IT Project Management Best Practices in an Expending Market

E. Rahim and M. Dawson JISTP - Volume 3, Issue 5 IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT BEST PRACTICES IN A EXPANDING MARKET Emad Rahim1 and Maurice Dawson2 Morrisville State College1, USA and Colorado Technical University2, USA ABSTRACT This article examines emerging trends in the profession of IT Project Management in a global economy. Within the last decade project management theories and concept have become accepted standards in many organizational industries. The increasingly important role of information technology is undoubtedly the effect of rapid globalization that requires companies to have a larger capacity, timelier and more accurate information management within their decision making system. The IT project management “body of knowledge” has advanced greatly through the collaborative work of project management practitioners, trade associations, training institutions and universities. The expansion and innovation to this “body of knowledge” seems to be contributed by the growing practice of open sourcing by practitioners and educators alike through social network sites, blogs and other media sharing outlets. The future of IT project management may become more of an external operation with more organizations outsourcing their IT program and portfolio departments. This article should provide the framework necessary to further understand the relevance of IT Project Management in the global market and where it is headed. Keywords: Enterprise Management; Outsource; Open-Source; IT Project Management I. INTRODUCTION The need and presence of project management knowledge has developed to become a necessity in many organizational industries, while project management methods, processes and certifications have become accepted standards in many industries. In 2008 Global Knowledge and Fortune Magazine listed project management in their top 10 career of choice, while in a recent salary survey conducted by ZDNET's Tech Republic organization, the PMP (Project Management Professional certification) was listed as the highest paying certification to have in the technology industry, while other project management certifications governed by the International Project Management Association (CPD, CPM) and Office of Government Commerce (PRINCE2) are highly sought after in European industries. Many IT certifications include various aspects of project management such as risk management, strategic alignment, and resource management as an area for testing overall proficiency. The increasing attention on project management has increased the need to educate and further develop project managers and staff in order to provide better services, especially in the IT sector. Communication and information technology has also developed rapidly within this decade. With the enhanced role of information technology, project managers must also prepare themselves to face the challenges of the future, both in the industry of project management as a whole and in the IT sector in particular. The increasingly important role of information technology is undoubtedly the effect of rapid 27 IT Project Management Best Practices in an Expanding Market globalization that requires companies to have a larger capacity, timelier and more accurate information management within their decision making system. This paper is directed to discuss the development of IT project management with regards to the increasingly globalize world. II. PROJECT MANAGEMENT II.1 Definition by Purpose Before we discuss the development of project management in the global environment, this paper will briefly describe the understanding behind the concept of project management. There are numerous perspectives regarding the concept. Thus, the definitions generated by these perspectives also vary, according to the context in which it is discussed. However, the purpose of most project management activities is generally similar. Project management is a way of managing and organizing corporate resources so that the available resources can generate the completion of a project within the given time, scope and constraints (Wideman, 2001). The understanding behind project management also accounts definitions of „a project‟ itself. A project is a unique endeavor performed to create a certain product or service (PMI, 2009). This definition is dissimilar to the definition of process and operation due to several factors. The easiest to define is the time-constraint factor. A project performed activities in limited time of work, while process and operations generally accounts for continuous efforts. A project is aimed to produce a single or a group of product or services and the chain of activities are terminated once the goods or the services are produced. II.2 Project Management and Enterprise Management Besides time-constraint, there are other factors that differentiate project management form other concepts. For instant, people tend to confuse project management with enterprise management. The two managerial terms have differences in the following respects: Management and Enterprise Management: Direction In enterprise management, the sense of direction is revealed in the form of goals. Enterprise management‟s goals are characterized with continuity. It result activities to produce of goods and services in repetitive manner. The goals are defined into a set of objectives. On the other hand, a project management expresses its sense of direction in formulation of a purpose. A purpose is different from a goal in its nature of being singular. Purposes are reasons of being. Activities are over once it served its purposes. The purpose of a project is to produce a single or a set of goods and services. Afterwards, the project is obsolete. In a sense it is directed to change something, rather than doing continuous activities. The direction of the change is defined through sets of programs. Management and Enterprise Management: Process In enterprise management, the goals are achieved by means of strategies and tactics. The sets of strategies and tactics resulted consistent activities which resulted continuous production efforts. In project management, the purposes are achieved through sets of projects. The projects will ten be specified into sets of tasks and efforts to produce a unique product rather than continuous production efforts (Al Neimat, 2005). 28 E. Rahim and M. Dawson JISTP - Volume 3, Issue 5 II.3 Basic Principles of Project Management After justifying the differences between project, management and enterprise management this paper will focus more on the project management concept. The traditional project management concept consist of three main constraints, they are: Basic Principles of Project Management: Time As mentioned previously, an important characteristic of project management is its attention on time constraints. Time management is an inseparable part of a good project management. One of a project‟s important values of success it its ability to fulfill the job within the given time-constraint. The entire timeframe of a project is broken down into time required to complete components of the project, which is then broken down further into time required to complete each task as a part of each project component. Basic Principles of Project Management: Cost Due to its unique (incidental) nature, a project management has a considerable different cost management models compare to those of enterprise management. Cost determination is faced by larger challenges of financial fraud due to the project‟s incidental nature. Basic Principles of Project Management: Scope This constraint elaborates the end result of a project, the level of quality required, etc. Determination of the scope of a project generally accounts for a trade-off between cost and quality, time and quality, etc. (Srib\nivasan, 2005) III. ROLE AND BENEFITS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT The elaboration in the previous chapter has described the constraints of a project management activity. However, it is vital that we understand the usefulness of project management before this paper continues to further discussion. Because of the incidental nature, the project has different managerial factors to account for. For instant, a project manager would generally have more time and intellectual resources to prepare for a project, compare to an enterprise manager. On the other hand, a project manager also has no chance of correcting his/her mistakes after the activity is performed. A large portion of human activities are not continuous in nature. Events like the Olympic Games, World Cup, and buildings like the Empire State, Chrysler, and Chicago Tower are all built by means of excellent project management activity. As an agent of change, project management is an inseparable part of modern lives. Project management has been around, improving the quality of life longer than we might realize. According to Max Wideman, pyramids, ancient buildings and tombs are evidences of the existence of project management in the very beginning of humanity itself. From a survey, participant revealed the values generated by a good project management activity, they are: teamwork, bonding, chaos prevention, visibility of risks, increased project quality, enhanced morale, accountability, etc. IV. CHALLENGES IN THE FUTURE As the role of project management increase, so do the challenges that meet them. This chapter is discussing about the challenges that would face the project management activities of the near future. 29 IT Project Management Best Practices in an Expanding Market IV.1 Managing Change Experts have identified that project management has underwent a tremendous change during the decade. Similar level of change is expected for the next decade as the two influential factors above are still experiencing rapid growth rate. However, other factors have also contributed to the possibility of the rapid rate of change. Some of them are:  The increasing complexity of projects and project environments, which include chaos and change  Connectivity, networking and the increasing magnitude of activities, including the increasing amount of global projects  The rapidly changing environment that demands any manager to encourage their organization toward the change management concept and the willingness to learn continuously  The need of a new model of development that support team learning approaches, help create a learning communities and environment, integrate social, cognitive and teaching aspects, allow for multidimensional form of communication, provide for change-oriented trainers.  The presence of internet that leads to demands of better management system by means of webbased project management (Turbit, 2005). IV.2 Factors of Change Many have stated that the most apparent factors to project management are the issues of globalization and technological development. Mary Brandel (2006) mentioned the five biggest challenges of 2006 and the near future. Some of them are related to the two factors mentioned above. Those challenges are: Factors of Change: Managing Global Teams With the increasing necessity to manage projects globally, it is no longer strange to have members of a team collected from across the globe. Project teams are dispersed across wide areas around the world and partnership are established around the globe. This calls for additional preparation of team members. Managers must provide team member the ability to cope with overseas collaboration and greater understanding of cultural differences. Language barriers and technical issues could generate errors and difficulties in managing operations. Factors of Change: Moving Parts Worldwide By the increasing number of global projects, project managers face considerable challenges in coordinating team effort. Thus, the most probable solution is to break projects into smaller pieces and perform the tasks separately. This means project managers must be more careful in identifying what to do and what to achieve in each small units of operations. The existing project management culture is to consult with mid-level managers before making any type of decisions. This is both time consuming and complicated. Factors of Change: Riskier Projects The next identified challenge is the riskier nature of projects. Companies acknowledging this phenomenon generally offer clients with the agile development technique. This technique enables people to invest in risky projects because they can cancel the investment scheme before they go ahead with additional investment. The benefit of managing risk is that projects are aligned with the 30 E. Rahim and M. Dawson JISTP - Volume 3, Issue 5 corporation‟s current and future objectives thus increasing the companies‟ ability to compete in the global environment (Munoz, Charvat, Ho, Ha, Everhart, and Dawson, 2007). Factors of Change: Managing Vendor Partner Experts forecasted that project manager will receive more requests from clients. In the light of this development, practitioners predicted that project manger will make various adjustments in its operational structure. For instance, in order to be more focused on core competencies, project manager will likely distribute IT functions to vendors to offload the burden of management. Factors of Change: Managing Project Portfolios In the older days, a good project manager will generally have to choose from several profitable projects, to obtain the best deal. They gather information regarding their portfolios, including costs, purposes, time-constraint and risks to review resource allocations for maximum profits. Today however, with the increasingly tense competition around, project managers cannot accept a project and reject others. Thus, managing the portfolio becomes a little more complicated than it was (Brandel, 2006). V. MANAGING IT PROJECTS After defining the challenges faced by project management activities, I will focus on IT projects. This chapter will elaborate the importance of IT in the global environment, the concept of Knowledge management and how it relates to IT projects, how to manage IT assets and an explanation of why IT projects fails. V.1 Role of Information Technology in Global Environment Information management has an increasingly important role in business today. The rapidly changing markets and society has created various factors that shift quickly in the middle of corporate operations. Companies need to be aware of market conditions and the changes within it at all time. Thus, many have stated that we are living in an age of information, an age where information is considered the most valuable commodity in the realm of business. In this age, being informed of the changes within the market and all of its surrounding is an important survival trait. Therefore, managing technology to support corporate operations is an important part of managerial operations in most companies. There is s strong need to create a learning organization, an organization where information learned by individuals are shared to the team, and furthermore, to the entire company. Technology is the only way such condition will be able to exist in a timely and widespread manner. Some of the largest and the strongest companies in the world discover their wealth in the Information technology industry. Companies like Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft Inc, are acquiring their profit from abilities to support information management activities within companies. They build software, create programs, information retrieval center and networking systems that helped companies obtain timely information and manage them in the manner they see fit. However, there are also companies that gained profit by installing, consulting or managing information management of other companies by means of an outsourcing business. 31 IT Project Management Best Practices in an Expanding Market These companies generally perform projects that involve installation or modification of certain information assets, rather than performing continuous processes to induce changes within client‟s companies. With the increasing number of managers realizing the importance of creating a learning organization and having a sound information management system within their companies, IT projects is gaining tremendous role in the new global economy. There are nearly limitless possible applications of IT in the production or service business. It improves productivity, streamlines processes and enhances efficiency and makes possible of growth and expansion to new markets or collaboration with new partners. It has been one of he major drivers of both easiness and complexity of the modern business realm. V.2 Knowledge Management V.2.1 Definition of Knowledge Management The ability to better manage information is the goal of every IT project. Today, information management is often mentioned in the same environments as the term „knowledge management‟. Knowledge management is defined as an integrated and collaborative approach to creating, capturing, organizing, accessing and using information assets. Information assets are installed and modified through IT projects in order to support the application of knowledge management within companies (Taylor, 2002). V.2.2 Stages of Knowledge Management Activities There are a few stages that characterized knowledge management processes, they are:     V.2.3 Knowledge is created when human minds generated useful conclusion from a series of experience that will help him/her manage the company in a better way. Afterwards, knowledge is captured when it is put on paper, computer file or other means of storage and recording. The captured knowledge is then organized, in the sense that it is classified and modified in order to enhance the understandability and the easiness of use of the knowledge. The final and most complicated part of knowledge management is sharing the modified knowledge throughout the entire organization and using it to generate creation of more knowledge, this is where the presence of information assets are important and It projects gained importance (Taylor, 2002). Increasing Scrutiny As IT projects gained increasing requests, so does the attention on how much the project benefited client‟s companies. Project managers have the obligation to ensure that the information system installed is capable of providing the company with a sound knowledge management processes. In spite of the willingness to take risk by investing in IT projects, companies are also being increasingly scrutiny in evaluating the knowledge management system and expect real result from the IT projects performed (Taylor, 2002). V.3 Managing IT Assets As mentioned previously, most IT projects are directed to result better management of IT assets. In a sense, IT projects help CIO to better operate and maintain IT assets as an important corporate 32 E. Rahim and M. Dawson JISTP - Volume 3, Issue 5 investment. In this increasingly complex global environment, managing and being informed regarding numerous and widespread IT assets can sometimes become an impossible task. In order to have such control, the CIO must develop an IT asset portfolio model that lists the IT assets and processes, including hardware, software, IT people, project status, risk, benefit and impact of a program, etc. In turn, this model will provides the CIO with a structured dynamic view of an IT organization, along with the linkage between resources, assets and processes. The benefits of having and IT portfolio model are:     Having control over resource inventory Knowing the risks and the problems Determining which projects and partnership that are most profitable for future decision references Support the corporate strategy formulation processes The IT portfolio should at least account for:      Practical elaboration of IT department/organizations which describe the composition of individual employees as well as development teams Lists and description of business sponsors, including internal and external business users that provide financing of IT projects. External Support Unit, includes any internal or external non-IT organization that provides any types of support for IT projects Hardware infrastructure, includes any group of hardware that support IT projects Software infrastructure, including any software modules that support IT projects (Urusov, 2005). V.4 Why IT Projects Fail As a final sub-chapter I would like to add a simple elaboration that offers explanation of how IT projects fails. Despite the importance of information management in business operations, many companies experience difficulty in completing IT projects within the pre-determined time or budget constraints. Many IT designs are even cancelled before completion or never implemented. A research by Al Neimat indicated that most IT projects failed due to poor project management skills. Tillman and Weinberger (2004) also stated that despite the existence of various sources of failures, the common source of project failure is within the project management process itself. Researches discovered estimation mistakes, unclear and unstable project goal and objectives. Beside these factors, complex IT projects have other common sources of failure. Some of them are: Why IT Projects Fail: Poor planning IT manager are often lack the time resource to make appropriate planning because of the pressure from senior management and as a result, he project is performed before the plan is appropriately defined (Fichter, 2003). Why IT Projects Fail: Unclear Goals and Objectives IT projects often fails because the parties involved does not have the understanding that defining a clear requirements for a project can take time and lost of communication. Some project managers might 33 IT Project Management Best Practices in an Expanding Market fail because they lack the experience to describe the type and the extent of resources they really require (Fitcher, 2003). Why IT Projects Fail: Misalignment Aligning information systems to corporate goals has emerged as a leading concern over the last couple years, according to survey responses from Information Technology (IT) executives (Strassman, 1998). Information systems need to be aligned with organizations‟ business objectives. When discussing alignment, innumerable virtues are essential: market share, customer satisfaction, taking care of employees, acting as good citizens, and innovation (Strassman, 1998). Customer satisfaction is of importance as the end user is the customer using and purchasing the product. An organization must take care of its employees, the backbone of its success. Evaluation comes first, as an organization must properly assess everything before aligning information systems. Management needs to know how to measure the potential information systems that shall be aligned, including those already parts of the baseline in the organization (Strassman, 1998). All assets need to be weighted by the management team with an associated cost and placed in relative importance as they see fit for the organization. Once this has occurred, then realigning items with shifted business goals should occur. Thus, exploring the disconnect between executives shall uncover why there is misalignment with IT. Why IT Projects Fail: Quality of Interaction A related paper discusses quality of the interaction between the Information System (IS) project team and the users in a development project, mentioning that this interaction is not clearly linked to the success of projects in terms of meeting budgets and product goals (Coughlan, Lycette, & Macredie, 2003). This is due to lack of collaboration that allows visibility across business units and into program status, and that optimizes operational reviews. Also noted is that quality interaction may be pertinent in understanding why past research is important in support of the development maxim that user involvement is crucial to the success of an information system project. Within this particular study, internal conflicts among the IS project team are separated from the conflicts of project team members with external users. Both internal and external team conflicts are found to impact interaction quality negatively, which reflects negatively on the project as in the quality of work and cooperation between. These relationships indicate that attention to both internal and external conflict is needed in order to accomplish the project goals successfully. Why IT Projects Fail: Changing Objectives during Project Inside the realm of project management, there is the need to make a good judgment whether to remain loyal to the initial requirements and objectives or to make the necessary change. Sometimes project managers cannot handle trade-offs decisions and make decisions without the basis of rational insights. Why IT Projects Fail: Unrealistic Resource Estimates Project managers often fail to differentiate between time, scope, and duration. Time on task generally means the time required to complete a task without interruptions, while duration is the time actually required to finish a task taking account of problems and interruptions. Project Managers often have difficulty understanding the scope of the task they are to execute. Furthermore, project managers often uses linear thinking in making allocation without consideration of other factors that might disrupt the harmony of simple linear thinking. Project manager tend to place more human resources on a project rather than understanding what the Total Cost to Performance Index (TCPI) actually is. 34 E. Rahim and M. Dawson JISTP - Volume 3, Issue 5 Why IT Projects Fail: Human Capital Project Managers often face difficulties in obtaining and retaining personnel. In certain industries where work cannot be outsourced such as Defense & Aerospace where very technical skill sets are required to include military clearances key personnel can be the leading factor in being able to execute on key projects. In the United States (U.S.) the ability to retain is even harder due to the cultural norm of working for the highest bidder. For companies trying to obtain key personnel from other organizations it may be just as difficult as some companies ensure people are properly compensated. Motivation plays a part in retention as once key personnel are attained so that they do not go work for a competitor in the same market space. The environment that is created by the project manager is important as work/life balance is a major issue when selecting jobs. VI. CONCLUSION IT projects gained increasing importance in its role to the global economy for the last decade. The interest over project management is expected to increase in the near future, partly due to rapidly developing globalization and the knowledge management concept. Companies are facing the challenge of a wider range of coverage, increasingly complex information system architecture, and the rapidly changing environment. In order to face such challenges CIO‟s should establish an IT portfolio management model that is aligned with the business goals. It will help the CIO to maintain control over corporate IT assets and IT processes. Furthermore, the CIO and IT project manager should be aware of the common mistakes that destroys IT projects and learn from the identified mistakes. These learning experiences should be captured in a repository so that the successors do not make the same mistakes. BIBLIOGRAPHY Al Neimat, Taimour. 2005. „Why IT Projects Fail‟. 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