Information Processes and Technology

Project Management

Techniques for Managing a Project

Communication skills:
 Active listening: Involves giving the speaker total attention and involvement within
the conversation. Restating, summarizing and reflecting on what others say.
Techniques include:
 Mirroring: Repeating back some of the speakers main words. Suggests you’re
interested in the conversation.
 Paraphrasing: listener utilises his own words to explain what speaker said.
 Summarizing: responses used to direct to a conclusion.
 Conflict resolution: Involves resolving disputes appropriately for all concerned and in
the best interest of the project. Some strategies include:
 Bargaining
 Active listening
 Negotiation skills: Involves differences being argued logically and in a reasoned
manner, to avoid it escalating into conflict. Some skills used be negotiators are:
 Having prepared solutions
 Being confident
 Interview techniques: Involves conducting interviews effectively, so that maximum
knowledge is gained by both parties. Factors that lead to positive interview are:
- prepared questions
- listening carefully
 Team building: Involves team members developing the correct skills and attitudes in
order to work effectively as a group, hence improving progress of the project. This
might involve ongoing training, setting common goals, scheduling meetings etc.
Tuckman’s description of team development:
 Forming: team members are starting to know each other
 Storming: this is when the teams feel comfortable with each other
 Norming: by this stage team members are able to recognise their differences
 Performing: the team is strong and working effectively
 
Consequences for groups that fail to function as a team:
 Financial loss
 Employment loss
 Missed opportunities
 Decreased productivity and job satisfaction
 Development of a poor quality system
 Conflicts
 
Advantages for groups that function as a team:
 Increased productivity
  Enhanced job satisfaction
 Development of a quality system
 Exchange of ideas
 
Project management tools:
 Gantt charts: Indicates when tasks need to be completed by; horizontal axis (total
time), vertical axis (project tasks).
 Journal and diaries: Journals record day to day progress and details of completed
tasks, including problems and how they were resolved. The diary is a record of
appointments, events and meetings to be held.
 Funding management plan: A record of the scheduling and costing of tasks and
other expenses; ensures project is developed within budget.
 Communication management plan: A record of when meetings are to be held
throughout the development of the information system to monitor the development
of the system.
 Scheduling of tasks: This includes what each task is, who completes each task and
how much time is available to complete each task.
Social and ethical issues arise in project management because of various reasons:
 Conflicts
 Admission of wrongdoing
 Focus of blame
 Different beliefs and values
 Users behave in an unethical way
 
Identifying social and ethical issues:
 Health & safety issues:

Ergonomics- study of the relationship human workers and their work environment. Anything
that affects the work experience is ergonomics. Incorrect use of computers can cause health
problems, such as eyestrain, headaches, backaches and repetitive strain injury (RSI). RSI is
caused by repetitive movements or awkward postures. These problems arise from poor
workplace design e.g. furniture that don’t conform comfortably to the body, benches are
too high from the body. These injuries can be reduced and prevented if workplace uses
ergonomically designed furniture and equipment.

 Security of data & information:

Security of data and information is about guarding this information against theft or destruction. Loss
of data can cause many problems such as losing time and falling behind schedule. Some possible
security issues are: virus attacks, hackers, theft, software faults, and hardware faults. These can be
prevented by: passwords, back-up copies, encryption, anti-virus- software, physical barriers and audit
trails (details of transactions made from the system).

 Copyright issues:
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of original work
exclusive rights to it. Are laws which guard the rights of authors of original work. Also protects the
written expression of an idea or concepts. These laws:

 Prevents others from copying, performing or otherwise using the work without his or her
consent.
 Takes place at the moment you place your work in a material form
 
 
 Privacy of the individual:
Privacy is about protecting and securing an individual’s personal information, which allows
stranger’s to identify you. We have the right to know who holds our personal information. Privacy act
1988 was introduced to stop the use of personal information and distribution of it without the person
knowing.

 Accuracy of data and information

Important all data is accurate because inaccurate data results in incorrect information being output
from the information system. Data integrity is the term to describe the correctness, accuracy and
validity of data. Data validation and data verification are other methods to ensure data is accurate.

 
 

Understanding the Problem

Approaches to identify problems with existing systems:
 Interviewing/surveying users and participants: -conducted by systems analyst
 In advance; before development starts
 Identifies needs, new ideas and experiences
 Open ended questions
 Vital source of information
 Analyse the existing system by determining:
 How it works
 What it does
 Who uses it

Requirements report:
Requirements reports are documents used by project managers to understand the problem
and determine all possible solutions.
 System purpose; including needs of the users and participants
 Data inputs should be clearly identified
 The information processes performed on the data need to be documented
 The information outputs from the systems need to be detailed
 Provides documentary evidence of the scope of the project; what it will and won’t do
 
 
 
 
Requirements prototype:
Working model of an information system, built in order to understand its requirements.
 Used when a problem is not easily understood
 Repetitive process of prototype modification and participants’ feedback until
problem is understood
 Can be the basis for further system development
 Clarifies participants’ understanding of the problem

Planning
 

Feasibility study:
A feasibility study is an analysis of possible solutions to ensure each is capable of being
achieved using the available resources and meeting the identified requirements.
 Economic feasibility: Compares the cost of development with expected benefits.
 Technical feasibility: Determines if the required information technology is available.
 Operational feasibility: Determines if the new system will be accepted and support
the goals of the organisation.
 Schedule feasibility: Determines if adequate time is available to implement the new
system.
 
Choosing the most appropriate solution:
 After conducting a feasibility study, project managers must choose the most
appropriate solution based on the results.
 Goes into the project plan
 
Choosing the appropriate development approaches:
 Traditional:
 Formal, step by step stages
 i.e. Understanding the problem  planning  designing  implementing 
testing, evaluating and maintaining the system
 The Waterfall Model:

 Outsourcing:
 Using another company to develop parts or even the complete system
 Cost effective - specialised tasks to experts rather than new staff or retraining
 Passing control to company

 
  Prototyping:
 During the ‘understanding the problem’ stage, participants and users are able
to view and work with the prototype and suggest modifications or additions
 Well suited to development of software components
 Evolve to a point where it actually becomes a final solution and sufficiently
detailed to represent the concept for a full-scale development
 Customisation:
 Existing system is customised to suit specific needs and requirements of the
new system - when it is economically unsuitable to create new system
 Modifications or additions to hardware and software
 
 Participant development:
 Same people who use the system develop the system
 Speeds up development
 Usually of lower quality - no skills/expertise in development
 Unsuitable for commercial distribution
 Agile methods:
 Team developing systems rather than following predefined, structured
development processes
 Cooperation and teamwork
 Well suited to software designing that is modified regularly rather than total
information systems

Requirements report/Project plan:

 Details the time frame for the entire project
 Details the subprojects and time frames for them
 Identifies participants, information technology, data/information
 Identifies the needs of users

Designing
Clarifying with users the benefits of the new information system:
 Users are able to utilise the system to the best of its ability, and to suit their
particular needs, therefore project managers should clarify with users the benefits of
the new system
 
Designing the information system for ease of maintenance:
Certain factors can be implemented during the designing phase so that minimal time,
money and effort are required to perform ongoing maintenance.
 Using technology that doesn’t constantly need to be updated
 System must be stable under changes of requirements; i.e. modifications or
expansion
 Documentation; comments can be made when faults do occur - ease of maintenance
next time the problem should occur
 Physical layout of system components; i.e. cabling, etc. should be easily accessible to
determine if it is the cause of the problem
 
 
Clarifying each of the relevant information processes within the system:
 Collecting: Gathering the data
 Organising: Formatting data for the next process; e.g. putting into a spreadsheet for
a graph, sorting (A-Z)
 Analysing: Interpreting the data, transforming it into information e.g. creating
charts, graphs
 Storing & retrieving: Saving data for later use, and obtaining the data that has
previously been saved
 Processing: Manipulation of data and information. Occurs when the
data/information is modified and updated
 Transmitting & receiving: Transfer of data within and between information systems
 Displaying: Presentation of data
 
 
Detailing the role of the participants, the data and the information technology used in the
system:
 Participants: People/groups who work with and manipulate the system, including
the users
 Data: The variety of data that is used within the system, that the system works with
 Information Technology: The hardware and software involved with the system, for it
to function correctly
 
Refining existing prototypes:
 Refined such that they evolve into the final solution
 Modified to fulfil new requirements, based on feedback, etc.
 
Participant development:
 Participant designed solutions
 Tools for participant development such as guided processes in application packages

Implementing
Acquiring information technology and making it operational:
 Hardware
 Software; customised or developed
 
Implementation plan:
 Participant training:
 Training manuals, online help programs, troubleshooting guides, video
training.
 Specialised training personal (onsite/offsite), consultants
 Group courses
 Computer-aided tutorials, wizards
 Method for conversion:
  Parallel – The safest method, allowing the participants and users to get used
to the new system and to check its output. If the new system fails, the old system
is still available to use while problems are being fixed.
Additional workload for participants, duplication of data, more expensive.
 Direct – The existing system is discarded and the new system takes over
completely. Used when the system is fairly standard or implementation time is
minimal.
 Phased – Parts of the system are introduced one after the other, allowing each
module to be tested individually allowing staff to gradually develop confidence in
the new system. If the new system fails, only one module is affected.
 Pilot – The whole system is introduced in one part of the organisation and if
there are no problems, it is implemented across the whole organisation. If the
new system fails, only one part of the organisation is affected. This method is
mainly for large organisations.
 
 How the system will be tested:
 Using ‘live data’; data that the system will be working with, to ensure that the
system can cope with it.
 Stress testing: Using large amounts of data to stretch the capacity of the
system to its limits so that any problems can be detected before they become
critical.
 Participant testing: Those who will be using the system should test it as they
are more likely to detect any shortcomings in the system.
 Bench testing: Involves checking that each component of the new system
meets the goals in the design specifications.
 Conversion of data for the new system:
 Automated or manual processes
 
Operation manual:
 Participants require an operation manual to follow the procedures when using the
new system
 Often complex and difficult to understand how to complete tasks without the
manual

Testing, Evaluating and Maintaining

Testing and evaluating the solution with test data:
 Volume data:
 Ensures system can perform when subjected to large volumes of data
 Ensures response times remain adequate & that data is not mishandled
 Simulated data:
 Tests performance of system under simulated conditions
 E.g. many users, many connections, many processes occurring simultaneously
 Live data:
 Tested under real conditions
 Takes place once system has been installed
 Confirms all parts of system are functioning correctly
 
Checking to see that the original system requirements have been achieved:
 Documentation continually monitored; e.g. requirements reports and prototypes
 Feedback from participants and users
 
Trialling and using the operation manual:
 Details procedures that participants follow when using the new system
 The operation manual should:
 Be in a user-friendly format, with clear, concise instructions
 Contain screenshots to clarify instructions
 Have steps listed in point form
 Be kept up-to-date
 
Reviewing the effect on users, participants and people in the environment of the system:
 Through feedback; e.g. surveys and questionnaires
 Helps the analyst and the organisation to learn from their successes and failures and
apply the knowledge to future projects
 
Modifying parts of the system where problems are identified:
 The system needs to undergo maintenance, often to resolve problems that have
been identified
 Maintenance may involve the installation of new hardware/software
 Each time maintenance involves any major changes, documentation needs to be
updated
Context diagrams:
Context diagrams are used to represent entire information systems.
 The system is shown as a single process along with the inputs and outputs.
 The external entities are connected to the single process by data flow arrows.
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Data flow diagrams:
Data flow diagrams represent an information system as a number of processes that together
form the single system.
, or other processes, data store

 
Commonly database table names

 
 
Decision trees:
A decision tree is a diagrammatic way of representing all possible combinations of decisions
and their resulting actions.
E.g. Museum Entry Fees: Children under 5 years of age are to be admitted free of charge,
children 5 years and over but under 18 years are charged $8.00, adults 18 years and over
but under 55 years of age are charged $12.00, unless they have a concession card, in which
case they are charged the child price. Senior citizens, 55 years and over are charged only
$6.00.
 
 
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Decision tables:
A decision table is a table that represents all possible conditions and the actions that will
result.
E.g. Museum Entry Fees: As above.
 
Data dictionaries:
A data dictionary is a table providing a comprehensive description of each field in the
database. This commonly includes: field name, data type, data format, field size, description
and example.
E.g. Customer Details:
Field name Data type Data format Field Description Example
Size

CustomerID Number ##### 5 A unique 14706

number
assigned to
each
registered
customer.

Surname Text   25 Surname of Singleton

the
customer.

FirstName Text   25 First name George

of the
customer.

DateOfBirth Date/Tim DD/MM/YYYY 10 The date of 17/04/1981

e birth of the
customer.

MailingAddres Text   50 The mailing 181 Brass

s address of St
customer.

Suburb Text   20 The suburb Auburn

of where
the
customer
lives.

HomePhone Text (##) #### 14 The home (02) 9771

 Number #### telephone 4422
number of
the
customer.
 
 
 

Storyboards:
A storyboard is used to represent systems, showing the various interfaces (screens), present
in a system as well as the links between them.