

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Figure 12.3 Alternatives to ROI for

Justifying Investments

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PROJECT INITIATION
Project Manager Characteristics

Project manager can be:

IS manager
Business manager
Both

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PROJECT INITIATION
Project Manager Characteristics

2005 Pearson Prentice-HallFigure 12.4 Nontechnical Skills for

Superior Project Management

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PROJECT INITIATION
Project Sponsor and Champion Roles
Sponsor:

Participates in the development of the initial project

proposal and the feasibility studies
May personally argue for project approval
Is usually the business manager who financially owns
the project

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PROJECT INITIATION
Project Sponsor and Champion Roles
Champion a business manager who:

Has high credibility as organizational spokesperson

among user community
Is successful communicator of vision and benefits
throughout the project

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PROJECT PLANNING
Three major components:

Schedule
Budget
Staff (project team)

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PROJECT PLANNING
Scheduling

Work breakdown analysis:

Identifies phases and task sequence to

meet project goals
Estimates time of completion for each task
Results in a project master schedule that
identifies date and deliverable milestones

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PROJECT PLANNING
Scheduling
Timeboxing organizational practice in which
a system module is to be delivered to user
within a set time limit, such as 6 months

Work breakdown a basic management technique that

systematically subdivides blocks of work down to the level
of detail at which the project will be controlled

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PROJECT PLANNING
Budgeting
Two traditional approaches to estimating costs:
Bottom-up

Cost elements are estimated for lowest level of work tasks and then
aggregated to give total project cost estimate

Top-down (parametric cost estimating)

Provides cost estimates for major budget categories based on

historical experience

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PROJECT PLANNING
Budgeting

Inexperienced estimators may:

1.

Be too optimistic about what is needed to do the job

2.

Tend to leave out components

3.

Not use a consistent methodology, and have difficulty

recreating their rationales

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PROJECT PLANNING
Staffing
Project staffing involves:
1.

Identifying IT specialist

2.

Selecting personnel who collectively have necessary skills and

assigning them to work

3.

Preparing personnel for specific team member work

4.

Providing incentives to achieve project goals

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skill mix needed

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PROJECT PLANNING
Staffing
Counterproductive Characteristics

(Based on productivity study by Hughes Aircraft Company in Roman, 1986)

2005 Pearson Prentice-HallFigure 12.5 Counterproductive Characteristics

of Project Team Environments

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PROJECT PLANNING
Planning Documents
Two typical planning documents:

Statement of Work (SOW)

For the customer

High-level document that describes what project delivers and when
Contract between project manager and executive sponsor

Project Plan

Used by project manager to guide, monitor, and control execution of project

Reviewed by managers or committees that oversee project

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PROJECT PLANNING
Planning Documents
Two typical planning charts:

PERT (or CPM)

Gantt

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PROJECT PLANNING
Planning Documents

PERT (or CPM)

Graphically models sequence of project tasks and

interrelationships using a flowchart diagram
Depicts a critical path sequence of activities that will take
longest time to complete
Helps managers estimate effects of task slippage
If used, less likely to have cost and schedule overruns

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PROJECT PLANNING
Planning Documents

(Reprinted from Valacich, George, and Hoffer, Essentials of Systems Analysis & Design, Prentice Hall, 2001)

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Figure 12.6 PERT Chart Example

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PROJECT PLANNING
Planning Documents

Gantt

Graphically depicts estimated times (and later actual times)

for each project task against a horizontal time scale
Tasks presented in logical order along with bar graph
showing estimated time duration for each task on a calendar
Useful for displaying a project schedule and tracking
progress of a set of tasks against project plan

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(Reprinted from Valacich, George, and Hoffer, Essentials of Systems Analysis & Design, 1st Edition,
Copyright 2001. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, NJ)

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Figure 12.7 Gantt Chart Example

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PROJECT EXECUTION AND

CONTROL
Project plan needs to be refined and reassessed throughout life of project
Software project management tools commonly used to help initiate and
monitor project tasks
Communication among project team members critical for task coordination
and integration
Communication throughout project to all stakeholders is key to project
success

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PROJECT EXECUTION AND

CONTROL
Routine Project Status Reporting

(Roman, 1986)

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Figure 12.8 Status Reporting

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PROJECT EXECUTION AND

CONTROL
Managing Project Risks

PM Goal:

Manage risk of failing to achieve project objectives

Causes of Risk:

Human error
Project scope changes
Unanticipated technology changes
Internal politics

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PROJECT EXECUTION AND

CONTROL
Managing Project Risks

(Bashein, Markus, and Finley, 1997)

2005 Pearson Prentice-Hall Figure 12.9 Ten IT-Related Risks and

Potential Consequences

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Managing Project Risks

(Adapted from Hamilton, 2000)

2005 Pearson Prentice-Hall Figure 12.11 Risk Controllability and

Impact Grid

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Managing Project Risks

(Adapted from Frame, 1994)

2005 Pearson Prentice-Hall Figure 12.12 Risk Exposure:

Risk versus Stake

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PROJECT EXECUTION AND

CONTROL
Managing Business Change

Change management:

Ability to successfully introduce change to individuals and

organizational units
Key to project success
Often involves change to power structures that must be recognized
Can be facilitated by using change models, such as Lewin/Schein
change model

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PROJECT EXECUTION AND

CONTROL
Managing Business Change

Lewin/Schein Change Model

2005 Pearson Prentice-Hall Figure 12.14 Three Stages of

Lewin/Schein Change Model

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PROJECT CLOSING
IT project deliverables completed
Formal user acceptance obtained or failed project terminated
Common questions for team members:

What went right on this project?

What went wrong on this project?
What would you do differently on the next project, based on your
experience with this project?

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SPECIAL ISSUE: MANAGING

COMPLEX IT PROJECTS
Three factors critical to success of large, complex IT projects:

The business vision an integral part of project

A testing approach used at program level (not just individual

application level)

Used a phased-release approach (rather than single rollout strategy)

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SPECIAL ISSUE: MANAGING

COMPLEX IT PROJECTS

(Adapted from Poria, 2004)

2005 Pearson Prentice-HallFigure 12.15 Complexity Increases with

Offsite and Offshore Resources (1 of 2)

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(Adapted from Poria, 2004)

2005 Pearson Prentice-HallFigure 12.15 Complexity Increases with

Offsite and Offshore Resources (2 of 2)

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SPECIAL ISSUE: POST-MERGER IT

INTEGRATION PROJECTS
What makes for a successful merger?
Well-honed IT project management skills, and a program
management structure
Retaining IT talent needed for post merger IT integration
efforts
Quickly offering attractive retention contracts to key
personnel

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