1. Cost Management
1.1. • Includes developing and managing the project budget • One approach is using WBS to estimate all cost
1.1.1. • Project managers must make sure that their projects are well defined, have accurate time and cost estimates, and have a realistic budget that they were involved in approving. • One approach to cost estimating uses the WBS to estimate all costs (capital, expense, and cross-charge) associated with the completion of each task.
2. Quality Management
2.1. • Ensures that the project will meet the needs for which it was undertaken • Quality assurance and quality control
2.1.1. Quality planning: determining which quality standards are relevant to the project and determining how will they be met.
2.1.2. Quality assurance: evaluating the progress of the project on an ongoing basis to ensure that it meets the identified quality standards.
2.1.3. Quality control: checking project results to ensure that they meet identified quality standards.
2.1.4. In IT- related systems, “defects in requirements are the source of the majority of defects that are identified during testing, and problems with requirements are among the top causes of project failure”.
3. Human resource mangement
3.1. • Making the most effective use of the people involved with the project • Often compromises must be made • Forming-storming-norming-performing model
3.1.1. •The project manager may be assigned all the members of the team, or may have the luxury of selecting all or some team members. • Team members should be selected based on skills in the technology needed, understanding of the business area affected, expertise in the specific area of the project and their ability to work well with the team. • The best available subject-matter expert can be an additional challenge for the project manager. • The project team and sponsoring organization should take equal responsibility for making the project a success. Other orgs assign co-project managers to IT-related projects--- one from the IT org, and one from the sponsoring org.
4. Risk Management
4.1. • Identify, analyze and manage project risks • avoid the risk or develop a backup plan • One of the biggest risk: little value to show in return- a strong rationale should exists for doing it
4.1.1. • “Things will go wrong, and at the worst possible time.” (variation of Murphy’s Law) • Risk: uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or negative effect on a project objective • In creating a new IT-related system, a known risk might be that the hardware will take longer than expected to arrive at the installation site. • The project manager needs to lead a rigorous effort to identify all risks associated with the project. • One strategy is to avoid the risk altogether, while another is to develop a backup plan. The risk management plan can be documented (description, risk owner, risk strategy, and current status)
5. Project Integration Management
5.1. • Requires the assimilation of all eight other project management knowledge areas • Requires the coordination of all appropriate people, resources, plans, and efforts to complete a project successfully • Project charter • Preliminary project scope • Project management plan • Integrated change control
5.1.1. • Assimilation of the eight other project management knowledge areas • See sample case in Text “The FBI Stumbles Developing a Virtual Case File System”
6. Scope Management
6.1. Defining the work that must be done as part of the project and then controlling the work to stay within the scope to which the team has agreed
6.1.1. • Scope: refers to all the work involved in creating the products of the project and the processes used to create them • To avoid problems associated with a change in project scope, a formal scope change process should be defined before the project begins. • The more flexibility you allow for scope changes, the more likely the project will meet user needs for features and performance. However, the project will be more difficult to complete within changing time and budget constraints.
7. Time Management
7.1. Estimating a reasonable completion date, developing a workable project schedule, and ensuring the timely completion of the project
7.1.1. • Time is one variable that has the least amount of flexibility. Time passes no matter what happens on a project. • A project schedule is needed to complete a project by a defined deadline, avoid rework, and avoid having people who do not know what to do or when to do it. • The development of a work breakdown structure (WBS) is a critical activity needed for effective time management. • WBS: outline of the work to be done to complete the project, by breaking the project into various stages or groups of activities that need to be performed.
8. Communications Management
8.1. Involves the generation, collection, dissemination, and storage of project information in a timely and effective manner
8.1.1. • Many experts agree that the greatest threat to the success of any project, especially IT projects, is a failure to communicate. • Our culture often portrays computer professionals as nerds, and communicating with non-computer people is as if talking to someone from another planet. • In preparing a communications plan, the project manager should recognize that the various stakeholders have different information needs in the project.
9. Procurement Management
9.1. Involves acquiring goods and/or services for the project from sources outside the performing organization
9.1.1. • Procurement: acquiring goods and/or services from an outside source (purchasing) • Many IT projects involve the use of goods and services from outside the organization. • The make-or-buy is a key decision during the plan purchase and acquisition process. It involves comparing the pros and cons of in-house production versus outsourcing of a given product or service. • A contract is a legally binding agreement that defines the terms and conditions of the buyer-provider relationship, including who is authorized to do what, who holds what responsibilities, costs and terms of payment, remedies in case of breach of contract, and the process for revising the contract