414 Part III • Acquiring Information Systems
- Initiating:
- Conduct project selection methods
- Define scope (understand customer needs and expectations)
- Document project risks, assumptions, and constraints, using historical data and expert judgment
- Identify and perform stakeholder analysis, using a variety of methods
- Develop the project charter
- Obtain project charter approval
- Planning:
- Define and record detailed requirements, constraints, and assumptions
- Identify project team and define roles and responsibilities, creating a project organizational chart
- Create the work breakdown structure with team involvement
- Develop the change management plan
- Identify risks and define risk strategies in preparing the risk management plan
- Obtain plan approval from the sponsor and key stakeholders
- Plan and conduct a kickoff meeting
- Executing:
- Execute tasks defined in the project plan to meet project objectives
- Ensure common understanding and manage stakeholder expectations
- Implement the procurement plan for project resources
- Manage resource allocation for the plan
- Implement a quality management plan to meet established quality standards
- Implement approved changes, following the formal integrated change control process
- Implement approved actions and workarounds to mitigate risk
- Improve team performance
- Monitoring and Control:
- Measure project performance, using a variety of tools, identifying variances and performing required corrective actions
- Verify and manage changes to the project
- Ensure that all project deliverables conform to quality standards
- Monitor the status of all identified risks
- Closing:
- Obtain formal final acceptance for the project from the sponsor and stakeholders
- Obtain financial, legal, and administrative closure, both internally and externally
- Release project resources in accordance with organizational policies
- Identify, document, and communicate lessons learned
- Create and distribute final project report
- Archive and retain project records
- Measure customer satisfaction, using appropriate surveys and interviews
FIGURE 11.4 Processes Included in PMI Certifications [Adapted from Brewer and Dittman, 2010]
role is another role associated with successful IT projects.
In essentially all situations, the champion role needs to be
played by a business manager, not an IT manager, for the
following reason: A manager with high credibility among
the business users who will be impacted by the new system
solution will be best able to prepare workers for the process
and workflow changes required. This involves continual
communications about the project’s goals and the mile-
stones achieved. Personal traits of an effective project
champion include an enthusiasm that never wanes and the
capability to “rally the troops” as problems arise that
require exceptional efforts.
Although the project champion’s contribution to the
project’s success can be critically important, the champion
role is not always a formally designated one. For some IT
projects, the project sponsor and the project champion may
even be the same business manager. For example, for cus-
tomer relationship management system projects a Chief
Marketing Officer (CMO) might play both roles. However,
for other projects in which the sponsor’s daily responsibil-
ities are far removed from the business activities to be
affected by the new system, the champion role is better
played by a lower-level business manager whose direct
reports will be highly impacted by the project.