978-0073402987 Chapter 9 Section 9.2 Project Management

Type

Quiz

Book Title

Business Driven Information Systems 5th Edition

ISBN 13

978-0073402987

April 4, 2019

SECTION 9.2

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

No one would think of building an office complex by turning loose 100

different construction teams to build 100 different rooms, with no single

blueprint or agreed-upon vision of the completed structure. Yet this is

precisely the situation in which many large organizations #nd themselves

when managing information technology projects. Organizations routinely

over-schedule their resources (human and otherwise), develop redundant

projects, and damage profitability by investing in nonstrategic efforts that do

not contribute to the organization’s bottom line. Project management offers a

strategic framework for coordinating the numerous activities associated with

organizational projects.

Business leaders face a rapidly moving and unforgiving global marketplace

that will force them to use every possible tool to sustain competitiveness. A

good project manager understands not only the fundamentals of project

management, but also how to effectively deal with change management and

risk management. This chapter explores project management, change

management, risk management, and outsourcing in detail.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Learning Outcome 9.4: Explain project management and identify the

primary reasons projects fail.

A project is a temporary or short-term endeavor undertaken to create a

unique product, service, or result, such as developing a custom ecommerce

site or merging databases. Project management is the application of

knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet project

requirements. A project manager is an individual who is an expert in project

planning and management, de#nes and develops the project plan, and tracks

the plan to ensure the project is completed on time and on budget.

The triple constraints are scope, resources, and time. These three

components are interdependent, and if you change one the others must

change. The three primary activities performed by a project manager include

choosing strategic projects, setting the project scope, and managing

resources and maintaining the project plan.

Project stakeholders are individuals and organizations actively involved in the

project or whose interests might be affected as a result of project execution

or project completion. While all stakeholders are important, one stands out

as having the most impact on the success or failure of a project. That person

is the executive sponsor or the person or group who provides the financial

resources for the project. Techniques for choosing strategic projects include

focusing on organizational goals, categorizing projects, or performing a

financial analysis.

Learning Outcome 9.5: Identify the primary project planning

diagrams.

A PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) chart is a graphical

network model that depicts a project’s tasks and the relationships between

those tasks. A dependency is a logical relationship that exists between the

project tasks, or between a project task and a milestone.

A Gantt chart is a simple bar chart that depicts project tasks against a

calendar. In a Gantt chart, tasks are listed vertically and the project’s time

frame is listed horizontally. A Gantt chart works well for representing the

project schedule. It also shows actual progress of tasks against the planned

duration. The three primary areas a project manager must focus on

managing to ensure success are managing people, communications, and

change.

Learning Outcome 9.6: Explain the three di,erent types of

outsourcing along with their benefit and challenges.

Onshore outsourcing—engaging another company within the same

country for services.

Nearshore outsourcing—contracting an outsourcing arrangement with a

company in a nearby country.

Offshore outsourcing—using organizations from developing countries to

write code and develop systems.

The many bene#ts associated with outsourcing include increased quality and

efficiency of a process, service, or function; reduction of operating expenses

and exposure to risks involved with large capital investments; and access to

outsourcing service provider’s expertise, economies of scale, best practices,

and advanced technologies. Outsourcing comes with several challenges

including length of contracts, losing competitive advantages, and risking a

breach of con#dential information.

CLASSROOM OPENER

Project Advice

It is #ne to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of

failure.

Good judgment is usually the result of experience. And experience is

frequently the result of bad judgment. But to learn from the experience of

others requires those who have the experience to share the knowledge with

those who follow.

CLASSROOM EXERCISE

Developing a Project Plan

Break your students into groups and ask them to develop a project plan

(Gantt chart) for building a small piece of software that tracks student grades

for a single course. If they do not have Microsoft Project, have them use

Excel or the project features in Visio. Be sure that their project plans list all

phases in the SDLC and that they represent an incremental development

methodology, not a waterfall methodology. Be sure the tasks under each

phase are discussed in detail.

CLASSROOM VIDEO

Burger King Outsourcing

Excellent video to demonstrate the negative side of outsourcing!! Very

Funny!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR_-aMVQWZI

CLASSROOM VIDEO

Dealing with difficult People

This is a fantastic site. It offers numerous videos and specific details on the

best way to use the videos to get your point across - without making anyone

cross. I've used some of these when dealing with difficult students and it

worked perfect.

Funny videos can be more than just a bit of fun. Funny videos can sometimes

be used in the workplace, and in team meetings or workshops, to set a

relaxed atmosphere/get people's attention, make memorable/useful points,

or diffuse tense situations.

Funny videos are especially useful when you have some difficult people to

deal with, who are unaware of the impact they are having on everyone else.

Humor, used appropriately, can bring the issue into their awareness in an

acceptable way, and be more effective than confronting the behavior

directly.

http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/funny-videos.html

CLASSROOM EXERCISE

Outsourcing Gone Wrong

Story 1: "The Customer is Never Right"

We supplied the contract house with everything they needed to get the job

done. The first thing they did was tell us how our tools and equipment were

out-dated, and besides we were using them incorrectly. (Due to legacy issues

and budget restrictions, constant hardware and software upgrades are not a

way of life here.) The next thing they did was re-format all of the code on the

project, including code outside the scope of their portion, to meet their own

formatting preferences. Any request for information was like pulling teeth.

They made me and everyone on my team feel like we were imposing

anytime we asked them about the project (usually technical questions.)

The most appalling thing is that towards the end of the project, they debated

us on how a portion of our system worked!!! It was very insulting to have

them infer that they understood our system better than we did. They have

been blacklisted from our entire corporation.

Story 2: "The Underbid"

The contract house gave us a very competitive #xed-bid on a project. This

raised some concerns, but not enough to rule them out - money talks, and

we were trying to spend as little as possible. In retrospect, going with them

was a big mistake, but hindsight is always 20-20, right? As they got further

into the project, the scope of the project "grew". Why? Because they did not

give the project's complexity any credit when they bid. We were not adding

features or functionality - they were just beginning to realize the scope of the

work.

It was clear their sales force had over-committed their engineering staff in a

terrible way. Their engineers resented us and their own management, and it

showed in their dealings with us. Not even halfway through the project, they

admitted they had underbid - now they needed more money to complete the

project. (Ironic, since one of the primary factors in choosing them was the

attractive price tag.) The project was completed by our own staff in-house

once we decided we'd cut our losses and sever our relationship.

I don't know if we would outsource again. I feel like we bought software

development services from a used-car salesman.

Story 3: "Bigger Isn't Always Better"

You would think that a multi-billion dollar company that charges very high

hourly rates for its staff would be the best firm to hire for a high-stakes

project, right? So did we. As it turns out, the amount of "red tape" we had to

cut through just to get anything done was ridiculous. The protocols we had to

follow to initiate any action on their part were very time consuming.

Getting anyone on the phone was difficult. Getting a technical person on the

phone was a miracle. The "calls-per-contact ratio" (as we began to call it)

was extremely high. Email would go unanswered, or worse, it would be

answered by more than one person, often with conHicting information. We

also experienced a lot of frustration splitting hairs about what was and was

not covered in the contract. It seemed like they were not interested in

demonstrating "good faith" or working with us towards a solution.

The engineers implied several times that their managers told them to do the

minimum required to fulfill the contract. What they considered to be the

minimum required certainly differed from our expectations.

CLASSROOM EXERCISE

Outsourcing Issues

There are many issues and obstacles to outsourcing such as time zone

differences and accents. Break your students into groups and ask them to

research the Internet to #nd examples of companies that have experiences

issues with outsourcing. Ask your students to present their finding to the

class and offer a small prize to the team that #nds the most outrageous

example.

There is also a great video by Thomas Friedman on his famous book The

World is Flat. The video can be found at www.mit.com. The video lasts

around 40 minutes.

CLASSROOM EXERCISE

The Outsourcing Debate

Print and cut out the below companies. Assign the companies to your

students. Each company has an argument for or against outsourcing. Have

your student’s debate for or against outsourcing. Team size can vary.

Company: Zeno: An international telecommunication company

Content Management Systems including DMS, DAM and WCM

Argument: For outsourcing

Company: Zeno: An international telecommunication company

Content Management Systems including DMS, DAM and WCM

Argument: Against outsourcing

Company: Fields: An international clothing manufacturer

WorkHow Management Systems

Argument: For outsourcing

Company: Fields: An international clothing manufacturer

WorkHow Management Systems

Argument: Against outsourcing

Company: Wanders: An international software development company

Groupware Systems

Argument: For outsourcing

Company: Wanders: An international software development company

Groupware Systems

Argument: Against outsourcing

Company: Excel2: An international #lm producing company

Peer-to-peer (P2P) Systems

Argument: For outsourcing

Company: Excel2: An international #lm producing company

Peer-to-peer (P2P) Systems

Argument: Against outsourcing

Company: Intelect: An international automobile manufacturer

Knowledge Management Systems

Argument: For outsourcing

Company: Intelect: An international automobile manufacturer

Knowledge Management Systems

Argument: Against outsourcing

CLASSROOM EXERCISE

Top Emerging Outsourcing Cities

This is an excellent example to show during class as it explains how the

recession is impacting outsourcing and the top countries.

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/02/0203_emerging_outsourcers/index.

htm

To turn this into a classroom activity or Blackboard Discussion question ask

your students the following:

What impact will outsourcing have on your career path?

What can you do to compete in an outsourced industry or Hat world?

As a business leader what concerns do you have about outsourcing to these

countries and what can you do to alleviate these concerns?

CLASSROOM EXERCISE

Project Management Library

Review samples of the course and reference material which our students use

in our personal 1-to-1 training. These articles are for supplemental reading

and the video samples come from our class lectures and the live, real-time

meeting simulations, where our students work with their role-playing

instructor to practice making project presentations and answering

executive's questions.

http://www.4pm.com/repository.htm

Learn Project Management in 15 Minutes

http://www.softwareprojects.org/project-management.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=P4UhE8ItyLI&feature=PlayList&p=7F1C33E5E0B337F2&playnext=1&pl

aynext_from=PL&index=10

Learning SCRUM in 10 Minutes

Ask your students to watch the following:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=Q5k7a9YEoUI&feature=pyv&ad=2997154360&gclid=CKP_78fh-5kCFS

MSagodpRhJFg

Why would a company want to use SCRUM to develop software?

Why would you as a student bene#t from learning about SCRUM?

CLASSROOM EXERCISE

The IT Manager’s Essential Guide to Outsourcing

If you cover outsourcing - this site is a must!

Rich, vibrant and complex, India is an ever-growing international presence.

The world’s largest democracy continues as the leading IT outsourcing

destination. In fact, revenue from the Indian IT industry has grown tenfold in

the last decade, according to the National Association of Software and

Service Companies. And this year the total IT sector is expected to grow 28

percent over last year, to more than $47.8 billion in annual revenue. Taking a

wider view, India is predicted to have the world’s #fth largest economy within

a decade, according to a report by Goldman Sachs.

In other words, it pays to learn about India. This special report of both

brand-new and still-relevant articles will help you better understand this

rising power and develop strategies for profitable collaboration.

http://www.cio.com/article/2880959/project-management/7-key-success-facto

rs-for-your-it-project-in-india.html

CORE MATERIAL

The core chapter material is covered in detail in the PowerPoint slides. Each

slide contains detailed teaching notes including exercises, class activities,

questions, and examples. Please review the PowerPoint slides for detailed

notes on how to teach and enhance the core chapter material.