COMPUTERIZED PROJECT MANAGEMENT INFORMATION

SYSTEMS – THE CASE OF FINANCIAL SUPPORT PROGRAMMES

FOR SME

Irina Manolescu, Claudia Gabriela Ciorăscu1

Summary
The paper presents a review of main problems of developing, implementing and revising the Project
Management Information Systems, in the frame of financial support programmes for Romanian Small
and Medium Enterprises. The problems are treated at level of beneficiaries (small and medium
enterprises) as well as at level of regional agencies of project management.
Romania is the second beneficiary in the eastern countries (after Poland) considering the European
financial support by Community programmes. The problems occur not at the level of funds absorbing but
at the level of successfully running of the projects. Better planning and monitoring, including by
computerized information systems developing, represent key factors in resolving these problems.
In the end of this paper a number of conclusions and recommendations were highlighted in order to
improve the project planning, resource management, monitoring, report generation, and decision making
for small and medium enterprises projects.

1. Introduction

An explosive growth in Project Management Information Systems has occurred in the

area of small and medium enterprises at international level. The soft packages come in a wide
variety of capabilities and prices. The current trend in Project Management Information
Systems is integration of software, including spreadsheets, databases, word processing,
communications, graphics, and other such capabilities.
The term project is widely used, but providing a comprehensive definition is very
difficult. Generally, a project means [6, p.13] a group of activities that have to be performed
in a logical sequence to meet the objectives outlined by the client.
There are some characteristics of a project:
• a start and a finish date;
• a budget;
• activities which are essentially unique and not repetitive;

1
Irina Manolescu - University “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” of Iasi, Romania, Economics and Business
Administration Faculty, Management and Marketing Department, 20-22 Carol Bd., RO – 6600, Iasi, fax:
00.4032.217.000, e-mail: iciorasc@uaic.ro
Claudia –Gabriela Ciorăscu - University “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” of Iasi, Romania, Faculty of Computer Science,
Evolutionary Computing Group, RO – 6600, Iasi, fax:, e-mail: claudiag@info.uaic.ro
 • roles and relationships which are subject to change and need to be developed,
defined and established;
• a life cycle.
The Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) are the special beneficiary of financing
programmes, in most of the countries, and they can develop innovative projects with the total
or partial support of the guvernamental or international funds.
The research and development in the sectors of high technology are one of the
determining factors of the economic progress to medium and length term. The speed of
change in science indicates that the attainment and maintenance of a competitive position
demand a considerable investment in capital and the planning of the economic, industrial and
educative policies. The institutional investments are oriented towards the infrastructure
creation by means of programs of promotion of the research and development in science and
technology that include the following strategies:
• to compile information on the activities and present plans in science and
technology, being reflected the present and anticipated necessities of capital,
personnel and infrastructure;
• to make the present activities of the companies that participate in the
promotion of the technology, by means of the diffusion of their objectives and
results;
• to define university education and research programs in management of the
technology, by means of the cooperation between the technical industry,
schools, universities, and research institutes;
• to create departments for the promotion of science and technology with the
purpose of accelerating the technological advance in specific sectors;
• to modify the regulations to reduce the cost of entrance in the sector in the
administrative, financial aspects and of risk of disloyal competition, by means
of a direct intervention for:
! simplify the proceedings for the creation of companies by means of
the definition of standardized procedures, the automatization of the
proceedings and the reduction of terms of resolution;
! facilitate the access of the company to the capital by means of fiscal
incentives with respect to the investment in the sector of high
technology;
 • to increase the contact between the university and the industry by means of
joint projects of investigation and development of new technologies;
• to take advantage of the human resources in the university like independent
consultants, favouring its participation in projects in the industry;
• to reallocate budgets of investigation and development in public organizations
towards contracts with private companies;
• to increase the level of contact of the innovating company with foreign markets
by means of the promotion of meetings, publications, access to data bases and
information on political, social, scientific and economic changes;
• to promote the interchange of experiences between companies by means of the
call of joint projects and preferred a fiscal treatment;
• to initiate a pilot program with the objective to provide services of research
support.
Romania is the second beneficiary in the eastern countries (after Poland) considering the
European financial support by Community programmes. The problems occur not at the level
of funds absorbing but at the level of successfully running of the projects. Better planning and
monitoring, including by computerized information systems developing, represent key factors
in resolving these problems.
The paper presents a review of main problems of developing, implementing and revising
the Project Management Information Systems, in the frame of financial support programmes
for Romanian Small and Medium Enterprises. The problems are treated at level of
beneficiaries (small and medium enterprises) as well as at level of regional agencies of project
management.
 2. Computerized Project Management Information Systems at the programmes
implementing agencies level

The programmes implementing agencies have to chose a system of tracking and

management of information in the form of a manual. Once this decision taken, the IT
Department had to draft a number of organisational papers to describe as transparently as
possible all aspects related to the establishment of IT objectives, IT implementation
procedures and management of involved resources.
The IT manual usually has two parts: IT safeguarding policies and IT management
procedures.
The manual is necessary when a regular task needs to be done, and sometimes the
emergence of a special event may need a written procedure. The main factor of utmost
importance is that by means of procedures included in the IT Manual the incidence of
unwanted events can be reduced, and actions to quickly remedy the problem can be taken
faster. The main rules can be detailed as such:
• general use of the IT system;
• security requirements (security policies);
• risk analysis of security requirements;
• decision on the future implementation of IT procedures;
• external control.

General information flow

Information flow is presented as the total amount of information going through the IT
system, at a certain moment. The classification of specific and general information flows can
be:
• integrated project tracking system;
• payment management and accounting system;
• internal accounting of the agency system;
• electronic management of documents system;
• monitoring, reporting and control system.
 IT staff
Because of major implications in the organization and operations of the agency, a
minimal, strong and well organized IT structure should be put in place for IT staff, in order to
be able to meet all IT requirements of organization and security imposed by the EU. For a
better organization and implementation of the development plan for such a system, based on a
strong security policy, a classification of people in charge and their responsibilities is
necessary:
• granting the authorization of access to the general IT system and physical
resources;
• development and maintenance of a well defined network, to ensure a high
security of information;
• recovery and restoration of data system;
• electronic management of information by specialized applications;
• maintenance of the help-desk system;
• change analysis and management.
In order to define a strong organizational frame, IT staff is divided into four categories:
I. Leadership of department - chief of IT department
II. Network and security administrators - security officer; security administrator; network
administrator
III. Application administrators - application administrator; system administrator.
IV. Help desk administrators - help desk head of service; help desk dispatcher; help desk
technician.

Staff IT Training Procedure

Training the staff involved in accessing the system is one of the most important stages in
the IT security policies implementation process. According to all the organizational
specifications at Agency level there is an instruction plan set at global level, which is detailed
and meets a series of general requirements concerning training and instruction for the Agency
staff. IT Training for staff can be realized in the following ways:
• on request according to the Agency Level Professional Training General Plan;
• imposed by changes in the system, scheduled by the IT Department.
 Physical, information and communication security procedure
Physical security procedure is one of the procedures of great incidence over the general
security of the integrated IT system of the agencies. Physical security is achieved starting
from the basic physical equipment and will be extended in detail for each component making
up these basic equipments. The main person involved in the physical security procedure, in
charge with the correct implementation of the physical security procedure is the administrator
in charge with the help desk.
According to the seriousness of the matter and its effect on the system, any breaking of
procedure can lead to the implementation of countermeasures that can even lead to the
physical blocking of access to equipment. Apart from all these, organization should also be
taken into account, for instance the working environment: rooms, evacuation plan, air-
conditioning, physical security and emergency protection devices (fire, flooding etc.).
A different issue is the physical and logical security of the system in case of disaster. At
building level, physical security is done according to the general security plan, on security
levels, starting from the entry to access into every room of the building.
There are three main aspects of information security:
• confidentiality - the feature of information which is not accessed, available to
unauthorized persons, entities or processes;
• availability– the feature of information to be accessible and useable, by
request, to an authorized entity;
• integrity – the feature of information not to be altered or destroyed in an
unauthorized procedure.
The security of communications procedure resides in the drafting of a methodology to
ensure increased security of all data and information managed in a data communication
network. The process of sending data in a network is a difficult one, which should take into
account a number of factors:
• type and way of sending data packages in the network;
• coding of packages on sending and reception;
• security model for file transfer;
• basic rules of transfers.
 User organization and access procedure
The user is the main entity benefiting from an IT network. The Integrated IT system
needs careful management by the users, because any issue at the user level can be quickly sent
in the system and block or invalidate the rules imposed by security, which is essential in the
safeguarding and transmission of data. The main aspects that must be taken as professional
behavior rules emerge at the following levels: organizational and professional.
Organizational level
All the people involved in using the system should be organized in a unitary way. When
we talk about the users’ organization, we mean individual IT organization, which sometimes
is different from one user to another and there fore needs unification.
Organizational processes are:
1. Access and use of computers;
2. Access and use of locally stored data;
3. Access and organization of data stored on the server;
4. Additional individual security of information measures;
5. Prevention of data alteration or losses;
6. Data confidentiality.
Professional behavior
All persons involved in the use of the agency’s IT system must carefully follow the
elements of professional behavior imposed by the internal regulations of organization and
operations.
The following items should also be taken into account:
• all users must use the system only for work;
• various ways of accessing confidential information;
• unauthorized transfer of data in and outside the system;
• access of various unauthorized sites and transmission of electronic messages to
and from various other sources for a other purposes than those mentioned;
• installation of various unauthorized programs in the system;
• any program installation will be done according to the installation declaration
signed and authorized by each user.
 Procedure for recovery and restoring of data
The process of data recovery and restoring is a complex process which involves a series
of human, material and financial resources in view of ensuring the support for applzing the
specific procedures for recovery and restoring of data. This process starts from the assumption
"Create backup copies as often as possible" in order to have a viable data management. When
a computer network is managed, a backup copy of the system is an absolute priority
requirement.
The recovery process of saving, recovery and restoring of data at the user level takes
place as follows:
• by saving, recovery and restoring of data on individual workstations;
• by saving, recovery and restoring of data located in a series of data structures
• centralised on servers.

Procedure for Change Management

The Procedure for Change Management refers to managing updates within the IT
Department at the following levels: organizational level of changes in management and
material level (hardware and software). Change Management is a very important process
within the IT Department and therefore this process must be properly documented and
justified.
At Organizational Level
The process of changes in management consists of temporary replacing an expert within
the IT Department with a different expert having similar knowledge in what management and
IT organizing and securing are concerned. For requests of change in management specific
applications will be drawn out through which the attributions are temporary transferred from
one person to another. Together with transferring the attributions the tasks and responsibilities
in the respective job description will be transferred accordingly.
The change process is executed by the Head of the IT Department with endorsement
from the General Director in the following situations:
• the respective person being taken ill
• taking of a holiday or a sick leave
• change due to incomplete achievement of the associated tasks and attributions
• change due to the modification of the work system at material level
• change or update due to great increases in the work volume
 At Material Level ( Hardware and Software )
Change Management is a process that draws along a great deal of resources for its
achievement and involves certain risks, as follows: resources entailed (material resources,
human resources, financial resources); risks involved (the risk of engaging financial
resources, the risk and the implications of failing to achieve the required changes, the risk of
implementing the changes; the risk of problems with staff getting used with the new
environment; other operational risks).
For the Hardware and Software change parameters the following steps will be taken into
consideration:
• the analysis of the additional terms and the planning of an additional outfit
well substantiated on monitoring and control requests of the respective
components;
• determining the impact of change in accordance with the IT strategy and
policies and the work procedures;
• ellaborating a detailed documentation for requesting the updates at material
level;
• submitting the documentation for approval to the top management;
• the acquisition of equipments or services according to the general aquisition
procedures at agency level;
• installing and testing the benchmarks in a testing area, separated from the work
area;
• after the detailed analysis and verifying of the specific documentations resulted
from testing by specialised personnel the acceptance test will be drawn out
confirming the requested specifications;
• together with the endorsement of this acceptance test the actual
implementation of changes in the work area will commence.
Within this process of Change Management, the IT strategy, policies and specific work
procedures will be taken into account. All the components and documents that underwent
changes will be stored before the implementation as well as after no matter their form.
 3. Computerized Project Management Information Systems at the SME level

Diagramming, scheduling, and tracking all the tasks is clearly a job for the computer,
and the computerized PMIS (Project Management Information Systems) were one of the
earlier business applications for the computers.
The new microcomputer-based PMIS are considerably more sophisticated than earlier
systems and use the graphics, colour, and other features more extensively; they also offer
more support capability. The systems are available for small, medium and even large firms.
The current trend in PMIS is integration of software, including spreadsheets, databases, word-
processing, communications, and graphics.
Used properly, the computer will reward the project manager at the level of SME in a
number of ways. It can speedily select and display data that the member team can use to plan,
monitor, control and amend the project. Reports can also be generated in a number of formats.
Monitoring and information systems are related directly to the evaluation and control of
the projects, and these activities are the opposite sides of project selection and planning.
The first step in setting up the monitoring system is to identify the key factors to be
controlled – frequently, the performance, cost and time.
Lower-level personnel have a need for detailed information about individual tasks and
the factors affecting such tasks. Report frequency is usually high. For the senior management
levels, overview reports describe progress in more aggregate terms, and reports are issued less
often.
Generally, the most frequent outputs requested are [2, p.135]:
• Network Analysis Chart – the computer will allow to manipulate data and give
the project manager instant feedback on the effects of the changes;
• Gantt Chart – from the information that has gone into the network analysis
chart, it can be produced the Gantt charts or any specific information wanted
from the Gantt chart (for example, all the tasks or just critical tasks);
• lists of resources - for example, a list of people working on the project;
• Project Table – this will give the project manager information on tasks: start
and finish times; slack times; estimated durations; estimated cost; progress
against estimates; the amount of information displayed can be altered to suit
specific reporting requirements.
 According to the cost, the software can be graded into three ranges: low, medium and
high. The low to medium price should meet most organisational project needs. The higher
price range is usually for complex projects and may be too technical for SME projects needs.
There are some critical points to follow in choosing the software for SME projects:
• ease of data entry and amendments;
• good visual display;
• choice of charts and report formats;
• something easy to learn and use – for the novice user, this included clear and
logical manuals, help screens, tutorials, a menu-driven structure, easy editing;
for the advanced user, this meant well documented and easy-to program
commands;
• training;
• back-up service from supplier;
• task scheduling – gantt charts are mandatory, as well as automatic
recalculation with updates of times, costs, and resources;
• resources scheduling;
• multiple calendars – the ability to indicate work days, non-woring days, and
holidays;
• linking of sub-projects;
• monitoring budget / cash flow;
• display of a number of screens at one time;
• display a whole chart on screen;
• compatibility with main system;
• cost;
• resource levelling;
• export to spreadsheets;
• import from older packages;
• leads and lags;
• multiple tasks;
• multiple resources;
• quick response times.
The main information requested from the dealer is:
• what is the hardware configuration;
 • what organisations are using the packages (in order to see them using it and
talk to them about the main problems of the system).
Systems integration plays a crucial role in the performance aspect of the project.
Systems integration is concerned with three major objectives:
• performance – includes systems design, reliability, quality, maintainability,
and reparability;
• effectiveness – to design the individual components of a system to achieve the
desired performance in an optimal manner;
• cost – systems integration considers cost to be a design parameter, and costs
can be accumulated in several areas.
The most common errors in managing PMIS are [5, p.466]:
• computer paralysis – excessive computer involvement with computer activity
replacing project management;
• PMIS verification – reports may mask the real problems;
• information overload – too many reports, too detailed;
• project isolation – the reports replace useful and frequent communication
between the project manager and top manager, or even between project manager
and the project team;
• computer dependence – project manager wait for the computer reports and
results to react to problems;
• PMIS misdirection – due to unequal coverage of the PMIS, certain project
subareas are overmanaged and other areas receive inadequate attention.
References
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Paris, 1996
2. Burton, Celia; Michael, Norma: A Practical Guide to Project Management. How to Make it

Work in Your Organization, Kogan Page, London, 1992

3. Drudis, Antonio: Gestión de Proyectos. Cómo planificarlos, organizarlos y dirigirlos, Ed.

Gestión 2000, Barcelona, 1999

4. Frame, J.Davidson: Le nouveau management de projet, Ed.AFNOR, 1995
rd
5. Meredith, Jack; Mantel, Samuel: Project Management - A Managerial Approach, 3 ed.,
John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1995
6. ***: Project Management Manual, Bucureşti, 1997