CHAPTER 1:

INTRODUCTION TO
SOFTWARE PROJECT
MANAGEMENT
Information Technology Project
Management, Eight Edition
 Information Technology Project Management, Seventh Edition

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Understand the growing need for better project management,

especially for information technology (IT) projects
• Explain what a project is, provide examples of IT projects, list
various attributes of projects, and describe the triple constraint of
project management
• Describe project management and discuss key elements of the
project management framework, including project stakeholders,
the project management knowledge areas, common tools and
techniques, and project success
LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Discuss the relationship between project, program, and portfolio management

and the contributions each makes to enterprise success
• Understand the role of project managers by describing what they do, what
skills they need, and career opportunities for IT project managers
• Describe the project management profession, including its history, the role of
professional organizations like the Project Management Institute (PMI), the
importance of certification and ethics, and the advancement of project
management software
INTRODUCTION

• Many organizations today have a new or renewed interest in project

management
• Computer hardware, software, networks, and the use of interdisciplinary and
global work teams have radically changed the work environment
• The world as a whole spends nearly $10 trillion of its $40.7 trillion gross
product on projects of all kinds
• More than 16 million people regard project management as their profession
 Information Technology Project Management, Seventh Edition

PROJECT MANAGEMENT
STATISTICS
• The overall information and communications technology market grew by 6 percent to
almost $3 trillion in 2010
• In the U.S. the size of the IT workforce topped 4 million workers in 2008, and the
unemployment rate for IT professionals is half the rate for the overall labor market
• In 2011 the total compensation for the average senior project manager in U.S. dollars
was $105,000 per year in the United States and $160,409 in the Switzerland.
• The number of people earning their Project Management Professional (PMP)
certification continues to increase. 44 percent of employers listed project management
as a skill they looked for in new college grads, behind only communication and
technical skills
 MOTIVATION FOR STUDYING INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY (IT) PROJECT MANAGEMENT

• IT Projects have a terrible track record, as described in the What

Went Wrong?

• A 1995 Standish Group study (CHAOS) found that only 16.2% of

IT projects were successful in meeting scope, time, and cost
goals; over 31% of IT projects were canceled before completion
• A PricewaterhouseCoopers study found that overall half of all
projects fail and only 2.5% of corporations consistently meet their
targets for scope, time, and cost goals for all types of project.
 ADVANTAGES OF USING FORMAL
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
• Better control of financial, physical, and human resources
• Improved customer relations
• Shorter development times
• Lower costs
• Higher quality and increased reliability
• Higher profit margins
• Improved productivity
• Better internal coordination
• Higher worker morale
A PROJECT

A unique process, consisting of a set of coordinated and

controlled activities with start and finish dates, undertaken
to achieve an objective conforming to specific requirements
including constraints of time, cost and resources

(Lockyer and Gordon, 1996)

A PROJECT

• Unique process
• Coordinated and controlled activities
• Start and finish dates
• To achieve an objective
• Specific requirements
• Constraints of time, cost and resources
PROJECT CHARACTERISTICS

• Organisation is temporary
• Often forms part of a larger project
• Objectives and product characteristics may be defined and
achieved progressively
• Result may be the creation of one or several units of a
project
• Interrelation between activities may be complex
PROJECT CHARACTERISTICS

‘Project management is principally concerned with the management of

change’
(Lockyer & Gordon, 1996)

 Change management in IS development

 Change management in organisations
PROJECT FACTORS

• Size of the project

• Budget/costs, Size of team, Size of product

• Complexity
• Industry in which it is carried out
• Civil engineering
• Manufacturing
• IS/IT
CLASSIFYING PROJECTS (LOCK,
1996)
• Civil Engineering
• Realisation phase is outdoors, large capital = many
contractors = communication headaches
• Manufacturing Projects
• Development of specialised hardware, physical design
• Management Projects
• Projects that do not result in a produced piece of hardware
(including software projects?)
• Research Projects
• Include a higher element of risk (including software
projects?)
PROJECT FUNDING

• Revenue projects
• Carried out within the normal organisational structure
• Normally within a single accounting period

• Capital projects
• May extend over a number of accounting periods
• Occupy considerable time employ considerable capital
• Not carried out within the normal organisational
structure (Lockyer & Gordon, 1996)
CAPITAL PROJECTS
• Cross functional and time boundaries
• Cannot be accommodated within the normal running of an
organisation
• A special organisational structure is set up – the project team
• This structure usually only exists for the duration of the project
ORGANISATION STRUCTURES

• Hierarchical
• Matrix
• Project Management Structure
HIERARCHICAL
http://www.slc.co.uk/noframe/corpinfo/orgchart.html
LARGE CORPORATION
http://www.baesystems.com/aboutus/ovdiagra.
PROJECT TEAMS

• Revenue Projects
• Teams taken from within functions
• All report to function manager

• Capital Projects
• Teams taken from various functions
• Who do they report to?
MATRIX STRUCTURE
 EXAMPLE 1 – CAR
MANUFACTURE
• Manufacture of a production car • The design, launch and initial
• No Clear Finish production for a new car
• Not unique for each product • Defined start/finish
• Standard Organizational Structure • Unique for each product
• Temporary organisational structure
 EXAMPLE 2 – A NEW COURSE

• Existing Course
• New Course
• Course Team
• Course Leader • Working Group
• Module Leaders
• Administrator
• Chair
• Year Tutors • Committee
• Team members may change but • Administrator
team still exists

• Team set up for course

development but then hands
course over to course team.
ALL PROJECTS SHOULD HAVE:

• Project plan
• Time frame
• Product specification
• Statement of required quality
• Budget
• Cost plan
• Identification of areas of uncertainty
• Risk evaluation and responses
 EXAMPLES OF IT PROJECTS
• A team of students creates a smartphone application and sells it online
• A company develops a driverless car
• A small software development team adds a new feature to an internal
software application for the finance department
• A college upgrades its technology infrastructure to provide wireless Internet
access across the whole campus
TOP STRATEGIC TECHNOLOGIES
FOR 2012 (GARTNER)
• Media tablets and beyond
• Mobile-centric applications and interfaces
• Contextual and social user experience
• Internet of things
• Cloud computing
 MEDIA SNAPSHOT: UNPRODUCTIVE APPS

• Gartner predicts that by 2014, there will be more than 70 billion mobile
application downloads every year
• All of the top iPhone apps in early 2012 (Temple Run, Angry Gran, Zombie
Farm, Words With Friends, Angry Birds, etc.) and most of the top iPad2 apps
can be considered unproductive in most work environments
• The challenge is to develop useful apps and get workers to focus on them instead
of the many distracting options available
PROJECT ATTRIBUTES

• A project
• has a unique purpose
• is temporary
• is developed using progressive elaboration
• requires resources, often from various areas
• should have a primary customer or sponsor
• The project sponsor usually provides the direction and funding
for the project
• involves uncertainty
FIGURE 1-1 THE TRIPLE CONSTRAINT
OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT
 WHAT IS PROJECT
MANAGEMENT?
• Project management is “the application of knowledge, skills, tools and
techniques to project activities to meet project requirements” (PMBOK®
Guide, Fourth Edition, 2012)
• Project managers strive to meet the triple constraint (project scope, time,
and cost goals) and also facilitate the entire process to meet the needs and
expectations of project stakeholders
Information Technology Project Management, Seventh Edition

FIGURE 1-2 PROJECT

MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK
 PROJECT STAKEHOLDERS

• Stakeholders are the people involved in or affected by project activities

• Stakeholders include
• the project sponsor
• the project manager
• the project team
• support staff
• customers
• users
• suppliers
• opponents to the project
 10 PROJECT MANAGEMENT KNOWLEDGE
AREAS
• Knowledge areas describe the key competencies that project managers must
develop
• Project managers must have knowledge and skills in all 10 knowledge areas
(project integration, scope, time, cost, quality, human resource,
communications, risk, procurement, and stakeholder management)
• This text includes an entire chapter on each knowledge area
 Information Technology Project Management, Seventh Edition

PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLS AND

TECHNIQUES
• Project management tools and techniques assist project managers and their
teams in various aspects of project management
• Some specific ones include
• Project charter, scope statement, and WBS (scope)
• Gantt charts, network diagrams, critical path analysis, critical chain scheduling (time)
• Cost estimates and earned value management (cost)
• See Table 1-1 for many more
 WHY THE IMPROVEMENTS?
"The reasons for the increase in successful projects vary. First, the average
cost of a project has been more than cut in half. Better tools have been
created to monitor and control progress and better skilled project managers
with better management processes are being used. The fact that there are
processes is significant in itself.”*

*Standish Group, "CHAOS 2001: A Recipe for Success" (2001).

PROJECT SUCCESS

• There are several ways to define project success:

• The project met scope, time, and cost goals
• The project satisfied the customer/sponsor
• The results of the project met its main objective, such as making or
saving a certain amount of money, providing a good return on
investment, or simply making the sponsors happy
TABLE 1-2: WHAT HELPS PROJECTS SUCCEED?
*
1. User involvement
2. Executive support
3. Clear business objectives
4. Emotional maturity
5. Optimizing scope
6. Agile process
7. Project management expertise
8. Skilled resources
9. Execution
10. Tools
*The and infrastructure
Standish Group, “CHAOS Activity News” (August 2011).
 TOP THREE REASONS WHY FEDERAL
TECHNOLOGY PROJECT SUCCEED

• Adequate funding
• Staff expertise
• Engagement from all stakeholders