IT Project Management Chapter 1

Introduction to Project Management

• Project management is a growing field, with increasing demand and importance, especially in the IT sector.
• The Project Management Institute (PMI) reported that the number of jobs in project management will reach 87.7 million by 2027.
• The average annual salary for project managers is $112,000 in the US and $130,866 in Switzerland.

What is a Project?

• A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.
• Projects have a clear start and end date, and are developed using progressive elaboration.
• Projects involve uncertainty and require resources, often from various areas.

Project Attributes

• Projects have a unique purpose, are temporary, and drive change and enable value creation.
• Projects should have a primary customer or sponsor, and involve uncertainty.
• Project managers work with project sponsors, team, and other stakeholders to achieve project goals.

Project Constraints

• Scope: What work will be done as part of the project? What unique product, service, or result does the customer or sponsor expect?
• Time: How long should it take to complete the project? What is the project's schedule?
• Cost: What should it cost to complete the project? What is the project's budget?

What is Project Management?

• Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements.
• Project managers strive to meet the triple constraint (project scope, time, and cost goals) and facilitate the entire process to meet the needs and expectations of project stakeholders.

Project Stakeholders

• Stakeholders are the people involved in or affected by project activities.
• Stakeholders include the project sponsor, project manager, project team, support staff, suppliers, and opponents to the project.

Project Management Knowledge Areas

• Knowledge areas describe the key competencies that project managers must develop.
• There are 10 project management knowledge areas: scope, schedule, cost, quality, resource, communications, risk, procurement, stakeholder, and project integration management.

Project Management Tools and Techniques

• Project management tools and techniques assist project managers and their teams in various aspects of project management.
• Examples of tools and techniques include project charter, scope statement, WBS, Gantt charts, network diagrams, critical path analysis, and earned value management.

Project Success

• Project success can be defined as meeting scope, time, and cost goals, and satisfying the customer or sponsor.
• Factors that contribute to project success include executive sponsorship, emotional maturity, user involvement, optimization, skilled resources, agile processes, modest execution, project management expertise, and clear business objectives.

Program and Project Portfolio Management

• Programs are groups of related projects managed in a coordinated manner to obtain benefits and control not available from managing them individually.
• Project portfolio management involves grouping and managing projects and programs as a portfolio of investments that contribute to the entire enterprise's success.

The Role of the Project Manager

• Project managers must work closely with stakeholders, especially the sponsor and project team.
• Effective project managers are familiar with the 10 project management knowledge areas and various tools and techniques.

Project Manager Job Description

• Project managers are responsible for planning, scheduling, coordinating, and working with people to achieve project goals.
• Project management is a skill needed in every major IT field.

Advice for Young Professionals

• To be a good project manager, you should ask yourself: Do you get frustrated by bad bosses? Do you think you could do a better job? Are you interested in understanding the big picture of how organizations work?
• Consider your leadership skills, ability to mentor others, and ask for help in developing skills.### Six Traits of Highly Effective Project Managers
• Be a strategic business partner
• Encourage and recognize valuable contributions
• Respect and motivate stakeholders
• Be fully vested in success
• Stress integrity and accountability
• Work in the gray/Be able to deal with ambiguity

PMI Talent Triangle and Leadership Skills

• The talent triangle includes:
  • Technical project management skills
  • Strategic and business management skills
  • Leadership skills
• Leadership styles include:
  • Laissez-faire (hands-off approach, letting teams determine their own goals and how to achieve them)
  • Transactional (management by exception, focusing on achieving goals or compliance by offering rewards and punishments)
  • Servant leader (focusing on relationships and community first, with leadership secondary)
  • Transformational (empowering others and guiding changes through inspiration)
  • Charismatic (inspiring others based on confidence)
  • Interactional (a combination of transactional, transformational, and charismatic)

Careers for IT Project Managers

• In a 2017 survey, IT executives listed the top 10 hot tech skills they planned to hire for in 2017
• Project management was second only to full-stack software development in the list
• The top 10 hot tech skills for 2017 are:
  • Full-stack software development
  • Project management
  • Cyber-security
  • Networking
  • User experience/user interface (UX/UI) design
  • Quality assurance (QA)/testing
  • Cloud engineering
  • Big data
  • Machine learning/artificial intelligence
  • DevOps

The Project Management Profession

• The profession of project management is growing rapidly
• It is helpful to understand the history of the field, the role of professional societies like the Project Management Institute, and the growth in project management software

History of Project Management

• Some people consider the building of the Egyptian pyramids and the Great Wall of China to be projects
• The Manhattan Project is considered the first project to use "modern" project management
• In the 1990s, many companies began creating PMOs to help them handle the increasing number and complexity of projects
• A Project Management Office (PMO) is an organizational group responsible for coordinating the project management function throughout an organization

The Project Management Institute

• The Project Management Institute (PMI) is an international professional society for project managers founded in 1969
• PMI has continued to attract and retain members, reporting over 500,000 members worldwide by late 2017
• There are communities of practices in many areas, like information systems, financial services, and healthcare
• Project management research and certification programs continue to grow

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

How to Get Your PMP

• To apply for PMP certification, you must meet one of the following sets of requirements:
  • A four-year degree, 36 months leading projects, and 35 hours of project management education/training or CAPM certification
  • A high school diploma or an associate's degree, 60 months leading projects, and 35 hours of project management education/training or CAPM certification

Ethics in Project Management

• Ethics is a set of principles that guide our decision making based on personal values of what is "right" and "wrong"
• Project managers often face ethical dilemmas
• In order to earn PMP certification, applicants must agree to PMI's Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct
• Several questions on the PMP exam are related to professional responsibility, including ethics

Project Management Software

• There are hundreds of different products to assist in performing project management
• Three main categories of tools are:
  • Low-end tools (Basecamp, Smartsheet, Zoho Project)
  • Midrange tools (Microsoft Project)
  • High-end tools (Primavera Software)
• Several free or open-source tools are also available (ProjectLibre, LibrePlan, and OpenProject)

This quiz covers the introduction to project management in the context of information technology. It is based on the 9th edition of Information Technology Project Management.