ITEC 3010

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ITEC 3010 Systems Analysis and Design,
I LECTURE 3The Analyst as a Project Manager
Prof. Peter Khaiter
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Lecture Outline

• IS Projects Success and Failure
• Role of the Project Manager
• Project Management Tasks in SDLC
• Project Initiation and Project Planning
• Project Planning Activities
• Project Schedule
• Risks Management and Project Feasibility
• Financial Calculations
• Tangible and Intangible Benefits
• Staffing the Project
• Launching the Project

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Project Success Factors

• Project management important for success of
  system development project
• 2000 Standish Group Study
• Only 28 of system development projects
  successful
• 72 of projects cancelled, completed late,
  completed over budget, and/or limited in
  functionality
• Thus, project requires careful planning, control,
  and execution

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Reasons for Project Failure

• Incomplete or changing requirements
• Limited user involvement
• Lack of executive support
• Lack of technical support
• Poor project planning
• Unclear objectives
• Lack of required resources

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Reasons for Project Success

• Clear system requirement definitions
• Substantial user involvement
• Support from upper management
• Thorough and detailed project plans
• Realistic work schedules and milestones

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Role of the Project Manager

• Project management organizing and directing
  people to achieve a planned result within budget
  and on schedule
• Project manager a person has primary
  responsibility for the functioning of the team.
• Success or failure of project depends on skills
  of the project manager
• Beginning of project plan and organize
• During project monitor and control
• Responsibilities are both internal and external

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Internal Responsibilities

• Identify project tasks and build a work breakdown
  structure
• Define the milestones (i.e., key events in a
  project which can be identified by a specific
  pieces of documentation or a specific status
  review meeting) and deliverables to monitor
  progress.
• Develop the project schedule
• Recruit and train team members
• Assign team members to tasks
• Coordinate activities of team members and
  subteams
• Assess project risks
• Monitor and control project deliverables and
  milestones
• Verify the quality of project deliverables

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External Responsibilities

• Report the projects status and progress
• Establish good working relationships with those
  who identify the needed system requirements
• The people who will use the system
• Work directly with the client (the projects
  sponsor) and other stakeholders
• Identify resource needs and obtain resources

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Participants in a System Development Project ?

• A project manager reports to and woks with
  several groups of people
• The client is a person or group of people who
  will be paying for the development of the new
  system the customer. The client releases funds
  and ultimately approves the project. For in-house
  development, the client can be an executive
  committee or a particular vice president who is
  funding the project
• For large project, an oversight committee may
  be formed. This committee consists of clients and
  other key executives who have a vision of the
  strategic direction of the organization and have
  a strong interest in the success of the project
• Users are the people who will actually be
  using the new system. The user typically provides
  information about the detailed functions and
  operations of the new system

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Participants in a System Development Project ?
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Various Titles/Roles of Project Managers
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Project Management Tasks throughout the SDLC

• Overlap with SDLC phases
• Beginning of project
• Overall project planning
• During project
• Project execution management
• Project control management
• Project closeout
• Project management approach differs for
• Predictive SDLC (linear, concurrently with SDLC
  activities)
• Adaptive SDLC (in cycle, planning is distributed
  across the entire SDLC)

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Project Management Tasks in SDLC
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Project Execution Management

• Following the project schedule
• Assigning and coordinating the work of project
  team
• Communicating with all project stakeholders

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Project Control

• Determining progress and taking corrective
  actions when necessary
• Assessing whether requests for scope changes are
  necessary
• Maintaining an outstanding issues list
• Resolving problems

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Project Closeout

• To smooth project shutdown
• Releasing team members for other assignments
• Finalizing the budget
• Reviewing or auditing the results of the projects

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Project Management and SDLC Tasks for a
Predictive Project
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Project Management and SDLC Tasks for an Adaptive
Project
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Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK)

• Developed by The Project Management Institute
  (PMI)
• 9 knowledge areas foundation information for
  every project manager
• Scope management
• control functions included in system
• control scope of work done by team
• Time management
• Build detailed schedule of all project tasks
• Monitor progress of project against milestones
• Cost management
• Calculate initial cost/benefit analysis
• Monitor expenses

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Project Management Body of Knowledge (contd)

• Quality management
• Establish quality plan and control activities for
  each project phase
• Human resource management
• Recruit and hire project team members
• Train, motivate, team build
• Communications management
• Identify stakeholders and their communications
• Establish team communications

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Project Management Body of Knowledge (contd)

• Risk management
• Identify and review risks for failure
• Develop plans to reduce these risks
• Procurement management
• Develop requests for proposals (RFPs)?
• Evaluate bids, write contracts, monitor
  performance
• Integration management

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Project Initiation and Project Planning

• Driving forces/Reasons to start project
• Respond to opportunity
• Resolve problem
• Conform to directive

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Project initiation

• Top-down projects. The optimal method is through
  the long-term IS strategic plan, that identifies
  the overall efforts of the organization to
  maintain a competitive positions and results in
  specific projects.
• Bottom-up projects. Individual department
  managers or process managers are close to the
  daily work. They often identify IS problems
  within their respective areas. Brought to the
  attention of the strategic planning committee,
  these needs are integrated into the overall
  business strategy. In case of immediate needs
  that cannot wait for the strategic plan (such as
  a new sales commission schedule or a new
  productivity report), the process manager may
  request initiation of individual development
  projects.
• Outside-forces project. Projects can be initiated
  to respond to outside forces. One common outside
  pressure is legislative changes such as changes
  in tax or labor law. These changes affect the
  strategic plan, resulting in an urgent need for
  new IS.

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CASE STUDY CSS Project initiation for Rocky
Mountain Outfitters

• Strategic IS plan directs project development
  priorities
• RMOs strategic plan is to build more direct
  customer contact, improve service, and expand the
  marketing presence
• Customer support system development selected as a
  top priority
• Customer support system (CSS) selected
• John MacMurty creates project charter
• Barbara Halifax project manager
• Steven Deerfield senior systems analyst
• Goal is to support multiple types of customer
  services (ordering, returns, online catalogs)?
• Project charter describes key participants

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RMO Project Charter
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Project Planning Activities
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Project Planning Activities and their key
questions
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Defining the Problem

• Review business needs
• Use strategic plan documents
• Consult key users
• Develop list of expected business benefits (i.e.,
  results organization expects to achieve from the
  new IS)
• Identify expected system capabilities (at a
  general level)
• Define scope in terms of requirements
• Create system scope document (3 components
  problem description, business benefits, system
  capabilities)
• Build proof of concept prototype (if new
  technology or new solutions) to show they are
  feasible and possible
• Create context diagram (scope of the IS) an IS,
  external entities and input/output information
  flows

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System Scope Document
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Context Diagram for Customer Support System
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CASE STUDY Defining the Problem at RMO

• Barbara and Steven, the CSS project team,
  developed the list of business benefits and
  system capabilities and the context diagram after
  talking to William McDougal, vice president of
  marketing and sales
• Steven did some preliminary investigation on
  possible alternative solutions (researched the
  trade magazines, the Internet, and other sources
  to determine whether there were sales and
  customer support systems that could be bought and
  installed rapidly. None seemed to have the exact
  match of capabilities that RMO needs)
• They decided to proceed with the analysis phase
  before making any final decisions about solutions
• They began developing a schedule, budget, and
  feasibility statement for the new system.

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Producing the Project Schedule

• Each project consists of tasks, activities and
  phases.
• A phase is made up of a group of related
  activities
• An activity is made up of a group of related
  tasks
• A task is a smallest piece of work that is
  identified, named and scheduled
• The development of a project schedule involves
  three main steps
• Develop work breakdown schedule
• Build a PERT/Gantt chart
• Develop resource requirements and staffing plan

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Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

• A work breakdown structure (WBS) is a hierarchy
  of tasks, activities and phases for the project.
• It is used as a foundation for developing the
  project schedule, identifying milestones in the
  schedule and for managing the costs
• Each task has an associated duration (sometimes
  three different values expected, pessimistic and
  optimistic) and number of resources required)
• How to identify tasks
• Top-down identify major activities first, then
  internal tasks
• Bottom-up list all the tasks and organize them
• Analogy from similar projects

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RMO Work Breakdown Structure
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Project Scheduling

• Developing a project schedule is a four-step
  process
• (1) Project members identify all tasks for
  each activity
• (2) Estimation the size of the task number of
  human resources, person-day required, calendar
  time required and any other specific resources
• (3) Determining the sequence of the tasks
• (4) Scheduling the tasks themselves
• There are special techniques and tools for
  project scheduling (e.g., MS Project)

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PERT/CPM Chart

• PERT/CPM (Project Evaluation and Review
  Technique/Critical Path Method) chart
• shows the relationships among tasks
• defines tasks that can be done concurrently
• shows the critical path ( the longest path of
  dependent tasks from the first task to the last
  task, i.e. the shortest completion period for the
  project)
• If any task on that path slips, then the entire
  project schedule will slip
• Other tasks (not on the critical path) usually
  have some slack time (the amount of time that the
  task can slip without affecting the schedule)
• Good to show dependencies and critical path but
  it is not easy to see the projects progress on a
  PERT chart

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Partial PERT/CPM chart for the CSS project
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Gantt chart

• Gantt Chart shows information for each task as
  horizontal bar chart where the vertical tick
  marks are calendar days and weeks
• Doesnt show the dependencies of tasks
• A good tool for monitoring the progress of the
  project
• Tasks represented by horizontal bars
• Vertical tick marks are calendar days and weeks
• Shows calendar information in a way that is easy
  to track
• Bars may be colored or darkened to show completed
  tasks
• Vertical line indicates todays date

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Partial Gantt chart for the CSS project
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Importance of the Proper Project Scheduling

• In 1984, Microsoft planned to develop MS Word for
  one year
• At that time, this was two months less than the
  most optimistic estimated deadline for a project
  of its size
• In reality, it took Microsoft five years to
  complete Word
• Ultimately, the overly aggressive schedule for
  Word slowed its development for a number of
  reasons
• The project experienced high turnover due to
  unreasonable pressure and work hours
• Code was finalized prematurely, and the
  software spent much longer in stabilization
  (i.e., fixing bugs) than was originally expected
  (i.e., 12 months versus 3 months).
• Aggressive scheduling resulted in poor planning
  the delivery date consistently was off by more
  than 60 for the first four years of the project

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Just For Fun
http//www.getfunnypictures.com/crt052.html
MS software release
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Risks Management and Project Feasibility

• Risk management
• Organizational and cultural feasibility
• Technological feasibility
• Schedule feasibility
• Resource feasibility
• Economic feasibility
• Cost/benefit analysis
• Sources of funds (cash flow, long-term capital)?

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Risk Analysis
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Organizational and Cultural Feasibility

• Each company has own culture
• New system must fit into culture
• Evaluate related issues for potential risks
• Low level of computer competency
• Computer phobia
• Perceived loss of control
• Shift in power
• Fear of job change or employment loss
• Reversal of established work procedures
• Positive steps should be undertaken to reduce the
  risks
• E.g. additional training can be held to teach
  new procedures and provide increased computer
  skills

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Technological Feasibility

• Does system stretch state-of-the-art technology?
• Does in-house expertise presently exist for
  development?
• Does an outside vendor need to be involved?
• Solutions include
• Training or hiring more experienced employees
• Hiring consultants
• Changing scope and project approach

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Schedule Feasibility

• Estimates needed without complete information
• Management deadlines may not be realistic
• Project managers
• Drive realistic assumptions and estimates
• Recommend completion date flexibility
• Assign interim milestones to periodically
  reassess completion dates
• Involve experienced personnel
• Manage proper allocation of resources

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Resource Feasibility

• Team member availability
• Team skill levels
• Computers, equipment, and supplies
• Support staff time and availability
• Physical facilities

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Economic Feasibility

• Cost/benefit analysis
• Estimate project development costs
• Estimate operational costs after project
• Estimate financial benefits based on annual
  savings and increased revenues
• Calculate using table of costs and benefits
• Uses net present value (NPV), payback period,
  return on investment (ROI) techniques

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Development Costs for RMO

• The project manager has responsibility for
  estimating the cost of development
• Salaries and wages
• Equipment and installation
•  Software and licenses
• Consulting fees and payments to third parties
• Training
• Facilities
• Utilities and tools
• Support staff
• Travel and miscellaneous

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Supporting details of salary and wages for the
CSS project
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Summary of Development Costs for RMO
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Operating Costs

• The following list identifies the major
  categories of costs that may be allocated to the
  operation of the new system
• connectivity
• equipment maintenance
• computer operations
• programming support
• amortization of equipment
• training and ongoing assistance (e.g., help
  desk)
• supplies

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Summary of Annual Operating Costs for RMO
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Just For Fun
Technical support
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Sources of Benefits

• Benefits usually come from two major sources
• decreased costs
• increased revenues
• Unlike development costs, there are no standard
  benefits
• Sample of reduced costs
• Reducing staff due to automating manual
  functions or increasing efficiency
• Maintaining constant staff with increasing
  volumes of work
• Decreasing operating expenses, such as
  shipping charges for emergency shipments
• Ensuring quicker processing and turnaround of
  documents or transactions
• Capturing lost discounts on money management
• Reducing bad accounts or bad credit losses
• Reducing inventory or merchandise losses due
  to tighter controls
• Collecting accounts receivables more quickly
• Capturing income lost due to stock outs
  with better inventory management
• Reducing the cost of goods with volume
  discounts and purchases
• Reducing paperwork costs with electronic data
  interchange and other automation

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Sample Benefits for RMO
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Financial Calculations

• Companies use a combination of methods
• Fist approach, called the net present value
  (NPV), has two concepts
• (1) all benefits and costs are calculated in
  terms of todays dollars (present value)
• (2) the future streams of benefits and costs are
  netted together and then discounted by a certain
  factor for each year in the future
• Second method to determine whether investments
  will be beneficial is to determine the payback
  period, sometimes called the breakeven point.
  This is the point in time at which benefits
  becomes equal to the cost of development and
  operation
• Third economic measure is the return on
  investment (ROI). ROI shows a percentage return
  needed so that the costs and benefits are exactly
  equal over the specified time period.

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RMO Cost Benefit Analysis
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Tangible vs. Intangible Benefits

• Tangible benefits can be measured or estimated
  in terms of dollars
• Intangible benefit cant be directly measured
  or estimated in dollars
• In some instance, the intangible benefits far
  exceed the tangible costs
• Examples of intangible benefits
• Increased levels of service (in ways that
  cannot be measured)
• Increased customer satisfaction (not
  measurable)
• Survival (a standard capability common in the
  industry, or common to many competitors)
• The need to develop in-house expertise (such as
  with a pilot program with new technology)
• Examples of intangible costs
• Reduced employee moral
• Lost productivity (inestimable)
• Lost customers or sales (during some period
  of time)

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Staffing the Project

• There are five tasks within this activity
• Develop a resource plan
• Identify and request technical staff
• Identify and request specific user staff
• Organize the project team into work groups
• Conduct preliminary training and team-building

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Launching the Project

• Scope defined, risks identified, project is
  feasible, schedule developed, team members
  identified and ready
• Oversight committee finalized, meet to give
  go-ahead, and release funds
• Formal announcement made to all involved parties
  within organization

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Readings
Todays lecture Chapter 3 The Analyst as A
Project Manager For next week Chapter 4
Investigating System Requirements
Thank you !!!