Chapter 11: Managing IT Projects Flashcards
Involves collapsing the gap between the IS and business units.
Digital Convergence
What quality differentiates firms in the marketplace and destines them for success or failure?
The ability to adapt existing business processes and systems to produce innovative ideas faster than the competition.
A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result.
Projects
Organizations combine what two types of work to transform resources into profits?
- Projects
- Operations
The individuals and organizations that either are involved in the project or whose interests may be affected as a result of the project.
Project Stakeholders
What are the five (5) types of Project Stakeholders?
- Project Managers
- Project Sponsors
- Project Team
- Customers
- Employees
A collection of related projects that is often related to a strategic organizational objective
Program
Involve two or more teams that work interdependently and directly interface with one another within a system designed to pursue at least one common superordinate goal (such a program goal)
Multi-team System
The application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities in order to meet project requirements
Project Management
What are the three major trade-offs when managing a project?
- Time
- Cost
- Scope
Increase in scope after a project has begun is called
Scope Creep
A department responsible for boosting efficiency, gathering expertise, and improving project delivery
Project Management Office
What four (4) elements are essential for any project?
- Project management
- Project team
- Project plan
- Common project vocabulary.
Person who makes sure that the entire project is executed appropriately and coordinated properly
Project Manager
Project members who work together to ensure that all parts of the project come together correctly and efficiently.
Project Team
Represents the methodology, budget, and schedule to be used by the team to execute the project
Project Plan
Allows all those involved with the project to understand the project and communicate effectively
Common Vocabulary
Who are the two key players in project management?
- Project Manager
- Project Sponsor
The project champion and works with the project manager in providing the leadership to accomplish project objectives
Project Sponsor
What are the nine (9) skills a project managers should posses?
- Identifying systems requirements
- Defining the team’s structure
- Assigning team members t
- Managing risks and leveraging opportunities
- Measuring the project’s status,
- Project visibibility
- Measuring project status
- Taking corrective action
- Providing project leadership
What are the three major periods in the project life cycle?
- Study
- Implementation
- Operations
An iterative, incremental approach that allows development teams to respond to the unpredictability of building and implementing software.
Agile Software Development.
The mantra for agile programming is “Code a little; test a little”
Agile methodologies are also characterized by:
- More interactions with customer
- Frequent redesign
What are two subcategories of agile software development?
- Scrum
- Kanban
What type of agile software development has software that is delivered by cross‐functional teams in increments called “sprints.”
Scrum
Are usually performed in two to four‐week iterations; it starts with planning, ends with a review, and includes every other system development life cycle phase inbetween
Sprints
Scrum deliverables include:
- Product backlogs
- Sprint backlogs
- Burn‐down charts
A type of evolutionary development that uses the method of building systems in which developers get a general idea of what is needed from the users and then build a fast, high‐level version of the system at the beginning of the project.
Prototyping
The goal of prototyping is:
Quickly get a version of the software in the hands of the users and to jointly let the system evolve through a series of iterative cycles of design.
Often called the Waterfall Method, is the set of activities used to create an IS, a process in which the phases of the project are well documented, milestones are clearly identified, and all individuals involved in the project fully understand what exactly the project consists of and when deliverables are to be made.
Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
SDLC is used in one of two distinct ways:
- General Project Plan
- A highly structured process for design and development
When the new system is put in operation and all links are established.
Cutover
What are the two (2) types of cutovers?
- Parallel Conversion
- Direct Cutover
Type of cutover when the old system runs alongside the new system
Parallel conversion
Type of cutover when the new system is installed in stages across locations, or in phases.
Type of cutover when the old system may stop running as soon as the new system is installed
Direct Cutover
Similar to prototyping in that it is an interactive process, in which tools are used to drastically speed up the development process.
Rapid Applications Development (RAD)
commonly used for developing user interfaces and rewriting legacy applic
modularized
What are the three (3) types of tools used in RAD?
- Reusable code
- Code generation
- Programming language testing and debugging.
A version of RAD or prototyping in which users are more integrally involved, as a group, with the entire development process up to and, in some cases, including coding
Joint Applications Development (JAD)
Uses tools for RAD, JAD, agile software development, and prototyping to provide assurance that users’ needs will be met
User-Centered Design
Encapsulates both the data stored about an entity and the operations that manipulate that data
Object
Free software offers the following freedoms for the software users:
- To run the program for any reason you want
- To study how the program works and to adapt it to your needs
- To distribute copies
- To improve and release your improvements to the public
Stipulates that the user cannot add restrictions to deny other people their central freedoms regarding the free software.
Copyleft
A movement that offers a speedy way to develop software made available to a whole community
Open Sourceing
The possibility of additional cost or loss due to the choice of an alternative.
Risk
Risk can be quantified by:
- Assigning a probability of occurrence
- Financial consequence
What are the three determinates of risk?
- Complexity
- Clarity
- Size
The extent of project difficulty and number of interdependent project components.
Complexity
Is concerned with the ability to define the requirements of a project
Clarity
A project is risky if it is hard to define
A project has low clarity if
the users cannot easily state their needs or define what they want from the system
A project with high clarity is one in which
the systems requirements do not change and can be easily documented
All other things being equal, big projects are
riskier than small ones
What are the two stages of risk management
- Risk Assessment
- Actions
