1. Different characteristics of staff working on a project.
2. Staff often working on more than one project. Can you give them one day per project or split their time through the day? The former is probably more efficient.
3. The difference between elapsed and effort time.
4. It is best to put the best staff on the most difficult tasks and start these early.
5. Project planning in detail is not straightforward.
Activity 9.2
From the information given on p. 361 and using any relevant books, decide whether to use a formal project methodology such as PRINCE2, IDEAL or Euromethod or a different approach.
Justify your answer, giving a brief evaluation of what you perceive as the advantages and disadvantages of the methodology.
The question is intended to make students reflect on the need for a formal, structured approach to project management. Is a more informal arrangement sometimes more appropriate?
In this case study, the company is of a medium size and there is quite a serious problem of time and budget overruns, although the systems do meet the needs of the users quite well. Given that, it is important that any changes introduced are not too formal and become a barrier between the system developers and the users who seem to collaborate quite well currently.
In the view of the authors, while deploying a structured methodology such as PRINCE2 will improve control, it may not address political or soft issues which may be affecting project completions. Furthermore, a structured methodology may require more quality assurance staff on a project and may mean (initially at least) that projects take longer. Some more practical changes mentioned in solution to question 2 for Case Study 9.2 in this chapter may be more beneficial than introducing a methodology. It could be recommended that the company implements these changes and then assesses whether or not further gains could be achievable through introducing a methodology.
A summary of the positive and negative features of a structured methodology is shown in the table.
Advantages Disadvantages
• Clear aims and organisational responsibilities will be identified
• Good framework for planning and change control, e.g. need for change logging and exception plans
• Provides a consistent way of conducting projects in a company thus reducing the likelihood of error
• Should lead to better quality systems as fewer ‘corners should be cut’
• Tends to lead to a hierarchical
bureaucracy with more ‘reviewing than doing’
• Needs training of staff
• May stifle flexibility and innovation
• May sometimes be necessary to cut corners to meet deadlines
• Does not fit with rapid applications development (RAD) philosophy – based more on a traditional lifecycle
Case Studies
Case Study 9.1: Putting an all-inclusive price tag on successful IT
1. Discuss the difficulties in estimating the costs and benefits of an IT project.
There is a need to consider the context of the IT project and thus the change required for a successful implementation and delivery. IT departments tend to focus on the technical costs of hardware, software and training but underestimate the costs of change. In the case study these costs are stated as ensuring compliance with the business strategy; aligning the people with the processes the business is changing to and ensuring that behaviours are commensurate with the required new ways of working.
There is also the traditional problem in that hardware and software costs estimates are relatively easy to calculate but more benefits tend to be more qualitative and difficult to express as a number.
Case Study 9.2: Lessons for business from the public sector
1. What reasons does the case study indicate are responsible for project failure?
2. What steps can be taken to reduce the risk of project failure?
1. Project failure is primarily blamed on inadequate management of projects with the manager failing to do the following:
• specify user requirements adequately;
• manage the number of requested changes;
• limit the scope of the changes;
• tackle in-house politics;
• negotiate changes to deadlines or the number of features required.
2. The following steps can be taken:
• managing the change which is inevitable in a systems development;
• build in risk management;
• standing up to senior management when they set unrealistic deadlines or expand the scope;
• detailed estimation and costing based on detailed assessments of the requirements.
Exercises (pp. 369–370)
Self-assessment exercises
1. What are the main elements of the project management process?
The project management process includes the following main elements:
• Estimation – consisting of identifying tasks and their duration;
• Schedule/plan – when the tasks are sequenced and resources allocated;
• Monitoring and control – during the project;
• Documentation – for quality assurance;
• Post-project review – to improve the next project.
2. What are the main project aims of the PRINCE2 methodology?
PRINCE2 is a project management methodology that has been developed to be compatible with the system development methodologies such as SSADM. PRINCE2 defines four main project aims:
1. To deliver the required end product(s) 2. To meet the specified quality
3. To stay within budget 4. To deliver on schedule.
3. What information is required for the construction of a critical path diagram?
The following information is required for construction of a critical path diagram:
• Identification of project activities
• Estimated duration for each activity
• Relationship between project activities (i.e. their sequence).
4. What information do the Gantt chart and PERT chart convey?
The Gantt chart conveys the timing of activity execution, since the start and finish date for each activity are indicated. The PERT chart identifies the relationship between activities and will indicate the critical path more effectively than the Gantt.
5. Define the term ‘critical path’.
Activities on the critical path are termed critical activities. Any delay in these activities will cause a delay in the project completion time.
6. What is the difference between effort and elapsed time?
Effort time is the total amount of work that needs to occur to complete a task. The elapsed time indicates how long in units of time (such as calendar days) the task will take, given the number of resources allocated to it. For example, 4 days’ effort time can be reduced to 2 days’ elapsed time if two resources are allocated to it.
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