Project Management Introduction PDF

IT2030 Introduction to Project Management………………………………………… A project requires resources, often from various areas: Resources include people, hardware, software, and o...

IT2030 Introduction to Project Management………………………………………… A project requires resources, often from various areas: Resources include people, hardware, software, and other assets. What is a Project? Many projects cross departmental or other boundaries to achieve their unique purposes. For the IT collaboration project, people from A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, IT, marketing, sales, distribution, and other areas of the company service, or result. Operations, on the other hand, is work done in would need to work together to develop ideas. organizations to sustain the business. It focuses on the ongoing production A project should have a primary customer or sponsor: Most of goods and services. Projects are different from operations, they end when projects have many interested parties or stakeholders, but for a their objectives have been reached, or the project has been terminated. It is project to succeed, someone must take the primary role of important to note that people focusing on operations and projects must work sponsorship. The project sponsor usually provides the direction together to smooth transition. Projects can be large or small and involve one and funding for the project. Anne would be the sponsor for the IT person or thousands of people. They can be done in one day or take years collaboration project. to complete. A project involves uncertainty: Because every project is unique, it is sometimes difficult to define its objectives clearly, estimate how Project Attributes long it will take to complete, or determine how much it will cost. External factors also cause uncertainty, such as a supplier going Projects come in all shapes and sizes. The following attributes help define out of business or a project team member needing unplanned time a project further: off. This uncertainty is one of the main reasons project management A project has a unique purpose: Every project should have a well- is so challenging, especially on projects involving new technologies. defined objective. For example, Anne, the Project Management Office director, might sponsor an IT collaboration project to develop What is Project Management?................................................................. a list and initial analysis of potential IT projects that might improve operations for the company. The unique purpose of this project Project Management is applying knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques would be to create a collaborative report with ideas from people to project activities to meet project requirements. Project managers must throughout the company. The results would provide the basis for not only strive to meet specific scope, time, cost, and quality goals of further discussions and selecting projects to implement. In this projects but also facilitate the entire process to meet the needs and example, the projects result in a unique product, service, or result. expectations of people involved in project activities or affected by them. Key A project is temporary: A project has a definite beginning and end. elements of the project management framework include the project In the IT collaboration project, Anne might form a team of people to stakeholders, project management knowledge areas, and the project work immediately on the project and then expect a report and an management tools and techniques. executive presentation of the results in one month. A project drives change and enables value creation: A project Project Stakeholders is initiated to bring about a change to meet a need or desire. Its purpose is to achieve a specific objective that changes the context Stakeholders are the people involved in or affected by project activities and from a current state to a more desired or valued future state. include the project sponsor, project team, support staff, customers , users, A project is developed using progressive elaboration: Projects suppliers, and even opponents of the project. These stakeholders often are often broadly defined when they begin, and as time passes, the have very different needs and expectations. Projects have many different specific details of the project become clearer. Therefore, projects stakeholders, and they often have different interests. Stakeholders’ needs should be developed in increments. A project team should develop and expectations are important in the beginning and throughout the life of a initial plans and then update them with more detail based on new project. Successful project managers develop good relationships with information. project stakeholders to understand and meet their needs and expectations. 01 Handout 1 *Property of STI  [email protected] Page 1 of 5  IT2030 Project Management Knowledge Areas Project Management Tools and Techniques Project management knowledge areas describe the key competencies Project management tools and techniques help project managers and that project managers must develop. The project management knowledge their teams carry out work in all ten knowledge areas. Choosing the right areas are essentially what is needed to know about effective project approach to managing a project is crucial for successful project delivery. management. Project managers must have knowledge and skills in all 10 of The way you manage work is defined by techniques that you use and tools these areas: that you adopt. Project Scope Management – It involves defining and managing all the work required to complete the project successfully. Project Management Techniques Project Schedule Management – This is formerly called project time management; includes estimating how long it will take to Project management techniques make managing projects easier and more complete the work, developing an acceptable project schedule, and effective. They can be applied to any project, regardless of the field or ensuring timely completion of the project. industry. Given below are some of the best project management techniques Project Cost Management – It consists of preparing and managing that are commonly used in the industry right now: the budget for the project. Classic Technique – This includes preparing a plan of upcoming Project Quality Management – It ensures that the project will work, estimating tasks to perform, allocating resources, providing satisfy the stated or implied needs for which it was undertaken. and getting feedback from the team, and monitoring quality and Project Resource Management – This is concerned with making deadlines. This technique is ideal for running projects performed by effective use of the people and physical resources involved with the small teams when it’s not really necessary to implement a complex project. process. Project Communications Management – It involves generating, Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) – It is a way to organize the collecting, disseminating, and storing project information. work into smaller, more manageable pieces. It transforms big Project Risk Management – It includes identifying, analyzing, and project activities into chunks of manageable tasks that the team can responding to risks related to the project. easily understand and complete. It will help you understand all the Project Procurement Management – It involves acquiring or tasks and resources that go into producing the final deliverable. procuring goods and services for a project from outside the This process continues until the team reaches a point where the performing organization. task can be accomplished, who will get that assignment. Project Stakeholder Management – It includes identifying and Waterfall Technique – It is based on the project management analyzing stakeholder needs while managing and controlling their tasks to be dealt with in a properly sequential form where the next engagement throughout the life of the project. task is only performed and performed well when the previous task has been completed. Just like a waterfall, the tasks flow to the Project Integration Management – It is an overarching function desired direction smoothly, but only if they are completed in a that affects and is affected by all other knowledge areas. It is the umbrella that covers all other project management knowledge sequential form. If you use this project management technique, areas. It knits together individual processes and tasks into one activities and tasks will linearly flow through five (5) phases: o Requirements – get all the necessary documents project with defined goals and deliverables. o Design – use a WBS to create a list of tasks o Implementation – complete tasks o Verification – review the deliverables o Maintenance/Deployment – maintain and modify if necessary 01 Handout 1 *Property of STI  [email protected] Page 2 of 5  IT2030 Gantt Chart – This is a standard format for displaying project and wise resource allocation, it suits best for projects where schedule information by listing project activities and their resources are limited. corresponding start and finish dates in calendar form. It’s a visual Extreme Project Management (XPM) – It emphasizes elasticity in representation of all the tasks your team has to complete to wrap planning, open approach, and reduction of formalism and up the project, visualized together with time spans. Making a Gantt deterministic management. It is focused on the human factor in chart is a technique, but it can be combined with a Gantt chart tool project management rather than on formal methods and rigid to make that technique much easier to execute. phases. XPM is used for large, complex, and uncertain projects Agile Project Management – It is a set of principles based on the where managing uncertain and unpredictable factors are required. value-centered approach. It prescribes dividing project work into short sprints, using adaptive planning and continual improvement , Project Management Tools and fostering teams’ self-organization and collaboration targeted to produce maximum value. Agile is used in software development While the techniques are important, you also need specific tools that you projects that involve frequent iterations and are performed by small can use to properly implement during the development page and achieve and highly collaborative teams. your desired results. The following is a list of tools that you can use during Rational Unified Process (RUP) – This is a framework designed project management based on their purpose: for software development teams and projects. It prescribes Data Gathering – It includes benchmarking, brainstorming, check implementing an iterative development process, where feedbac k sheets, checklists, focus groups, interviews, market research, from product users is considered for planning future development questionnaires and surveys, and statistical sampling. phases. RUP technique is applied in software development Data Analysis – It includes alternatives analysis, assessment of projects, where end-user satisfaction is the key requirement. other risk parameters, assumption and constraint analysis, cost of Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) – It involves quality, cost-benefit analysis, decision tree analysis, document complex and detailed planning and visual tracking of work results analysis, and earned value analysis. on PERT charts. It helps the team to keep track of all of their Data Representation – It includes affinity diagrams, cause-and- developmental activities and fix their weaknesses. This technique effect diagrams, control charts, flow charts, hierarchical charts, suits best for large and long-term projects with non-routine tasks histograms, logical data models, matrix diagrams, matrix-based and challenging requirements. charts, mind mapping, probability and impact matrix, scatter Critical Path Technique – It involves detecting the longest path diagrams, stakeholder engagement assessment matrix, (sequence of tasks) from the beginning to the end of a project and stakeholder mapping/representation, and text-oriented formats. defining the critical tasks. Critical are tasks that influence the Decision Making – It determines which activities are most deadlines of the entire project and require closer attention and important or critical for the project’s success. Some of the examples thorough control. Critical path technique is used for complex include multi-criteria decision analysis and voting. projects where delivery terms and deadlines are critical, in such Communication: Communication within a project team needs to areas as construction, defense, software development, and others. be properly organized, being the key point in many techniques and Critical Chain Technique – This is a more innovative technique methodologies. Examples are feedback and presentations. that derives from PERT and Critical Path methods. It is less focused Interpersonal and Team Skills – It includes active listening, on rigid task order and scheduling and prescribes more flexibility in communication styles assessment, conflict management, cultural resource allocation and more attention to how time is used. This awareness, decision making, emotional intelligence, facilitation, technique emphasizes prioritization, dependencies analysis, and influencing, leadership, meeting management, motivation, optimization of time expenses. Like the previous two techniques, it negotiation, networking, nominal group, political awareness, and is used in complex projects. As it is focused on time optimization team building. 01 Handout 1 *Property of STI  [email protected] Page 3 of 5  IT2030 Project Successes and Project Failures…………………………………….. Satisfaction surveys are good forms of documentation to log and file for future reference and valuable information for future use. Project Success Factors Main Causes of Project Failures Project managers play an important role in creating projects, and therefore organizations, successful. Having a talented project manager is the first step A project becomes a failure when it does not deliver what was required to actual project success, but other important factors contribute largely to a within the agreed-upon budget and time. While not all of them are directly project’s outcome: the fault of the project manager, an experienced, well-prepared project Intelligent People: To make a project a success, you need capable manager can implement planning and promote project management people in your team. A project can derail at any point in time. For success factors that ensure a project doesn’t fall apart. The following are this, the project staff and all the project stakeholders must share some project failure factors to avoid as a project manager: their enthusiasm and commitment with the group. The team should Failure to Plan Effectively: Effective planning is a project share similar visions for the project and aim for success. It is management success factor that simply can’t be overlook ed. important to assign the right people to each aspect of the project Effective project planning involves writing out your plan, setting a and make sure they are working well together. realistic time frame, estimating costs, determining milestones, Comprehensive Planning – This sets up a project for success documenting deliverables, and defining project scope. One way to from the start. All stakeholders should be on board during the help you plan effectively is to utilize a project management platform planning process and always know in which direction the project is to keep you organized. going to go. Planning can help the team to meet deadlines and stay Disregarding Risk Management: We all know that projects don’t organized. Good planning not only keeps the project team focused go as planned and regularly fail. Create a risk log with an action and on track but also keeps stakeholders aware of project progress. plan and keep it in a location where your team members and Open Communication: Looking closely at details and listening to stakeholders can access it. This will allow your team members to outside sources of information is vital to the success of a project. easily find information. Having a solid risk management plan in When the team is working on a specific schedule, it is important that place will also allow you to take immediate action if you see the the team remains well-informed in every aspect of the project. Good warning signs of failure headed your way. communication also includes knowing when to say no. A project Inadequate Scope Document: An inadequate scope document, or team should never promise anything they know they can’t deliver. complete lack of a scope document, is a huge project failure factor. Always be honest about what your team can do and when it can be Ultimately, defining your project’s scope should be accomplished done by. during the planning and goal setting stage of your project with a Careful Risk Management: It is vital to produce a risk log with an scope document. Defining how you will handle scope changes and action plan for the risks that the project could face. Make sure all how you will track them will help keep everyone on the same page key stakeholders are aware of your risk log and know where they when things inevitably change. can find it. If something happens, then the team can quickly resolve Not Selecting the Right People: Assign team members to roles the issue with the management plan that has already been set in where they will excel and use your central resources to help keep place. This will give the team confidence when facing project risks everyone on the same page while you and your team pursue your and help the clients feel comfortable with the project’s progression. project to completion. Projects can experience difficulty or setbacks Strong Project Closure: If a project does not have strong closure, at any time, and if your team is not structured effectively, it will make then it has the potential to continue to consume resources. The your role as project manager significantly harder. project team must be firm and agree with the customer that all Lack of Communication: Poor communication leads to disaster critical success factors have been met. Confirmation of the project and is a major project failure factor. If you have struggled with delivery, testing, and release must be agreed upon and signed off. communication on your teams in the past, be sure to implement a 01 Handout 1 *Property of STI  [email protected] Page 4 of 5  IT2030 communication plan when you create your project plan to avoid issues from the start. Find a communication channel that works well for your team and stakeholders, and record past communications and errors so you can avoid them in the future. Don’t let your project fall apart simply because you failed to communicate effectively. No Management Support: Projects that fail to have the support of management may never get approved, and even if they do, with little management support, the project is much more likely to fail. This project failure factor is often caused by unclear project goals and a failure to define the value it adds or the problem it solves for the business. If you can’t define the value your project brings, it will be difficult to get sufficient funds allocated to the project. Weak Project Closure: Projects are not meant to drag on forever, and they will drain your resources if you don’t establish a set of parameters for project closure. Finalizing a project involves establishing an agreement with your clients that you met the critical success factors for the project and the project has been delivered, tested, and released according to client satisfaction. You might even ask your clients to complete a satisfaction survey to get feedback and help finalize the project further. __________________________________________________________ References: Project failure. (2018). Citing sources. Retrieved from https://www.kimbleapps.com/ Project integration management. (n.d.). Citing sources. Retrieved from https://www.workfront.com/ Project management techniques. (2020). Citing sources. Retrieved from https://www.ntaskmanager.com/ Project management tools. (2021). Citing sources. Retrieved from https://www.projectmanager.com/ Project management tools and techniques. (n.d.). Citing sources. Retrieved from https://www.actitime.com/ Project success factors. (2018). Citing sources. Retrieved from https://project- management.com/ Schw albe, K., (2019). Information technology project management (5th ed.). Cengage Learning Asia Pte Ltd. Waterfall technique. (n.d.). Citing sources. Retrieved from https://www.projectcentral.com/ 01 Handout 1 *Property of STI  [email protected] Page 5 of 5