IT Projects Roles and Responsibilities

1
IT Projects Roles and Responsibilities
2
Introduction

• Job titles what are they?
• Project roles what are they?
• How do job titles differ from project roles?
• How is a project organized?
• Does project size matter?
• Who does what?

3
Job Titles

• Human Resources paradigm
• Multiple associations
• Method of computing wages (and, sometimes
  benefits)
• Relationship to a salary range
• Success criteria
• Specific definition of responsibility and
  accountability
• Influencing factor in project assignments

4
Project Roles

• Identify responsibilities within the scope of a
  project
• Skill-based assignment
• Coordinate with job title
• Extrapolation
• Interpolation
• Single role not necessarily all inclusive

5
Job Titles versus Project Roles

• Title Senior Analyst
• Develops business architecture, functional
  requirements and concept of operations in
  consultation with user
• Derives technical requirements
• Prepares technical architecture statement
• Prepares technical design specifications
• Develops test specifications
• Provide technical and project leadership

• Role Project Manager
• Develop and maintain the project plan including
  both cost and schedule items
• Lead development team in preparation of technical
  specifications and work products
• Provide technical review and oversight of all
  technical activities
• Communicate periodic status reports to project
  sponsor
• Conduct project reviews as required

6
Job Titles versus Project Roles

• In the example on the previous slide, it the
  assignment of a senior analyst to a project
  manager role appropriate?
• Why or why not?

7
How is a Project Organized?

• Short answer it all depends
• Culture
• Philosophy
• Type of project
• Regardless, someone must be responsible for
  managing
• People
• Costs
• Schedule

8
Generic Project Organization
Overall responsibility
Project Manager
Oversees work performance
Schedule Manager
Cost Manager
Work Manager
Schedules tasking
Lead individual tasks
Funding conformance
Do the work develop system
Task performers
9
Project Size Matters

• Small projects single individual occupies
  multiple roles
• Large projects one person, one role
• Medium projects it all depends
• Complexity
• Criticality
• Availability

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Small . . . Medium . . . Large Projects

• A small project is characterized by
• A medium project is characterized by
• A large project is characterized by

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Project Roles What Does Each Do?

• Chart 8 identifies a numberof project roles.
  Write a job description for each role.
• Describe the kinds of workthat the task
  performersidentified on chart might do? What
  is the basis forcategorizing these tasks?

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Roles and Responsibilities Must Coincide with the
Phases of a Project
Correlation
13
Project Development Life CycleInformation
Technology Project Methodology
Conceptualize Initialize
Evaluate Project
Develop Project Plan Charter
Execute Control Project
Close Project
Business Case
Project Charter Plan
Final Project Report Presentation
Evaluations Lessons Learned
Planning
Implement
SDLC
Analysis
Design
Life Cycle Phase
Processes Initiating, planning, executing,
controlling
changing Objectives Scope, schedule, budget,
quality Tools Project management, IS
development Infrastructure Organizational,
project, technical PBMOK Areas All
Information Solution
Deliverable
Source Marchewka, Figure 2-1, page 31
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Phases of a Project versus Development Life Cycle
Compare and Contrast . . . Similarities and
Differences

• Similarities

• Differences

15
Planning the Project Developing the Business
Case

• What is a business case?
• What are the constituent elements of a business
  case?
• How are the constituent elements developed?

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What is a business case?

• The reasons why a project should be undertaken
• The costs that will be incurred to execute the
  project
• The benefits that will accrue as a result of
  completing the project
• The return on the investment to the business
• The risks associated with undertaking the project

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Reasons to Undertake an (IT) Project

• A problem exists
• An opportunity has been identified within the
• Vision of the enterprise and the
• Mission of the enterprise to meet
• Organizational goals and objectives as
  described in
• The Business Plan

18
Benefits of an IT Project

• Tangible returns that can be measured
  quantitatively
• Intangible returns that cannot be measured
  quantitatively but can be described qualitatively

Business executives emphasize meaningfulquantitat
ive benefits before they will approvea project
request
19
Costs Associated with (IT) Projects

• Material costs
• Development environment
• Test environment
• Operational environment
• Labor costs
• Skill-based
• Experienced-based
• Role-based

20
Identifying Elements of Cost
Complete the following chart toidentify each
element of cost to beconsidered in presenting
the business case for a project.
21
Identifying Elements of Cost
22
Benefits of an (IT) Project

• Tangible advantages that the enterprise can
  measure quantitatively
• Cost savings
• Cost avoidance
• Intangible advantages that the enterprise can
  measure qualitatively

23
Example of a Tangible Benefit

• Enterprise Acme Manufacturing Company
• Project automate the generation of machining
  directives
• Purpose ensure that machining directives are
  readily available when requested by an operator
• Objective improve shop floor throughput by ten
  percent (10)

24
Example of a Tangible Benefit

• Given the following facts, calculate the tangible
  benefit
• Machine Operators hourly wage (h) - 15.00
• Value of benefits (b) 20
• G A overhead (g) 10
• Daily machine operations per operator (d) 10
• Number of machine operators (m) 25
• Calculation of costs
• Individual employee cost (i) hourly
• i (h (1 b) (1 g)
• Total employee cost (t) hourly
• t i m
• Individual employee daily cost (e)
• e i 8 (assumes 8 hours per day)
• Machine operations per hour (oh)
• oh integer (m d/8)
• Machine operations per day (od)
• od m d
• Cost of one machine operation (s)
• s i 8/d

25
Example of a Tangible Benefit

• Benefits
• Improve throughput by ten percent (10) (x)
• x d m 0.10
• Resultant after improvement (r)
• r d m 1.10
• Cost improvement profile (k)
• k x s
• Annual cost improvement (a) (assume 250 work days
  per year)
• a 250 s x

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Example of a Tangible Benefit

• Using the parameters derived in charts 23 through
  25, calculate the benefit to be realized by the
  Acme Manufacturing Company.

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Benefits What Executives Expect

• Tangible benefits with real quantitative results
  that can be associated with a cost improvement
  profile
• Intangible benefits that can be used to augment
  the tangible benefits
• Keep in mind
• Intangible benefits alone are rarely sufficient
• Make every effort to turn an intangible benefit
  into a tangible one
• Be prepared to answer the question What is the
  probability of realization (of a particular
  benefit?

28
Return on Investment

• In simple terms, what is the payback?
• More specifically,
• What is the payback period?
• How long will it take?

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Return on Investment

• How long will it take?
• How long will it take for the accumulated
  benefits to equal the project cost?
• But, suppose that the projects funds were
  invested?
• How does that change the time needed for the
  accumulated benefits to equal the project cost?
• How certain are you?
• What is the probability that this return on
  investment will be realized?

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How Long Will it Take

• Time line begins when the project is approved and
  the funds are committed

Money
Implementation
Approved Funds
Time
0
Project Start Date
Break Even
31
Payback Period
Payback Period Project Cost / Annual
Benefit per Marchewka
Payback Period (Project Cost / Annual Benefit)
Development Time per Green
32
Return in Investment
Return on Investment (Expected Benefits
Expected Costs) / Expected Costs

• Results ? a percentage
• What management wants is a monetary value

33
What is the Real Project Cost?

• Involves
• Amount of money committed to the project
• Project timeline
• Asks the question If this amount of money were
  invested at a given interest rate instead of
  being committed to this project, how much
  money would there be at the end of the
  project timeline?
• Therefore, the real project cost is the amount of
  money committed to the project plus the amount of
  money that could have been earned had the money
  been otherwise invested.

34
Considering Risk

• Risk anything that could possibly happen that
  would adversely impact the project
• Classes
• Cost
• Schedule
• Technical
• Personnel
• Political
• Requires
• Identification of the possibility
• Action plan should the possible become actual
• Cost
• Schedule
• Technical

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Sample Risk Template
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Making the Case

• Formal written document
• Usually supported by a presentation
• Executive review and approval
• Includes
• The problem why this project is proposed
• The proposed solution the work to be done
• Alternatives considered why the proposed
  solution was selected
• Project costs the amount of money requested to
  do the project
• Project benefits the amount of money to be
  saved or realized as the result of doing this
  project
• Project risks everything that could impact
  project success
• Supported by an appropriate level of detail