Information Systems Project Management

1
(No Transcript)
2
Information Systems Project Management

• Information Systems Project Management
• Scope Management

3
Scope Management

• What comes to mind when you think of the word
  Scope?

4
Scope Management

• In a project management context, the PMBOK
  defines it as the sum of the products, services
  and results provided as a project
• Your author adds that its the totality of the
  work to create these things and the processes
  used to create them

5
Scope Management

• Some important points regarding Scope are
• Requirements of all stakeholders, including
  client business needs and actual user needs, must
  be considered
• Requirements are often conflicting, and must be
  reconciled
• Requirements are not usually well-defined at the
  outset, evolve over time and are the main cause
  of project cost schedule variances

6
Scope Management

• Its worth digressing here to talk about
  requirements a bit more

7
Scope Management

• Requirements, as well see later, lead directly
  to project scope
• But where do requirements come from?
• They can come from many places
• Legal mandates
• Burning business needs
• Somebodys bright idea
• Etc, Etc

8
Scope Management

• But they can and will change as budgets, people,
  the market and technology change
• They are often not well articulated, leading to
  misunderstanding
• And they are often incomplete due to prematurity
  or lack of consideration of all relevant
  stakeholders

9
Scope Management

• What does this mean?
• It means clarity is crucial
• And in the case of one project I worked on at
  Convergys, it meant that we delivered on time and
  on budget, but the customer did not get what they
  thought they asked for!

10
Scope Management

• Delivering a product or service a customer cant
  use is never a good outcome
• You pay to do the redesign rework, or
• They pay for what they dont need
• Either way, you lose!

11
Scope Management

• Additional important points are
• Requirements drive scope, which are a detailed
  description of the projects deliverables often
  the two words are used interchangeably, but the
  distinction is that requirements are what the
  customers want, and scope is what the project
  defines in the end, the two must be reconciled
• At Convergys, we used a central repository for
  all requirements documents that the virtual
  project team could all access

12
Scope Management

• Still more important points
• Scope is further broken down into a Work
  Breakdown Structure (WBS), which is simply a
  uniform, consistent and logical method for
  dividing the project into smaller, more
  manageable components for purposes of planning,
  estimating and monitoring the project work
• From a project team perspective, this is the
  complete detailed view of the work to be done

13
Scope Management

• Important points (continued)
• The three types of WBSs are Deliverable
  oriented, Task oriented or Resource oriented
• (Most WBSs are actually hybrids, starting with
  deliverables at higher levels (e.g., Create
  Design Document) and moving down to tasks at
  lower levels where (e.g., Hold Design
  Inspections)

14
Scope Management

• Important points (continued)
• A detailed WBS
• Encourages a systematic project planning process
• Reduces the possibility of omission of key
  project elements
• Simplifies the project by dividing it into
  manageable units
• Facilitates virtual team communication

15
Scope Management

• Lets talk about the triple constraint, which
  Ive mentioned a couple times already
• The triple constraint is the term used to refer
  to the relationship on a project of the three
  constraints of scope, time and cost

16
Scope Management

• Triple constraint (cont)
• What this means is that you typically undertake a
  project to do something (scope) by a agreed-upon
  date (time) for a budgeted amount (cost)
• And it means that if any one of these changes,
  its likely to affect at least one of the other
  two

17
Scope Management

• Triple constraint example, using a typical group
  project
• If the professor who assigned the project decided
  to change the 10 page requirement into 20, or
  changed the due date from December to November,
  how do you think it would affect your project
  resource cost, as measured in hours of the
  groups time that would have to be budgeted to
  the project?
• If one of your group members bails or produces
  sub-par work, how do you think it would affect
  your personal time allocation?

18
Scope Management

• Triple constraint (cont)
• This is an important concept, both in business
  and in life
• I was often asked by my customer in my position
  at Convergys to do something additional on a
  project without changing a delivery date or
  adding cost
• My answer was always the same you know what the
  triple constraint means you add scope, then you
  add cost (and maybe time) to the project

19
Scope Management

• Lets cover some important points on the topic of
  Scope from the PMBOK

20
Scope Management

• First, the PMBOK defines Scope Management as
  including processes required to make sure that
  the project includes all the work required, and
  only the work required, to complete the project
  successfully
• Or, as your author says, its about defining and
  controlling whats included and what is not

21
Scope Management

• Further, the PMBOK differentiates between product
  and project scope
• Product scope is a reference back to your
  authors definition of requirements i.e., what
  the product or service is supposed to be
• Project scope is the work that needs to be done
  to deliver the product or service

22
Scope Management

• This product or service versus project scope
  distinction is important
• The product or service scope is a
  customer-centered view of what a successful
  project outcome should look like
• The project scope is the project teams view of
  what needs to be done to deliver that successful
  outcome

23
Scope Management

• The PMBOK defines 5 scope processes
• Scope Planning
• Scope Definition
• Create WBS
• Scope Verification
• Scope Control

24
Scope Management

• Scope Planning is a plan for managing the other 4
  processes
• The scope management plan is its primary output
  this plan describes how youll
• Prepare the scope statement
• Create the WBS
• Verify project deliverable completion
• Control change requests
• Uses templates, forms, standards expert
  judgement as tools

25
Scope Management

• Scope Definition and Create WBS weve already
  covered to some extent
• But its important to note that the Stakeholder
  Analysis that began with development of the
  Project Charter continues during Scope Definition
• Its important to note that the scope statement
  coming from the scope definition process is an
  important step in defining the project baseline
• And its also important to note that taking these
  steps provides a baseline for measuring progress,
  and basis for clear assignment of responsibility

26
Scope Management

• Scope Definition
• Helps improve accuracy of time, cost resource
  estimates
• Defines the projects performance measurement
  baseline
• Helps in communicating clear work
  responsibilities
• Should document success/acceptance criteria
• As you author says so well, its pretty easy to
  communicate time cost objectives scope is much
  harder to define, agree upon meet

27
Scope Management

• Scope Definition (continued)
• Media Snapshot on pp 174-75 is a great
  illustration of the operation of the triple
  constraint in general and of scope and
  stakeholder management, more specifically
• Does anyone watch any of these shows?
• Any comments on the reading?

28
Scope Management

• Comments on Work Breakdown Structures
• Deliverable-oriented work grouping covering
  project scope
• Foundation document provides basis for planning
  and managing the project
• Text shows several ways to accomplish this
  (project PM and team typically decide how, if no
  organizational guidelines exist)
• Typically uses decomposition to break work down
  into work packages LT/EQ 80 hours
• Assumes knowledge of scope and stakeholder needs

29
Scope Management

• Great WBS creation principles list on p. 186
• Unit of work appears only once
• Work content of WBS item sums items below it
• WBS item is responsibility of only one person,
  though many may work on it
• Must be consistent with way work will actually be
  performed
• Must involve all to ensure buy-in
• Must document WBS items in WBS dictionary
• Must be flexible enough to accommodate change
  while structured enough to maintain work control

30
Scope Management

• Scope Verification is concerned with acceptance
  of the project deliverables
• Distinguished from Quality Control, which is
  concerned with meeting the quality requirements
  for those deliverables
• Scope verification asks the question, is the
  deliverable doing what its supposed to?
• Quality Control asks How well?

31
Scope Management

• Scope Control is concerned with influencing the
  factors that create project change and
  controlling their impact
• Uncontrolled changes often referred to as Scope
  Creep
• But changes will happen, so having a solid change
  control process and configuration management
  system is critical to manage them
• And Lessons Learned from those changes must be
  documented as a learning tool

32
Scope Management

• Scope Control also allows for
• Keeping track of changes, once theyve been
  approved accepted
• Updating the project scope baseline

33
Scope Management

• As your author states
• You cant do a good job of scope control if you
  do a lousy job of scope definition
• Convergys Wholesale Contract scope issue story

34
Scope Management

• A good suggestion list for improving user input
  (and limiting scope creep) from your author on
  pp189-90
• Insist all projects have a user organization
  sponsor
• Have full-time users on project team
• Have regular meetings with defined agendas
  (Amen!)
• Deliver something to users on a regular basis
• Do not over-promise / under-deliver
• Co-locate, if possible

35
Scope Management

• Another good suggestion list for reducing
  requirements churn from your author on pp190-91
• Develop follow a process
• Employ user-friendly techniques like prototyping,
  JAD use case / business scenario modeling
• Put requirements in writing, version them and
  make them readily available
• Provide adequate testing and involve users in
  it!
• Emphasize a systems impact perspective (gentle
  guidance)
• Remind users of completion date impacts
  (especially if time is of the essence, which it
  usually is)
• Allocate resources to manage change requests

36
Next Class

• Well begin covering Time, the second leg of the
  project management triple constraint
• Reading
• Textbook Chapter 6
• Have a good and productive week!