Evaluating the Quality and Effectiveness of a Completed Project Plan

Managing a project is only the second challenge that a project manager faces. “Management guru Peter F. Drucker said it all when he stated that one must measure before one can manage.” (Parth & Gumz, 2003) Preparing a project plan and measuring its effectiveness requires both time and skills. A project plan acts as a road-map guiding the project manager and his team and facilitating the processes. It further allows all team members to have a common document in which definitions, requirements, standards, procedures, timelines, reporting channels, estimations, and budgets are included.

In the following paragraphs we are going to suggest nine criteria that we believe allow a project manager to evaluate the quality and effectiveness of his/her project plan. Usually this assessment is rather hard before the project even starts: “It is especially difficult to do this during requirements development, as it is generally viewed as a writing activity that does not lend itself to quantitative measurements.” (Berenbach & Borotto, 2006) However, the below points will definitely aid in measuring such in the best way possible considering the circumstances:

Make sure that the scope of the project is defined clearly and in details and agreed upon with all stakeholders and project owners. Scope is the core of the project plan; messing-up this part will lead to a completely useless and misleading plan.

Did you include and detail all the different sections of a project plan? These sections usually are: Goals and Objectives, Project Estimate, Project Schedule, Project Team Organization, Risk Mitigation and Management Plan, Quality Assurance, Change Management and Control,(LOE, 2008) and Termination Management.

Check for consistency all through the project plan: go over each section and review its details making sure that it does not contradict with any previously stated aspect of the project.

Share the project plan with the team and get their feedback. This is a very essential point, team-members could provide crucial input allowing further enhancement of the plan or simply making it more feasible/realistic.

Concerning project estimations, one way to measure the effectiveness and quality of such after finalizing the project plan is to use a third method of estimation (supposing you already used two others) to check further the validity, accuracy, and correctness of your estimations.

Check previous similar projects and compare timeline/budget estimations: this suggestion is useful both before starting the planning stage and just after the project plan is done. Evaluating whether your project plan can measure up to previously devised ones permits you to learn from previous mistakes and ameliorate accordingly.

Present your plan to other trusted sources like consultants, senior upper management, and other PM friends in the same field asking their opinion and suggestions. This is not mandatory yet advisable; it is always better to have several inputs widening by which the perspectives from which your project is assessed.

Role based analysis: role playing is one of the methods used in different fields to assist in the evaluation process of several things in life. For instance, Yael Dubinsky and Orit Hazzan presented two research papers in which they use Role Schemes and Allocation in software development projects in order to “raise teammates' personal accountability while maintaining the essence of the software development method.” and another where they use the Roles Scheme to derive metrics.(Dubinsky & Hazzan, 2004) In our case, role based analysis can be used as another way to determine the soundness of the project plan from yet other “roles” perspectives.

My last suggestion would be to compare your planned processes versus the ones specified by approved maturity models. Maturity models such as the Software Engineering Institute’s (SEI) Maturity Model (CMM) for Software and the Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3) created by the PMI’s Standards Development Program can be used as reference models for assessing software development processes maturity and plans allowing software organizations to further evolve their processes. (Herbsleb,Zubrow,Goldenson,Hayes,Paulk; 1997). Remember that the quality of the product reflects the quality of plan used to create it. Sloppy plans cannot lead to quality products.

I hope the above summarized points assist you in assessing your project plans. Good Luck!

References:

1. Frank R. Parth and Joy Gumz (December 14, 2003) How Project Metrics Can Keep You From Flying Blind [online] available from: www.projectauditors.com

2. Brian Berenbach and Gail Borotto (May 20–28, 2006) Metrics for Model Driven Requirements Development [Research Paper] Available from: ACM Digital Library - ICSE’06 - ACM 1-59593-085-X/06/0005

3. LOE-Laureate Online Education (2008) Sample Project Plan [online] Available from: LOE as part of the IT Project Management Module.

4. Yael Dubinsky and Orit Hazzan (November 4, 2008) Using a Roles Scheme to Derive Software Project Metrics [Paper] available from: ACM Digital Library - ACM 1-59593-001-9/04/0011
5. James Herbsleb/David Zubrow/Dennis Goldenson/Will Hayes/ & Mark Paulk (June 1997) Software Quality and the Capability Maturity Model [Paper] available from: ACM Digital Library - ACM 0002-0782/97/0600

Improving IT Projects' Quality

“While project performance is generally evaluated in terms of the “iron triangle” of schedule, cost and quality performance, guidelines for project quality management are lacking.”(Steyn, 2008) For this purpose, several institutions and research papers addressed this issue and provided recommendations for improving information technology projects’ quality. After researching and reading many of these recommendations, I choose to discuss below three suggestions for improving the quality of IT projects.

My first preferred suggestion is to understand the level of quality expected by the project owners or stakeholders. “Customer quality expectations and acceptance criteria specify that quality is determined by the customer, not by the project manager.” (Cusolito, n.d.) Defining this understanding early on in the project helps both the project manager and team evaluate the processes and phases better and comprehend accordingly the level of commitment and effort required. Delivering a project that satisfies the customers expected quality can be interpreted as nothing but success.

My second suggestion is to follow maturity models prepared by renowned institutions like the Software Engineering Institute (SEI). SEI developed a Capability Maturity Model (CMM) for Software: “The Capability Maturity Model for Software (CMM or SW-CMM) is a reference model for appraising software process maturity and a normative model for helping software organizations progress along an evolutionary path from ad hoc, chaotic processes to mature, disciplined software processes.” (Herbsleb/Zubrow/Goldenson/Hayes/Paulk, 1997) Following such models enhances not only the quality of the final product but furthermore affects other major aspects: “sophisticated statistical analysis of data from a large software development laboratory in a Fortune 100 company showed that process maturity significantly increased quality…. Higher product quality, however, significantly reduced both development and support cost,…”.(Herbsleb/Zubrow/Goldenson/Hayes/Paulk, 1997)
CMM, being a five-level model, allowed immediate quality related categorization of the different IT companies according to the level of commitment to the defined standards.
Many other similar models are still being developed like the Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3) created by the PMI’s Standards Development Program and the Documentation Maturity Model suggested by Huang and Tiley in 2003 (Huang&Tiley, 2003).

My third suggestion is to promote quality amongst top management or project owners. “Quality is the result of a carefully constructed cultural environment. It has to be the fabric of the organization, not part of the fabric.”(Crosby, n.d.) If the project stakeholders are accustomed to quality, then they will settle for nothing less. Highlighting the advantages of having quality products increases the management’s crave for quality. Accentuating the return on investment related to quality of the produced project will further improve the chances of even obtaining a bigger budget for the project at hand!

Quality of projects is what differentiates one company from another. It divides them into different levels similar to the maturity levels described above. Understanding the stakeholders expected quality enhances the chances of delivering a sign-off material project. And finally, familiarizing top management with quality products ameliorates the quality likelihood of the project. With this thought, I would like to end this by a related quote for a leader in the IT industry, Steve Jobs, when he said: “Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.”(Jobs, n.d.)

References:

1. Steyn, Herman (July 27-31, 2008) A Framework for Managing Quality on System Development Projects [Research Paper] available from: IEEE Digital Library – IEEE Xplore under: PICMET 2008 Proceedings, 27-31 July, Cape Town, South Africa

2. Cusolito, Rick (n.d.) The High Cost of Low Quality [online] available from: http://www.butrain.com/Project-management-training-courses/highcost.asp?source=20669

3. James Herbsleb, David Zubrow, Dennis Goldenson, Will Hayes, and Mark Paulk (June 1997) Software Quality and the Capability Maturity Model [Research Paper] available from: ACM Digital Library - ACM 0002-0782/97/0600

4. Shihong Huang & Scott Tiley (October 12-15, 2003) Towards a Documentation Maturity Model [Research Paper] available from: ACM Digital Library - ACM 1-58113-696-X/03/0010

5. Crosby, Philip (n.d.) Quality Quotes[online] available from: http://thinkexist.com/quotations/quality/2.html

6. Jobs, Steve (n.d.) Quality Quotes[online] available from: http://thinkexist.com/quotations/quality/2.html

Risk Management Software: Advantages & Disadvantages

“Australian companies are gambling the future of millions of dollars of software development projects by not implementing simple risk management schemes, an industry study has found.”(AFR, 1996) Risk management is an essential aspect of project management. Defining, controlling, managing, and eliminating risks helps project managers succeed in their relative projects.
Risk management involves many different techniques related mostly to risk analysis. Such techniques are sometimes complex and time-consuming as is the case with the Monte-Carlo simulation risk analysis technique. Due to such complexities, many software were developed to solve this problem.

Risk management software can be divided into two main categories: integration software and standalone ones.
By integration software we mean tools that were built in order to integrate with existing project management software. For example in case you want to use the Monte Carlo simulation technique “with Microsoft Project you need to have add-on tool.
There are a number of such tools available on market including @RISK for Project from Palisade Corporation (www.palisade.com), RiskyProject from Intaver Institute (www.intaver.com), Pertmaster software from Pertmaster Limited (www.pertmaster.com), Risk+ from S/C Solutions Inc. (www.cs-solutions.com).”(INTAVER, n.d.)


As for the standalone software, Riskworld.com (Tec-com Inc., 2008) lists more than fifty different risk-related ones that range from desktop applications to web-based applications. One example is “The Risk Manager” from RMSS: “The Risk Manager© is a user friendly application, based on the principles and workflow of the Australian and New Zealand Standard for Risk Management, known as AS/NZS 4360. The core process of Identification, Assessment, Control and Monitoring has been embedded in the application.” (RMSS, 2008)

Using risk management software, however, be it a tool or standalone software, has both advantages and disadvantages.

Other than the obvious advantage of saving time and eliminating the complexities of some of the risk analysis and management techniques, risk management software allow project managers through a user-friendly interface to access the latest tools to assess the project risks. For instance they provide answers to questions such as:
“
- What is the chance of your project being completed on schedule and within budget?
- What is the chance that the particular task will be on the critical path?
- What tasks affect the project duration at most?
- What is the project success rate?”(INTAVER, n.d.)
In some cases, such software allow him/her to, furthermore, get alerts regarding any risk that may have trespassed a preset threshold.
Having an online risk management application can also allow charts, tables, and different reports to be prepared in the easiest and most time-efficient manner.
Moreover, having the ability to integrate some application tools with the general project management software, enable the project manager to have a single management dashboard for the different processes involved.

As for the disadvantages of using such software, we could start by mentioning the additional cost involved which is on average around US$ 2000 excluding maintenance and support.
User-friendliness is not a common characteristic among such rigid scientific tools. Some risk management software require training while others have minimal or no proper documentation (especially the free tools). In similar cases, the risk management software will be time-consuming and even sometimes inaccurate in case misused.
Finally, relying on automated results in the form of charts and other types of reports to manage project risks could actually add unforeseen risks in case wrong or imprecise input was entered due to inexperience or simply by mistake, or in other cases where the software itself was defected or contained bugs. Some web risk management applications, for instance, might fail to provide instant critical information due to connection or server failure causing instant severe damage to the project’s timeline and/or budget.

To conclude, risk management software although built to help projects succeed with minimum or controlled risks, usage of such tools requires full consciousness of the consequences that might result from any related misuse.

References:

1. Australian Financial Review AFR (Thursday, 13 June 1996) “Cut risk or face costly software consequences, warns IT expert” [online] available from: http://www.zenkara.com/aust_fin_rev.pdf

2. INTAVER Institute Inc. (n.d.) Quantitative Risk Analysis with Microsoft Project [Online Article] available from: www.intaver.com/Articles/Article_MSProjectRiskAnalysis.pdf

3. Tec-com Inc. (July 21, 2008) Risk-Related Software [online] available from: http://www.riskworld.com/SOFTWARE/sw5sw001.htm

4. Risk Management & Safety Systems - RMSS (2008) The Risk Manager [online] Available from: http://www.rmss.com.au/Products/RiskManager.aspx

Managing Project Teams: Tools & Techniques

“Managing software project teams is a complex task further complicated by a continued increase in the size and complexity of software-intensive systems and the distribution of project teams.”(Smith, Bohner, & McCrickard, 2005) Many tools and techniques were devised/proposed for this purpose, and became available assisting project managers in managing their project teams.

In the following excerpt, we will summarize these tools and techniques and further discuss the challenges that project managers face when dealing with virtual teams.

Managing teams, be it in the field of IT or other fields, requires many skills and knowledge of the several available management techniques. Some techniques are related to human communication and interaction while others are related to technical skills, planning, scheduling and team organization, and finally others are related to psychological status of team members.

Effective planning and scheduling techniques aid both project manager and team to develop better understanding of the scope, time, budget, and requirements of the project. Some techniques used in this regard include: Gantt and Pert charts, critical paths and general project plans that incorporate scope charters and budget estimation amongst others. These techniques, by organizing the team and assigning tasks, help each of the members to organize their own tasks and prioritize accordingly.

An increasing number of software is being used as tools that assist project managers in using such techniques. These include: SOPPTS, TeamSpace, TeamSCOPE, SoftRisk, LINK-UP (Smith, Bohner, & McCrickard, 2005), MS Project, MS Visio, and Open Workbench.

Project managers, moreover, need to use different approaches in order to achieve better communication and interaction between the team members. Listening to their team’s opinions highlights the cooperation and team spirit that should be emphasized by the project manager. Encouraging active collaboration and sharing of expertise will further enhance the team building efforts and surely reflect positively on the project success. Many collaboration software and tools are being used such as wikis.

Moreover, team management involves resolving conflicts whenever they arise. Conflicts can be beneficial to the project if well-directed and kept professional allowing each to defend his/her ideas resulting in better judgment of the situation.

“In organizing and managing the project, you can emphasize the organization (structural) or you can emphasize the people. You cannot afford to ignore either.” (Culp & Smith, 1992)

Investing in people is one of the most important techniques that a project manager can use. For instance, enhanced training and investment in productivity tools and methods surely intrigues employees to perform better by meeting, and in some cases exceeding, their expectations.

Further investments in people techniques include providing professional development and career progression opportunities, recognizing achievements using rewarding incentives. These techniques will also help provide psychological relief and stability for the team.
Managing the work environment elevates team morale. Adopting egoless programming techniques, constant motivation, and team balancing are all techniques that will increase the level of productivity of the team.

However, most of these techniques, practices, and tools are not applicable when a virtual team is working on the project (or part of it). “Multi-national projects face many challenges, such as finding and coordinating resources, managing logistics in different countries, defining research methodology, controlling project cost, and dealing with cross-cultural issues.”(Gorlenko & Krause, 2006) Indeed, “globally distributed teams require special skills in system design and project management.” (Cusumano, 2008)
For this purpose, many researches have suggested different approaches. While different software tried to overcome such difficulties.

Donker and Blumberg tackled virtual team management tools issues: “In general, we see an essential necessity in creating a symbiosis between project management tools and collaborative tools, as these two areas are both crucial for virtual project management.” (Donker & Blumberg, 2008)

While Cusumano was interested in the development style when faced with a virtual team experience: “One of the biggest challenges is to apply an iterative (or more popularly called “agile”) style of development when teams are large and not co-located.” (Cusumano, 2008)

Gorlenko and Krause elaborated most on the techniques and tools that could assist in managing virtual teams. They discussed in-depth their experience from different viewpoints including strategies, choice of participating countries, methodology for multi-national data analysis, challenges, and lessons learned of which I choose to mention a particular one: “The number of problems in a multi-national project is proportional to the number of participating segments. Always plan for it.” (Gorlenko & Krause, 2006)

What all the above researches yielded, however, was to stress on the collaborative end of virtual project management. In other words, project managers should work harder on creating a fully collaborative system in order to control and manage virtual teams efficiently. Collaboration techniques and tools became widely available nowadays with the internet revolution that added video-conferencing, instant chatting, cheap voice-calls and many other tools to allow better communication and involvement of team members even if they were working virtually.


Finally, different techniques and tools were devised for project managers allowing them better control and management over their teams whether local or virtual the trick is to know how and when to use them.


Reference:

1. Jamie L. Smith, Shawn A. Bohner, D. Scott McCrickard (March 18, 2005) Center for Human-Computer Interaction and Department of Computer Science Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0106 USA: Project Management for the 21st Century: Supporting Collaborative Design through Risk Analysis [Research Paper] Available from: ACM digital library.

2. Gordon Culp, Anne Smith (1992) Managing People (including Yourself) for Project Success - Published by John Wiley and Sons, ISBN 0471290181, 9780471290186 [online] available from: Google Scholars: http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=NO5sGrYZTisC&oi=fnd&pg=PR11&dq=project+management+managing+people&ots=zaH0K38gOh&sig=qks4xXsCf5ldsmWuDVVMNJ0upHQ#PPP1,M1

3. Lada Gorlenko, Sven Krause (April 22-27, 2006) Managing International Usability Projects: Cooperative Strategy [Research Paper] Available from: ACM digital library.

4. Michael A. Cusumano (February 2008) Technology Strategy and Management: Managing Software Development in Globally Distributed Teams: Surveying the basic elements needed for globally distributed teams to function smoothly and efficiently. – [article] Communications of The ACM February 2008/Vol. 51, No. 2. Available from: ACM digital library.

5. Hilko Donker, Malte Blumberg (May 13, 2008) Dresden University of Technology, Faculty of Computer Science: Collaborative Process Management and Virtual Teams - CHASE’08 [Research Paper]. Available from: ACM digital library.

Improving IT Projects' Quality

“While project performance is generally evaluated in terms of the “iron triangle” of schedule, cost and quality performance, guidelines for project quality management are lacking.”(Steyn, 2008) For this purpose, several institutions and research papers addressed this issue and provided recommendations for improving information technology projects’ quality. After researching and reading many of these recommendations, I choose to discuss below three suggestions for improving the quality of IT projects.

My first preferred suggestion is to understand the level of quality expected by the project owners or stakeholders. “Customer quality expectations and acceptance criteria specify that quality is determined by the customer, not by the project manager.” (Cusolito, n.d.) Defining this understanding early on in the project helps both the project manager and team evaluate the processes and phases better and comprehend accordingly the level of commitment and effort required. Delivering a project that satisfies the customers expected quality can be interpreted as nothing but success.

My second suggestion is to follow maturity models prepared by renowned institutions like the Software Engineering Institute (SEI). SEI developed a Capability Maturity Model (CMM) for Software: “The Capability Maturity Model for Software (CMM or SW-CMM) is a reference model for appraising software process maturity and a normative model for helping software organizations progress along an evolutionary path from ad hoc, chaotic processes to mature, disciplined software processes.” (Herbsleb/Zubrow/Goldenson/Hayes/Paulk, 1997) Following such models enhances not only the quality of the final product but furthermore affects other major aspects: “sophisticated statistical analysis of data from a large software development laboratory in a Fortune 100 company showed that process maturity significantly increased quality…. Higher product quality, however, significantly reduced both development and support cost,…”.(Herbsleb/Zubrow/Goldenson/Hayes/Paulk, 1997)
CMM, being a five-level model, allowed immediate quality related categorization of the different IT companies according to the level of commitment to the defined standards.
Many other similar models are still being developed like the Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3) created by the PMI’s Standards Development Program and the Documentation Maturity Model suggested by Huang and Tiley in 2003 (Huang&Tiley, 2003).

My third suggestion is to promote quality amongst top management or project owners. “Quality is the result of a carefully constructed cultural environment. It has to be the fabric of the organization, not part of the fabric.”(Crosby, n.d.) If the project stakeholders are accustomed to quality, then they will settle for nothing less. Highlighting the advantages of having quality products increases the management’s crave for quality. Accentuating the return on investment related to quality of the produced project will further improve the chances of even obtaining a bigger budget for the project at hand!

Quality of projects is what differentiates one company from another. It divides them into different levels similar to the maturity levels described above. Understanding the stakeholders expected quality enhances the chances of delivering a sign-off material project. And finally, familiarizing top management with quality products ameliorates the quality likelihood of the project. With this thought, I would like to end this by a related quote for a leader in the IT industry, Steve Jobs, when he said: “Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.”(Jobs, n.d.)

References:

1. Steyn, Herman (July 27-31, 2008) A Framework for Managing Quality on System Development Projects [Research Paper] available from: IEEE Digital Library – IEEE Xplore under: PICMET 2008 Proceedings, 27-31 July, Cape Town, South Africa

2. Cusolito, Rick (n.d.) The High Cost of Low Quality [online] available from: http://www.butrain.com/Project-management-training-courses/highcost.asp?source=20669

3. James Herbsleb, David Zubrow, Dennis Goldenson, Will Hayes, and Mark Paulk (June 1997) Software Quality and the Capability Maturity Model [Research Paper] available from: ACM Digital Library - ACM 0002-0782/97/0600

4. Shihong Huang & Scott Tiley (October 12-15, 2003) Towards a Documentation Maturity Model [Research Paper] available from: ACM Digital Library - ACM 1-58113-696-X/03/0010

5. Crosby, Philip (n.d.) Quality Quotes[online] available from: http://thinkexist.com/quotations/quality/2.html

6. Jobs, Steve (n.d.) Quality Quotes[online] available from: http://thinkexist.com/quotations/quality/2.html