Chapter 12: Project Procurement Management

Last but not least the procurement management.

—Procurement means acquiring goods and/or services from an outside source. Its all about outsourcing and contracts

The slide says :

Project procurement management: acquiring goods and services for a project from outside the performing organization.

—Processes include:

• —Planning purchases and acquisitions: determining what to procure, when, and how
• —Planning contracting: describing requirements for the products or services desired from the procurement and identifying potential sources or sellers (contractors, suppliers, or providers who provide goods and services to other organizations)
• —Requesting seller responses: obtaining information, quotes, bids, offers, or proposals from sellers, as appropriate —
• Selecting sellers: choosing from among potential suppliers through a process of evaluating potential sellers and negotiating the contract —
• Administering the contract: managing the relationship with the selected seller
• —Closing the contract: completing and settling each contract, including resolving any open items

The slide also teaches us on how to do Make-or Buy decision and so on. It is really interesting.

Chapter 11: Project Risk Management

Risk management is quite important study. But it is true that people always look down on it. Because it does’nt happen. The identified risk might happen and might not. In people mind we can say that it is useless to identify something and make plan for it and it doesn’t actually going to happen.

In business, we must dare to take risk. The bigger risk we take the better it will be. Because less people going to take it. It leads to big opportunity for the business. (In my opinion).

In slide it says that main processes of project risk management include: —

• Risk management planning —
• Risk identification —
• Qualitative risk analysis —
• Quantitative risk analysis —
• Risk response planning —
• Risk monitoring and control —

and a lots of other explainations.

Chapter 10: Project Communications Management

From my experience involving in management, I found out that a communication is very important. Wrong communication can turns thing upside down. Thus, communication management is very important to be seen. We must have proper plan for cummunication especially for a big organization.

In the slide it explains that Project Communications Management Processes are:

• Communications planning: determining the information and communications needs of the stakeholders
• Information distribution: making needed information available to project stakeholders in a timely manner
• Performance reporting: collecting and disseminating performance information, including status reports, progress measurement, and forecasting
• Managing stakeholders: managing communications to satisfy the needs and expectations of project stakeholders and to resolve issues

The slides also explain about the impact of the number of people on communication channel can be shown by an equation

n=(n-1)/2

But I was wondering how the campanions of prophets and the Tabi’in deliver Hadith to us by communication. It went through very big channel of communication but it still valid as it is from the mouth of Rasulullah (pbuh). Means that the impact using the equation doesnt apply here. Amazing isn’t it? Miracles

Chapter 9: Project Human Resource Management

Among all chapters, I like this chapter most.

I’m totally agree with what most —corporate executives have said, “People are our most important asset”

More important than that is the motivation of those people. Motivation is like an engine, without proper oil it will not work well.

In the slides it says, Keys to Managing People:

• — —Motivation theories
• —Influence and power —
• Effectiveness

There are a lots of theory of motivation mentioned in the slides including

• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
• Herzberg’s Motivational and Hygiene Factors
• McClelland’s Acquired-Needs Theory
• McGregor’s Theory X and Y

I agree with all the theory, but still in the theory lack of something which is “Iman” or in other word a “believe”. This is considered as a very big factor for some people to get motivated.

The best motivation is the one which comes from self and that only covered in the heart. and we also know that the heart is the place of Iman, thus, Iman is the best motivation after all. People can do anything, sacrifice anything just because of Iman. Look how beautiful it is. But westerns doesn’t look that way. They only look at the material part of motivations, oppression with power, manipulation by other means and so on. On the otherside, Islam really emphasize on the motivation of heart. We should explain this to our generation, because it is our uniqueness and specialities.

Chapter 8: Project Quality Management

When I revise back this chapter I found that I do not familiar with most of the term. I believe I skipped my class in that day.

By the way, this chapter explains about the understanding of the importance of project quality management for information technology products and services.

There are also project quality management which includes :

• —Quality planning: identifying which quality standards are relevant to the project and how to satisfy them
• —Quality assurance: periodically evaluating overall project performance to ensure the project will satisfy the relevant quality standards —
• Quality control: monitoring specific project results to ensure that they comply with the relevant quality standards

The slide also explain about cause and effect diagram. Even sig sigma in statistics, this is way too advance.

Chapter 7: Project Cost Management

The cost management is almost likely to be a financial work for a project team.

Its include three things :

• Cost estimating
• Cost budgeting
• Cost control.

When I study this chapter I was wondering in Master of Bussiness Administration, they study these thing?

In this chapter there are explaination about Typical Problems with IT Cost Estimates which are

• —Estimates are done too quickly
• —Lack of estimating experience
• —Human beings are biased toward underestimation
• —Management desires accuracy

If in MBA they study all of these, then, I have to get familiar with the terms if I wanted to persue my study in that field

Chapter 6: Project Time Management

The best part in this chapter is the introduction of milestones and also the study of how to do the AOA diagram.

AOA stands for Activity On Arrow, in which there are nodes and also arrow. The arrow represent activity and the nodes represent starting and ending of activity.

For me, constructing AOA is very easy. after creating the AOA, we can calculate the critical path. Then we can consturct the network diagram of early start and early finish of a process.

Chapter 5: Project Scope Management

As I mentioned in the last post, that the book focus in describing the nine knowledge area for project management framework, this chapter emphasize on the scope management. This chapter explains the importance of scope verification and how it relates to scope definition and control.

In the book, the definition of scope is “Scope refers to all the work involved in creating the products of the project and the processes used to create them”.

These are the Project Scope Management Processes:

• —  Scope planning: deciding how the scope will be defined, verified, and controlled
• —  Scope definition: reviewing the project charter and preliminary scope statement and adding more information as requirements are developed and change requests are approved
• —  Creating the WBS: subdividing the major project deliverables into smaller, more manageable components
• —  Scope verification: formalizing acceptance of the project scope
• —  Scope control: controlling changes to project scope

This chapter teach how to develop work breakdown structure (WBS) in a proper way. It also teaches how to use the Gantt chart and creat it. One of the way to create a Gantt chart is by mind mapping.

This picture is a sample of Mind-Mapping approach for creating Gantt chart.

In the last part of this chapter, there is description of scope control which says “Scope control involves controlling changes to the project scope”

Goals of scope control are to:

• —  Influence the factors that cause scope changes
• —  Assure changes are processed according to procedures developed as part of integrated change control
• —  Manage changes when they occur

Chapter 4: Project Integration Management

I would like to highlight the fifth slide in this chapter, which says The Key to Overall Project Success: Good Project Integration Management. It is true that the integration is somehow the most important thing in a project. Otherwise, the management is useless. In this chapter it describes in detail how to integrate the project by using formulized documented methodology.

Project integration management includes:

• —  Developing a project charter
• —  Developing a preliminary project scope statement
• —  Developing a project management plan
• —  Directing and managing project execution
• —  Monitoring and controlling project work
• —  Performing integrated change control
• —  Closing the project

One of the best thing is the explanation on how to choose a project. It says Methods for selecting projects include:

• —  Focusing on broad organizational needs
• —  Categorizing information technology projects
• —  Performing net present value or other financial analyses
• —  Using a weighted scoring model
• —  Implementing a balanced scorecard

The book also explain in detail all the steps.

Chapter 3: The Project Management Process Groups: A Case Study

This chapter describes in detail about the process group including its definitions and so on. It says “A process is a series of actions directed toward a particular result” and “Project management can be viewed as a number of interlinked processes”.

The most important part is the introduction of Project Management Process Groups in which its includes :

• —  Initiating processes
• —  Planning processes
• —  Executing processes
• —  Monitoring and controlling processes
• —  Closing processes

This graph explaining the process in more detail:

Other than that, it is important to have a good methodology in project management. It can be unique and different from organization to another. In the book says “Just as projects are unique, so are approaches (Methodology) to project management”

Chapter 2 :The Project Management and Information Technology Context.

This chapter basically describe about the combination of project management and information technology.  It started with the description of what is organization. In which projects cannot run in isolation. It says “Project managers need to use systems thinking”; Taking a holistic view of carrying out projects within the context of the organization. This is the figure of three sphere model for system management.

It explain about the understanding of organization which have four frames including structural frames, human resource frame, political frames, and symbolic frames. This chapter also describes about three organizational structure which are functional, project, and matrix.

After describing about the organizations, this chapter describes then about product life cycle. This topic also covered in Software Engineering class. It is considered as quite important topic for ICT students. It says “The Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a framework for describing the phases involved in developing and maintaining information systems“. The question arouse, why is the project phases and management reviews are important? The answer is “Management reviews, also called phase exits or kill points, should occur after each phase to evaluate the project’s progress, likely success, and continued compatibility with organizational goals.

Chapter 1 : Introduction to Project Management

Basically this chapter just give a brief introduction about project management with some examples. The most interesting and important part is the explanations about triple constrain. In every IT project, we will have three things Scope, Cost, and time. These three element is the factor to reach the targets. It says “Successful project management means meeting all three goals (scope, time, and cost) – and satisfying the project’s sponsor!” and “to change any element, you need to change at least one of the other element”

Information Technology Project Management, Fifth Edition, Copyright 2007

The more interesting part in this chapter is about the description of Project management framework. It is a framework for project to succeed and also the organization. This part is the main part in this subject. The course is actually focusing in this area. In which all the next chapter will discuss in detail about the nine knowledge areas. Quite promising huh?

IT Project Management Tips

Since I have taken Project Management in IT subject this semester, I would like to share some tips that I have collected so far. I will start from chapter 1 till 12. Means, the next 12 post will be all about the tips of IT project management.

Reflections on the IT Project Management class

What do you like best about the course

What do you dislike most about the course

What are your proposed suggestions to improve the course delivery and content

If you had more time, what do you wish you had done differently for the course

This semester I registered to a subject called IT project Management, in short, it is called PMIT. This subject is quiet interesting subject in which it teaches us a lots. I will share about the tips in later post.

For introduction, Our lecturer name is Masita Abdul Rahman, she is a part time lecturer who aslo holds position as Deputy Director of  Information Technology Division in the same university which is IIUM. She’s quite experieced person and this is the first thing I like about this course. Someone who teach theory based on the technical experience that she has.

The advantage of having a lecturer who has been in a real field is that he or she can relate directly the real situation into theorotical part of the subject. Indeed, Mdm Masita did that in her class. That makes me not hesitate to ask question about the real world of the field.

The course is all about management, from I can see that the best management teacher is our prophet Muhammad (pbuh), and it is quite unpolite to talk about management especially human management without referring to the “teacher”. So, the drawback that I can see from the course is that it is full of westerns theory without relating to the Islamic theory. This is only my humble opinion. The relavancy of the opinion is somehow subjective.

Although our syllibus is mainly based from the book, we should also include explicitly some of the great theory from Islam to show our generation that our theory is better than this if we implement it correctly. So that our next generation will not forget about our best time once ago.

The method used by Mdm Masita in class is very good. Honestly, I cant think any other way to improve it except for the lecture delivery but this is actually depends on a person and I believe Mdm did her best in that part. Its now back to the student to take full benefits of it.