Project Management: People, Systems, and Structures

• Projects must operate in a broad organizational environment
• Project managers need to take a holistic view of projects within the context of the organization

Systems Approach

• Emerged in the 1950s as a holistic and analytical approach to management and problem-solving.
• Includes an overall model for thinking about things as systems (systems philosophy)
• A problem-solving approach (systems analysis)
• Addressing business, technological, and organizational issues before changes (systems management)

Three-Sphere Model

• A diagram showing Business, Organization and Techonology domains
• Business asks, "What will the tablet project cost the college and students?", "What will be the impact on enrollments?"
• Technology asks, "Should the tablets be based on Apple, Microsoft or Android?", "How will tablets affect speed and networks?"
• Organization asks, "Who will develop the apps?", "Who will train students and staff?"

Advice for Young Professionals

• Understanding business and organizational aspects is key, not matter how exciting the technology is
• Understanding how the entire organization works, who the customers are, and what the priorities are for the year
• Networking within and outside the organization can aid in developing a systems approach and career advancement

Understanding Organizations

• Systems approach requires viewing projects in the context of the larger organization
• Organizational issues are often the most difficult part of managing projects
• Important to understand people as well as organizations to improve IT project success rates

Four Frames approach to organizations

• Structural frame: Roles and responsibilities using Organizational Charts
• Human resources frame: Harmony between needs of the organization and people.
• Political frame: Coalitions of varied groups address conflict and power.
• Symbolic frame: Culture, language, traditions, and image regarding meanings related to events

Project Failure

• "A Study in Project Failure" examined 214 IT projects over eight years in European countries
• Only 12.5% were deemed successful in meeting scope, time, and cost goals.
• Organizational culture can be a blame as leadership, stakeholder, and risk management issues are not discussed

Organizational Structures

• Three basic structures including functional, project, and matrix
• Functional managers report to the CEO in a functional structure
• Program managers report to the CEO in a project structure
• The Matrix structure is a middle ground between functional and project structures and can be weak, balanced or strong

Organizational Culture

• It is a set of shared assumptions, values, and behaviors that characterize the functioning.
• Experts believe the underlying causes of problems are the culture and not structure or staff

Ten Characteristics of Organizational Culture

• Member identity*
• Group emphasis*
• People focus
• Unit integration*
• Control
• Risk tolerance*
• Reward criteria*
• Conflict tolerance*
• Means-ends orientation
• Open-systems focus*
• Project work is successful where the items* are strong/high and other items are balanced.

Stakeholder Needs

• Project managers need to identify, understand, and manage relationships with all stakeholders.
• The four frames of organizations can help to meet stakeholder needs and expectations
• Senior executives/top management are very important stakeholders
• Project stakeholder management, for more information is avaliable in Chapter 13

The Importance of Top Management

• People in top management are key stakeholders
• Receiving commitment and support is factor in successfully leading projects
• Projects will likely fail without top management commitment
• Some projects have a senior manager called a champion who acts as a key proponent

Top Management Project support

• Top management can help project managers by
• Providing adequate resources
• Approving unique project needs in a timely manner
• Getting cooperation from other parts of the organization
• Mentoring and coaching on leadership issues

IT Governance

• IT governance addresses authority and control for key IT activities, including infrastructure, use, and project management
• Lack of IT governance can be dangerous, as shown by well-publicized IT project failures in Australia
• Sydney Water's system failure
• The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology failure
• One.Tel's failure

Organizational Commitment to Technology

• If an organization has a negative attitude toward IT, projects face challenges
• Having a Chief Information Officer (CIO) helps
• Assigning non-IT personnel encourages more commitment

Organizational Standards

• Standards and guidelines help project managers be more effective.
• Senior management should encourage standard forms and software
• Guidelines for writing project plans and status reports should be encouraged
• The creation of project management offices or centers of excellence is advised

Project And Product Life Cycles

• It is a good practice to divide projects into phases
• The same can be said for developing products

Project Life Cycle

• It a Collection of Project Phases, that defines work, deliverables, people and control
• A deliverable is the product or services provided as part of the project

Project Life Cycle Phases

• Resource needs are usually lowest in early phases
• The level of uncertainty (risk) is highest in early phases
• Stakeholders have the greatest influence in early phases
• The certainty of completing a project improves during the middle
• More resources are needed in middle phases
• Final phase focuses on meeting requirements
• The sponsor approves completion in final phase

The Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC)

• It is a framework for describing the phases of developing systems
• Systems development projects can follow predictive, iterative, incremental, adaptive or hybrid cycles

Predictive Life Cycle Models

• Waterfall Model: has linear stages of development and support
• Spiral Model: Software is developed using an iterative or spiral approach
• Prototyping Model: Developing prototypes
• Rapid Application Development (RAD) Model: Used to produce systems quickly

Project Phases Reviews

• Projects should successfully pass through each of the project phases to continue
• Management reviews occur after phases to evaluate progress, success, and compatibility
• It's unwise to wait until the end of project or product phases to have inputs
• Projects are reviewed by management on a regular basis

Issues Unique to I.T.

• Project Context: A critical impact happens on the product development life cycle
• The IT industry has critical impacts on managing IT projects

The Nature of IT Projects

• IT projects vary in size, complexity, products, application, & resource requirements
• Software development projects are even more diverse than hardware projects
• IT projects also support every possible industry and business function

Characteristics of IT Project Team Members

• IT project team members have diverse backgrounds and skill sets
• Companies purposely hire graduates with degrees in business, math, or the arts
• Some projects only require a few job skill functions from team members
• Others projects require diverse amount of skills

Diverse Technologies

• IT projects use diverse technologies that change rapidly.
• Differences in knowledge can make communication challenging
• New technologies shorten the time frame to develop, produce, and distribute

Recent Trends Affecting IT Project Management

• Trends include globalization, outsourcing, virtual teams, and agile project management

Outsourcing

• Acquire goods and/or sources from an outside source.
• Offshoring is used to describe outsourcing from another country

Virtual Teams

• They are a group of people who work across time and space using communication technologies

Globalization Issues

• Communications
• Trust
• Common Work Practices
• Tools

Globalization Suggestions

• Employ greater project discipline
• Think globally but act locally
• Consider collaboration over standardization
• Keep project momentum going
• Use newer tools and technology

Outsourcing Notes

• Remain competitive by reducing costs.
• May be unpopular in some countries
• Project managers should become familiar with global and procurement issues.

Virtual Teams Pros

• Lowering costs due to less office space
• Flexible from global team members
• Work/life balance by eliminating travel to work

Virtual Teams Cons

• Isolating team members
• communications issues
• Reduced ability to network and transfer information informally Increasing the technology dependence

Agile Project Management Defined

• It Means moving quickly and easily
• Some feel project management does not allow quick work
• Early softrware development projects used the waterfall approach
• Agile projects requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration

Manifesto for Agile Software Development

• The Agile Alliance developed and agreed on the Manifesto for Agile Software Development in February 2001.
• They value:
  • Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
  • Working software over comprehensive documentation
  • Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
  • Responding to change over following a plan
• *Agile Manifesto.

Scrum

• It is the lead agile development method with a complex inovative scope of work
• the term was coined in 1986 in a Harvard Business Review study that linked teams used by rugby teams and cross-functional teams

Kanban

• Technique for use with Scrum Developed by Toyota in Japan
• Uses visual Cues to guide workflow
• Kanban cards show new work and work in progress

Project Management Guidance

• The PMBOK® Guide has best practices for what to do to manage projects
• Agile is a methodology describing how to manage projects
• PMI offered the new ACP in 2011 as Interest in Agile grew
• Project managers are able to customize how they manage projects, even with Agile

Understanding people and organizations is crucial for project managers. The systems approach emphasizes holistic project views. IT project success rates are impacted by organizational structure.