CS 753:- IT Project Management
By Mesfin Belachew /PhD/
Assistant Professor,
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Management Spectrum and
Related Problems
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Management Spectrum
Effective IT project management focuses on the four main
element of management, the 4 P’s:
– People — the most important element of a successful project
– Product — the IT or the software to be built
– Process — the set of framework activities and tasks to get the job
done
– Project — all work required to make the product a reality
• The manager has to give equal attention on each of the P’s
(manager has to know all attributes in each P’s)
• The 4P’s are considered to be Management Spectrum
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Management Spectrum ……
• People
– Is the main factors in IT PM
– Sometimes very challenging !!
– People management should include a well defined model
practicing the following area:-
√ recruiting, √ compensation,
√ selection, √ career development,
√ performance √ organization & work design,
management, √ team/culture development
√ training, etc.
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Management Spectrum …… People
• Players in the People category (stakeholders)
– Senior Managers:- define business issues that impact
project, significant influencers in the project
– Project (technical) managers :- must plan, motivate, organize
and control the project team
– Practitioners:- Programmers, engineers, etc. who have
technical skills to produce the product
– Customers – also called stakeholders, who specify
requirements, interest in the outcome
– End users - use the technology, interact with the product
after released, etc.
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Management Spectrum …… People
• People and Productivity Relationship ….
– “Companies that sensibly manage their investment in people will
prosper in the long run”
⁃ Establish a high
performing team
Productivity
(optimal size)
People
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Management Spectrum …… People
• Qualities to look for in a Team leader
– Motivation – the ability to encourage technical people to produce
to their best ability
– Organization – the ability to mold existing processes that will
enable the initial concept to be translated into a final product
– Ideas or innovation – the ability to encourage people to create
and feel creative
• Team leaders should use a problem-solving management
style/techniques
– Concentrate on understanding the problem to be solved
– Manage the flow of ideas
– Let everyone on the team know, by words and actions, that quality
counts and that it will not be compromised
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Management Spectrum …… People
• Project Team Performance – The Drivers
– Clear project plans and objectives
– Good interpersonal relations and shared values
– Good project leadership and credibility
– Professional growth potential
– Professionally interesting and stimulating work
– Project visibility and high priority
– Proper technical direction and team leadership
– Qualified, competent team personnel
– Recognition of sense of accomplishment
– Management involvement and support
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Management Spectrum …… People
• Project Team Performance – The Barriers
– Communication problems
– Conflict among team members or between team and support organizations
– Different outlooks, objectives and priorities perceived by team members
– Poor qualification of team or project leader
– Poor trust, respect and credibility of team leader
– Insufficient resources
– Insufficient rewards
– Lack of project challenge and interest
– Lack of senior management support, interest and involvement
– Lack of team definition, role conflict and confusion
– Lack of team member commitment
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Management Spectrum …… people
• Project Management Structures
– also called Organizational Structure,
– described as the official line of authority and control within an
organization,
– tell us how reporting relationships work in a particular organization,
– vital to the success of any project team,
– Three Types as per the PMP
• Functional Organizational Structure,
• Projectized Organization Structure,
• Matrix Organizational Structure – This can be further broken down into –
Balanced matrix, Strong Matrix, and Weak Matrix
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Management Spectrum …… people
• Functional Organizational Structure
– group staff according to their work functions,
– project manager, in this type of organization has little to no
authority,
– communication is most often done through the heads,
• Projectized Organization Structure
– group staff based on project need,
– project manager has more authority on the project,
• Matrix Organizational Structure – This can be further broken
down into- Strong Matrix, Balanced matrix, and Weak Matrix,
– found lying somewhere between the functional organizational
structure and the projectized organizational structure,
– Strong matrix – more related to projectized, while weak matrix is
related to the functional organization structure
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Management Spectrum …… People
• IT Teams Organization
– IT teams can be organized into number of different team
structures,
– appropriate team structure depends on type of problem task,
• There are three generic team organizations (Democratic
Decentralized (DD), Controlled Decentralized (CD), Controlled Centralized (CC))
• Democratic Decentralized (DD)
– No permanent leader and task coordinators (appointed for short,
rotating coordinators)
– Decisions on problems and approach are made by group
consensus
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– Communication among teamHiLCoE
is horizontal (every body is equal). 12
Management Spectrum …… People
– Controlled Decentralized (CD)
• there is a defined leader who coordinates specific tasks
(some times secondary leader)
• problem solving remains a group activity
• Implementation of solutions is distributed among
subgroups by the leader
• communication among subgroups and individuals is
horizontal (also vertical communication along the
leaders)
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Management Spectrum …… people
• Controlled Centralized (CC)
• top level problem solving is exercised
• internal team coordination are only managed by the team leader
• communication between the leader and team members is vertical
– there is no right and wrong (in team organization, DD, CD or CC)
High DD CC DD
Discussion Point (Why?) Medium CD CD CD
DD best for difficult problems
Low CC DD CC
CC best for fast/simple problems
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HiLCoE Decision Speed Decision Quality 14
Management Spectrum …… People
• Communication and Coordination Issue
– The main factor to save the IT project from trouble
– There are formal and informal type of communications
– Communication are categorized in the followings:-
• Formal, impersonal approaches • Electronic communication
– documents, milestones, memos – e-mail, bulletin boards, video
• Formal interpersonal approaches conferencing
– review meetings, inspections • Interpersonal network
• Informal interpersonal – discussion with people outside
approaches project team
– information meetings, problem
solving
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Management Spectrum …… Product
• Product
– at the beginning of project, the objective & scope of the
product must be established
– Alternative solutions should be considered
– Technical and management constraints should be identified
– All the above points are used to estimate the cost, to
schedule the project, to assess the risks,
– To meet the defined product objectives, a proper process
engineering (from requirement up to delivery) has to be
followed
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Management Spectrum …… Product
–The scope of a product is defined by answering the
following questions:-
• How does the product to be built? (Context)
• What outputs from the project are produced?
(Information Objective)
• What function does the product perform? (Function)
• Are any special performance characteristics to be
addressed? (Performance)
Note:- Product scope should be unambiguous and understandable at
management and technical level.
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Management Spectrum …… Process
• Process
– Process provide the framework to establish a comprehensive plan for
product development
– Activity to produce a quality product
– It contains a number of activities which examines the tasks, millstones,
standards, quality assurances, etc.
– Process models to follow like waterfall, spiral, incremental, prototyping,
etc.
– Project manager has to decide which process model is appropriate
(customers & developers) ,
– Team has to then define a preliminary project plan based on activities,
– Management has to control, evaluate, etc. the process
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Management Spectrum …… Project
• Project
– Planning and controlling the IT project is the best known way to
manage complexity
– A common approach to run a project:-
• Start on the right foot
– Understand the problem; set realistic objectives and expectations; form
a good team
• Maintain momentum
– Provide incentives to reduce turnover of people; emphasize quality in
every task; minimize unnecessary interferences from senior
management
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Management Spectrum …… Project
• A common approach …
– Track progress
• Track the completion of work products; collect IT process and project
measures; assess progress against expected averages
– Make smart decisions
• Keep it simple; follow standard approaches; identify and avoid risks;
always allocate more time than you think you need to do complex or risky
tasks
– Conduct a post mortem analysis
• Track lessons learned for each project; compare planned and actual
schedules; collect and analyze IT project metrics; get feedback from
teams members and customers; record findings in written form
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Management Spectrum …… Project
• The W5HH Principle
– A principle suggested Barry Boehm, used to address
project objective, milestones & schedules, responsibilities,
management and technology approach
– Excellent planning outline for project managers and IT
team
– Applicable to all sizes of IT projects
– A series of questions that leads to a definition of key
project characteristics and result of a project plan
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Management Spectrum …… Project
• The W5HH questions are:-
– Why is the system being developed?
• business reasons, justifications and objective of the system
– What will be done?
• the task set required for the project
– When will it be done?
• project schedule
– Who is responsible for a function?
• role and responsibility of each team member
– Where are they organizationally located?
• organizational location of team members, customers, and other stakeholders
– How will the job be done technically and managerially?
• the management and technical strategy for the project
– How much of each resource is needed?
• Resource management, estimates
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Management Spectrum …… Project
Effective IT Project Management focuses on the 4 P’s
People
Product
Project Process
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Problems in IT Projects
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Problems in IT Projects
• IT projects are similar to traditional projects in the sense that the
same types of problems affect them both,
• the difference in managing these problems,
– SW related issues are unique in reusability, intangibility, ….
– HW/SW related issues are unique in security, etc.
• You can classify the problems that affect IT projects into the
following four categories:
– People - related problems
– Process - related problems
– Product- related problems
– Technology - related problems
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Problems in IT Projects ……
• People-related problems (7 of them)
– Low motivation
• Lengthy projects, complex activities, scarce resource
– Problem employees
• Bad attitude of employee, some members of the team may
create a problem
– Unproductive work environment
• a noisy or cramped workspace, unfriendly organizational policies,
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Problems in IT Projects ……
• People-related problems …..
– Inefficient project management style
• lack of leadership qualities, weak ideals from project managers and/or team
leaders
– Lack of stakeholder interest
• All stakeholders, including the customer, the management, and the IT
development team, need to commit to the success of the project
– Ineffective project sponsorship by management
• Lack of commitment of the senior management to an IT project
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Problems in IT Projects ……
• People-related issues …..
– Relationship between People ad Effort
• In large size project, more people, more project
team to involve
• When more people, more communication path,
complex communication path
Productivity
• Every new communication path requires
additional effort (additional time) People
• Sizing the people is also a major issue in IT project
management
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Project Communications Management …..
Cost of Communications
• More people in
communication, more
communication
channels,
The number of
communication channels
grows exponentially with
the number of people
involved in a project
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Problems in IT Projects ……
• Example (in SW project, cost of communication):-
– 4 SW engineers capable of producing 5,000 LOC/month
– When they work individually total 4X5,000=20,000 LOC/month
– If all of 4 placed in one team, 6 potential communication path are
created
– Assume, team productivity will be reduced by 250 LOC/month for
each communication path
– Team productivity = 20,000-(250X6)= 18,500 LOC/month1 2
– This is 7.5% of productivity
– This will extend deadline & cost
3 4
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Problems in Software Projects ……
• Relationship between Time and Effort
– The empirical relation b/n effort and time to complete the project is
calculated by the formula (for SW projects)
𝑳𝟑
𝑬= where
𝑷 𝟑 𝒕𝟒
• E-effort expanded over the life cycle[person-moth]
• L-delivered line of code [LOC]
• P-productivity parameter (p=2,000 up to 12,000) [LOC/month]
• T-project duration in [month]
– From the equation, E & t are related in none linear nature.
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Problems in Software Projects ……
• Relationship between Time and Effort ….
• From the equation, E & t are related in non linear nature.
𝑳𝟑
𝑬= 𝑷𝟑 𝒕𝟒
Project Duration Effort Cost
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Problems in IT Projects ……
• Process- related Problems (5 of them)
– Unrealistic schedule
• Assigning unrealistic deadlines/millstones, the deadlines should match the ability
of the IT team
– Insufficient identification of risk
• Unidentified, partially identified, and unplanned risks
– Unsuitable life cycle model selection
• Selecting of incorrect life cycle model
– Abandoning quality under pressure of deadlines
• when facing a shortage of resources, time, and funds often quality will be
compromised
– Unstructured and hurried IT Implementation
• because of deadline and budget constraint often PM force the team to be quick
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Problems in IT Projects ……
• Product- related problems (4 of them)
– Product scope changed toward the end of the project life cycle
• when this occurs time, effort, and cost estimates for the project will go up
dramatically, scope may change because of change in government policy
– Research-oriented IT product development
• When new kind of product is developed or a new technology (under research),
the team may lose focus
– Ill-defined scope
• If the product scope is ill defined, the team does not have a proper focus on the
features plan in development
– Fuzzy users
• reflect the ambiguity with regard to the functions and performance of the final IT
product, result rejection
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Problems in IT Projects ……
• Technology-related problems (3 of them)
– Overestimated savings from reusable components, new tools &
methods, (for SW)
• Example: reuse software components in a software project to save time,
effort, and cost is a normal practice, but over saving is problem
– Switching tools in mid way (for SW & HW)
• Identify and commit to the tool and technology for the SW project before
the project commences, not in mid
– Integrating different IT products in cross-platform
implementation (for SW & HW)
• Interoperability should be the scope of the IT project
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