Project Life Cycle and Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC)

Project Attributes

• A project has a unique purpose and is temporary
• Projects are developed using progressive elaboration and require resources
• Projects involve uncertainty and have a primary customer or sponsor
• Project managers work with project sponsors, project teams, and other stakeholders to meet project goals

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 stakeholder needs and expectations

Triple Constraint

• Project scope goal
• Project time goal
• Project cost goal

Stakeholders

• Stakeholders are people involved in or affected by project activities
• Project stakeholders include the project sponsor, project team, and other people involved in a project

Knowledge Areas

• Project managers must have knowledge and skills in 10 knowledge areas:
  • Project integration
  • Scope
  • Time
  • Cost
  • Quality
  • Human resource
  • Communications
  • Risk
  • Procurement
  • Stakeholder management

"Super Tools"

• Software for task scheduling (e.g., project management software)
• Scope statements
• Requirements analyses
• Lessons-learned reports

Three Sphere Model for Systems Management

• Business
• Organization
• Technology

Organizational Structure

• Functional structure: functional managers report to the CEO
• Project structure: program managers report to the CEO
• Matrix structure: middle ground between functional and project structures; personnel often report to two or more bosses

Organizational Culture

• Set of shared assumptions, values, and behaviors that characterize the functioning of an organization
• Underlying causes of company problems often stem from the culture rather than the structure or staff

Project Life Cycle

• Collection of project phases that defines what work will be performed in each phase
• Defines what deliverables will be produced and when
• Defines who is involved in each phase and how management will control and approve work produced in each phase

Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC)

• Framework for describing the phases involved in developing and maintaining information systems
• Types of SDLC:
  • Predictive life cycle: clear project scope, schedule, and cost can be predicted
  • Adaptive Software Development (ASD) life cycle: requirements cannot be clearly expressed, projects are mission-driven and component-based, using time-based cycles to meet target dates

SDLC Models

• Waterfall model: well-defined, linear stages of systems development and support
• Spiral model: iterative or spiral approach to software development
• Incremental build model: progressive development of operational software
• Prototyping model: used for developing prototypes to clarify user requirements
• Rapid Application Development (RAD) model: produces systems quickly without sacrificing quality

Process Groups

• Initiating processes
• Planning processes
• Executing processes
• Monitoring and controlling processes
• Closing processes

Scrum Roles

• Product owner: responsible for the business value of the project and deciding what work to do and in what order
• ScrumMaster: ensures the team is productive, facilitates the daily Scrum, enables close cooperation, and removes barriers
• Scrum team or development team: cross-functional team that organizes itself and the work to produce desired results for each sprint

Scrum Artifacts

• Product backlog: list of features prioritized by business value
• Sprint backlog: highest-priority items from the product backlog to be completed within a sprint
• Burndown chart: shows the cumulative work remaining in a sprint on a day-by-day basis

Scrum Ceremonies

• Sprint planning session: meeting to select a set of work from the product backlog to deliver during a sprint
• Daily Scrum: short meeting for the development team to share progress and challenges and plan work for the day
• Sprint reviews: meeting for the team to demonstrate what it has completed during the sprint
• Sprint retrospectives: meeting for the team to look for ways to improve the product and the process based on a review of the actual performance of the development team

Strategic Planning

• Determining long-term objectives, predicting future trends, and projecting the need for new products and services
• SWOT analysis:
  • Strengths
  • Weaknesses
  • Opportunities
  • Threats

Financial Analysis of Projects

• Three primary methods for determining the projected financial value of projects:
  • Net present value (NPV) analysis
  • Return on investment (ROI)
  • Payback analysis

Net Present Value (NPV)

• Method of calculating the expected net monetary gain or loss from a project by discounting all expected future cash inflows and outflows to the present point in time
• The higher the NPV, the better

Return on Investment (ROI)

• Calculated by subtracting the project costs from the benefits and then dividing by the costs
• ROI = (NPV / discounted costs)

Payback Analysis

• Amount of time it will take to recoup, in the form of net cash inflows, the total dollars invested in a project