Project and Change Management

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Project and Change Management
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Project constraints

• Scope - The deliverables that the project team
  must create and the activities required to create
  them. Scope also includes the quality of the work
  or deliverables that need to be created.
• Cost - The budget or cost to deliver the
  project.
• Schedule - The deadline by which the project must
  be delivered.

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Often represented by a triangle
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Trade off triangle

• Other way of looking at it
• Fast, cheap, good
• Choose two
• Know which of these are fixed or variable for
  every project
• Time and cost deviations tend to be overruns
  whereas product or performance will be a
  shortfall

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Managing trade-off

• Any process for managing time cost and
  performance trade-off should emphasis the systems
  approach
• Recognise and understand the basis for project
  conflicts
• Review the project objectives
• Analyse the project environment and status
• Identify the alternative courses of action
• Analyse and select the best alternative
• Revise the project plan

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Defining project success

• Within the allocated time period
• Within the budgeted cost
• At the performance or specification level
• With acceptance by the customer/user
• With minimum or mutually agreed upon scope
  changes
• With out disturbing the main work flow of the
  organisation
• Without changing the corporate culture

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Critical success factors in project management

• Critical success factors identify what is
  necessary to meet the desired deliverables of the
  customer
• Can divide critical success factors into primary
  and secondary categories
• Primary category defines success as seen through
  the eyes of the customer
• Secondary category is used for internal purposes

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Primary critical success factors

• Within time
• Within cost
• Within quality limits
• Accepted by the customer

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Project success ambiguity

• Example of Sydney Opera House
• The original cost estimate in 1957 was 7 million
  and the completion date set by the government was
  January 26, 1963.
• The final cost was 102 million and it was opened
  by Queen Elizabeth II on October 20, 1973 95
  million over budget and almost 11 years late
• By all conventional measures, this project was a
  miserable failure
• Yet, the Sydney Opera House is the busiest
  performing arts centre in the world presenting
  theatre, musicals, opera, contemporary dance,
  ballet, every form of music from symphony
  concerts to jazz as well as exhibitions and films
  averaging around 3,000 events each year with
  audiences totalling up to two million.

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Secondary Critical Success Factors

• Follow-on work from the customer
• Using the customers name as a reference on your
  literature
• Commercialization of a product
• Within minimum or mutually agreed upon scope
  changes
• Without disturbing the main flow of work
• Without changing the corporate culture
• Without violating safety requirements
• Providing efficiency and effectiveness of
  operations
• Satisfying OSHA/EPA requirements
• Maintaining ethical conduct
• Maintaining corporate regulation
• Maintaining regulatory agency relations

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Key factors for a successful project

• Project scope and objectives aligned with
  corporate goal
• Features time and cost are prioritised
• Input and buyoff from all participants
• Solid project schedule and plan
• Roles and responsibilities are clearly defined
• Changes are managed
• Risks are managed

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Key factors for a successful project continued

• Communications are planned and managed
• Effective leadership
• Expectations are set and managed
• Lessons learned are documented along the way
• Overarching framework that guides and integrates
  project management methods, processes, tools,
  templates and techniques
• Meet or exceed the expectations of stakeholders

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JIANGS LIST OF PROJECT SUCCESS FACTORS

• Clearly defined goals (including the general
  project philosophy or general mission of the
  project, as well as commitment to those goals on
  the part of the team members).
• Competent project manager.  The importance of
  initial selection of skilled (interpersonally,
  technically, and administratively) project
  leader.
• Top Management Support. Top or divisional
  management support for the project that has been
  conveyed to all concerned parties.
• Competent project team members. The importance of
  selecting and, if necessary, triaging project
  team members.
• Sufficient resource allocation.  These are
  Resources in the form of money, personnel,
  logistics, etc.
• Adequate communication channels.  Sufficient
  information is available on the project
  objectives, status, changes, organizational
  coordination, clients needs, etc.

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JIANGS LIST OF PROJECT SUCCESS FACTORS CONTINUED

• Control Mechanisms. (Including planning,
  schedules, etc.). Programs are in place to deal
  with initial plans and schedules.
• Feedback capabilities.  All parties concerned
  with the project area able to review project
  status, make suggestions, and corrections through
  formal feedback channels or review meetings.
• Responsiveness to client.  All potential users of
  the project are consulted with and kept up to
  date on project status.  Further, clients receive
  assistance after the project has been
  successfully implemented.
• Client consultation.  The project team members
  share solicited input from all potential clients
  of the project.  The project team members
  understand the needs of those who will use the
  systems.
• Technical tasks.  The technology that is being
  implemented works well.  Experts, consultants, or
  other experienced project managers outside the
  project team have reviewed and critiqued the
  basic approach.
• Client Acceptance.  Potential clients have been
  contacted about the usefulness of the project. 
  Adequate advanced preparation has been done to
  best determine how to sell the project to the
  clients.
• Trouble-shooting.  Project team members spend a
  part of each day looking for problems that have
  surfaced or are about to surface.  Project team
  members are encouraged to take quick action on
  problems on their own initiative.

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1994 CHAOS report

• For the Standish Group not only published failure
  and success rates, but also pointed to indicators
  for success and failure.
• The Standish Group studied 365 companies with a
  total of 8,380 Information System applications
  under development.
• The resultant report divides projects into three
  distinct outcomes which they called Resolutions.

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CHAOS report- Project Resolution Types

• Resolution Type 1 is a Project Success it
  completed on time and budget, with all features
  and functions as specified.  Only 16.2 of
  projects fell in this category. 
• Resolution Type 2 is Project Challenged.  These
  were completed, but were over cost, over time,
  and/or lacking all of the features and functions
  that were originally specified.   52.7 of all
  studied projects fell into this Resolution Type 2
  (Challenged) category. 
• Resolution Type 3 is termed Project
  Impaired/Failed.  These projects were abandoned
  or cancelled at some point and thus became total
  losses.  A disturbing 31.1 of all studied
  projects fell into this category. 

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The top 5 factors found in successful projects
are

• 1.   User Involvement
• 2.   Executive Management Support
• 3.   Clear Statement of Requirements
• 4.   Proper Planning
• 5.   Realistic Expectations

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The top 5 indicators found in Challenged
projects are

• 1.   Lack of User Input
• 2.   Incomplete Requirements Specifications
• 3.   Changing Requirements Specifications
• 4.   Lack of Executive Support
• 5.   Technical Incompetence

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A list of all the top factors found in Failed
projects

• 1.   Incomplete Requirements
• 2.   Lack of user involvement
• 3.   Lack of Resources
• 4.   Unrealistic Expectations
• 5.   Lace of Executive Support
• 6.   Changing Requirements Specifications
• 7.   Lack of Planning
• 8.   Didnt Need it Any Longer
• 9.   Lack of IT management
• 10. Technical Illiteracy

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Software projects becoming more successful

• According to the Standish group 34 of IT
  projects were deemed successful in 2003
• Study over 40,000 IT projects
• More than a 100 increase since 1994
• Project failures declined to 15 of all projects
  down from 31 failure rate in 1994
• Increased awareness of project management a
  factor according to Standish

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According to Standish group report projects
succeed because of

• Executive support
• User involvement
• Experience project manager
• Clear business objectives
• Minimized scope
• Standard software infrastructure
• Firm basic requirements
• Formal methodology
• Reliable estimates

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Causes of IT project failure

• Lack of clear link between the project and the
  organizations key strategic priorities,
  including agreed measures of success.
• Lack of clear senior management and Ministerial
  ownership and leadership.
• Lack of effective engagement with stakeholders.
• Lack of skills and proven approach to project
  management and risk management.
• Too little attention to breaking development and
  implementation into manageable steps.
• Evaluation of proposals driven by initial price
  rather than long-term value for money (especially
  securing delivery of business benefits).
• Lack of understanding of and contact with the
  supply industry at senior levels in the
  organization.
• Lack of effective project team integration
  between clients, the supplier team and the supply
  chain

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Causes of failure continued

• The problem is not properly defined They could
  have developed the right solution to the wrong
  problem. This can be addressed by attempting to
  understand the reasson for doing the job.
• Insufficient data
• Planning is performed by a planning group The
  people who must do a job should participate in
  planning it.
• No one is in charge The role of the Project
  Manager is not clearly defined.
• Project estimates are best guesses, made without
  consulting historical data.
• Resource planning is inadequate.
• There is no team coordination
• People are often pulled off the project or
  reassigned without regard for impact.
• The project plan lacks detail.
• The project is not tracked against plan.
• People lose track of the original goal.
• Senior manager refuse to accept reality
• Ballpark estimates become official targets

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Software Failure Modes

• Hitting the wall before release
• 90 done
• Endless QA
• Version 2.0
• (See document titled software project failure)

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Software Failure traps

• Prototype trap.
• 4GL trap.
• Scripting trap.
• Integrated Development Environment (IDE) trap.
• Reengineering trap.
• (See document titled software project failure)

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Failure case study Maine Medicaid

• The project was undertaken to switch from their
  legacy systems to a new web-based system to
  process Medicaid claims and facilitate HIPAA
  compliance
• System problems led to many claims ending up in
  limbo, leading to hundreds of calls from health
  care practitioners, nearly 300,000 patients being
  turned away, several dentists and therapists
  going out of business, and destroying Maines
  finances and credit rating.

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Case Study continued - mistakes that were made

• Deciding to develop an entire system from scratch
  using unproven technology, while other states
  built a front-end onto their legacy systems
• Caving to pressure from management to meet tight
  deadlines with inadequate resources instead of
  pushing for a realistic plan to begin with
• Failing to notice why other bidders either didnt
  bid or came in way higher (a sign that the
  schedule was unrealistic)
• Hiring a vendor with no experience in developing
  Medicaid claims systems because they were the
  lowest bidder
• Not having a Medicaid expert on the team, leading
  to errors in judgment
• Underestimating the time needed to meet with
  subject matter experts
• Competing with another major initiative (a
  department merger) for executives attention and
  resources
• Skipping project management basics (including
  piloting, adequate end-to-end testing, staff and
  user training, etc.) due to looming deadline
  pressures
• Failing to stop, regroup, and analyze the risks
• Taking a big bang approach to cutover with no
  contingency or backup should something go wrong

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36 Classic Mistakes

• Types
• People-Related
• Process-Related
• Product-Related
• Technology-Related

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People-Related Mistakes Part 1

• Undermined motivation
• Weak personnel
• Weak vs. Junior
• Uncontrolled problem employees
• Heroics
• Adding people to a late project

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People-Related Mistakes Part 2

• Noisy, crowded offices
• Customer-Developer friction
• Unrealistic expectations
• Politics over substance
• Wishful thinking

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People-Related Mistakes Part 3

• Lack of effective project sponsorship
• Lack of stakeholder buy-in
• Lack of user input

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Process-Related Mistakes Part 1

• Optimistic schedules
• Insufficient risk management
• Contractor failure
• Insufficient planning
• Abandonment of plan under pressure

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Process-Related Mistakes Part 2

• Wasted time during fuzzy front end
• Shortchanged upstream activities
• Inadequate design
• Shortchanged quality assurance

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Process-Related Mistakes Part 3

• Insufficient management controls
• Frequent convergence
• Omitting necessary tasks from estimates
• Planning to catch-up later
• Code-like-hell programming

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Product-Related Mistakes

• Requirements gold-plating
• Gilding the lily
• Feature creep
• Developer gold-plating
• Beware the pet project
• Push-me, pull-me negotiation
• Research-oriented development

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Technology-Related Mistakes

• Silver-bullet syndrome
• Overestimated savings from new tools and methods
• Fad warning
• Switching tools in mid-project
• Lack of automated source-code control

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Project Stakeholders

• Individuals who are actively involved in the
  project
• Those whose interests may be affected by the
  project completion
• Those who may have influence over the project or
  its results

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Key stakeholders include

• Project Manager the individual responsible for
  handling the project
• Customer the individual or organisation who
  will use the projects product
• Performing Organisation the enterprise whose
  employees are most directly involved in doing
  the work of the project
• Project Team Members - the group that is
  performing the work of the project
• Project Sponsor- the individual or group that
  provides the resources for the project
• Regulatory or government agencies
• Sellers and contractors
• Individual citizens or groups of citizens

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Will concentrate on four stakeholders

• Project Manager
• Project sponsors
• Project team members
• Functional managers

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Sponsors responsibilities

• Provides resources (Budget, people, equipment)
• Helps define project requirements, success
  criteria
• Reviews and approves project plans, budgets,
  scope changes
• Ideally executive champion for the project
• Visible on-going support
• Bodyguard for project manager, project charter
• Keeps team interfaces in balance by resolving
  escalating cross-functional policy issues

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Sponsors responsibilities

• Primary responsibility maintaining executive
  client contact
• Ensures there is no filtering of information from
  the client to the customer
• Customers money is being wisely spent
• Usually informs the customer of cost and
  deliverable information

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15 PM Job Functions

• Evaluate project requirements
• Identify and evaluate risks Prepare contingency
  plan
• Identify interdependencies
• Identify and track critical milestones
• Participate in project phase review
• Secure needed resources
• Manage the change control process
• Report project status

• Define scope of project
• Identify stakeholders, decision-makers, and
  escalation procedures
• Develop detailed task list (work breakdown
  structures)
• Estimate time requirements
• Develop initial project management flow chart
• Identify required resources and budget

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Team members responsibilities

• Provide realistic task/deliverable estimates
• Inform project manager of task deliverable status
  on a regular agreed basis
• Bring risks, issues, impacts, potential solutions
  to project manager for resolution
• Be prepared to make commitments to others
• Clearly define the commitment they undertake
• Make every reasonable effort to deliver against
  those commitments
• Communicate honestly, immediately if they realise
  that a commitment may be at risk

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Team Members Need from the Project Manager

• Success criteria and measures
• Internal and external Roles and Responsibilities
• Methods for
• Where and when to attend team meetings
• How to raise and track issues and risks
• How, when to submit a Scope/Change request
• How to resolve disagreements
• How to report status on assigned tasks
• How to report budget data

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Functional Managers Role in the Project

• The functional manager has the responsibility to
  define how the task will be done and where it
  will be done ( technical criteria)
• The functional role has the responsibility for
  providing sufficient resources to accomplish the
  objective within the projects constraints
• The functional manager has the responsibility for
  the deliverable

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Project Manager Functional Manger Interface

• Resources are controlled by functional managers
• Project managers must negotiate with functional
  managers for all resources
• Successful project management strongly relies on
  a good working relationship between the project
  manager and functional managers who assign
  resources to the project