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The Project Management and

Information Technology Context

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Learning Objectives
• Describe the systems view of project management and how it applies to
information technology projects

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• Understand organizations, including the four frames, organizational structures,
and organizational culture
• Explain why stakeholder management and top management commitment are
critical for a project’s success

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Learning Objectives (continued)
• Understand the concept of a project phase and the project life
cycle and distinguish between project development and product
development

Discuss the unique attributes and diverse nature of information

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•
technology projects
• Describe recent trends affecting IT project management,
including globalization, outsourcing, and virtual teams

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Opening Case
• Many of the theories and concepts of project management are
not difficult to understand.
• What is difficult is implementing them in various environments.

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• Project managers must consider many different issues when
managing projects.
• Just as each project is unique, so is its environment.

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Projects Cannot Be Run in Isolation
• Projects must operate in a broad organizational environment
• Project managers need to use systems thinking:
 Taking a holistic view of carrying out projects within the context of the
organization

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• Senior managers must make sure projects continue to support current
business needs

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A Systems View of Project Management

• A systems approach emerged in the 1950s to describe a holistic and analytical

approach to solving complex problems includes using a system philosophy,

systems analysis and system management

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• Systems are sets of interacting components working within an environment to

fulfill some purpose.

• For example. the human body is a system composed of many subsystems-the

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nervous system, the skeletal system, the circulatory system, and so on.

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systems approach
• Three parts include:

 Systems philosophy: an overall model for thinking about

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things as systems

 Systems analysis: problem-solving approach

 Systems management: address business, technological, and

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organizational issues before making changes to systems

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• Using a systems approach is critical to successful project management.

• If top management and project managers are to understand how projects relate

to the whole organization, they must follow a systems philosophy.

• They must use systems analysis to address needs with a problem-solving

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approach.

• They must use systems management to identify key issues in business,

technological, and organizational spheres related to each project in order to

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identify and satisfy key stakeholders and do what is best for the entire

organization.

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Three Sphere Model for Systems
Management
• Addressing the three spheres of systems management have a
huge impact on selecting and managing projects successfully.

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• Three Sphere Model is:

 Business,

 Organization,

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 Technology.

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Figure 2-1. Three Sphere Model for

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Systems Management

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Understanding Organizations
• The systems approach requires that project managers always view their
projects in the context of the larger organization.

• Organizational issues are often the most difficult part of working on and

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managing projects.

• In fact, many people believe that most projects fail

• because of organizational issues like company politics.

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• Project managers often do not spend enough time identifying all the
stakeholders involved in projects.

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Understanding Organizations

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Structural frame: Human resources frame:
Focuses on roles and Focuses on providing
responsibilities, harmony between needs of
coordination and control. the organization and needs
Organization charts help of people.
define this frame.

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Political frame: Symbolic frame: Focuses
Assumes organizations on symbols and meanings
are coalitions composed related to events. Culture
of varied individuals and is important.

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interest groups. Conflict
and power are key issues.

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What Went Wrong?
Many enterprise resource planning (ERP) projects fail due to organizational
issues, not technical issues. For example, Sobey’s Canadian grocery store
chain abandoned its two-year, $90 million ERP system due to organizational
problems.

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As Dalhousie University Associate Professor Sunny Marche states, “The
problem of building an integrated system that can accommodate different
people is a very serious challenge. You can’t divorce technology from the
sociocultural issues. They have an equal role.” Sobey’s ERP system shut

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down for five days, and employees were scrambling to stock potentially
empty shelves in several stores for weeks. The system failure cost Sobey’s
more than $90 million and caused shareholders to take an 82-cent after-tax
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What Went Wrong?
• In a paper titled “A Study in Project Failure,” two researchers examined the
success and failure of 214 IT projects over an eight-year period in several
European countries.

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• The researchers found that only one in eight (12.5 percent) were considered
successful in terms of meeting scope, time, and cost goals. The authors made
the following conclusions about factors that contribute to a project’s failure:

• “Our evidence suggests that the culture within many organizations is often such

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that leadership, stakeholder and risk management issues are not factored into
projects early on and in many instances cannot formally be written down for
political reasons and are rarely discussed openly at project board or steering
group meetings .
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Organizational Structures

• 3 basic organization structures

 Functional: functional managers report to the CEO

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 Project: program managers report to the CEO

 Matrix: middle ground between functional and project

structures; personnel often report to two or more bosses;
structure can be weak, balanced, or strong matrix

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Figure 2-2. Functional, Project, and
Matrix Organizational Structures

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Table 2-1. Organizational Structure

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Influences on Projects
Project Organizational Structure Type
Characteristics
Functional Matrix Project
Weak Matrix Balanced Strong
Matrix Matrix
Project manager’s Little or none Limited Low to Moderate High to
authority Moderate to high almost total

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Percent of Virtually none 0-25% 15-60% 50-95% 85-100%
performing
organization’s
personnel assigned
full-time to project
work
Who controls the Functional Functional Mixed Project Project
project budget manager manager manager manager
Project manager’s Part-time Part-time Full-time Full-time Full-time
role

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Common title for Project Project Project Project Project
project manager’s Coordinator/ Coordinator/ Manager/ Manager/ Manager/
role Project Leader Project Project Program Program
Leader Officer Manager Manager
Project management Part-time Part-time Part-time Full-time Full-time
administrative staff
PMBOK Guide, 2000, 19, and PMBOK Guide 2004, 28. 17
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Organizational Structure Influences on
Projects

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Organizational Structure Influences on Projects

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Organizational Culture

• Organizational culture is a set of shared assumptions, values, and

behaviors that characterize the functioning of an organization

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• Many experts believe the underlying causes of many companies’

problems are not the structure or staff, but the culture

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Ten Characteristics of Organizational Culture
• Member identity* • Risk tolerance*
• Group emphasis* • Reward criteria*
• People focus • Conflict tolerance*

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• Unit integration* • Means-ends orientation
• Control • Open-systems focus*

*Project work is most successful in an organizational

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culture where these items are strong/high and other
items are balanced

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Stakeholder Management
• Project managers must take time to identify, understand, and manage relationships

with all project stakeholders

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• Using the four frames of organizations can help meet stakeholder needs and

expectations

• Senior executives/top management are very important stakeholders

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Media Snapshot
• The New York Times reported that the project to rebuild Ground Zero in New
York City is having severe problems; imagine all of the stakeholders involved in
this huge, highly emotional project

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• A 34-page report describes the many challenges faced in the reconstruction of
the former World Trade Center site nearly thirteen years after the terrorist attack
of September 11, 2001

• The report identified the need for a steering to make final decisions on important

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matters

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The Importance of Top Management
Commitment

• People in top management positions are key stakeholders in projects

• A very important factor in helping project managers successfully lead projects is

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the level of commitment and support they receive from top management

• Without top management commitment, many projects will fail

• Some projects have a senior manager called a champion who acts as a key

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supporter for a project

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How Top Management Can Help Project
Managers

• Providing adequate resources

• Approving unique project needs in a timely manner
• Getting cooperation from other parts of the organization

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• Mentoring and coaching on leadership issues

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Need for Organizational Commitment to
Information Technology (IT)

• If the organization has a negative attitude toward IT, it will

be difficult for an IT project to succeed

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• Having a Chief Information Officer (CIO) at a high level in
the organization helps IT projects

• Assigning non-IT people to IT projects also encourages more

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commitment

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Need for Organizational Standards
• Standards and guidelines help project managers be more
effective

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• Senior management can encourage:
 The use of standard forms and software for project management

 The development and use of guidelines for writing project plans or

providing status information

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 The creation of a project management office or center of excellence

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Project Phases and the Project Life Cycle

• A project life cycle is a collection of project phases that

defines:
 What work will be performed in each phase

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 What deliverables will be produced and when

 Who is involved in each phase

 How management will control and approve work produced in each phase

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• A deliverable is a product or service produced or provided as
part of a project

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More on Project Phases
• In early phases of a project life cycle:
 Resource needs are usually lowest

 The level of uncertainty (risk) is highest

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 Project stakeholders have the greatest opportunity to influence the project

• In middle phases of a project life cycle:

 The certainty of completing a project improves

 More resources are needed

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• The final phase of a project life cycle focuses on:
 Ensuring that project requirements were met

 The sponsor approves completion of the project

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Project Life Cycle
A project life cycle is a collection of project phases. Projects pass through these

phases from their start to their completion.

generic life cycle include:

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1. Starting the project

2. Organizing and preparing

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3. Carrying out the work

4. Finishing the project

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Figure 2-3. Phases of the Traditional

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Project Life Cycle

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Product Life Cycles

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- Products also have life cycles.

- The Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a framework for

describing the phases involved in developing and maintaining information
systems

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Systems development projects can follow five development life cycles:
1. Predictive life cycle: The scope, schedule, and cost are determined early,
and changes to scope are carefully managed.

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2. iterative life cycle: The scope is determined early, but time and cost
estimates are modified as the understanding of the product increases.

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3. Incremental life cycle: Deliverables are produced through a series of
iterations that add functionality within a set time frame

4. Adaptive life cycle: Stakeholders define and approve the detailed scope
before the start of an iteration, producing a useable product at the end of
each iteration.

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5. Hybrid life cycle: A combination of approaches is used based on the
nature of the work. For example, some deliverables might have a low degree
of change and low frequency of delivery such as weekly progress reports, a
high degree of change and a high frequency of delivery such as certain

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software features, and so on

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• Predictive and adaptive approaches are not a mutually exclusive

choice.

Two factors are important in deciding which life cycle to use:

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• The degree of change in requirements

• The frequency of delivery of useful results.

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Predictive Life Cycle Models
• Waterfall model.

• Spiral model.

• Incremental build model:

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• Prototyping model.

• Rapid Application Development (RAD) model.

• READING.

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 Waterfall and spiral

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Agile Software Development
• Agile software development has become popular
to describe new approaches that focus on close

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collaboration between programming teams and
business experts

• Visit www.agilealliance.org for information

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• READING.

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• Scrum is the leading agile development method for completing

projects with a complex, innovative scope of work. The term was

coined in 1986 in a Harvard Business Review study that compared

high-performing, cross-functional teams to the Scrum formation used

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by rugby teams.

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 Scrum methodology

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The Importance of Project Phases and
Management Reviews
• A project should successfully pass through each of the project

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phases in order to continue on to the next

• Management reviews, also called phase exits or kill points,

should occur after each phase to evaluate the project’s progress,

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likely success, and continued compatibility with organizational

goals

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What Went Right?

• Having specific deliverables and kill points at the end of

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project or product phases helps managers make better

decisions about whether to proceed, redefine, or kill a project.

• Improvement in IT project success rates reported by the

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Standish Group has been due in part to an increased ability to

know when to cancel failing projects.

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The Context of IT Projects

• IT projects can be very diverse in terms of size, complexity,

products produced, application area, and resource

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requirements.

• IT project team members often have diverse backgrounds and

skill sets.

• IT projects use diverse technologies that change rapidly; even

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within one technology area, people must be highly
specialized.
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Recent Trends Affecting IT Project
Management
• Globalization: lower trade and political barriers and the digital
revolution have made it possible to interact almost directly

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with billions of other people across the planet

• Outsourcing: outsourcing is when an organization acquires

goods and/or sources from an outside source; offshoring is
sometimes used to describe outsourcing from another country

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• Virtual teams: a virtual team is a group of individuals who
work across time and space using communication technologies
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IT is a key enabler of globalization, as shown in the following
statistics.

• “The internet has 3.5 billion users

• There are 3.03 billion active social media users

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• 91% of retail brands use 2 or more social media channels

• 81% of all small and medium businesses use some kind of social
platform

Internet users have an average of 7.6 social media accounts

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•

• Social media users grew by 121 million between Q2 2017 and Q3 2017.

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Important Issues and Suggestions
Related to Globalization
• Issues
 Communications
 Trust
 Common work practices

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 Tools

• Suggestions
 Employ greater project discipline
 Think global but act local
 Keep project momentum going
 Use newer tools and technology

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Outsourcing
• Organizations remain competitive by using outsourcing to their
advantage, such as finding ways to reduce costs

• Their next challenge is to make strategic IT investments with

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outsourcing by improving their enterprise architecture to ensure that IT
infrastructure and business processes are integrated and standardized

• Project managers should become more familiar with negotiating

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contracts and other outsourcing issues.

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Virtual Teams Advantages
• Increasing competiveness and responsiveness by having a team of
workers available 24/7

• Lowering costs because many virtual workers do not require office

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space or support beyond their home offices

• Providing more expertise and flexibility by having team members from

across the globe working any time of day or night

• Increasing the work/life balance for team members by eliminating fixed

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office hours and the need to travel to work

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Virtual Team Disadvantages

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• Isolating team members

• Increasing the potential for communications problems

• Reducing the ability for team members to network and transfer

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information informally

• Increasing the dependence on technology to accomplish work

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Chapter Summary
• Project managers need to take a systems approach when working on
projects
• Organizations have four different frames: structural, human resources,
political, and symbolic
• The structure and culture of an organization have strong implications

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for project managers
• Projects should successfully pass through each phase of the project life
cycle
• Project managers need to consider several factors due to the unique
context of information technology projects

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• Recent trends affecting IT project management include globalization,
outsourcing, and virtual teams

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