Lecture 5: Project Initiation and Planning

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Lecture 5Project Initiation and Planning
MIS 160 Systems Development Life Cycle I
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Project Initiation and Planning

• Long-term information systems strategic plan
  (top-down)
• Department managers or process managers
  (bottom-up)
• Response to outside forces
• Legislative changes
• Market forces
• Competition

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Activities of the Project Planning Phase
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System Request

• Lists key elements of the project
• Project name
• Project sponsor
• Business need
• Functionality
• Expected value
• Special issues or constraints

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Project Sponsor

• The project sponsor is a key person proposing
  development or adoption of a new system.
• In many cases, there is an approval (steering)
  committee which reviews proposals from various
  groups and units in the organization and decides
  which to commit to developing.

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Sources of Potential Projects
Project Sponsor
Project Identification and Selection
Project Initiation and Planning
Sources
Top Down

• Top Management
• Steering Committee

Schedule of Projects 1. 2. ...
Evaluate, Prioritize, and Schedule Projects
Bottom Up

• User Departments
• Development Group

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Selection Decisions
Business Need
Existing and Available Resources
Perceived and Real Needs
Decision Outcome

• Accept project
• Reject project
• Delay project
• Refocus project
• End-user Development
• Proof of concept

Project Selection Decision
List of Potential and Ongoing Projects
Current Organizational Environment
Evaluation Criteria
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Project Initiation and Planning

• Organize team
• Establish management procedures
• Scope
• Alternatives
• Feasibility/risk analysis
• Estimation
• Cost/benefit
• Scheduling

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Define Scope

• Statement of scope includes
• General project information
• Problem/opportunity statement
• Project objectives
• Project description
• Identification of users
• Benefits
• Constraints
• Duration
• Costs

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Problems / Opportunities

• From preliminary information, begin to identify
  potential problems / opportunities
• At this point, do not worry about causes and
  effects
• Good examples productivity is slipping orders
  are going unfilled, inventory is usually
  understocked, customer dissatisfaction,
  opportunity for increased sales, opportunity to
  capture market share
• Poor examples not enough time to write system
  not enough people to write system system will
  cost too much technology does not exist users
  are stupid (these will be reflected in
  feasibility analysis)

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• Tangible benefits
• cost reduction
• error reduction
• increase efficiency
• increase sales
• ....
• Intangible benefits
• improved planning and control
• improved decision making
• improve employee morale
• more timely information
• ....

• Constraints
• schedule project must be completed before
  12/8/98
• cost the system cannot cost more than 100,000
• technology the system must be on-line, use DB2,
  run on a Novell network, etc.
• policy the system must use double-entry
  accounting

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Costs

• Tangible
• hardware
• labor
• operational
• ....
• Intangible
• loss of customer goodwill
• employee morale
• ....

• One-time
• system development
• hardware/software
• user training
• site preparation
• data conversion
• Recurring
• maintenance
• data storage expense
• communications expense
• software licenses
• supplies (paper, toner, etc.)

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Feasibility / Risk Assessment

• Technical feasibility
• Economic feasibility
• Legal and contractual feasibility
• Operational feasibility
• Schedule feasibility

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Strategic Assessment

• Productivity
• Differentiation
• Management

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Output of Project Initiation and Planning Process

• Statement of scope
• Feasibility/risk and strategic assessment
• Estimates (money, effort, time)
• Schedule

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Estimation

• Estimate of resources, such as human effort,
  time, and cost
• Estimation is extremely difficulty and (usually)
  inaccurate

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Estimation Numbers

• Prior projects
• Past experience
• Industry standards
• Detailed analysis

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Estimation Trade-offs

• Size
• Function points
• Lines of code
• Effort
• Person-months
• Time
• Months

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Identifying Tasks

• Top-down approach
• Identify highest level tasks
• Break them into increasingly smaller units
• Methodology
• Using standard list of tasks

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Top Down Task Identification
Phases with high level steps
Phases
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Time EstimationEstimating a Project Based on
Industry Information
Planning Analysis Design
Implementation Industry Standard For
Web 15 20 35
30 Applications Time Required 4
5.33 9.33 8 in
Person Months
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Time Estimation A More Complex Approach
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TimeboxingA Time Oriented Approach

• Fixed deadline
• Reduced functionality, if necessary
• Fewer finishing touches
• Build the system core
• Postpone unfinished functionality
• Deliver the system with core functionality
• Repeat steps 3-5 to add refinements and
  enhancements

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Cost Estimating

• An important output of project cost management is
  a cost estimate
• There are several types of cost estimates and
  tools and techniques to help create them
• It is also important to develop a cost management
  plan that describes how cost variances will be
  managed on the project

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Types of Cost Estimates
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Cost Estimation Tools and Techniques

• 4 basic tools and techniques for cost estimates
• Analogous or top-down use the actual cost of a
  previous, similar project as the basis for the
  new estimate
• Bottom-up estimate individual work items and sum
  them to get a total estimate
• Parametric use project characteristics in a
  mathematical model to estimate costs
• Computerized tools use spreadsheets, project
  management software, or other software to help
  estimate costs

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Constructive Cost Model (COCOMO)

• Barry Boehm helped develop the COCOMO models for
  estimating software development costs
• Parameters include source lines of code or
  function points
• COCOMO II is a computerized model available on
  the web
• This model is also used to estimate time and
  effort

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Typical Problems with IT Cost Estimates

• Developing an estimate for a large software
  project is a complex task requiring a significant
  amount of effort. Remember that estimates are
  done at various stages of the project
• Many people doing estimates have little
  experience doing them. Try to provide training
  and mentoring
• People have a bias toward underestimation.
  Review estimates and ask important questions to
  make sure estimates are not biased
• Management wants a number for a bid, not a real
  estimate. Project managers must negotiate with
  project sponsors to create realistic cost
  estimates

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Developing Project Schedule

• Task smallest piece of work
• Activity group of tasks
• Phase group of activities
• Schedule process
• List all tasks for each SDLC activity
• Estimate sizes of each task
• Determine task sequence
• Schedule tasks

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Scheduling

• Gantt
• very simple
• bar chart
• does not show interrelationships
• PERT
• more complex
• network
• shows interrelationships

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Sample PERT Chart
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Gantt Chart for Software Launch Project
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Project Staffing

• Develop resource plan for the project
• Identify and request specific technical staff
• Identify and request specific user staff
• Organize the project team into work groups
• Conduct preliminary training and team building
  exercises

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Staffing Attributes

• Staffing levels will change over a projects
  lifetime
• Adding staff may add more overhead than
  additional labor
• Using teams of 8-10 reporting in a hierarchical
  structure can reduce complexity

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Launching Project

• Oversight committee is finalized and meets to
  give go-ahead
• Formal announcement made
• Key question, Are we ready to start?