1. Information technology project management Cloud computing and SaaS
MBA 501
WEEK 6

2. What is project management?
Project management – a definition “Project management is the process by which projects are defined, planned, monitored, controlled and delivered such that the agreed benefits are realised.”
Association for Project Management
Project management is both a discipline and a set of tools and practices
Meredith & Mantel (2009) Project management: a managerial approach. 7th ed. Wiley.

3. PM as a profession: Project Management Institute (PMI)
The Project Management Institute is the major project management organization / professional society
defines and standardize the body of knowledge (PMBOK)
has an important credentialising function – Project Management certification
Founded in 1969
Very significant growth from 7,500 members in 1990 to over 260,000 in 2007
The Project Management Journal and PM Network are the leading project management journals
Meredith & Mantel (2009) Project management: a managerial approach. 7th ed. Wiley.

4. Why such growth in the profession of PM?
Recent Changes in Managing Organizations –
The replacement of traditional hierarchical management with more consensual forms.
The increasing adoption of the “systems engineering” approach to problem solving.
The establishment of projects as the preferred way to accomplish the organizations goals.
Meredith & Mantel (2009) Project management: a managerial approach. 7th ed. Wiley.

5. Project management
“Managing projects has always been one of the most important, and toughest, jobs in the IS organization” McNurlin & Sprague
What is a project?
“collection of related tasks and activities undertaken to achieve a specific goal”
Must be a clearly stated goal
Must have a clearly stated beginning and end
McNurlin & Sprague. Information Systems Management in Practice. 7th Ed. Pearson Prentice Hall

6. Definition of a project
“A temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product or service”
Project Management Institute (2004)
How do we distinguish a project from other kinds of work?
Major characteristics of a project
Importance – in the eyes of the organization (not necessarily size)
Performance – well defined set of goals
Life cycle with a finite due date
Interdependencies – interaction between project activities, and with other activities in the organization
Uniqueness – even routine project produce a unique result
Resources – budgets, personnel etc…..are always limited
Conflict – over cost, schedule, resources, requirements. Between stakeholders, between team members. There is always conflict in PM.
Meredith & Mantel (2009) Project management: a managerial approach. 7th ed. Wiley.

7. What is not a project?
Non-projects: Routine tasks that are performed again and again (projects are one-time events)
Quasi-projects (Bill, would you look into this?)are those that do not have a specific task identified, no specific budget, and no specific deadline defined. Although there are some uncertainties, project management skills can still be used to manage them.
Meredith & Mantel (2009) Project management: a managerial approach. 7th ed. Wiley.

8. Why Project Management?
The main purpose for initiating a project is to accomplish some goal
Project management increases the likelihood of accomplishing that goal
Project management gives us someone (the project manager) to spearhead the project and to hold accountable for its completion
Better results
Better control
Better customer relations
Better ROI
Meredith & Mantel (2009) Project management: a managerial approach. 7th ed. Wiley.

9. Projects Tend to be Large
The Channel Tunnel
Three Gorges Dam, China
IT megaprojects (Wikipedia)
Projects are getting larger over time
Flying: balloons  planes  jets  rockets  reusable rockets
The more we can do, the more we try to do
Meredith & Mantel (2009) Project management: a managerial approach. 7th ed. Wiley.

10. Project Management Also Getting Smaller
More people are seeing the advantages of project management techniques
The tools are become cheaper
The techniques are becoming more widely taught and written about
Wedding and other event planning
A new kitchen
A website redesign
Etc etc – some examples that come to mind?
Meredith & Mantel (2009) Project management: a managerial approach. 7th ed. Wiley.

11. Project management
Techniques for managing the three elements of any project (the project triangle)
Time
Cost
Performance objectives (scope)
Project management is hard – it is all about managing risks!
McNurlin & Sprague. Information Systems Management in Practice. 7th Ed. Pearson Prentice Hall

12. The job of a project manager
Setting up the project (selecting the team etc)
Managing the schedule – WBS and assigning activities/tasks
Managing the finances (estimating and managing costs)
Managing the benefits (and managing expectations)
Managing the risks, opportunities, and issues/threats
Soliciting independent reviews
McNurlin & Sprague. Information Systems Management in Practice. 7th Ed. Pearson Prentice Hall

13. The Project Life Cycle Figure 1-3
Meredith & Mantel (2009) Project management: a managerial approach. 7th ed. Wiley.
Figure 1-3

14. Time Distribution of Project Effort
Meredith & Mantel (2009) Project management: a managerial approach. 7th ed. Wiley.
Figure 1-4

15. Uncertainty and Risk at the Start of the Life Cycle – very difficult to predict with accuracy
Estimate of project cost made at the start
Meredith & Mantel (2009) Project management: a managerial approach. 7th ed. Wiley.
Figure 1-6

16. Risk During the Life Cycle – uncertainty decreases as the project nears completion
Estimates of project cost made at time t0, t1 and t2
Meredith & Mantel (2009) Project management: a managerial approach. 7th ed. Wiley.
Figure 1-7

17. Project Management Institute – core competencies for PMs
Management of:
Integration / co-ordination
Scope
Time
Cost
Quality
Human resources
Communication
Risk
Procurement
McNurlin & Sprague. Information Systems Management in Practice. 7th Ed. Pearson Prentice Hall

18. Software for project management
MS Project
Wrike
Basecamp

19. Example of PMs work: Activity Planning
Activity planning includes
Selecting a systems analysis team
Estimating time required to complete each task
Scheduling the project
Two tools for project planning and control are Gantt charts and network diagrams
McNurlin & Sprague. Information Systems Management in Practice. 7th Ed. Pearson Prentice Hall

20. Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
Project is broken down into phases
Further broken down into tasks / activities and sub-tasks
Identify task dependencies
Estimate the time each task will take
may use “most likely”, “pessimistic”, and “optimistic” estimates for time
McNurlin & Sprague. Information Systems Management in Practice. 7th Ed. Pearson Prentice Hall

21. Gantt Charts Easy to construct and use
Shows activities over a period of time and illustrates how activities and tasks are interrelated.
Good at illustrating tasks that run parallel to one another
Example of Gantt chart
McNurlin & Sprague. Information Systems Management in Practice. 7th Ed. Pearson Prentice Hall

22. Sample of a simple Gantt chart
Source

23. Network Diagram
Network diagrams show precedence, activities that must be completed before the next activities may be started
Show multiple paths to project completion
Used to calculate the critical path, ie. the longest path through the activities
The critical path will cause the project to fall behind if any delay is encountered on it

24. Non-critical path = 10 – 30 – 40 – 60 – 70 – 80 (16 days)
Activity
Predecessor
Duration F,
Critical path = 10 – 20 – 30 – 50 – 60 – 70 – 80 (22 days - the longest path)
Non-critical path = 10 – 30 – 40 – 60 – 70 – 80 (16 days)

25. Project failure Chaos Report 2011 (The Standish Group)
More than half of projects conducted between 2002 and 2010 either described as challenged or complete failures.
37% Successful: delivered on time, on budget, with required features and functions
42 % Challenged: late, over budget, and/or with less than the required features and functions
21% Failed: cancelled prior to completion or delivered and never used

26. Why do projects fail?
Any non-trivial project is almost certain to have problems – project management is hard
Problems with people
Poor communication
Lack of buy-in from key stakeholders
Resistance from employees / users
Tasks not completed as agreed
Insufficient training
Problems with estimating time and budgets – overly optimistic or over-promising
Scope creep
McNurlin & Sprague. Information Systems Management in Practice. 7th Ed. Pearson Prentice Hall

27. Poor risk management
One of the main reasons that IT projects fail is poor risk management
Technical risks: eg. scope creep causing complexity, vendor package doesn’t scale
Business risks: the business doesn’t change properly to use the new system (in a way necessary to reap the benefits)
Selecting the right project management approach can help mitigate risk entailed with business changes
The business case for an IT project should include the business-change risks
McNurlin & Sprague. Information Systems Management in Practice. 7th Ed. Pearson Prentice Hall

28. Risk management - steps
Step 1: Assess the risks
leadership of the business change
employees’ perspective on the change
the scope and urgency of the change.
Step 2: Mitigate the risks
Risk avoidance – remove source of the risk (eg remove certain functions to avoid hacking)
Risk limitation by implementing controls (eg. System monitoring to avoid disaster)
Risk transfer by letting others assume the risk (eg. by outsourcing)
Step 3: Adjust the project management approach
McNurlin & Sprague. Information Systems Management in Practice. 7th Ed. Pearson Prentice Hall

29. The role of the Project Management Office (PMO)
Large organizations often centralize their PM functions into a Project Management Office
Assist CIO in achieving objectives:
Instill project management discipline and knowledge
Standardize project management best practices
Facilitate IT project portfolio management (for better control)
Keep closer watch on project expenses and progress
Megan Santosus. Why you need a PMO. CIO Magazine, July 1, 2003.

30. The PMO PMO Models Payback from the PMO?
Consulting model – provides PMs in business units with training, guidance and best practice
Centralized model – PMs loaned out to business units to work on specific projects
Payback from the PMO?
Help deliver strategic IT projects
Enable better resource management
Fewer project failures
Only projects that offer the biggest payback are supported
Megan Santosus. Why you need a PMO. CIO Magazine, July 1, 2003.

31. Outsourcing

32. Outsourcing In the IT world, outsourcing means…
turning over a firm’s computer operations, network operations, or other IT function to a provider for a specified time…usually a period of years
Not at all common until late 1980s, early 1990s
Now, CIOs must demonstrate good reasons NOT to outsource
Outsourcing is evidence of a global and mobile trend in the IT labour market
As is “reverse outsourcing” (eg. Wipro presence in US)
McNurlin & Sprague. Information Systems Management in Practice. 7th Ed. Pearson Prentice Hall

33. Working outwards: Drivers towards outsourcing
Value (cost savings). Forrester research shows that firms save between 12 & 17% of the cost of doing the work in-house
Benefits from economies of scale
Focus on core business due to global competition
What business are we in?
Where do we add value?
McNurlin & Sprague. Information Systems Management in Practice. 7th Ed. Pearson Prentice Hall

34. Location of supplier of outsourced services
Off-shoring: means outsourcing to a provider outside the country (For the US this means India, Ireland, the Philippines, China etc)
Low wage countries
Cultural and time zone issues need to be managed
Political issues at home re the domestic workforce
Near-shoring – outsourcing to Canada, Mexico
Outsourcing to home country
McNurlin & Sprague. Information Systems Management in Practice. 7th Ed. Pearson Prentice Hall

35. Types of outsourcing Project based (eg. Y2K work)
Best-of-breed outsourcing – one supplier might handle desktop support, another data centre operations, another network management. Now managed collaboratively, with one supplier taking the lead
Business process outsourcing (BPO) – outsourcing all or most of a re-engineered process that has a large IT component (eg. travel agency handing over ticket accounting)
eBusiness outsourcing – speed and focus are the big drivers, especially where IT gives no competitive advantage
Shared services – a type of “in-sourcing” where economies of scale are achieved by centralizing IT, legal, etc services
Utility and cloud computing – pay as you go – Amazon Web Services (SaaS is another variant)
McNurlin & Sprague. Information Systems Management in Practice. 7th Ed. Pearson Prentice Hall

36. Two statements for discussion
Outsourcing offloads a burdensome technical responsibility and allows management to focus on its core business OR
Outsourcing strips a company of an important core competence – IT know-how and creates unnecessary risks
McNurlin & Sprague. Information Systems Management in Practice. 7th Ed. Pearson Prentice Hall

37. Cloud computing and saas

38. The idea of cloud computing – the big shift
“Computers used to be self-contained devices. If you wanted to do something with your PC, you had to buy a piece of software and install it on your hard drive”.
The web changed all that. All you needed was a browser and a network connection “The PC began to turn inside out—what was important wasn’t what was inside its case but what was outside it.”
Now, we use FB and Gmail, YouTube, and Netflix – this shift has been largely invisible to the consumer
“[Computing today] is turning into a service supplied over a network. It’s becoming a utility.”
The implications for corporate users are IT are very significant
Why build data centers?
Why bother even having an IT department any longer?
Nicholas Carr: The Big Switch.

39. Cloud computing: what is it?
“Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction” National Institute of Standards and Technology

40. Three types of cloud computing
IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service: computing power, storage, database services eg. Amazon Web Services
PaaS – Platform as a Service: an entire platform to build applications from scratch eg. Windows Azure and Heroku
SaaS – Software as a Service: already built applications (pretty much the same as COTS)
eg. Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud

41. Utility computing
Carr (The Big Shift) – in the same way that private production of electricity was replaced by utility companies, private computing is being replaced by utility computing
The “cloud” is actually extremely tangible, and a huge user of energy
The big players include
Amazon, Microsoft, and Google (this is what one looks like) 6m
The three reasons to cloud compute (Christopher Barnatt)

42. SaaS: what is it? Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
Software programs offered through “the cloud” usually via a web browser interface
An alternative to packaged application software installed on a local system
Example: Salesforce.com
Salesforce.com: What is cloud computing (3m)
Why Google Apps for Education (Google) 11m

43. SaaS - pricing
Shift from upfront license fee and service fees for local installation as revenue for software companies
Now we see new pricing models:
Monthly subscription fees: On-demand usage
Transaction-based
Advertising supported
Example of Salesforce.com pricing
Cusumano (2010) Cloud computing and SaaS as new computing platforms. Comm. ACM Vol 53 No4

44. SaaS advantages Cheaper
Available from anywhere via web browser / mobile devices
Pay for it on an as-needed basis
No ongoing maintenance fees
One price covers everything
No need for in-house IT staff to install and maintain – all patches and updates dealt with by the service provider
Cusumano (2010) Cloud computing and SaaS as new computing platforms. Comm. ACM Vol 53 No4

45. Risks and disadvantages
Risks of downtime are managed by making sure that contracts address service levels (SLAs)
No competitive advantage – all your competitors can and do access exactly the same software
Security
Privacy concerns – a large and growing issue
Cusumano (2010) Cloud computing and SaaS as new computing platforms. Comm. ACM Vol 53 No4

46. SaaS as platform / app development ecosystem
SaaS providers like Salesforce.com open their platforms via APIs so that other application companies can build products utilizing some features in the Salesforce CRM product
So opening up the cloud infrastructure creates an “app” ecosystem and inter-relationships between developers
Eg. All the uses of the Google Maps API such as Zillow.com
This creates a network effect
Cusumano (2010) Cloud computing and SaaS as new computing platforms. Comm. ACM Vol 53 No4