Project Management Fundamentals

Project Management Fundamentals

• Elements: Project Initiation, Determining project feasibility, Activity planning and control, Project scheduling, Managing systems analysis team members

Project Initiation

• Problems within the organization may require systems solutions
• Upgrading, altering, or installing new systems provide opportunities for improvement
• Checking output, observing employee behavior, and listening to feedback help analysts pinpoint systems problems and opportunities

Problem Definition

• Problem Statement: A paragraph or two stating the problem or opportunity
• Issues: Independent pieces pertaining to the problem or opportunity
• Objectives: Goals that match the issues point-by-point
• Requirements: Things to be accomplished, alongside possible solutions and constraints

Problem Definition Steps

• Find numerous points that may be included in one issue
• State the objective
• Determine the relative importance of the issues or objectives
• Identify which objectives are most critical

Factors for project selection

• Support from management
• Appropriate timing of project commitment
• Potential to improve organizational goals
• Practicality concerning the system analyst's and organization's resources
• The project's value compared to other potential organizational investments

Determining Feasibility

• It involves defining objectives and determining resources
• Resources should be considered operationally, technically, and economically

Defining Objectives

• Objectives should include any of the following: Speeding up or streamlining a process, Combining processes, Reducing errors or redundant storage/output, Improving system and subsystem integration

Feasibility Impact Grid (FIG)

• Used to assess the impact of any improvements to the existing system
• Increases awareness of the impacts made on the achievement of corporate objectives

Technical Feasibility

• Assesses whether current technical resources can be upgraded or supplemented to fulfill the request
• Determines if technology exists that meets the specifications if current resources are insufficient

Economic Feasibility

• Assesses if the value of the investment exceeds the time and cost
• Takes into account analyst and employee time, hardware, software, and software development costs

Operational Feasibility

• Assesses if human resources are available to operate the system after installation
• Lack of user support can prevent a system from becoming operationally feasible

Activity Planning And Control

• Planning involves selecting a systems analysis team, estimating time, and scheduling
• Control involves comparing the planned project to its actual progress and taking action to expedite or reschedule activities

Estimating Time

• The project is broken down into phases
• The project is broken down into tasks or activities
• The project is broken down into steps or smaller units
• Time is estimated for each task or activity
• Optimistic, pessimistic, and most likely time estimates may be used

Project Scheduling: Gantt Charts

• Advantages: simplicity, end-user communication, and scalability

Project Scheduling: PERT Diagram

• Useful when activities can be done in parallel
• Provides easy identification of the order of precedence, the critical path, critical activities, and slack time.

Timeboxing

• Sets an absolute due date for project delivery
• Critical features are developed and implemented first, with other features added later

Staffing Requirements

• The choice of software can influence the effort in system development
• Assigning more people to a task doesn't necessarily make it faster

Team Management includes

• Assembling a team
• Communication strategies
• Project productivity goals
• Team member motivation

Assembling a Team

• Shared value of teamwork
• Good work ethic
• Honesty
• Competency
• Readiness to take on leadership based on expertise
• Motivation
• Enthusiasm for the project
• Trust of teammates

Communication Strategies

• Teams often have two leaders
• one who leads members to accomplish tasks
• one concerned with social relationships
• Systems analysts must manage: team members, activities, time, and resources

Project Productivity Goals and Motivation

• Successful projects require reasonable productivity goals for tangible outputs and process activities
• Goal-setting helps to motivate team members

Managing Risk

• 30% of all projects succeed
• 20% of projects fail
• 50% of projects finish, but are either late, over budget, or offer fewer features than promised

Ecommerce Project Management

• Key differences between ecommerce and traditional software project management
• Data used by ecommerce systems is scattered across the organization
• Ecommerce systems need staff with a wide range of skills
• Partnerships must be built externally and internally before implementation
• Security is of utmost importance

Project Failures may be prevented by

• Training, experience, and learning from other projects' failures
• They are described in a written project charter, including expected results and delivery time frame

Agile Development

• An innovative philosophy and methodology comprised of systems development practices, techniques, values, and principles
• Intended for use in developing systems in a dynamic way
• Analysts balance coding, testing, listening, and designing activities by managing time, cost, quality, and scope

Agile Core Practices

• A short release time
• Working a 40-hour week
• Having an onsite customer
• Pair programming

The Planning Game

• The planning game defines rules to help formulate the development team and customer relationship
• It limits uncertainty
• It has two players: the development team and the business customer
• Customers decide what to tackle first

Development Process for an Agile Project

• Agile projects are interactive and incremental
• The five Stages of Agile development are: Exploration, Planning, Iterations to the first release, Productionizing, Maintenance