Name: Jamera, Queen Bernadeth D.

Year & Section: BSIT-3B

Mrs, Fernandez, Jessica Rose October 9, 2021

PLANNING PHASE: PROJECT SELECTION AND MANAGEMENT

Questions:
1. Describe how projects are selected in organizations.
 An organization must first look at the project portfolio to find projects that should be
considered. Then, the approval committee will meet to carefully examine the costs,
expected benefits, risks, and strategic alignment of each project. Depending on where
the company is financially, they will pick a project that best fits their current
situation. The chosen project should aim to maximize value to the organization. It
should also have a high potential return-on-investment and a positive feasibility
analysis.

2. Describe how project portfolio management is used by IT departments.

 Portfolio management helps an organization achieve its strategic goals by:
Providing needed resources
Selecting the right projects
Prioritizing work to be done
Portfolio management balances conflicting demands between programs and projects,
allocates resources based on organizational priorities and capacity, and manages so as
to achieve the benefits identified.

3. Describe the major elements and issues with waterfall development.

 Each phase is sequential, no overlap between phases.
After first phase, documentation is forwarded to the next phase
Difficult to move backward
Disadvantages:
Poor communication mechanism. Can lead to skipping over the requirement
documentation.
Expensive implementation program is required if the requirement is missed by user.
If not carefully designed, deadlines are not met on time.

4. Describe the major elements and issues with parallel development.

 Variant of waterfall (several waterfalls at once)
Reduces time and effort.
Sub projects are integrated once complete.
 Disadvantages:
If subprojects are not independent, changes in one may affect another.
Combining a sub-project is challenging.

5. Describe the major elements and issues with the V-model.

 Variant of waterfall - development after waterfall approach each phase is completed
before the next is begun.
Focuses a lot more on testing - as requirements are specified and components are
designed, testing for those elements is also defined
Disadvantages:
Suffers from the rigidity of the waterfall development process
Not a good choice for a project that is dynamic in nature

6. Describe the major elements and issues with iterative development.

 Project is divided into a number of versions which are then sequentially performed.
Mini Waterfall Development for each Sequence.
The first version is implemented and its results are used as feedback to the next
version in the process.
Disadvantages:
Repetition of work until the desired versions are completed
User has to work with systems that are incomplete.

7. Describe the major elements and issues with system prototyping.

 Planning, Analysis, Design is executed concurrently and results are delivered to the
user.
Once developed, user feedback is needed.
Based on feedback, phases are reanalyzed, redesigned, and re-implemented with
added features for 2nd prototype
This is repeated until it meets the user requirements.
Disadvantages:
Does not have a careful, methodical analysis in advanced to make correct design and
implementation decisions.
Inadequate understanding of the system requirement because of the limited
fundamental design.

8. Describe the major elements and issues with throwaway prototyping.

 Requirements of the information are gathered from the user analysis phase.
Technical issues, such as requirements, may not be understood.
Uses design prototype to solve user suggested issues before the application is built.
Design prototype is a model of the system, and its not a working system
Enters into the design and implementation phase after resolving the issues
Design prototype is thrown away after it enters into design and implementation.
Disadvantages:
 It takes longer time to complete the system
Focuses on development of the alternatives for the design of system so less focus on
the development of actual system.

9. Describe the major elements and issues with agile development.

 Used to streamline the software development life cycle
Used for face-to-face communication
Involves the simple and iterative application development in which every iteration
includes planning, requirement analysis, testing, coding, design, and documentation
Disadvantages:
Complex nature and technologies are not so reliable
Schedule visibility is not up to mark.
It is dependent on the cohesive, stable experience of the team
Works well with small projects but the success gets reduced in large projects.

10. Compare and contrast structured design methodologies in general with rapid application
development (RAD) methodologies in general.
 Structured Design Methodologies:
Fairly formal, step-by-step approaches
Project moves through phases in systematic way
Emphasis on development of paper-based specifications
RAD Methodologies:
Quick creation of limited-capability version or model of system
Focus on refining preliminary system or model, not fully describing it on paper

11. Compare and contrast extreme programming and throwaway prototyping.

 Extreme Programming (XP) is founded on four core values which provide a
foundation on which XP developers use to create any system. The four core values
are Communication, Simplicity, Feedback and Courage.
Throwaway prototyping-based methodologies balance the benefits of well thought
out analysis and design phases with the advantages of using prototypes to refine key
issues before a system is built. Each of these issues is examined by analyzing,
designing, and building a design prototype.

12. What are the key factors in selecting a methodology?

 There are several factors that influence the choice of a methodology:
- Clarity of the user requirements
- Familiarity with the base technology
- System complexity
 - Need for system reliability
- Time pressures &
- Need to see progress on the time schedule.

13. Why do many projects end up having unreasonable deadlines? How should a project
manager react to unreasonable demands?
 The project manager may make assumptions that the specific project will be safe
from scheduling problems because they have carefully estimated and planned the
project up front. However, the most common cause of scheduling issues results from
something called "scope creep". This refers to uncontrolled changes or continuous
growth in a project's timeline. A deadline that may have seemed reasonable in the
planning process may end up being unreasonable because of this factor.
If a client has come to a project manager with an unreasonable deadline, he/she must
develop accurate and realistic time estimates for the project, and use these to convince
the client that his/her timelines can't be achieved in their requested time deadline.

14. Name two ways to identify the tasks that need to be accomplished over the course of a
project.
 One way to identify tasks is to follow a top-down approach, defining high level tasks
first, and then breaking those tasks down into subtasks.
A second way is to follow a methodology, which will provide a standard list of tasks
for the SDLC. This standard task list can be modified as needed for the specific
project.

15. What is the difference between a methodology and a work plan? How are the two terms
related?
 A methodology provides a standard, formalized list of steps and deliverables for the
SDLC. Work plans include the specific steps, tasks, and deliverables that will be
needed for a specific project.

16. Some companies hire consulting firms to develop the initial project plans and manage the
project, but use their own analysts and programmers to develop the system. Why do you think
some companies do this?
 A company may not have skilled project managers available on its in-house staff.
Project management requires a unique set of skills, and consulting firms may develop
project management capabilities because of the many projects undertaken. It may also
be useful to have an 'outsider' serving as project manager, since he or she may be
better able to assess the project objectively and resist scope creep more effectively
than an in-house employee.
17. Describe the differences between a technical lead and a functional lead. How are they
similar?
 The technical lead is typically a project team member who supervises the
programmers and more technically-oriented project staff. The functional lead is a
team member who oversees the systems and business analysts on the team.
Both positions report to the project manager, and are responsible for managing,
controlling, and coordinating the work of their assigned team members.

18. Describe three technical skills and three interpersonal skills that would be very important to
have on any project.
 Desirable technical skills might include programming experience in the chosen
programming language, experience in configuring the hardware and communications
technology platform correctly, and experience in utilizing the file/database
environment effectively.
Desirable interpersonal skills might include interviewing skills, negotiation skills, and
conflict resolution skills.

19. What are the best ways to motivate a team? What are the worst ways?
 Best ways include recognition, achievement, the work itself, responsibility,
advancement, and the chance to learn new skills.
Worst ways include setting unrealistic deadlines, failing to recognize good effort,
accepting low quality output, rewarding all team members monetarily regardless of
work quality, failing to include team members in important project decisions, and
providing poor working conditions.

20. List three techniques to reduce conflict.

 Clearly define the roles on the project, hold team members accountable for their
assigned tasks, develop detailed operating procedures and make sure the team
members understand them, have each team member commit to the project charter.
21. What is the difference between upper CASE (computer-aided software engineering) and
lower CASE?
 Upper CASE refers to diagramming and other tools that are commonly used during
the Analysis phase of the SDLC
Lower CASE refers to diagramming and prototyping tools and code generators that
are used primarily to support the Design phase of the SDLC.
22. Describe three types of standards, and provide examples of each.
 Coding standards define the content and structures that are to be used in programs.
Example: On average, every program should include one line of comments for every
five lines of code.
Procedural standards define processes that are to be followed by all team members.
Example: Record actual task progress in the work plan every Monday morning by 10
AM.
User Interface Design standards create a common understanding of the appearance
and functioning of the screens the end users see. Example: Labels will appear in
boldface text, left-justified, and followed by a colon.
23. What belongs in the project binder? How is the project binder organized?
 All project deliverables, all internal communication, and all project documentation
should be placed in the project binder.
The sections of the project binder should follow the phases of the life cycle, and each
deliverable produced during the project should be placed in its appropriate place.
24. What are the trade-offs that project managers must manage?
 The project manager must trade off system size, development time, and project cost.
25. What is scope creep, and how can it be managed?
 Refers to the addition of new requirements to the project after the initial project scope
was defined and "frozen."
Can be managed by doing the best possible job in determining the project
requirements at the outset.
26. What is timeboxing, and why is it used?
 In essence, timeboxing is a constraint used by teams to help focus on value. One
important timebox that Agile promotes is the project itself. Contrary to Agile
mythology, Agile teams prefer to have a timeboxed project since it offers a fixed
schedule and a fixed team size.
27. Create a list of potential risks that could affect the outcome of a project.
 There are several things that can cause risk including:
-weak personnel
-scope creep
-poor design
-overly optimistic estimates
28. Describe the factors that the project manager must evaluate when a project falls behind
schedule.
 The first is having a process to uncover issues, determine their impact on the project,
examine alternatives, and bring in people to make the best decision under the
circumstances. This is all part of the project management procedures that should be
defined and agreed to ahead of time. These procedures ensure that issues are
recognized and resolved as quickly as possible.
One important thing that all project managers discover is that having a process to
resolve issues doesn't mean you'll successfully resolve everyone. Sometimes, there
are great alternatives to issues and your job is to help discover the best one. In other
instances, there is no good resolution to a major problem. On occasion, your final
choice is to pick the solution that causes the least harm or is the best among poor
choices. Still, your issues resolution process and your problem-solving techniques
will allow you to determine what options are available so that you at least understand
the repercussions.

Performance Task: Exercise A & D

A. Suppose that you are a project manager using the waterfall development methodology on a
large and complex project. Your manager has just read the latest article in Computerworld
that advocates replacing the waterfall methodology with prototyping and comes to your
office requesting you to switch. What do you say?
ANSWER:
Waterfall Model is not suitable for large and complex project. It is suitable for small project.
Project Manager advice to replace Waterfall development methodology with prototype Model
was best because for large and complex project prototype Model is best suited.
Waterfall Model:
1. It is the first process model to be introduced.
2. It’s also called as linear sequential life cycle model.
3 In this model, each phase must be completed before the next phase can begin and there is no
overlapping in the phases.

Different phases of Waterfall Model are:

1. Requirement Analysis.
2. System Design
3. Implementation.
4. Testing.
5. Deployment
6. Maintenance.
 B. Suppose that you are an analyst developing a new information system to automate the sales
transactions and manage inventory for each retail store in a large chain. The system would
be installed at each store and would exchange data with a mainframe computer at the
company’s head office. What methodology would you use? Why?
ANSWER:
I will use the design thinking methodology, because I think it is much useful for this problem.

C. Suppose that you are an analyst developing a new executive information system (EIS)
intended to provides key strategic information from existing corporate databases to senior
executives to help in their decision making. What methodology would you use? Why?
ANSWER:
For this scenario, I would use the throwaway prototyping method of development. This would be
ideal for taking an existing database and creating a new EIS. We use the analysis phase to gather
and begin ideas for the new concept. Then we continue to develop a new, improved design,
based on the requirements brought to our attention. We will continue to rework and tweak what
we have before we are ready to implement the newly formed system.

D. Suppose that you are an analyst working for a small company to develop an accounting
system. What methodology would you use? Why?
ANSWER:
I believe the best methodology for this development would be the waterfall system. A very
simple structure to design and implement, we can use this to help set up this small company’s
accounting system. Once the accounting system is up and running, we may use another type of
system if we decide to add or change to the existing system.