INF5890 IT and Management Project Management in Practice: handling - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

INF5890 – IT and Management Project Management in Practice: handling complexity and uncertainty March 10, 2016 Xenia Vasilakopoulou - IFI xvasil@ifi.uio.no

Recap previous lectures

• What is a project
• How to manage a project
• When to have a project

• Uncertainty and complexity in projects
• Managing uncertainty and complexity in projects:

– Initiating. – Planning. – Executing. – Monitoring and Controlling. – Closing.

Today’s lecture outline

• “A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique

product, service, or result” (PMBOK).

Why are projects uncertain and complex?

Why are projects uncertain and complex?

• It has not been done before. We might not know exactly what it takes

and we might not be sure about the exact properties of the end result.

– Also, even the “knowns” such as scope and key specifications might change along the way.

• Multiple relationships are at play: among the resources involved the

project, between different parts of the work in progress, between the project and the ongoing business. Complexity increases when number, variety and connectedness increase.

– Also, resources, work parts and business might change along the way.

• Complexity further aggravates uncertainty…

Can project management help?

Yes and no:

• No when it contributes to workload increase (adding too many

administrative tasks) and to a false sense of being “in control”.

• Yes, when it prepares projects to accommodate uncertainty and

is consciously used for complexity containment.

Project management is accomplished through the appropriate application and integration of 42 logically grouped processes comprising the 5 Process Groups (Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling, Closing).

Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling, Closing

Source: PMBOK 4th edition, 2008, adopted by IEEE as Std 1490-2011

The five process groups may recur during the project life cycle

• Req. Analysis

Design Development Testing Iterative incremental cycles (analysis, design, development, testing) Evolutionary cycles and staged commitment

Agile Spiral

Requirements Design Development Testing Deployment

Waterfall

Backlog Backlog

Software process models from a project management perspective

Not all projects have the same needs

0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0 12.0 0.0 5.0 10.0 15.0 20.0 25.0 30.0

Project Complexity Uncertainty

Simple, young projects. Need agility Tight Teams

Skunks Dogs

Complex, mega projects Need discipline

Cows Bulls

Agility and iterations to handle uncertainty laissez faire

Colts

Adapted from: Little, T. (2005). Context-adaptive agility: managing complexity and uncertainty. Software, IEEE, 22(3), 28-35.

Initiation-the charter

Concise piece of text for uncertainty containment

– expresses stakeholder’s needs and expectations. –

• bjectives and constraints not features or how to achieve results.

– a focal point throughout the project, important for empathy, engagement and mindful manoeuvring. Very important, to have this document from the sponsor/owner/initiator before planning or starting.

Planning – work breakdown

Modularity: project components that can be separated and recombined Why it is good to componentise work as much as possible:

• Handling interruptions and changes of priorities.
• Managing dependencies and risk propagation.
• Enhancing ownership.
• Exploiting opportunities for early wins.

New Banking System Design Loans Handling Deposits Handling Asset-Liability Management Programming Loans Handling Deposits Handling Asset-Liability Management Process Redesign Loans Handling Deposits Handling Asset-Liability Management Data Migration Loans Handling Deposits Handling Asset-Liability Management Testing Loans Handling Deposits Handling Asset-Liability Management Training Loans Handling Deposits Handling Asset-Liability Handling New Banking System Loans Design Programming Process Redesign Data Migration Testing Training Deposits Design Programming Process Redesign Data Migation Testing Training Asset-Liability Design Programming Process Redesign Data Migration Testing Training

Alternatives for work breakdown of the same project

Where do we increase uncertainty? Where do we increase complexity?

Duration of work task (time) Resource units Duration of work task (time) Resource units Duration of work task (time) Resource units 40 10 40 20 20 10 Work effort Work effort Work effort

vs vs

Planning – developing schedules

Thinking of resources and time

• Actual dates (including non working days, vacation times, major reporting events etc.).
• Actual project members (with their circumstances e.g. part-time, different time zones,

different capabilities and domain knowledge).

• Known constraints (availability of test environment, computation facilities, users and

managers that need to take decisions).

• Overheads are included (e.g. for coordination, reporting etc.).

Planning – developing schedules

Including all the “knowns” Preparing to accommodate the “unknowns”

• Include a contingency margin (both for time and budget).
• Handle lag times as safety buffers (but do not tamper with actual estimates).
• Lag times are good also for dealing with the quality of the work done, where quality

determines the amount of required “rework”. Using lag times ensures that rework is not transferred to other project tasks.

• Never schedule using best case scenarios.

Planning – WBS & schedules

manage dependencies and risk propagation

Remington, K. (2011). Leading complex projects. Gower Publishing, Ltd..

Planning – WBS, schedules, costs

Including resource allocation

• Information sharing is not only for meetings.
• Shared physical spaces (war rooms, team rooms, etc.).
• Shared virtual spaces ( e.g. Sharepoint, fileservers, code repositories).

Executing– teams coordination

Minimise surprises within the team by ensuring that information is shared

Monitoring and Controlling

• Collect, document and distribute performance information including

status reports, progress measurements, and forecasts.

• Brief reports to steering committees, focus on actions and decisions

needed.

• Most importantly: involvement and contribution to actual

accomplishments and addressing of challenges.

• Obtain formal acceptance by the customer or sponsor.
• Report key opportunities for further developments.
• Hand over to operations pointing to key interrelationships that matter.

Closing

Key points

• Information Systems’ projects can be complex and uncertain: they are

unique, they unfold under changing business conditions, they require multiple interrelated resources and work parts.

• Not all projects have the same uncertainty and complexity so they

need to be approached in different ways (no universally best solution).

• Project management processes can be used to prepare projects for

uncertainty and complexity.