Software management topics

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Software management topics
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Team Management
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Outline of Lecture

• Team structures
• Leadership
• Getting the most out of the team

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Leadership Styles

• Autocratic (Boss-Centred)
• Manager makes decision and announces it
• Manager sells decision
• Manager presents ideas and invites questions
• Manager presents tentative decision subject to
  change
• Manager presents problem, gets suggestions, makes
  decision
• Manager defines limits, asks group to make
  decision
• Manager permits sub-ordinates to function within
  limits defined by superior
• Democratic (sub-ordinate centred)

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People Management

• In software development, talented programmers
  are known to be ten times more productive as the
  less talented members of a team
• Cusumano (1997) How Microsoft makes large teams
  work like small teams, Sloan Management Review

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People Management

• Team structures
• organic
• Druckers view
• baseball team
• symphony orchestra
• double tennis team

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Team Building

• Ensure commitment to goal
• Team loyalty to one another
• Obtain team agreement
• Encourage contributions and views
• Listen to views - take action!

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Team Building

• Organise team to give clear responsibilities and
  structure
• Optimise team size
• 5 - 10 people per team
• Breakdown of team should minimise need for
  co-ordination
• Realistic but positive leadership
• Work closely with customers
• Manage conflict

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Communication

• Within Team
• Team Meetings
• Newsletters
• Noticeboard / Wallchart
• Top / Down Bottom / Up
• Peer to Peer
• Formal System Information
• eg change requests, new CASE tool

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Communication

• External to Team

Management
Team
Users
Other Teams
Suppliers
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Productivity
Perfectly partionable task (with no communication)
months
People
Unpartionable Task
months
People
Task with complex interrelationships
months
People
No of links n (n-1) / 2
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Goal Setting Short Term

• Use of work plans

Task Prepare for interview Interview Marketing
Manager Write up interview Update data
model Update DFDs
Deliverable Questionnaire Completed
Questionnaire Minutes Data Model DFD
Estimate 8 hours 4 hours 6 hours 2 hours 8
hours
Target 23/11 24/11 25/11 25/11 27/11

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Goal Setting Long Term

• Use of job reviews / Appraisals
• frequency?
• major objectives
• development of staff
• review objectives
• No shocks

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Change Management
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Outline of lecture

• The change process
• The role of IS in change
• Managing the change process
• Some issues for consideration

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How Do We Manage The Customer?

• Know their business
• Set clear responsibilities
• Communicate frequently
• Involve them throughout
• Manage expectations
• Use contracts
• Plan for changeover

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Communication

• Users involved throughout project
• Inform of changes to plan or design
• Demonstrate system early
• Report progress
• Ensure users report problems
• Communicate information on new releases
• Use of contracts / service level agreements
• Measure satisfaction
• Get to know the customers

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Managing Expectations

• The users views of what to expect develop
  throughout the project
• 20 of programming will give 80 of functionality
  - Code this first!

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Managing Expectations

• Some Guidelines
• Tell them the worst
• Keep the good news until it is certain
• Prepare users for problems
• Be clear on essential vs. desirable
• Do not assume functions should be computerised

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Managing The Implementation

• Preparation for live running
• Procedures
• Training
• Conversion Planning
• Regression Plan
• Going Live
• Conversion Of Data
• Technical Environment
• Software Release
• Version Control
• Hardware Installed
• Customer Acceptance

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Why Do Implementations Fail?

• System does not meet requirements
• Lack of planning
• Lack of management action after implementation
• No success factors to judge by
• Lack of training
• Poor user morale / no desire
• Over expectations
• Benefits not achieved
• Resistance to change

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Changing the organisation
Previous Organisation
Changed Organisation
Unfreeze-change-refreeze
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The Change Process

• Trigger
• Opportunity / threat / crisis
• Vision
• Define the future
• Conversion
• Persuade / detail the structure
• Maintenance
• Sustain belief, reinforce justify

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IS as organisational change
Structure
Technology
Task
People
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I alone will not change the way people work
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Issues with IS development practices

• 1.
• 2.
• 3.
• 4.
• 5.

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Issues with IS development practices

• System design considered to be a technological
  function
• Socio-technical aspects ignored
• Approaches to development tend to be
  deterministic rather than an emancipatory
• Radical change brings high levels of risk
• Outsourcing can exacerbate the problems

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A positive response to change
Hopeful realism
Informed pessimism
Public
Private
Informed optimism
Check out
Uniformed optimism
Completion
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A potential user

• The less I know about plans to change, the more
  I assume, the more suspicious I become, and the
  more I direct my energy into resistance.
• Once I feel manipulated, or uninvolved, I will
  inevitably tend to veer towards a negative view
  of the change and its effect on me.

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A negative response to change

• Denial
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Testing
• Acceptance

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User participation

• Correlation between participation satisfaction
• User participation is higher at all stages of
  in-house development compared with external
  (Gasson Holland, 1995)
• How do we encourage participation in global
  software development?

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Issues ...

• Change is political not logical
• Cultural issues need consideration
• Power is a major factor in resistance and success
• Does radical or incremental change work best?

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Summary

• Change is not just a technological issue
• Management of users in the change process can
  lead to satisfaction
• Some models of change ignore the incremental
  innovation in most organisations

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• Managing the IS Productivity Paradox

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Outline of lecture

• Why the paradox?
• Justification techniques - old new
• Demonstrating the IS contribution

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Why the productivity paradox?

• Amount of money spent
• Benefits not matching investment
• IS over hyped?
• Competitive advantage - disaster dichotomy
• Difficulty in estimating costs and measuring
  benefits
• Timing of returns

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IS Applications
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Intranet application cycle
Company news
Telephone directory
Bidding process
Source Breu and Ward (1999)
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Types of justification

• Cost / benefit
• Payback period
• RoI
• Cashflow
• Business Value
• RoM
• Information Economics
• Strategic Value
• CSF

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Changing nature of IS justification
Repositioning
Making money Saving money
Differentiation
Effectiveness
Efficiency
time
Source Lincoln (1990)
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Types of justification

• Cost / benefit
• Payback period
• RoI
• Cashflow
• Business Value
• RoM
• Information Economics
• Strategic Value
• CSF

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Investment Decisions
Type of change
Financially Value logic Act of
Must Based of change faith do
Hard Tangible
Soft Intangible
Cost/ Information CSF or N/A benefit Economics
/ RoM similar
Type of justification
Adapted from Robson (1997)
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Cost / Benefit Analysis

• COSTS
• Installation
• Running
• BENEFITS
• Tangible
• measurable now
• Indeterminate
• measurable afterwards
• Intangible
• not measurable
• Simple Payback Equation
• Time Installation Costs
• Period Benefits (p.a.) - Running Costs
  (p.a)

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Presentation Of Cost/Benefit Analysis

• Simple Presentation
• eg graphical
• eg charts
• Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
• Costs 10,000 5,000 3,000
• Benefits 0 12,000 15,000
• Cash flow -10,000 7,000 12,000
• Put detail in back up documents
• Agree management requirements first

-
Implementation
Break even point
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Information Economics
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Demonstrating the IS contribution

• Measuring Success
• Agreed success factors
• Balanced scorecard
• Management of Benefits
• Moving towards an interpretive view

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Balanced Scorecard
Financial Perspective Goals measures
Customer Perspective Goals measures
Internal Business Perspective Goals measures
Innovation Learning Perspective Goals
measures
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Moving from a rational to interpretive view
Viewpoint Objective / Rational
Efficiency Zone
Effectiveness Zone
Understanding Zone
Viewpoint Subjective / Political
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Management of Benefits

• Benefit is with business change not IT (Earl,
  1992)
• Perceptions of benefits differ from reasons for
  investment (Ward et al, 1996)
• Companies are poor at benefit management
• Not just a justification issue

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Ensuring The Rewards Are Reaped

• Maximising Benefits
• Winning over the users
• Training / Procedures
• Plan to gain benefits (rigorously
  manage accordingly)
• eliminate functions
• regroup staff
• Contingency plans
• Selling to multiple customers or other companies

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Ensuring The Rewards Are Reaped

• Minimising Costs
• Good planning and control
• Being effective in development
• Controlling suppliers
• Managing risks
• Reducing maintenance
• minimising cost of making change
• minimise number of changes

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A process model of benefits management
Identifying structuring benefits
Planning benefits realisation
Potential for further benefits
Executing the benefits realisation plan
Evaluating reviewing results
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Summary

• Implementing the strategic IS plan requires
  significant investment, often leading to
  disappointment
• Investment needs to be justified, but this cannot
  be purely financial
• Investment needs evaluation to ensure benefits
  are as planned

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Advances in IS Project Management
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Historical view of IS Management
CIO Credibility
?
Stage 2 Strategic Partner ------- Align IT with
Business
Stage 3 Business visionary ------- Drive strategy
Stage 1 Functional Head ------- Deliver on
promises
Organisational Learning
Source Ross Feeny (2000)
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Forces shaping IS function
Challenge of economic change
Core competence strategies
In-House IS function
Business reliance on IS
IS outsourcing potential
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The IS Project Manager
Product
Process
People
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Transforming the IT function
From Monopoly Supplier to Mixed Sourcing
From Systems Analysts to Business Consultants
From Craftsmen to Project Managers
From Business to Industry Standards
PEOPLE
PROCESS
PURPOSE
From Decentralized Bias to Centralized Topsight
From Large Function to Lean Teams
From System Provider to Infrastructure planner
Transformation of the IT function at British
Petroleum, Cross, Earl and Sampler, 1997
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Emerging IS function
Elicitation and delivery of business requirements
IS / IT Governance
Ensuring technical capability
Managing external supply
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Capabilities
Capabilities 1. Business systems thinker 2.
Relationship builder 3. CIO 4. Informed buyer 5.
Technical architect 6. Technical fixer 7.
Contact monitor 8. Vendor developer 9. Contact
facilitator
Business
1
2
9
3
8
4
5
6
7
Technology
Service
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Effective IS Management
ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY
Managerial IT Knowledge
IT Management Climate
IT Use
IT Management Process Effectiveness
Source Boynton, Zmud Jacobs (1994)
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Process Management

• New approaches to project planning
• Component-based
• Outsourcing
• Iteration not single build
• Process maturity through continuous improvement

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Sourcing of IS

• Reasons for growth
• Focus on core-competencies
• uncertainty about value of IT
• Problems
• loss of control
• risks
• Selective sourcing

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Product Management

• IT management is business management
• Delivering strategic business change
• Process re-engineering
• Business re-engineering
• Developing a flexible infrastructure
• Adaptive to technology

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Changing emphasis of IT management

• Emphasis on management of computers
• Centralised computing
• Propriety applications
• Minimal connectivity
• Technology push

• Emphasis on management of data resources
• Distributed computing
• Standardisation (open)
• High connectivity
• User pull

Exploitation of IT for business benefit
Second S-curve
First S-curve
time
From Moreton, p144
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Managing IS Complexity
IS Gatekeeper
Organisation
Existing (legacy) Technologies
New Technologies

• New technologies
• The IS function
• The organisation

Source McKeen Smith (1996)
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The need for RD

• Aim
• to understand the potential of emerging
  existing technologies
• to be able to respond quickly to competition
  customer needs
• Steps
• awareness of field - gain intelligence
• evaluation judgement about technology
• ability to manage chosen technology
• adopt adapt technology

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Managing the infrastructure

• Establish standards
• Complex distributed networks
• Globalisation Issues
• reliability of international phone lines
• resistance to standardisation
• global communication standards
• time zones
• Discontinue groups technology
• Managing vendors

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Innovation Management
Signal Processing
Strategy
Resource
Implement -ation
Learning re-innovation
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Innovation

• Creativity is thinking up new things.
  Innovation is doing new things. . Ideas are
  useless unless used
• Theodore Levitt

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But...

• We do not tolerate failure
• A recent IT job advert

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A Case StudyProduct Management Issues

• Rapid changes in the market place
• First product often wins significant market share
• IS function needs to be seen to be profitable
• Applications are developed as one-off activities
• Reuse limited to cut and paste approaches or
  low level components

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Software Maintenance

• Types of maintenance
• corrective
• adaptive
• perfective
• Significant cost of maintenance
• Poor perception
• Lacks good staff continuity from development
  team
• Patchwork changes not strategic re-engineering

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Moving from Backroom to Boardroom

• Build a responsive IT infrastructure to enable
  change
• Use business level components as well as low
  level components
• helps executives relate to reuse
• Components
• clear interfaces and behaviour reusable
• Manage the risk of poor components

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A Packaged Software Organisation

• Market leader in demographic data analysis
  software
• Multiple products targeted at different markets
• Previous experience with OO and technical level
  components
• Key changes in the business leading to multiple
  products and high levels of reuse

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Product Portfolio
Customer Relationship Management
Data Mining
Sales Management
Market Profiling Packages
Bespoke Solutions
Level of Sophistication
New Prospect Finder
Vertical Market Products
Local Area Marketing
Relationship Marketing
Market Analysis
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Component Architecture
Business Portfolio
Packaged Applications
Bespoke Applications
Reporting
Mapping
Profiling
Multimedia
Business Components
Databases
Statistical Models
KBS Models
Internet Browser
Technical Components
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Organisational Structure
Source of Software
Ownership
Application Teams
Executive Strategy Group
Application Portfolio
Component Teams
Business Components
Technical Steering Group
External Sources
Technical Components
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A Flexible Approach

• Build for change
• Components reduce repetitious work
• Reduces lead time to market
• Avoids mass legacy systems
• Involve executives in maintenance decisions for
  added value of current products

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Summary

• We need to manage people, process and product
• IS management needs to deliver suitable products
  in response to business pressures
• Processes need to be continually improved and
  adapted
• Software delivery is primarily about people
  management
• The future chaos not panaceas (Baskerville and
  Smithson, 1995)