Pmit Assignment 1

Assignment 1

PROJECT MANAGEMENT IN IT (INFO 3501)

Section- 1 Madam Masita Abdul Rahman Md Rubaiyat Bhuiyan 0712855

1. In one paragraph of not less than 50 words, summarize the threesphere model of systems management in your own words.

The three sphere model of systems management: The business section requires a knowledgeable person to understand the long term objective of a system management and its goals. It also requires the ability to internally control variables within an organization and maximize the never ending limitation in resources. A system which is not developed to business or market objectives is ultimately doomed to fail. For maintaining a business a few of the skills are the requirements such as marketing, advertising, management, measurement, good in political talk. The organization section requires to incorporate both the Business and the technology sphere into account, it needs to take into consideration about what has to be taken into account in order to incorporate the respective stakeholder. How will the project affect the stakeholders, how will the project affect those who are already running something similar to the one being done in the project? What will happen to the system after it is completed, how are the users going to use it and if it needs training who is going to train the users, and so on. As for technology, a project manager needs to know how each and every tool and technology work, thus requiring the need to know the strengths, benefits, limitations and costs. This also applies to human resources and the time line. Often technical limitations will reduce the scope of project needs, so it needs to be incorporated in order to move forward.

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.

Successful IT Project of Large Scale Data Center Implementation The client is a leading US investment bank with over 50,000 employees worldwide with an ever increasing global presence. The project was to implement an offsite data center solution that can cater for expanding IT infrastructure demands over the next 5 years, while decoupling IT infrastructure functions from day-to-day business demands. The issues that can be addressed for the project are: Business- The budget production and cost tracking all expenditure throughout project implementation. Also Production of tender documentation for IT systems

has to be done in interest of the stakeholders. Technology- Implementation of site surveys and interviews with local IT staff to produce all IT requirements for data centre equipment will be a hassle because of the social skill needed to conduct all these mentioned. And production of detailed plans of data center to cater for all equipment including telecommunications, network, WAN, third part vendors etc has to be cross checked with the old systems and softwares because they might have compatibility issues. Organization - Production of a project plan including all steps and designs necessary to successfully complete the IT infrastructure fit out has to be checked. And production of task list and schedule for installation and relocation of all IT equipment into new data center along with the effected personals has to be checked and if needed future training has to be provided which might lead to incur additional expenses. 3. Which of the issues that you have defined above do you think is the MOST important to the project and why? The budget production and cost tracking all expenditure throughout project implementation is the most important to the project, this is due to the fact that no matter how much a project team or the top management is motivated and excited, it will not move an inch with the budget and the continuous flow of money to the project. So a confirmed budget has to be there along with a backup in case of emergency, in addition to that a proper cost tracking system has to be maintained in order to check that the budget is being used properly. 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.

A failed business strategy involving a large IT blunder contributed to the collapse of Scotland’s largest customer-owned lender, the Dunfermline Building Society. The widened its revenue sources by attempting to establish a software business selling mortgage-processing systems to other banks, basically the idea was develop a mortgage IT system that could then be sold to other financial institutions. And the best part is that they outsourced the system development to some third part vendor and created a Liaison with the IT Department of Dunfermline Building Society. The IT Projects main failure issue was mostly related to technology. They selected a software vendor’s unproven product for a mission critical application, which was not only for their use but also for selling to other financial institution. Paying

insufficient attention to substantial project risks on how the hardware specification and the software compatibility issues. Also they relyed on the promise of customization to backfill functionality gaps in the off-the-shelf software.

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 Organizational Structure

Project Organizational Structure

Matrix Organizational Structure

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.

Without top management commitment many projects fail. Some projects have senior managers who acts as a key driving force for a project. As projects are part of a large organizational environment, it has to be taken into account that many factors affect a project which might be out of the project manager's control, so this makes the top management commitment crucial to the project. In a way the project manager need to have good liaison in the top management. For example a project has started on the refurbishing of an office starting from furnitures to all the equipment. The project manager needs adequate resources, and if the project managers have top management commitment, they will have adequate resources and will be able to focus on completing their specific projects. Under certain circumstances, a projects needs can be unique which need to be fulfilled in a timely manner, such as in order to retain the key personal who is in charge of planning department, may be with the top managements approval a special pay can be offered I order to keep that person. Most Projects cuts across functional areas, such as during the refurbishment the wiring of the office has to be changed and the schematics are with maintenance department, the top managements can deal with the political issues of the maintenance functional manager and encourage to co-operate. Also top managements are seniors with lots of experience, sometimes the project managers are new and often inexperienced, so may be the seniors can take time to pass on advice critical to the project such as past experience, as it is always better to learn from others mistakes. This will allow the project managers to learn about leadership skills and also to manage things properly. References http://www.gantthead.com/article.cfm?ID=187449 http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=2630 http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=2040&tag=rbxccnbzd1 http://www.eire.co.jp/SUC/index.html http://www.bia.ca/articles/TheTopProjectManagementChallenges.htm http://www.ca.com/us/success-stories.aspx