Information Systems Project Management

David Olson

• Éditeur: Business Expert Press
• Année: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781631571237
• Sujet: Business
• Sous-sujet: Project Management

Information Systems Project Management addresses project management in the context of information systems. It deals with general project management principles, with focus on the special characteristics of information systems. It is based on an earlier text, but shortened to focus on essential project management elements.This updated version presents various statistics indicating endemic problems in completing information system projects on time, within budget, at designed functionality. While successful completion of an information systems project is a challenge, there are some things that can be done to improve the probability of project success. This book reviews a number of project management tools, including, developing organizational ability to work on projects, better systems analysis and design, project estimation, and project control and termination.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to Project Management

Almost every organization gets involved in many projects. A major reason projects are so important is the fast pace of change, and the more specialized nature of modern business. Many of these projects involve information systems, a distinctive type of project. Firms have to keep at least close to the cutting edge for harnessing the power of computers in almost every aspect of business. Large accounting firms have enlarged their information system consulting operations, and almost all of this type of consulting involves an information systems project. This means that there are more and more unique activities drawing people together from diverse locations and diverse organizations with diverse, specialized skills.

Project management has long been associated with operations management, and is an important topic in operations management’s curriculum. There has been an explosion of projects in the field of information systems. Information systems project management involves some characteristics different from those found in operations management, but many of the same tools can be applied. This is due primarily to the volume of new projects to implement computer technology that organizations have adopted. There are many useful things that information technology can do for organizations. The information technology environment involves high turnover of personnel, turbulent work environments, and rapidly changing technology. This results in high levels of uncertainty with respect to time and cost. Despite this more volatile environment, project management principles applicable to operations management can often be transferred to the information system environment.

What Is a Project?

A project involves getting a new, complex activity accomplished. Many activities qualify as projects. Building the Golden Gate Bridge, transporting the Statue of Liberty across the Atlantic, and the attempt to elect Mitt Romney President were all major projects. So were the development of the atomic bomb and sending men to the moon.

Each political campaign is a marketing project, just like other marketing projects to sell new products. You have each written a paper, which was assigned as a “project.” These projects involved researching some topic, and organizing ideas into a cohesive, rational whole. In football, developing a promising young quarterback prospect is often a multiyear project, including intensive coaching to learn the team’s offense, to learn the style of teammates, development of leadership skills, passing technique, and building endurance and strength. What television viewers might view as natural talent may have involved the closely planned and coordinated activities of quite a large number of people.

Projects:

• Involve a definable purpose

• Cut across organizational lines

• Are unique activities.

Projects are purposeful, in that they are designed to accomplish something for the organization undertaking them. Projects usually cut across organizational lines, drawing people from a variety of functional specialties. Constructing automobiles on an assembly line is no longer a project once the assembly line is developed, because it becomes a closed, repetitive activity that continues as long as anyone can foresee. Making a series of sales calls is not a project, because it is not a unique activity. However, just like the first assembly line, the first round of sales calls is a project, until a desired level of competence is attained. Projects include:

• Constructing something

• a road, a dam, a building, an information system

• Organizing something

• a meeting, an election campaign, a symphony, a movie

• Doing anything the first time is a project

• Accomplishing a new, complex activity.

Project Characteristics

Because projects involve new activities, they typically involve high levels of uncertainty and risk. One of the reasons assembly line operations are efficient is that everyone does the same thing over and over, hour after hour, day after day, year after year. This repetitiveness allows high degrees of specialization, which in turn enables greater productivity. The activities of many different people and machines can be balanced for maximum efficiency in an assembly line operation. Projects involve lower degrees of efficiency than are obtained in assembly line operations.

Because of this higher degree of uncertainty, it is much more difficult to estimate the level of resources required to accomplish a project than it is for other forms of productive organizations. It is also more difficult to estimate the time required (which amounts to another resource). Many projects are late, but not all projects take longer than estimated. The Russian atomic bomb project was completed ahead of schedule, and about the same time, the U.S. U-2 airplane project was finished in about one-tenth of the estimated time. Yet, projects finished ahead of schedule are still rare. Projects are collections of activities. If one activity is late, other activities often have to wait for it to finish. If an activity is ahead of schedule, those doing the work tend to be more careful, or slow down for other reasons. Following activities often cannot start early anyway, as the people and materials for following activities may not be available until the originally scheduled starting time. For these and other reasons, it is far more common for projects to be late than to be finished early.

Because of their temporary nature, projects inevitably involve gathering together a diverse group of specialists to accomplish a variety of tasks. Project team members often will not know each other very well, at least in the beginning of the project. They will tend to be quite different people, with different skill sets and interests. The primary feature of a project is that it is a set of temporary activities conducted by ad hoc organizations.

Information systems projects have many similarities to generic projects. They consist of activities, each with durations, predecessor relationships, and resource requirements. They involve high levels of uncertainty and often suffer from time and cost overruns, while rarely experiencing time and cost underruns. However, information systems projects are different from generic projects in some aspects. While each project is unique, there are usually many, many replications of information system project types. Most are served by a standard methodology, with the need to identify user requirements, followed by design of a system, production of the system, testing of the system, training and implementation, and ultimately maintenance of the system. These steps are not always serial, with many loops back to prior stages. They involve the need for specialists in different areas of the information system field, but these specialties are not as distinctly different as carpentry and electrical work. Systems analysts usually know how to program, and testers know all of the other functions involved in a project. Project team members from the development side usually understand each other well. Information systems projects of course involve computers, which is a distinct characteristic that has more impact than initially might be apparent.

Information Systems Projects

Projects in the engineering world tend to involve a lot of uncertainty (especially with respect to how long they will take). But information systems projects have added levels of uncertainty. To demonstrate these differences, let us consider four types of projects: engineering (construction), political, movies, and information systems.

First, engineering projects involve more physical activities, while the other three types of projects involve people creating something. It can be argued that engineering projects are thus much easier to manage, because scheduling is a matter of calculating physical quantities and using past production rates to determine how long activities should take.

Second, information systems projects require specialists in different skill sets to work together to create a software product. Movies are similar in this respect. There may be some variety in skills needed in political projects, but for the most part it is public relations—working with the press to put your candidate in the best light, and get maximum positive exposure. (Some specialists may be needed to cover up negative exposures.) Information systems and movies involve lots of different specialties. Movies need actors, a staff to make actors happy, camera people, directors, grips, and lots of other things. Information systems projects need system analysts, programmers and/or software developers, testers, system installers, trainers, and other specialty skills.

Third, projects involving humans creating things are much more difficult to estimate, because it is more difficult to estimate how long a creative activity (like writing a bug-free code) will take. Actually, political campaigns are more predictable because there is an end point—voting day. Effectiveness might be hard to estimate, but duration is pretty much given. Movies also have planned schedules, but directors may feel that artistic creativity was lacking in scheduled shots, and insist on redoing them. Information systems clearly involve less certainty as to duration than the other three kinds of projects considered here.

Dimensions of Complexity

Projects can differ on a number of aspects. These include the number of people involved, and the diversity of skills involved. Some projects are individual efforts to accomplish something. Others, like a major military campaign, can involve hundreds of thousands of people. The more people that are involved, the greater the need to organize into subunits, requiring a higher proportion of managers and thus a lower proportion of productive people. In general, the more complex the project, the more time and resources that are required.

Group size dimensions can vary over extremes. A few examples of projects for different sized groups, ranging from individual effort through three general group levels, are given for comparison.

Projects can also differ on the dimensions of uncertainty. It is much more difficult to predict how much time is going to be required the first time you do something. Since projects are usually things done for the first time, they usually take longer than expected when they were estimated. Information systems currently are in very high demand, outstripping their supply. Another possible bias is introduced by the practice of making initial estimates intentionally low to get work. This bias improves the probability of getting work, which is often negotiated on a cost-plus basis. This practice is not at all recommended, as it leads to a bad reputation when initial promises are not kept. Furthermore, it has ethical ramifications with respect to truth in advertising. An additional factor in project lateness is that large government projects are the most commonly reported. These projects tend to be very complex, and often run over in time and budget. How many times have you read about a government project of significant magnitude taking less time than estimated? Since there is a strong correlation between time and money, late projects almost always cost more than expected. When was the last time you heard of a government project having a cost underrun?

General project management is a field that has developed primarily since World War II. With more complex undertakings, many project management principles have developed. They typically involve a cost/time/quality tradeoff, found in almost any project. Specifically in the information systems field, this tradeoff can be stated as follows:

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In the field of information systems, there is an old adage that you can have any two of three things in a project. You can get it done on time, you can get it done within budgeted cost, or you can get it done well. If you are willing to wait, you can get the job done right within cost. If you are willing to spend the money, you can get a good job done quickly. Or, you can get the job done on time and within budget, with the only reservation being that it will not perform as specified.

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This adage is not presented as a recommended way to treat all projects. We all like to think that we can do better than anyone else, and accomplish all three tasks. But over and over, in the fields of construction, government projects, and in information systems, problems in completing projects on time, within budget, and meeting specifications have been encountered. Project management cannot be blamed for all of these reported failures. The point is that we should understand the difficulties involved in a project environment, seeking to understand the project as a system so that we keep it on target with respect to accomplishing what it is intended to do, in the most timely and efficient manner possible. Bringing in a project on time, within budget, and meeting specifications is tough. Project managers need to expect difficult challenges.

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