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Chapter 2

The document discusses project management from a systems perspective and organizational context. It covers the systems view of project management, project and product life cycles, organizational structures and culture, and the importance of top management commitment to projects.

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hassan IQ
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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
34 views

Chapter 2

The document discusses project management from a systems perspective and organizational context. It covers the systems view of project management, project and product life cycles, organizational structures and culture, and the importance of top management commitment to projects.

Uploaded by

hassan IQ
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Project Management

(CoE 422)
4th Year – Department of Computer Engineering

By
Dr. Ali Haddad
2. The Systems View of Project
Management and the Project and
Product Life Cycles
2.1 The Systems View of Project Management
2.1.1 The Systems Approach:
 Systems are sets of interacting components that work within an environment to fulfill some purpose.
 Organizations are systems, with people in various roles working together to design, develop, deliver, and
sell various products and services.
 The systems approach is a holistic and analytical approach to solving complex problems that includes
using a systems philosophy, systems analysis, and systems management.
 A systems philosophy is an overall model for thinking about things as systems.
 Systems analysis is a problem-solving approach that requires defining the scope of the system, dividing it
into components, and then identifying and evaluating its problems, opportunities, constraints, and needs.
 Systems analysis involves examining alternative solutions for improving the current situation, identifying
an optimum or satisfactory solution, and examining that solution against the entire system.
 Systems management addresses the business, technological, and organizational issues associated with
creating, maintaining, and modifying a system.

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2.1.2 Case Study:
John Doe works as the Director of IT Department at a small, private college. The college offers a variety of
programs, mainly in liberal arts and professional areas. Enrollment includes 1,500 full-time traditional
students and about 1,000 working adults who attend evening programs.
 Despite of the rise in IT use at the college, only a few classrooms on campus have computers for the
instructors and students, and most other classrooms have only instructor stations and projection systems.
 Several colleges throughout the country require all students to lease or buy laptops or tablets for school.
This allows their faculty members to create interactive course materials.
 Due to the rising popularity of tablets, John Doe and his IT staff developed plans to start requiring the
students at their college to lease or buy tablets starting the next academic year. He sent an e-mail in
September to all faculty and staff describing the details of his project, but was ignored until February.
 The chairs of the humanities departments all opposed the idea, since theirs were not technical schools and
their faculty did not have time to write their own course materials to run on tablets.
 Members of the Computer Science Department voiced their concern that almost all of their students
already had state-of-the-art laptops and would not want to pay for the less-powerful tablets.
 The director of the adult education program expressed her concern that many adult-education students
would balk at an increase in fees or required technology.

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2.1.3 The Three-Sphere Model for Systems Management:

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2.1.4 Revisiting the Case study:
John Doe planned the tablet project without using a systems approach.
 He did not clearly define the business, technological, and organizational issues related to the project.
 He did not address many of the organizational issues involved in such a complex project.
 Members of his IT Department did all the planning for the tablet project in isolation without involving
the stakeholders.
 Most faculty and staff are very busy at the beginning of the academic year, and many may not have read
the entire e-mail. Others may have been too busy to communicate their concerns to the IT Department.
 He was unaware of the effects the tablet project would have on other parts of the college.

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2.2 Understanding Organizations
2.2.1 The Four Frames of Organizations:
 Structural frame: Deals with how the organization is structured and the roles of different groups towards
the goals set by management. It focuses on coordination and control. For example, a key issue is whether
the IT personnel should be centralized in one department or decentralize across several departments.
 Human resources (HR) frame: Harmonizes the needs of the organization with those of the personnel and
solves the problems stemming from mismatching needs. For example, it would benefit the organization if
employees worked 80 hours a week. However, this would conflict with the personal lives of the latter.
 Political frame: Deals with competition for power, resources, and leadership among employees. It
recognizes that each organization includes varied
interest groups. Competition over scarce resources in
the organization creates conflict, and power
improves the ability to obtain them. It is important to
know the opponents and supporters of each project.
 Symbolic frame: Focuses on symbols and meanings
behind the events at an organization, and also relates
to its culture. For example, was it a good sign or a
threat that the manager came to a project meeting?

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2.2.2 Organizational Structures:
 Functional structure: Vice presidents (VPs) in
different specialties report to the chief executive
officer (CEO). Their staffs have specialized skills
in their respective disciplines. Examples include
universities. Only the faculty members in a given
department teach that department’s courses.
 Project structure: Program managers report to the
CEO. Their staffs have various skills needed for the
projects within their programs. Such organizations
mainly perform projects under contracts. Examples
include engineering and consulting companies.
They often hire people for particular projects.
 Matrix structure: A combination of functional and
project structures. Personnel report to a VP and to
one or more project managers. For example, IT
personnel often split their time among two or more
projects, but report to their manager in the IT
department. Project managers have staff from
various functional areas working on their projects.
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2.2.3 The Influences of
Organizational Structures on
Projects:

 Functional manager = VP.

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2.2.4 Organizational Culture:
 Organizational culture is a set of shared assumptions, values, and behaviors that characterize the
functioning of an organization. It often includes elements of all four frames of organization.
 The same organization can have different subcultures. For example, the IT department may have a
different culture than the finance department.
 The 10 characteristics of organizational culture are:
 Member identity: The degree to which employees identify with the organization rather than with their profession.
 Group emphasis: The degree to which work is organized around groups or teams rather than individuals.
 People focus: The degree to which management takes into account the effect of decisions on employees.
 Unit integration: The degree to which units or departments are encouraged to coordinate with each other.
 Control: The degree to which rules, policies, and direct supervision are used to oversee employee behavior.
 Risk tolerance: The degree to which employees are encouraged to be aggressive, innovative, and risk seeking.
 Reward criteria: The degree to which rewards, such as promotions and salary increases, are allocated according
to employee performance rather than seniority, favoritism, or other nonperformance factors.
 Conflict tolerance: The degree to which employees are encouraged to air conflicts and criticism openly.
 Means-ends orientation: The degree to which management focuses on outcomes rather than on techniques used.
 Open-systems focus: The degree to which the organization monitors and responds to changes in the external
environment.

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2.2.5 The Importance of Top Management Commitment:
 Project managers need adequate resources. The best way to kill a project is to withhold the required
money, human resources, and visibility. If project managers have top management commitment, they will
also have adequate resources.
 Project managers often require timely approval for unique project needs. For example, the team might
need additional supplies halfway through the project, or the project manager might need to offer special
pay and benefits to attract and retain key project personnel.
 Project managers must have cross-departmental cooperation. Because projects can cut across functional
areas, top management must help project managers deal with the political issues that often arise. If
certain functional managers are not responding to project managers’ requests, top management must step
in to encourage them to cooperate.
 Project managers often need someone to mentor them on leadership issues. Many project managers come
from technical positions and are inexperienced as managers. Senior managers should take the time to
give advice on how to be good leaders.

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2.3 Project Life Cycle
 A project life cycle is a series of phases that the project pass through from start to completion, generally:
 Starting the project.
 Organizing and preparing.
 Carrying out the work.
 Finishing the project.
 The project life cycle defines, for each phase, what work will be performed, what deliverables will be
produced and when, who is involved, and how management will control and approve work.
 A deliverable is a product or service produced or provided as part of a project, such as a technical report,
a training session, a piece of hardware, or a segment of software code.
 In early phases, resource needs are usually lowest and the level of uncertainty is highest. Stakeholders
have the greatest opportunity to influence the final characteristics of the products, services, or results.
 During the middle phases, the certainty of completing the project improves as more information is known
about the project requirements and objectives. More resources are usually needed during these phases.
 The final phase focuses on ensuring the project requirements were met and that the sponsor approves
completing the project. It is much more expensive to make major changes during latter phases.

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2.3.1 Types of Project Life Cycle:
 Predictive (waterfall): The project scope, time, and cost are determined in the early phases of the life
cycle. Any changes to the scope are carefully managed.
 Adaptive (agile or change-driven): The project is required to respond to high levels of change and the
ongoing participation of stakeholders. The overall scope of the project is broken down into different sets
of requirements or sub-projects that will be undertaken individually. Each set/sub-project is defined and
approved before the start of an iteration.

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2.3.2 An Example Project Life Cycle:
A Bank has authorized a project to design a new concierge service to their most loyal customers.
 The project will have six phases, based on the company’s project management methodology:
 Analysis.
 Design.
 Development.
 Test.
 Launch.
 Close.
 The project will be developed adaptively and there are deliverables required for each phase.
 Initially, the project will have five team members, but as the project moves into Design and
Development, the project team will expand to more than 30 team members.

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2.3.3 Project Phase:
 A project may be separated, by its management team, into distinct phases, based on various factors:
 Management needs.
 Nature of the project.
 Unique characteristics of the organization, industry, or technology.
 Project elements including, but not limited to, technology, engineering, business, process, or legal.
 Decision points, such as funding, project go/no-go, and milestone review.
 A project phase is a collection of logically related project activities. Project phases are attributed by:
 Name (e.g., Phase A, Phase B, Phase 1, Phase 2, proposal phase).
 Number (e.g., three phases in the project, five phases in the project).
 Duration (e.g., 1 week, 1 month, 1 quarter).
 Resource requirements (e.g., people, buildings, equipment).
 Entrance criteria to move into that phase (e.g., specified approvals documented, specified documents completed).
 Exit criteria to complete the phase (e.g., documented approvals, completed documents, completed deliverables).
 Using multiple phases may provide better insight to managing the project and the opportunity to assess
the project performance and take necessary corrective or preventive actions in subsequent phases.
 Within a project life cycle, there are generally one or more phases that are associated with the
development of the product, service, or result.
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2.3.4 Examples on Project Phases:
 Concept development.
 Feasibility study.
 Customer requirements.
 Solution development.
 Design.
 Prototype.
 Build.
 Test.
 Transition.
 Commissioning.
 Milestone review.
 Lessons learned.

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2.3.5 Phase Gate:
 A phase gate is held at the end of a phase. The project’s performance and progress are compared to
project and business documents including but not limited to:
 Project business case.
 Project charter.
 Project management plan.
 Benefits management plan.
 A decision is made as a result of this comparison to:
 continue to the next phase,
 continue to the next phase with modification,
 end the project,
 remain in the phase, or
 repeat the phase or elements of it.
 A phase gate may also be referred to by other terms such as, phase review, stage gate, kill point, and
phase entrance or phase exit.

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2.4 Operations Management
 Operations management is concerned with the ongoing production of goods and/or services. It ensures
that business operations continue efficiently by using the optimal resources to meet customer demands.
 It is concerned with managing processes that transform inputs (e.g., materials, components, energy, and
labor) into outputs (e.g., products, goods, and/or services).
 Alignment with the organization’s strategic business goals can be achieved through the systematic
management of portfolios, programs, and projects through applying organizational project management.

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2.5 Product Life Cycles
 A product life cycle is the series of phases that represent the evolution of a product:
 Concept.
 Delivery.
 Growth.
 Maturity.
 Retirement.
 Developing a product, such as an information system, a car, or a building, often involves many projects.
 Projects can intersect with operations at various points during the product life cycle, such as:
 When developing a new product, upgrading a product, or expanding outputs.
 While improving operations or the product development process.
 At the end of the product life cycle.
 At each closeout phase.

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2.5.1 An Example Product Life Cycle:
 A business plan and market research generated the idea for a new cell phone.
 A project is undertaken to build a new cell phone. This project is only a part of the product life cycle.
 The project life cycle would encompass the actual building of the new cell phone, but once the phone is
complete, it is released to operations for sales, marketing, and order fulfillment.
 As technology advances and consumer preferences change, the cell phone will mature, decline and
eventually be retired.
 Retirement would potentially drive multiple projects to remove the cell phone from inventory, change
company collateral, and complete other activities associated with the product retirement.

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2.5.2 Types of Product Life Cycle:
 Deciding which life cycle to use is based on two important factors: the degree of change in requirements
and the frequency of delivery of useful results:
 Predictive (waterfall) life cycle: The scope, schedule, and cost are determined early, and changes to scope are
carefully managed. This cycle works best when there is a low degree of change and a low frequency of delivery.
 Iterative life cycle: The scope is determined early, but time and cost estimates are modified as the understanding
of the product increases. Iterations are used to develop the product through a series of repeated cycles to add to
the functionality of the product. This cycle works best when there is a high degree of change and a low frequency
of delivery.
 Incremental life cycle: Deliverables are produced through a series of iterations that add functionality within a set
time frame. The deliverable is not complete until after the final iteration. This cycle works best when there is a
low degree of change and a high frequency of delivery.
 Adaptive (agile or change-driven) life cycle: Stakeholders define and approve the detailed scope before the start
of an iteration, producing a useable product at the end of each iteration. This cycle works best when there is a
high degree of change and a high frequency of delivery.
 Hybrid life cycle: A combination of approaches is used based on the nature of the work. For example, some
deliverables might have a low degree of change and frequency of delivery such as weekly progress reports, a
high degree of change and frequency of delivery such as certain software features, and so on.

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