Aspects of IT Project Management 1

Running head: Aspects of IT Project Management

Aspects of IT Project Management

Tanner R. Student

ITEC 640 9042 Information Technology Project Management

Professor Michael Shoukat

November 15, 2017

 Aspects of IT Project Management 2

Abstract

This paper explores reports on the ability and need to optimize the

schedule and planning processing of an IT project. Project management

in general can be very complex and the nature of the IT job function or

industry have some extra special aspects that make the job harder. Staff

costs more, projects are needed more frequently, and timelines are

short. Additionally, the ability to implement or complete a project may

need to be scheduled around other operations to not cause a negative

impact. Knowledge of the proper methods available to define standards

and processes is paramount when starting an IT project and issues later

on can be prevented with better planning and control.

 Aspects of IT Project Management 3

Project Management is the process of organizing and managing the elements of a project to

better ensure a successful project completion. A project may be small and only last a few hours

for a specific event or they may be large and build large city infrastructure. The main elements

of a project remain consistent however, regardless of complexity.

For a project the be successful, a strong beginning with defined requirements and well known

known variables is required. As there are many elements involved, slight errors or

miscalculations can add up and create scope creep or set the project up for failure with

unrealistic goals given the available budget or allowed timeline. Understanding the true time

involved, cost associated, and resources required for every task is the best method to deliver an

optimal project process and increase probability of success.

Managing a project in Information Technology (IT) fields is no different in process but many

elements may be unique to the industry versus other projects. The staff resources required for

IT projects generally demand a higher hourly rate or salary. The following is a list Annual mean

wages from US Bureau of Labor Statistics of some of the possible Occupational titles required

for IT projects versus the average US wage.

Occupation Occupation title Mean hourly Annual mean

code wage wage

00-0000 All Occupations 23.86 49,630

 Aspects of IT Project Management 4

15-0000 Computer and Mathematical $44.12 $91,780

Occupations

15-1100 Computer Occupations $44.14 $91,820

15-1111 Computer and Information Research $57.38 $119,350

Scientists

15-1120 Computer and Information Analysts $46.03 $95,730

15-1121 Computer Systems Analysts $45.95 $95,580

15-1122 Information Security Analysts $46.46 $96,650

15-1130 Software Developers and $47.83 $99,480

Programmers

15-1131 Computer Programmers $41.19 $85,680

15-1132 Software Developers, Applications $49.46 $102,870

15-1133 Software Developers, Systems $52.51 $109,230

Software

15-1134 Web Developers $35.04 $72,890

15-1140 Network Architects $46.54 $96,810

15-1141 Database Administrators $45.96 $95,600

15-1142 Network and Computer Systems $43.74 $90,980

Administrators

15-1143 Computer Network Architects $51.44 $106,990

15-1150 Computer Support Specialists $27.77 $57,760

 Aspects of IT Project Management 5

15-1151 Computer User Support Specialists $26.37 $54,840

15-1152 Computer Network Support Specialists $32.91 $68,450

15-1199 Computer Occupations, All Other $43.02 $89,470

(Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016)

Also the cost of much equipment that will need to be procured is more expensive and also only

have a limited lifecycle compared to other projects. For example, a project to develop a new

cell phone may expect the phone to be useable for less than 5 years versus a building or

roadway that may not need to be repeated for a century.

A project, regardless of the industry is broken into phases. These phases follow, one after

another, and repeat back and the beginning after the lifecycle starts over or a new project is

required. The first phase is Project Conception and Initiation. This phase includes creating

deliverable documents such as the Project Charter and includes the Project Initiation meetings.

The second phase of project management is the Project Definition and Planning. This planning

phase includes defining the projects scope and budget as well as creating deliverables. The

deliverables created include the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), Gantt Charts, Risk

Management Matrix, and Communication Plan.

The third phase of project management the launch or execution of the project. This phase is the

body of actually performing the project and included monitoring various statuss and tracking of
 Aspects of IT Project Management 6

tasks and elements. Forecasting to predict future needs and Quality testing is also performed to

ensure the project is compliant with defined requirements. The use of Key Performance

Indicators (KPIs) are used to track various specific or key metrics for details tracking versus a

general overview.

The fourth phase is performed after the initial work is performed for project performance and

control. This phase validates and enforces quality control on the work completed in phase 3.

This phase confirms objectives are being met to standard and performance is as expected.

Deliverables of quality assessment testing and tracking documents are created for later

handoff.

The fifth and final phase is the Project Close. This phase is started after the testing is up to

standard from phase 4. This phase includes the Post Mortem and final Reporting with the

handoff and official closure of the project.

A secondary or subset of the Project Management Life Cycle is the System Development Life

Cycle (SDLC). The SDLC is made of up seven sections but these five sections are subsections of

the Planning and Execution phases of the project management life cycle. This is because the

SDLC is the repeating process of designing, implementing, and testing. After process completes,

is starts over again at some point. This may be due to the time has arrived for a new model or

update to the project. The SDLC does not officially close so there is no closure phase and no

reason for a new initiation.

 Aspects of IT Project Management 7

The first two phases of the SDLC correspond to the planning phase. These SDLC phases are

Business Requirements and then System Design. The Planning phase and Analysis phases

involve analysis of business requirements and defining the requirements the project must meet

to address the business needs. The agreement of the requirements is paramount, Two of the

sources of dissatisfaction in personal and business interactions are unmet expectations and a

misunderstanding or ignorance of the values held by the other party. (Saylor.org, 2012) The

clients and other stakeholders are involved in this phase through a variety of methods. Clients

requirements will be gathered by interviews, surveys, questionnaire, shadowing or simulations.

The next two phases of the SDLC is the Design and Development phases. These phases can only

start once a full and agreed upon understand of the business requirements is defined. The

design can then begin with the engineering resources to architect and design how the

application or infrastructure needs to look and what aspects will need to be involved to meet

the businesss needs. This means meeting the cost and time requirements of the scope as well

as function requirements.

The development phase can then begin process of actually building or developing the product.

The development phase can start in a waterfall finish to start dependency method or it can be

staggered. The staggered development allows subsets to start work once a certain percentage

of the design is complete. This method of dependency can reduce wait times and overall time

and cost, however if the design changes, it could require extra effort to redo the development.
 Aspects of IT Project Management 8

The next phases of the SDLC are the Testing and Implementation phases. The Testing phase

involves testing by the project resources but more importantly, clients and other stakeholders

are involved. Issues and improvements are to be expected and this feedback from the clients

ensure the project is adhering to the business requirements and delivering the expected

experience or service. The Implementation phase can be performed after a certain amount of

testing is complete but more testing will be required. The implementation of the project is also

expected to require tuning and continued testing with stakeholders will assist to validate the

project status.

The last phase of the Maintenance phase. This is after the project in implemented and

accepted. Issues will still be reported on occasion and improvements or changes will continue

to be requested over time during the maintenance phase so patches and other maintenance

will be completed as needed. This last phase will persist until the age or capabilities of the

existing project require a refresh or update and then the Planning phase will start again and the

process repeats. It is likely that will a new cycles planning and design is being performed, the

previous cycles maintenance phase will still be performed to support the business needs.

In the initiation and approval phases, many elements are deliverables need to be established.

The stakeholders must be all contacted and assigned. These are the voices of the clients that

require the project as well as their leadership and anyone else that has an interest on the status

of the project. Once all stakeholders are defined, the deliverable called communication plan is
 Aspects of IT Project Management 9

created. This plan clearly defines the roles of project team members, clients, and leadership.

Smaller projects can make this process very straight forward but larger, inter-department

projects or more complex projects allow for conflict and misunderstanding.

Other processes also need to be defined the initialization phase. These include workflow

organization and official approval and change management processes. Establishing the process

for later approvals and criteria for when approvals and from whom, are required will potentially

prevent scope creed by unauthorized changes.

Once processes and requirements are defined and approved, the true scope of the project and

a project charted can now be created. A Scope of Work is defined as well as preliminary

schedule and conceptual budget. The budget is based on a Bill of Materials (BOM) that can

generally be plus or minus fifty percent of the expected cost. The exact cost is not known yet,

just roughly estimated and approved. Other additional plans created during this time are a plan

for Development and Tracking a detailed schedule, a Procurement Plan for purchase and

procurement of new resources and a plan to build and refine budget and estimate and track

costs.

Into the planning phase, a schedule of then detailed and expanded. Controlling costs,

orchestrating coordination between resources and teams all play a part in scheduling. The cost

aspects come into play and as budgetary constraints and time requirements may require the

schedule to be adjusted to stay within project parameters.

 Aspects of IT Project Management 10

Scheduling conflicts likely will occur and the project manager is responsible for addressing the

conflicts and seeking resolution. The issues may arrive from controllable or uncontrollable

sources. Controllable issues are things like shipping delays, resource scheduling issues, delays in

other processes such as legal or procurement. These issues may be scheduled themselves or

require intervention with other stakeholders to move a process along manually. The

uncontrollable issues or conflicts are things like natural disasters, acts of god, or accidents.

The result may be adjusting the schedule with a variety of methods. The sequence of activates

can be adjusted to change dependency from finish-to-start to finishing at the same time or

starting at the same time. A defined critical path is essential to be able to change the schedule

as it must be known what required finish to start tasks cannot be moved. Other non-critical

path events have concurrent relationships.

The activities are initially defined from the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) that was created

during the previous phases. This WBS will show what dependancies will be allowed between all

the tasks. The WBS is broken out in a Gantt Chart to visually define a task with corresponding

assigned resource, estimated time and cost. Certain elements of the WBS may allow overlap

that was not planned for initially to overcome the scheduling issues. This may require additional

resources or fund to facilitate so it was not planned initially, but to re-align the project to

required status, it may be required.

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The end result of the projects success post implementation will require due diligence during the

Initiation and Planning phases. Especially in an IT project, the adage of Garbage In Garbage

Out can be seen. Projects will likely experience delays, creep, and other issues but if the

proper steps are completed initially, the project should be able to be adjusted and be defined

processes will provide clarity when needed.

 Aspects of IT Project Management 12

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