CHAPTER TWO

INFORMATION SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

2.1 Managing information system project

Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, securing and managing resources
to bring about the successful completion of specific engineering project goals and objectives. It
is sometimes conflated with program management, however technically that is actually a higher
level construction: a group of related and somehow interdependent engineering projects. A
project is a temporary endeavor, having a defined beginning and end (usually constrained by
date, but can be by funding or deliverables) undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives,
usually to bring about beneficial change or added value. The temporary nature of projects stands
in contrast to business as usual (or operations), which are repetitive, permanent or semi-
permanent functional work to produce products or services. In practice, the management of these
two systems is often found to be quite different, and as such requires the development of distinct
technical skills and the adoption of separate management.

Focus of project management: To ensure that information system projects meet customer
expectations.

 Delivered in a timely manner

 Meet time constraints and requirements

Project Manager is a Systems Analyst responsible for Project:

 Initiation

 Planning

 Execution

 Closing down

For Project Manager, Skills required include:

 Management: Getting projects completed through the effective utilization of

resources

 Leadership: Influencing the activities of others toward the attainment of a common

goal through the use of intelligence, personality, and abilities

 Technical Problem solving: Designing and sequencing activities to attain project

goals

 Conflict management: Managing conflict within a project team to ensure that

conflict is not too high or too low

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 Customer relations: Working closely with customers to ensure project deliverables
meet expectations

 Team management: Managing the project team for effective team performance

 Risk and change management: Identifying, assessing, and managing the risks and
day-to-day changes that occur during a project

Project is Planned undertaking of related activities to reach an objective that has a

beginning and an end

Deliverable of project: An end product in a phase of the SDLC

2.2 Information systems Project phases (process)

Project Management Process involves Four Phases

 Initiation

 Planning

 Execution

 Closing down

I. Project Initiation: The first phase of the project management process in which activities
are performed to assess the size, scope, and complexity of the project and to establish
procedures to support later project activities

Establish project initiation team: This activity involves organizing an initial core of
project team members to assist in accomplishing the project initiation activities.

Establish relationship with customer: A thorough understanding of your customer builds

stronger partnerships and higher levels of trust.

Establish project initiation plan: This step defines the activities required to organize the
initiation team while it is working to define the scope of the project.

Establish management procedures: Successful projects require the development of

effective management procedures.

Establish project management environment and workbook: The focus of this activity is
to collect and organize the tools that you will use while managing the project and to
construct the project workbook.

Project workbook: An on-line or hard-copy repository for all project correspondence, inputs,
outputs, deliverables, procedures, and standards used by all team members useful for project
audits, orientation of new team members and performing post project reviews.

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Developing the project charter: The project charter is a short (typically one page), high-
level document prepared for the customer that describes what the project will deliver and
outlines many of the key elements of the project. A project charter can vary in the amount
of detail it contains, but often includes the following elements:
 Project title and date of authorization
 Project manager name and contact information
 Customer name and contact information
 Projected start and completion dates
 Project description and objectives
 Key assumptions or approach
 Key stakeholders, roles, responsibilities and signatures

The project charter ensures that both you and your customer gain a common understanding of the
project.

II. Project Planning – involves defining clear, discrete activities and the work needed to
complete each activity within a single project. Requires making assumptions about
availability of resources and Short-term activities are easier to plan. The types of
activities that performed during project planning are as follow:

Describe project scope, alternatives and feasibility: The purpose of this activity is to
understand the content and complexity of the project.

 Scope and Feasibility

 Understand the project

 What problem is addressed

 What results are to be achieved

 Measures of success

 Completion criteria

Divide the project into manageable tasks: Divide the entire project into manageable
tasks and then logically order them to ensure a smooth evolution between tasks.

 Work breakdown structure: The process of dividing the project into

manageable tasks and logically ordering them to ensure a smooth evolution
between tasks

 Some tasks may be performed in parallel whereas others must follow one
another sequentially.

How to define tasks? A task

Has a known method, can be done by one-person or well-defined group, has accepted
predecessor and successor steps, is measurable so that percent complete can be determined
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When the project is divided into manageable tasks it represented by Gantt chart.

 Gantt chart: is a graphical representation of a project that shows each task as a

horizontal bar whose length is proportional to its time for completion. Different
colors, shades, shapes can be used to highlight each kind of task

 Gantt charts do not show how tasks must be ordered but simply shows when an
activity must begin and end.

Estimate resources and create a resource plan

 Estimate resource requirements for each project activity

 Resource plan helps assemble and deploy resources in most effective way

 People are most important and expensive part of resource planning

 Assign tasks to people that suit their skills and allows to learn new skills

Develop a preliminary schedule: During this activity, you use the information on tasks
and resource availability to assign time estimates to each activity in the work breakdown
structure. These time estimates will allow you to create target starting and ending dates
for the project. The schedule may be represented as a Gantt chart or as a Network
diagram.

A Network diagram is a graphical depiction of project tasks and their interrelationships.

As with a Gantt chart, each type of task can be highlighted by different features on the
Network diagram. The distinguishing feature of a Network diagram is that the ordering of
tasks is shown by connecting tasks—depicted as rectangles or ovals—with its
predecessor and successor tasks.

Develop a communication plan: The goal of this activity is to outline the communication
procedures among management, project team members, and the customer. The
communication plan includes when and how written and oral reports will be provided by
the team, how team members will coordinate work, what messages will be sent to
announce the project to interested parties, and what kinds of information will be shared
with vendors and external contractors involved with the project.

Determine project standards and procedures: During this activity, you specify how
various deliverables are produced and tested by you and your project team.

Identify and assess risk: The goal of this activity is to identify sources of project risk and
to estimate the consequences of those risks. Risks might arise from the use of new
technology, prospective users’ resistance to change, availability of critical resources,
competitive reactions or changes in regulatory actions due to the construction of a
system, or team member inexperience with technology or the business area. You should
continually try to identify and assess project risk.

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Create a preliminary budget: During this phase, you need to create a preliminary budget
that outlines the planned expenses and revenues associated with your project.

Developing a project scope statement: Developed primarily for the customer, this
document outlines work that will be done and clearly describes what the project will
deliver.

Set a Baseline Project Plan: Baseline plan provides an estimate of the project’s tasks and
resource requirements and is used to guide the next project phase-execution. As new
information is acquired during project execution, the baseline plan will continue to be
updated. At the end of the project planning phase, a review of the baseline project plan is
conducted to double-check all the information in the plan.

III. Project Execution – puts the baseline project plan into action. Occurs during analysis,
design, implementation phases of SDLC. Activities performed during project Execution
are:-

Execute Baseline Project Plan

 Acquire and assign resources

 Train new team members

 Keep project on schedule - as tasks are completed, mark them as completed by

percent

Monitor project progress against the baseline project plan

 Adjust resources, budget and/or activities if project gets ahead or behind schedule

 Can result in modifications to current plan

Manage changes to Baseline Project Plan

 Slipped completion dates

 Changes in personnel

 New activities found later

 Bungled activities to be redone

Maintain project workbook to maintain complete records of all project events

Communicate project status with entire project team

IV. Project closedown – is to bring the project to an end. Projects can conclude with a
natural or unnatural termination.

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Natural termination: Occurs when the requirements of the project have been met—the project
has been completed and is a success.

Unnatural termination: occurs when the project is stopped before completion due to running out
of time or money.

Activities performed during project closedown are described bellow:-

Closing down the project: Personnel Appraisal – job and assignment changes, job
termination, praising team members.

Conduct post-project reviews: Once you have closed down the project, final reviews of
the project should be conducted with management and customers. The objective of these
reviews is to determine the strengths and weaknesses of project deliverables, the
processes used to create them, and the project management process.

Close customer contract and/or contact: The focus of this final activity is to ensure that
all contractual terms of the project have been met.

2.3 Representing and scheduling project plans

A project manager has a wide variety of techniques available for depicting and documenting
project plans. Project scheduling and management requires that time, costs, and resources be
controlled. Resources are any person, group of people, piece of equipment, or material used in
accomplishing an activity. These planning documents can take the form of graphical or textual
reports, although graphical reports have become most popular for depicting project plans. The
most commonly used methods are Gantt charts and Network diagrams. Here are the key
differences between these two representations:

 A Gantt chart shows the duration of tasks, whereas a Network diagram shows the
sequence dependencies between tasks.
 A Gantt chart shows the time overlap of tasks, whereas a Network diagram does not
show time overlap but does show which tasks could be done in parallel.
 Some forms of Gantt charts can show slack time available within an earliest start and
latest finish date. A Network diagram shows these data within activity rectangles.

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Figure 2. 1. Graphical diagrams that depict project plans in A Gantt chart

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Figure 2.2. Graphical diagram that depict project plan in Network diagram

A major strength of Network diagramming is its ability to represent how completion times vary
for activities. Because of this, it is more often used than Gantt charts to manage projects such as
information systems development where variability in the duration of activities is the norm.
Network diagrams are composed of circles or rectangles representing activities and connecting
arrows showing required work flows.

Network:- Shows the sequential relationships among activities using nodes and arrows.

 Arrows an arrow leads from tail to head directionally. Indicate Activity.

 Activity:- A task or a certain amount of work required in the project which requires time
to complete
 Nodes A node is represented by a circle. Indicate EVENT, a point in time
where one or more activities start and/or finish.

Figure2. 3. A network diagram showing activities and sequence of those activities.

In planning and scheduling the activities of large sized projects, the two techniques Program
Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) and Critical Path Method (CPM) — are used
conveniently to estimate and evaluate the project completion time and control the resources to
see that the project is completed within the stipulated time and at minimum possible cost. PERT
Was devised in 1958 for the POLARIS missile program by the Program Evaluation Branch of
the Special Projects office of the U.S. Navy. CPM Was the discovery of M.R. Walker and J.E.
Kelly 1957. The first test was made in 1958, when CPM was applied to the construction of a new
chemical plant.

By using PERT or CPM, managers are able to obtain:

1. A graphical display of project activities

2. An estimate of how long the project will take.

3. An indication of which activities are the most critical to timely completion of the project.

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4. An indication of how long any activity can be delayed without lengthening the project.

BASIC DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PERT & CPM

PERT: it is probabilistic in time duration and it assumes a probability distribution for the
duration of each activity. It is used for one-time projects involving activities of non-repetitive
nature.

CPM: It is deterministic in time duration and was developed in connection with a construction
and maintenance project in which duration of each activity was known with certainty. It is used
for completion of projects involving activities of repetitive nature.

Calculating Expected Time Durations Using PERT

One of the most difficult and most error-prone activities when constructing a project schedule is
the determination of the time duration for each task within a work breakdown structure. It is
particularly problematic to make these estimates when a high degree of complexity and
uncertainty characterize a task. PERT (program evaluation review technique) is a technique that
uses optimistic, pessimistic, and realistic time estimates to calculate the expected time for a
particular task. This technique helps you obtain a better time estimate when you are uncertain as
to how much time a task will require to be completed.

The optimistic (o) and pessimistic (p) times reflect the minimum and maximum possible periods
of time for an activity to be completed. The realistic time (r), or most likely time, reflects the
project manager’s “best guess” of the amount of time the activity will require for completion.
Once each of these estimates is made for an activity, an expected completion time (ET) can be
calculated for that activity. Because the expected completion time should be closer to the
realistic time ( r), the realistic time is typically weighted 4 times more than the optimistic ( o) and
pessimistic ( p) times. Once you add these values together, it must be divided by 6 to determine
the ET. This equation is shown in the following formula:

Where:

ET= expected time for the completion for an activity

O= optimistic completion time for an activity

r = realistic completion time for an activity

p = pessimistic completion time for an activity

For example (1), suppose that your instructor asked you to calculate an expected time for the
completion of an upcoming programming assignment. For this assignment, you estimate an

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optimistic time of 2 hours, a pessimistic time of 8 hours, and a most likely time of 6 hours. Using
PERT, the expected time for completing this assignment is 5.67 hours. Commercial project
management software such as Microsoft Project assists you in using PERT to make expected
time calculations. Additionally, many commercial tools allow you to customize the weighing of
optimistic, pessimistic, and realistic completion times.

Example (2) Suppose X Company has implementing a new information system. The activities
and estimated time are given below.

Required (a). Calculate Expected time

(b) Determine the precedence relationships among all activities by constructing a Gantt
chart and Network diagram.

ACTIVITY PRECEDING TIME ESTIMATE

ACTIVITY ( in weeks)

o r p
1.Requirements _ 1 5 9 5
Collection
2. Screen Design 1 5 3 7 4
3. Report Design 1 3 6 9 6
4. Database Design 2,3 1 2 3 2
5.User 4 2 6 7 5.57
Documentation
6. Programming 4 4 5 6 5
7. Testing 6 1 3 5 3
8. Installation 5,7 1 1 1 1

B._________

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Example 2. Activities and time estimate

The Critical Path Method

This method calculates the minimum completion time for a project along with the possible start
and finish times for the project activities. The critical path itself represents the set or sequence of
predecessor/successor activities which will take the longest time to complete. The duration of the
critical path is the sum of the activities' durations along the path. Thus, the critical path can be
defined as the longest possible path through the "network" of project activities. The duration of
the critical path represents the minimum time required to complete a project. A critical path
refers to a sequence of task activities whose order and duration directly affect the completion of a
project. Any delays along the critical path would imply that additional time would be required to
complete the project. There may be more than one critical path among all the project activities.
The managerial importance of this critical path is that any delay to the activities on this path will
delay the project completion time.

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Formally, critical path scheduling assumes that a project has been divided into activities of fixed
duration and well defined predecessor relationships. A predecessor relationship implies that one
activity must come before another in the schedule.

 Path
 A connected sequence of activities leading from the starting event to the ending
event
 Critical Path
 The longest path (time); determines the project duration
 Critical Activities
 All of the activities that make up the critical path

To determine the critical path you need to calculate the earliest and latest time expected
completion time for each activity. While dealing with CPM networks, we came across the
following times.

Forward Pass

 Earliest Start Time (ES)

 earliest time an activity can start

 ES = maximum EF of immediate predecessors

 Earliest finish time (EF)

 earliest time an activity can finish

 earliest start time plus activity time

EF= ES + t

Backward Pass

 Latest Start Time (LS)

 Latest time an activity can start without delaying critical path time

LS= LF - t

 Latest finish time (LF)

Latest time an activity can be completed without delaying critical path time

LS = minimum LS of immediate predecessors

Float is the maximum amount of time that this activity can be delay in its completion before it
becomes a critical activity, i.e., delays completion of the project
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Float = LS - ES = LF - EF

Problem1.

A company manufacturing plant and equipment for chemical processing is in the process of
quoting tender called by public sector undertaking. The activities and predecessor are the
following.

1. Write the network diagram referring to the data

2. Number the events
3. Calculate TE
4. Identify the critical path
5. Determine the float for each activity

Project completion time = 20 weeks and the critical path = A – D – F – H.

A-D-F-H=3+6+8+3=20

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Exercise

Draw network diagram for the following set of tasks (projects) and determine the critical path.

Activity Activities Preceding activity Completion time/week

number
1 Redesign product _ 6
2 Redesign packaging 1 2
3 Order and receive components 1 3
for redesign product
4 Order and receive material for 2 2
redesign packaging
5 Assemble products 3 4
6 Make up packaging 4 1
7 Packaged redesigned product 5,6 1
8 Test marked redesigned product 7 6
9 Revised redesigned product 8 3
10 Revised redesigned packaging 8 1
11 Present result to the board 9,10 1

2.4. Using Commercial project Management Software

A wide variety of automated project management tools are available to help you manage a
development project. New versions of these tools are continuously being developed and released
by software vendors. Most of the available tools have a common set of features that include the
ability to define and order tasks, assign resources to tasks, and easily modify tasks and resources.

When using this system to manage a project, you need to perform at least the following
activities:

 Establish a project starting or ending date.

 Enter tasks and assign task relationships.
 Select a scheduling method to review project reports.

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Establishing a Project Starting Date

Defining the general project information includes obtaining the name of the project and project
manager and the starting or ending date of the project. Starting and ending dates are used to
schedule future activities or backdate others based upon their duration and relationships to other
activities.

Entering Tasks and Assigning Task Relationships

The next step in defining a project is to define project tasks and their relation-ships.

Selecting a Scheduling Method to Review Project Reports

Once information about all the activities for a project has been entered, it is easy to review the
information in a variety of graphical and textual formats using displays or printed reports.

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