Assignment 2

PROJECT NAME: SLEU DEVEPOLMENT MANAGEMENT

Assignment 1

Question 1


In one paragraph of not less than 50 words, summarize the three-sphere model of systems management in your own words.

Basically, if we want to start a project, we must think the three basic concept of system management, which are; business, organization, and technology.Under the business concept, we tend to think, are this project make a profit and how to maintain the revenue? Or, how we get the budget in order to make the project? These questions will appeared when we think about project more to business. Then, if we talk about the organization, we tend to think about the organization or society. Will the project affected to the organization? How we implement to the organization? Furthermore, when it comes to technology, this question will come, what will we use to create the project? How much hardware that we use to the project? Is it good to use the simple software to create the project? These questions will be appeared under the concept of technology. So, how can we make a successful project? The answer is we have to balance the three concept of system management. In other hand, we have to look the entire concept using a holistic approach. With this, the project may success.

Question 2

Search the internet and scan information technology industry magazines or websites to find ONE successful IT project. Describe the project. List TWO each of the business, technology and organizational issues that you think can be addressed for the project.

One successful IT project that I found is wireless internet connection in UPM. UPM has established the wireless internet connection at everywhere, around the university, even at the hostel.It makes the student easier to browse the internet in order to get the information from the internet. Moreover, the student can get access to the system easily. The question is how UPM make the project successful? Firstly, under the business concept, how much cost to build the system? Then, what method that UPM can use to generate the budget? Then, regarding to the technology concept, the question is; what specification of hardware that will be use in order to support the project? Do UPM create the system itself or hire another company to build it? Then, under the organizational concept, the issue is will this project give impact to the UPM society? Who will administer or maintain the system?

Question 3

Which of the issues that you have defined above do you think is the MOST important to the project and why?

The issue that I think the most important is how much the cost to build the system. It is because; we must have the budget in order to build the project. Moreover, we have to utilize all the constraint especially the cost of project. However, the other issues also important such as what specification of hardware that will be use in order to build the project, but it is not so crucial.

Question 4

Search the internet and scan information technology industry magazines or websites to find an IT project that failed or have problems due to any ONE of business, technology or organizational issues. Describe the project. Describe the issue that made the project failed.

Channel Tunnel Publications is a company which are leading source of books, reports and videos on the system. In this channel we can find a wealth of information on all aspects to the Channel Tunnel, likes how the Tunnel was built, how the system operates, facts and figures about Europe's most amazing engineering achievement and its unique trains. I choose this company as a failure IT project because they can't manage their business smoothly. The Channel Tunnel was budgeted at 7 billion, but it entered service in the second half of 1994 with a price tag of $13 billion. In 2002 it was still burdened by $9.3 billion in debt, supported by mere $3.7 billion equity.





Question 5

Think of a real or an imaginary organization that you are interested in. Draw a graphical illustration of each of the different organizational structures (i.e. functional, project, matrix) for the organization that you have selected.

Functional Organization : eg: Flower-Sprecher Veterinary Library

Project Organization : eg: Project Islamic Intellectual Discourse 2008

Matrix Organization : eg: Endurance Trading

Question 6

Discuss the importance of top management commitment for successful project management. Provide examples to illustrate the importance based on an already implemented project that you are aware of, or based on an imaginary/proposed project to be done in future.

In order to become a successful project, the top management play the important role towards their under management. Here, I will list down the importance of top management such as Director of the project, CEO, or Manager.

• The top management must to observe the progress of the project.

• The top management has to cater all things regarding to the project such as budget and so on.

• The top management has the authority to control all the activity in the project.

• The top management such as project manager has to tolerate with other staff and understand their opinion or suggestion.

• The top management must open-minded and think creative towards the project.

For example, in CONVEST 09 (IIUM), the top management like CEO has to cater all things from biggest to the smallest things regarding to the project. He also has to observe the other staff or project manager either their do the work or not. So, the top management has their important role in order to make the project is successful.

Reflection on Project Management Course

 What do I like best about the course?

§       The thing that I like best about the course is that this course teaches me how to be a good project manager. The whole course teach us step by step from the very beginning of initiating process to the close up process of doing a project.  In this case we manage to get the experience to be in the real project management team and do all the procedures by ourselves. This is a valuable experience for me.

 What do I dislike most about the course?

§        The thing that I dislike about this course is that this course has so many facts to be understood and memorize. Moreover, the course becomes dull when it is done at the wrong time which is from 5.30pm to 7pm.Psychologically this time is the time for our brain to relax and do some recreation. Instead we have to go class and pay attention to the lecture given by our respective lecturer. So it is very hard for me to pay attention. Furthermore the lecturing method is not interesting and is not a two way communication. The syllabuses to be covered also are a lot  which makes the course not fun to learn. Besides the student are not serious and the presentation made during class time is not formal and do not represent themselves as the real project manager.

  What are my proposed suggestions to improve the course delivery and content. If I had more time, what do I wish I had done differently for the course?

§         My proposed suggestion to improve the course delivery and content are by having a role play of some situation about the project management, giving the student some complex situation about project management to be solved and also having a two way communication of teaching in class. Which means the lecturer can ask students’ opinion about certain issues or the problems in project management. In this case I guess perhaps the class would be more interesting and the delivery would be more effective. Last but not the least is about the timing of the class as I mention above. If I had more time, I wish that It will be better if the class timing can be changed to a more suitable time for the students.

IT Project Management Tips

There is lots of IT Project Management tips I have learnt in class. From what I have learnt, I like to share with you all some of the tips. It is about tips to have better communication with Project Stakeholder Management. For your information, Project managers spend 80% to 90% of their time communicating. So we need to actively manage communication with the various project stakeholders.

There are four different strategies for the different groups of stakeholders. We need to know what is it and what it does. Below is some information about it:

• Key Players - Manage them closely and keep them fully engaged
• Important Stakeholders - Keep them satisfied. Don’t burden them with too much detail
• Affected Stakeholders - Keep them informed. Communicate regularly to check that no major issues are appearing
• Other Stakeholders - Monitor them. Communicate, but do not bother them with too much information

Further than this, we need to spend time and effort to improve our own communication skills in these important areas:

• Written and oral (involving verbal and non-verbal communications skills)

Venues for communication:

• Internal- with the project team and organisation
• External- with the customer, the media, the public

Types of communication:

• Formal - Reports, meetings
• Informal - emails, conversations
• Vertical - within the organisation and functional group (for example engineering, sales, finance)
• Horizontal - with peers and other groups within the organisation

Hopefully these tips will help you in communicate with Project Stakeholders Management.

The Benefits of Learning IT Project Management

• We can understand the growing need for better project management, especially for information technology projects.
• We can know the role of the project manager by describing what project managers do, what skills they need, and what the career field is like for IT projects managers.
• We can know what are the IT project software tools and describe how software can assist in creating an IT project.

Chapter 12 - Project Procurement Management

This chapter is about Project Procurement Management.Procurement refers to get some goods and service from outside also same mean with outsource. There are some advantages and disadvantages of doing procurement some of the advantages are provide flexibility, increase accountability and so on, the disadvantages are it’s too depend on particular suppliers and not protect the information. The processes that involve in procurement are planning purchases, planning contracting, requesting seller responses, selecting sellers, administering the contract and closing the contract. All the processes involve are about to get the goods or services from outside of our organization. What is the most important when we want to involve on procurement our organization need to evaluate the best seller based on their request for proposal (RFP) or request for quotes (RFQ) and decide which company that have potential to become the services or goods vendor. As conclusion there are some advantages and disadvantages of procurement and it’s depend on the organization itself to involve in procurements or not. If they involve procurement they need to make sure the vendor that they request for goods and services provides the good service not only cheaper price but the most important is the high quality for anything that the organization request.

Chapter 11- Project Risk Management

It is important to an organization to identify and analyze the risks of the projects in order to increase the performance of the project from time to time. When we are heard the word risks we are only imagine about negative risk (problem) but actually there is also positive risk (good things). There are six processes in risk management which are Risk management planning, risk identification, Qualitative risk analysis, Quantitative risk analysis, Risk response planning and Risk monitoring and control. We need to define any risks that will occur later in our projects that we want to develop with using some techniques such as brainstorming, The Delphi Technique, interviewing and SWOT analysis. By construct risk register we can define risk, what are the causes of the risks happen, the probability and impact of the risk low, medium or high and what is our plan to overcome the risks. There are four response strategies for negative risk which are Risk avoidance, Risk acceptance, Risk transference and Risk mitigation and also four responses strategies for positive risks which are Risk exploitation, Risk sharing, Risk enhancement and Risk acceptance. As conclusion it is very important for us to define the risks especially negative risks and provide some suggestions to overcome the problems so that if one day the risk really happen so we already have the backup to handle it, if not we will have problem in the future such as the project will be delay or the cost of the project will be increase because of our weak plan. Risk management is important to minimizing the negative risks and maximizing the positive risks.

Chapter 10 - Project Communication Management

Project Communication Management. Communication also is one of the important factors that lead the success or failure of projects. There are four processes that involve in communication management which are communication planning, information distribution, performance reporting and managing stakeholders. In communication planning it discuss about the contents of communication management plan such as information that to be communicated, stakeholder communication requirement and so on. In information distribution stress on to get the right information to the right people and at the right time. There are two types of information distributing such as by using technology and formal and informal methods. Face by face communication also important to distribute information. Performance reporting is to ensure that stakeholder will get information from time to time about the project resources. In managing stakeholder there are some suggestion to improve project communication such as develop better communication skills, run effective meetings and so on, this is important so that there are no problems occur just because the information is misunderstanding by certain group of people. As conclusion everyone that involve in doing a project need to have communication skill not only to stakeholder but also among each of them to avoid any incorrect information that lead to the projects failure and also to avoid any misunderstanding among of them.

Chapter 9- Project Human Resource Management

For the overall of project human resources I can say this chapter tells more about people in the organization, because people are the most important assets in organization and on project.
Therefore, it is essential for project managers to be good human resource managers.

The major processes that involved in this project human resources management includes human resource planning, acquiring project team members, developing the project team, and managing the project team.

This chapter also tells us about psychosocial issues that affect how people work and how well they work include motivation, influence and power, and effectiveness.

One of psychosocial issues under motivation is Maslow, that developed a hierarchy of needs that suggests physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization needs motivate behavior. Once need is satisfied, it no longer serves as a motivator. Next is influence and power, we can say that power is the potential ability to influence behavior to get people to do things they would not otherwise do. One of theory example of influence the power is Thamhain and Welemon that identified nine influence bases available to project manager. In their research found that project success is associated with project managers who use work challenge and expertise to influence workers. And last theory is under effectiveness, project managers can use Steven Covey’s seven habits of highly effective people to help themselves and project teams become more effective. The seven habits include being proactive; beginning with end in mind; putting first things first; thinking win/win; seeking first to understand, then to be understood; achieving synergy; and sharpening the saw. Using empathic listening is a key skill of good project managers.

Two crucial skills of a good project manager are team development and team management. Teamwork helps people work more effectively to achieve project goals. Project managers can recommend individual training to improve skills related to teamwork, organize team-building activities for the entire project team and key stakeholders, and provide reward and recognition systems that encourage teamwork.

Project managers can use several tools and techniques, including observation and conversation, project performance appraisals, conflict management, and issue logs to help them effectively manage their team.

Chapter 8 - Project Quality Management

Project quality management is vey important to ensure the project that we develop have high quality and the end user and stakeholder will satisfy of it. There are three processes define in this chapter which are quality planning, quality assurance and quality control. The main goal of quality planning and quality assurance is to ensure the project meet the quality standard. In quality control we can use control chart to determine every processes are in control or out of control and also to analyze the satisfaction of user towards our project. The seven run rule is related to control chart where we always use flow chart, histogram, scatter chart and so on. The next topic is Six Sigma where it also have the related with quality control because it is more comprehensive and flexible for achieving business control. It has five phases of improvement process which known as DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve and control). Six sigma often use in project charters, business cases and so on. One way we can use to ensure the quality standard is by performing system testing. There are many types of testing we can perform which include unit testing, integration testing, system testing and user acceptance testing. Last part of this chapter it suggest some tips to improve IT project quality such as establish leadership that promotes quality, understand the cost of quality, focus on organizational influences and workplace factors that affect quality and follow maturity models. So as the overall conclusion in this chapter I learn on how to ensure the project quality because it is very important before we deliver the project to end user so that they are satisfying enough and give the positive feedback in the end.

Chapter 7 - Project Cost Management

In this chapter it focuses on project cost management where we need to know the importance of project cost. It is to make sure the project complete within the budget estimation. Project cost management has three phases which are cost estimating, cost budgeting and cost control. Cost estimating is to ensure project complete within budget constrain. There are three ways we can estimate budget, firstly by using analogous where take the previous project that most similar for current project that we develop and take the same cost estimation from previous project, secondly is using bottom up estimates looking all the activities that will involve in the project and make our own cost estimation and the last one us parametric modeling by using mathematical calculation for the cost estimation. Cost management plan is document use to how the organization mange the cost of the project. The main goal of cost budgeting is to create the cost baseline. Cost baseline is related to the WBS where we provide the budget for each task so we not exceed the cost until the project complete. Cost control where the financial people need to monitor and control the cost and to monitor any changes that will affect the cost of the project. Lastly in this chapter I learn on how to make sure the cost is not exceed the cost estimation because if the cost too much and the project’s sponsor and stakeholder doesn’t want to provide more cost the project will failure in the future and the project manager and team will loss.