Lecture 2

P.M. IN YOUR ORGANIZATION
FIT426 . Project Management . Lecture 2

Projects Cannot Run in Isolation
 Projects must operate in a broad organizational
environment
 Project managers need to use systems thinking
 Taking a holistic view of a project
 understanding how it relates to the larger organization
 Senior managers must make sure projects
continue to support current business needs

A Systems View of PM
 The term systems approach emerged in the 1950s
to describe a holistic and analytical approach to
solving complex problems
 Three parts
 Systems philosophy
 Systems analysis
 Systems management

Three Sphere Model for Systems
Management

Structural frame: Focuses on
roles and responsibilities,
coordination, and control.
Organization charts help define
this frame.
Human resources frame:
Focuses on providing harmony
between needs of the
organization and needs of
people.
Political frame: Assumes
organizations are coalitions
composed of varied individuals
and interest groups. Conflict
and power are key issues.
Symbolic frame: Focuses on
symbols and meanings related
to events. Culture is important
Understanding
organizations

What Went Wrong?
 Many enterprise resource planning (ERP) projects
fail due to organizational issues, not technical
issues
 Sobey’s ERP system shut down for five days *
 Employees were scrambling to stock potentially empty
shelves in several stores for weeks
 The system failure cost Sobey’s more than $90 million
*Hoare, Eva. “Software Hardships,” The Herald,
Halifax, Nova Scotia (2001).

Many Organizations Focus on the
Structural Frame
 Most people understand what organizational
charts are.
 Many new managers try to change organizational
structure when other changes are needed.
 Three basic organizational structures
 Functional
 Project
 Matrix

Organizational Culture
 Organizational culture is a set of shared
assumptions, values, and behaviors that
characterize the functioning of an organization.
 Many experts believe the underlying causes of
many companies’ problems are not the structure
or staff, but the culture.

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 most successful in an organizational
culture where these characteristics are highly prevalent
and where the other characteristics are balanced.

Stakeholder Management
 Project managers must take time to identify,
understand, and manage relationships with all
project stakeholders
 Using the four frames of organizations can help
you meet stakeholder needs and expectations
 Senior executives and top management are very
important stakeholders

Contextual Factors in IT Systems
 Contextual factors have a huge effect on IT system use
 Studying the immediate user/work group is not sufficient
 Any system is used within a wider context
 Sometimes crucial people are not direct users
 Before installing/building a new system should
understand:
 who benefits
 who puts in effort/ will be affected
 how the system may change work/organisation/power structures
 Need to disentangle stakeholders and the relations between
them:
 Client/s
 Users
 Others who are directly or indirectly affected by the system

Conflict and power
 IT systems are put into human situations
 people and groups have conflicting goals
 systems that assume cooperation
e.g. install a new system for stock control
Stock controller loses control of information
 may try to the system
identify stakeholders – not just the users

Organisational structures
 New IT systems affect organisational structures
 May cut across lines of management (ie. Intranets)
 May cut out certain groups by creating direct communication
This may disenfranchise people leading to:
 disaffected staff /staff groups
 patchy use or resistance to use
Technology may be used to change management style and power
structures
 Developers and IT professionals are instruments of change
 Sweeping changes often have unintended consequences

Contextual barriers
 Telecommunications improvements allow:
 Hot-desks and flexible working hours
 home-based tele-working
Many ecological and economic benefits
 Reduce travel (less congestion)
 flexible family commitments
But in many organisations:
 presence increases perceived worth
 home workers lose the benefit of informal
communication
 home workers may face problems with promotion
Barriers/resistance to changes caused by technology
are often organisational and social

Understanding context
 Need to take account of
 stakeholders
 work groups and practices
 organisational context
 Many techniques for doing this, including:
 Stakeholder modelling
 Socio-technical modelling
 Soft system modelling
 Participatory design
 Facilitated/Joint Application development
workshops
 Ethnography

Stakeholder Identification
 A system will have many stakeholders with
potentially conflicting interests
 First need to identify stakeholders
 A stakeholder is anyone affected by success or
failure of system
 primary - actually use system
 secondary - receive output or provide input
 tertiary - no direct involvement but affected by
success, failure or operation of system
 facilitating - involved in development or deployment of
system

Classifying stakeholders
Example: Classifying stakeholders – an airline booking system
An international airline is considering introducing a new booking
system for use by associated travel agents to sell flights directly to
the public.
Primary stakeholders: travel agency staff, airline booking staff
Secondary stakeholders: customers, airline management
Tertiary stakeholders: competitors, civil aviation authorities,
customers’ travelling companions, airline shareholders
Facilitating stakeholders: design team, IT department staff
(Dix et al, 2004)

Identifying stakeholder needs
Designers need to be aware of stakeholder needs:
 Identify needs for each stakeholder group
 Identify conflicts and look for compromises
 Often priority decreases as move down categories e.g.
primary most important
 However ‘client’ is often a tertiary stakeholder
 Clients’ vision may be prioritised

Socio-technical modelling
 Concerned with technical, social, organisational
and human aspects of design
 Describes impact of specific technology on
organization
 Information gathering: interviews, observation,
focus groups, document analysis
 Several approaches e.g.
 CUSTOM
 OSTA

CUSTOM
 Six stage process - focus on stakeholders
1. Describe organizational context, including primary goals,
physical characteristics, political and economic background
2. Identify and describe stakeholders (role in organisation &
job)
3. Identify and describe work-groups: formal and informal
4. Identify and describe task–object pairs
5. Identify stakeholder needs: for each stakeholder type (in
2) identify groups and describe tasks (3&4) for both the
current and the proposed system. Stakeholder needs are
identified from the differences between the two
6. Consolidate and check stakeholder requirements against
earlier criteria

Soft systems methodology (SSM)
 Emphasis on understanding situation fully –
understanding situation as a complex system
 Seven stages
1. Recognition of problem and initiation of analysis
2. Detailed description of problem situation
 Rich picture
3. Generate root definitions of system
 Root definitions of parts of system
 CATWOE
4. Conceptual model – logical model of systems
5. Compare real world to conceptual model
6. Identify necessary changes
7. Determine actions to effect changes

CATWOE
 Clients: those who receive output or benefit from the system
 Actors: those who perform activities within the system
 Transformations: changes made by the system
 Weltanschauung (Worldview): how the system is perceived
(there may be several alternatives)
 Owner: those to whom the system belongs, to whom it is
answerable and who can authorize changes to it
 Environment: the world in which the system operates and by
which it is influenced

Participatory Design
 Selected users/workers/stakeholders become
active members of the design team.
 Encourages users to ‘own’ the product
 Improve design by ensuring users design &
evaluate right from the beginning
 Characteristics
 Collaborative
 Iterative
 Methods
 Creative ideas generation
 Storyboarding
 Workshops
 Pencil and paper prototyping

Facilitated/JAD workshops
 JAD = Joint Application Development
 Bring diverse stakeholders together to discuss
new system
 Allow different views to be taken into account
 Provide a forum in which conflicting views may be
expressed
 Aim to use discussion to seek consensus between
stakeholders with different views and reach
agreement about way forward
 Workshops can be used throughout the lifecycle

Ethnography
 Influential approach in some fields (i.e. CSCW –
Computer Support Cooperative Work)
 Often research-driven, but this technique may be
used in large organisations or for large novel
developments
 Immersive study of work context with special
focus on social relationships
 Researcher does not enter actively into situation
 Researcher seeks to understand the social culture
 Research takes an unbiased and open ended approach

Top Management Commitment
 Several studies cite top management
commitment as one of the key factors associated
with project success
 Top management can help project managers
 Secure adequate resources
 Get approval for unique project needs in a timely
manner
 Receive cooperation from people throughout the
organization
 Learn how to be better leaders

Need for Organizational Standards
 Standards and guidelines help project managers
be more effective
 Senior management can encourage
 The use of standard forms and software for project
management
 The development and use of guidelines for writing
project plans or providing status information
 The creation of a project management office or center
of excellence

Project Phases and Project Life Cycle
 A project life cycle is a collection of project phases
that defines
 What work will be performed in each phase.
 What deliverables will be produced and when.
 Who is involved in each phase.
 How management will control and approve work
produced in each phase.
 A deliverable is a product or service produced or
provided as part of a project

 In early phases of a project life cycle:
 Resource needs are usually lowest
 The level of uncertainty (risk) is highest
 Project stakeholders have the greatest opportunity to
influence the project
 In middle phases of a project life cycle:
 The certainty of completing a project improves
 More resources are needed
 The final phase of a project life cycle focuses on:
 Ensuring that project requirements were met
 The sponsor approves completion of the project
More on Project Phases

Figure 2-3. Phases of the Traditional Project
Life Cycle
33

 Products also have life cycles
 The Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a
framework for describing the phases involved in
developing and maintaining information systems
 Systems development projects can follow
 Predictive life cycle: the scope of the project can be clearly
articulated and the 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
Product Life Cycles
34

 Waterfall model: has well-defined, linear stages of
systems development and support
 Spiral model: shows that software is developed
using an iterative or spiral approach rather than a
linear approach
 Incremental build model: provides for progressive
development of operational software
 Prototyping model: used for developing prototypes
to clarify user requirements
 Rapid Application Development (RAD) model: used
to produce systems quickly without sacrificing
quality
Predictive Life Cycle Models
36

Contents
 Waterfall lifecycle
 Prototype lifecycle
 Incremental lifecycle
 Factors to consider
 Hybrid models

Waterfall Lifecycle
requirements
analysis
design
coding
testing
installation
maintenance

Stages in Waterfall
 Requirements
 What is wanted,
constraints, different
viewpoints
 Analysis
 Detailed investigation,
specification
 Design
 System architecture,
interface design
 Coding
 Writing software units,
system integration
 Testing
 Unit and system testing
 Installation
 Installing the system
 Maintenance
 Improving an adapting

Products From Each Stage
 Requirements  Project definition
 Analysis  Specification
 Design  Design detail, module specs
 Coding  Code and documentation
 Testing  Test cases, results
 Installation  System running in live setting
 Maintenance  New code, new tests, new
documentation

Waterfall:
Advantages & disadvantages
 Advantages:
 Careful requirements gathering and analysis
 Can’t fudge problems by ignoring them
 Clear design specs  clear code
 Clear stages to report back to management/clients
 Disadvantages:
 Unrealistic, inflexible vision of projects
 Difficult to respond to changing requirements
 Lack of visible progress
 Difficult to check with clients/test until end of lifecycle

Prototyping Lifecycle
 Manage risk
 reduce uncertainty, reduce chances of technical problems
and client rejection
 Explore client/user needs
 difficult to ‘imagine’ system in the abstract, difficult to get
‘complete’ specification from clients
 Explore design
 investigate programming problems
 Explore user interface
 explore ‘look and feel’, look at alternatives

Types of Prototyping
 Throw-away prototyping
• Fast development of a model to confirm idea, or choose
between alternatives. Model is thrown away and the ‘real
software’ is built (often using different technology)
 Evolutionary prototyping
• Build a robust prototype and gradually extend it, getting
client/user feedback regularly
 Horizontal prototyping
• Broad view of whole system focussing on user interface
 Vertical prototyping
• Prototype of a complete sub-system

Prototyping: Advantages & Disadvantages
 Advantages
 Responsive to client/user needs
 Visibility - quick production of something to show clients
 Prioritise key requirements, only add others if time
 Reduced need for documentation
 Disadvantages
 Insufficient analysis
 Constantly changing requirements - when do you stop?
 Messy code
 Waste of time - throwing away work
 Need close proximity between developers and
clients/users

Incremental development
 Regular releases of developed software
 RDBTI = Req, Design, Build, Test, Implement
 May do in VERY frequent short bursts
 May have gaps between or small overlaps
Jan Feb March
RDBTI
RDBTIRDBTI RDBTI
RDBTI
RDBTI
Jan Feb March

Incremental:
advantages & disadvantages
 Advantages
• Feedback from earlier stages improves later stages
• Short development time, requirements changes less likely
• Early benefits for clients and users
• Early delivery good for business
• Smaller sub-projects easier to control and manage
 Disadvantages
• Later increments may force changes on earlier work
• Can be difficult to split product into small phases
• Difficult to deal with systemic issues (reusability,
portability, efficiency)

Factors in Choosing a Lifecycle
 Time-scale
 Type of project
 Decomposability of problem
 Previous experience
 Client, and access to client
 Uncertainties
 Available tools/skills

Hybrid Models
 Lifecycles may be mixed:
• Prototyping used during waterfall
 to develop user interface
 to test design ideas
 to check hardware
• Waterfall used during prototyping
 for particular components i.e. database
 to develop sensible goals for prototype
• Waterfall used during incremental
 each short burst is a small waterfall

 Agile software development has become popular
to describe new approaches that focus on close
collaboration between programming teams and
business experts
 Visit www.agilealliance.org for information
Agile Software Development
50

 A project should successfully pass through each of
the project phases in order to continue on to the
next
 Management reviews, also called phase exits or
kill points, should occur after each phase to
evaluate the project’s progress, likely success, and
continued compatibility with organizational goals
The Importance of Project Phases and
Management Reviews
55

What Went Right?
56
"The real improvement that I saw was in our ability toin the words of Thomas
Edisonknow when to stop beating a dead horse.…Edison's key to success was that he
failed fairly often; but as he said, he could recognize a dead horse before it started to
smell...In information technology we ride dead horsesfailing projectsa long time before
we give up. But what we are seeing now is that we are able to get off them; able to reduce
cost overrun and time overrun. That's where the major impact came on the success rate.”*
Many organizations, like Huntington Bancshares, Inc., use an executive steering committee
to help keep projects on track.
*Cabanis, Jeannette, "'A Major Impact': The Standish Group's Jim Johnson On Project
Management and IT Project Success," PM Network, PMI, Sep.1998, p. 7

 IT projects can be very diverse in terms of size,
complexity, products produced, application area,
and resource requirements
 IT project team members often have diverse
backgrounds and skill sets
 IT projects use diverse technologies that change
rapidly; even within one technology area, people
must be highly specialized
The Context of IT Projects
57

 Globalization: lower trade and political barriers
and the digital revolution have made it possible to
interact almost instantaneously with billions of
other people across the planet
 Outsourcing: outsourcing is when an organization
acquires goods and/or sources from an outside
source; offshoring is sometimes used to describe
outsourcing from another country
 Virtual teams: a virtual team is a group of
individuals who work across time and space using
communication technologies
Recent Trends Affecting IT Project
Management
58

 Issues
 Communications
 Trust
 Common work practices
 Tools
 Suggestions
 Employ greater project discipline
 Think global but act local
 Keep project momentum going
 Use newer tools and technology
Important Issues and Suggestions Related
to Globalization
59

 Organizations remain competitive by using
outsourcing to their advantage, such as finding ways
to reduce costs
 Their next challenge is to make strategic IT
investments with outsourcing by improving their
enterprise architecture to ensure that IT infrastructure
and business processes are integrated and
standardized (see Suggested Readings)
 Project managers should become more familiar with
negotiating contracts and other outsourcing issues
Outsourcing
60

 Increasing competiveness and responsiveness by having
a team of workers available 24/7
 Lowering costs because many virtual workers do not
require office space or support beyond their home
offices
 Providing more expertise and flexibility by having team
members from across the globe working any time of day
or night
 Increasing the work/life balance for team members by
eliminating fixed office hours and the need to travel to
work
Virtual Teams Advantages
61

 Isolating team members
 Increasing the potential for communications
problems
 Reducing the ability for team members to network
and transfer information informally
 Increasing the dependence on technology to
accomplish work
 See text for a list of factors that help virtual teams
succeed, including team processes,
trust/relationships, leadership style, and team
member selection
Virtual Team Disadvantages
62

 Project managers need to take a systems approach
when working on projects
 Organizations have four different frames: structural,
human resources, political, and symbolic
 The structure and culture of an organization have
strong implications for project managers
 Projects should successfully pass through each phase
of the project life cycle
 Project managers need to consider several factors due
to the unique context of information technology
projects
 Recent trends affecting IT project management
include globalization, outsourcing, and virtual teams
Chapter Summary
63

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