Chapter 1:

Introduction to IS Project Management

May,2022
Haramaya, Ethiopia
July 7, 2023
 Contents

 Introduction to projects
 Projects and Project Management
 IS Project Management
 Stage of Project
 The stakeholders of project
 Software tools for project management
 Learning Outcomes

• What a project is? Explain with examples of

Information Technology projects.
• List various attributes and triple constraints of the
projects
• Describe project management and key elements of
the project management framework, including
project stakeholders, the project management
knowledge areas, common tools and techniques, and
project success.

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 Learning Outcomes
• Discuss the relationship between project, program,
and portfolio management and the contributions they
each make to enterprise success.
• Understand the role of the project manager by
describing what project managers do, what skills they
need, and what the career field is like for information
technology project managers.
• Describe the project management profession, including
its history, the role of professional organizations like the
Project Management Institute (PMI), the importance of
certification and ethics, and the advancement of project
management software.
 Introduction to Project Management
• Many organizations today have a new or renewed
interest in project management.
• The world as a whole spends nearly $10 trillion of
its $40.7 trillion gross product on projects of all
kinds.
• More than 16 million people regard project
management as their profession.

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 What is a Project?

• A project is “a temporary endeavor undertaken to

accomplish a unique product or service” (PMBOK® Guide
2000, p. 4).
• “It’s a temporary group activity designed to Temporary,
means it has a “defined beginning and end in time, and
therefore it has a defined scope and resources.”
• Unique : not a routine operation or NOT COMMON,
but a specific set of operations designed to accomplish
a singular goal.

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 What is a Project?

• Projects end when-

• Goal Achieved- Their objectives have been reached or

• Terminated - The project has been terminated to produce

a unique product, service or result.

• When goals and objectives can not be accomplished

and no longer needed and the project is canceled.

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Continued
 Project Attributes/Characteristics
A project has:
• A Unique purpose ( Not routine)
• Is Temporary in nature
• Planed Way
• Specific Objective to create product/service
• Predetermined Time Frame
• Is developed using progressive elaboration
• Consumer of resources, often from various areas
• A sponsor who provides the direction and funding for the
project
• Several Phases to accomplish
• Requirement of varied skills
• Involvement of uncertainty
 Overview of Project Management Statistics

• In the U.S. the size of the IT workforce topped means 4

million workers for the first time in 2008.
• Total compensation : In 2007 the total compensation
for the average senior project manager in U.S. dollars
was:
• $104,776 per year in the United States,
• $111,412 in Australia, and
• $120,364 in the United Kingdom

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 Motivational Factor for IT PM
• A 1995 Standish Group study (CHAOS) found that
only-

• 16.2% of IT projects were successful in meeting scope,

time, and cost goals;

• Over 31% of IT projects were canceled before

completion
• A Price water house Coopers study found that overall,
half of all projects fail and.
• Only 2.5% of corporations consistently meet their
targets for scope, time, and cost goals for all types of
project
Factor Ranking for Success, Challenged and Impaired
 Improving the likelihood of success

• Make them stakeholders participants

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 What is Project Management?
• Project management is “the application of
knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project
activities to meet project requirements” (PMI*,
Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK®
Guide), 2000, p. 6)
• Project managers must strive not only to meet specific
scope, time, cost, and quality goals of projects, they
must also facilitate the entire process to meet the needs
and expectations of people involved in project
activities or affected by them.
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 Continued

• So a project team often includes people who

don’t usually work together – sometimes from
different organizations and across multiple
geographies.
• Project management is planning, organization,
monitoring and control of all aspects of project,
with motivation of all included to achieve project
goals on safe manner, within agreed schedule,
budget and performance criteria.
 Continued…
• Project Management is the discipline of defining and
achieving targets while optimizing the use of resources
(time, money, people, materials, energy, space, etc)
over the course of a project (a set of activities of finite
duration).
• Project management is an organized venture for
managing projects, involves scientific application of
modern tools and techniques in planning, financing,
implementing, monitoring, controlling and
coordinating unique activities or task produce desirable
outputs in accordance with the determined objectives
with in the constraints of time and cost.
 Advantages of using Prescribed
Project Management Techniques
Why IT Project Management?
•Better control of financial, physical, and human resources
•Improved customer satisfaction & relations
•Shorter development times[ scientific time frame
management]
•Lowering costs of Project
•Higher quality assurance
•Increased reliability
•Higher profit margins
•Improved productivity
•Better internal coordination
•Higher worker morale
•Minimized Risks Factors with greater planning
•Increased probability of success
 Project Management Stakeholders
• Stakeholders- The people involved in or affected by project
activities.
• Stakeholders include: Internal vs. external
1. All parties of Project-
• The project Sponsor
• The project Team
• Support staff
• Customers
• Users
• Suppliers
• Opponents to the project
2. The project manager
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Project Vs Operation

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 The Triple Constraint of Project Management
• Project managers strive to meet the triple constraint by
balancing project scope, time, and cost goals.
• Every project is constrained in different ways by its
• Scope goals: What is the project trying to accomplish?
• Time goals: How long should it take to complete?
• Cost goals: What should it cost?
• Successful project management means meeting all three
goals (scope, time, and cost) – and satisfying the
project’s sponsor!

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Continued..

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 Project Management Organization
• It’s a strategic competency for organizations, enabling
them to tie project results to business goals — and thus,
better compete in their markets.
• Project management processes/stages-
Fall into five groups:
• Initiating
• Planning
• Designing
• Executing
• Monitoring & Controlling
• Closing
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Project Management Framework

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 10 Project Management Knowledge Areas

• Knowledge areas describe the key competencies that

project managers must develop
• 4 core knowledge areas lead to specific project
objectives (scope, time, cost, and quality).
• 5 facilitating knowledge areas are the means through
which the project objectives are achieved (human
resources, communication, risk, procurement and
stakeholders management).
• 1 knowledge area (project integration management)
affects and is affected by all of the other knowledge
areas.

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 Examples of IT Projects

 Assignment 1:
• List some examples of IT projects?
• Discuss Project, Program, and Portfolio
Management (the role of each management with
examples).
 Continued..

• Executive support in project intended to be used as an

aid in assessing and diagnosing the organizational
environment in which the project manager and
executive reside.
 Common Problems with IT Projects
• To help you avoid that undesirable outcome, here
are seven project management problems that
designers and developers often face, as well as
how to deal with them when they arise-
1. Your Client Gives You Vague, Ever-changing
Requirements.
2. Your Client is Slow with Communication.
3. The Project Doesn’t Start On Time
4. You Try to Manage Every Project the Same Way
5. The Client Doesn’t Like What You
Created/Developed
 Continued…

6. Your Point of Contact Doesn’t Seem to Care

About Your Project
7. Too Much Time is Spent Solving Problems After
Projects Are "Live“
8. Fast Changes in Technology version
9. Not Assigning the Right Person to Manage the
Project
 Causes of Project Management Failure
• According to Standish Group there are ten causes of project failures:
• Bad Communications
• Poor schedule or resource Management (mismanagement)
• Weak requirements definitions (leads to inadequate planning)
• Inadequate planning, assumptions, risks, or resources
• Use of new or unproven technologies/methods
• Ineffective (or nonexistent) quality controls
• Managing multiple projects at once or multi-tasking resources
• Supply chain failures
• Scope creep or poor impact analysis
• Lack of qualified resources
Stages in Project Management
 Continued..
• Initiating processes: include defining and authorizing a
project or project phase.
• Planning processes: include devising and maintaining
a workable scheme to ensure that the project addresses
the organization’s needs.
• Executing processes: include coordinating people and
other resources to carry out the various plans and
create the products, services, or results of the project
or phase.
 Continued…
• Monitoring and controlling processes: include
regularly measuring and monitoring progress to
ensure that the project team meets the project
objectives.
• Closing processes: include formalizing acceptance
of the project or project phase and ending it
efficiently.
 Skills, A Good Project Manager Needs?
• Project managers need a wide variety of skills-
• Qualities of PM
• Change Agent- Be comfortable with change
• Skilled in Knowledge of standards and regulations
• Skilled for Project environment knowledge
• Understand the organizations they work in and with
• Be able to lead teams to accomplish project goals
Continued…
Skills & Competencies in Project Manager-Jennifer Krahn
 Roles and Responsibilities of a Project Manager

• The objective of every project manager is to deliver

the product on time, within budget and with the
required quality.
• Although the precise responsibilities of a project
manager will vary from company to company and
from project to project, they should always include
planning and forecasting.
• Three additional areas of management responsibility
are: interpersonal, informational, decisional.
 Continued…
• Interpersonal Responsibilities, which include:
• leading the project team;
• liaising with initiators, senior management and
suppliers;
• being the 'figurehead', i.e. setting the example to
the project team and representing the project on
formal occasions.
 Continued…
• Informational Responsibilities, which include:
• monitoring the performance of staff and the
implementation of the project plan;
• disseminating information about tasks to the project
team;
• disseminating information about project status to
initiators and senior management;
• acting as the spokesman for the project team.
 Continued…
• Decisional Responsibilities, which include:
• allocating resources according to the project plan,
and adjusting those allocations when circumstances
dictate (i.e. the project manager has responsibility for
the budget);
• negotiating with the initiator about the optimum
interpretation of contractual obligations, with the
company management for resources, and with project
staff about their tasks;
• handling disturbances to the smooth progress of the
project such as equipment failures and personnel
problems.
 Project Managers and Program Managers
• Project managers work with project sponsors, the
project team, and other people involved in a project
to meet project goals
• Program: group of related projects managed in a
coordinated way to obtain benefits and control not
available from managing them individually
(PMBOK® Guide, Fourth Edition, 2008, p. 9)
• Program managers: He / She oversee programs;
often act as bosses for project managers
 Continued…
• Project portfolio management, in which organizations
group and manage projects and programs as a portfolio of
investments that contribute to the enterprise’s success.
Portfolio managers help the organizations make wise
investment decisions by helping to select and analyze
projects from a strategic perspective.­
 Project Management Tools and Techniques

• Project management tools and techniques assist

project managers and their teams in various
aspects of project management
• Some specific ones include
• Project Charter, scope statement, and WBS (scope)
• Gantt charts, network diagrams, critical path
analysis, critical chain scheduling (time)
• Cost estimates and earned value management (cost)
 Project Success?
• There are several ways to define project success:
1. The project met scope, time, and cost goals
2. The project satisfied the customer/sponsor
3. The results of the project met its main objective-
Example.
1) Saving a certain amount of money,
2) providing a good ROI
What helps projects succeed?
 The Project Management Profession
• The job of IT Project Manager is in the list of
the top ten most in demand IT skills
• Professional societies like the Project
Management Institute (PMI) have grown
tremendously
• Project management research and certification
programs continue to grow
 Project Management Certification
• PMI provides certification as a Project Management
Professional (PMP).
• A PMP has documented sufficient project
experience, agreed to follow a code of ethics, and
passed the PMP exam.
• The number of people earning PMP certification is
increasing quickly.
• PMI and other organizations are offering new
certification programs.
 Ethics in Project Management
• According to the PMI (Project Management
Institute), “Ethics is about making the best possible
decisions concerning people, resources and the
environment.
• Ethics is an important part of all professions
• Project managers often face ethical
dilemmas(difficult situation or problem)
• In order to earn PMP certification, applicants must
agree to the PMP code of professional conduct.
 Continued…

• Ethical choices diminish risk, advance positive

results, increase trust, determine long term
success and build reputations