WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE, WHAT YOU LIKE, WHAT YOU EAT, WHICH BRANDS YOU DRESS WITH, YOUR FAVOURITE AUTHORS, ALL YOUR FRIENDS, YOUR RELATIONSHIPS, YOUR CONTACTS, YOUR DEPTS, SALARY, BANK ACCOUNT, AND WE EVEN KNOW YOUR DEEPEST SECRETS ;) !!! WELCOME TO THE INTERNET ERA!
Privacy, does it still mean anything within this internet era?
In the following paragraphs we will try to summarize the privacy issue related to internet vulnerabilities, tools used, policies, acts, procedures, and best practices in this regard.
Let us start by discussing the diverse risks that internet users are subject to and the various tools that different types of companies (marketing, advertising, statistics, and even government bodies) use to collect such personal information.
The first tool that comes to mind is surely the use of Cookies. “Cookies are files that Web sites place on visitors' computers that let those sites identify, authenticate and store information about individuals.” (Festa1, 2000) Having the ability to record information (it could be simply an ID) enables the website to identify the person/computer and therefore create a profile of his/hers. Such profile could include the username, password, search queries, “historical trends… usage patterns, impact of any cast distribution,” (Castro/Wessels/Fomenkov/Claffy, 2008) other visited websites, links chosen, etc…
These profiles can be further extended if the cookies contained information that related to a larger network of websites. For instance, Passport, “Microsoft's Internet-wide single sign-on service” (Grossman, 2007) (MSN, Hotmail …), or Google’s single sign-on ID to its different sites (Gmail, Blogger…), My Yahoo … all provide their proprietary company network with a vast milieu of information about the same person/user.
With such networks of information, these sites have grown tremendous ability to relate and, therefore, store information about users in their databases with the highest level of entity integrity using these single sign-on tools (and their likes).
Moreover, it seems that Microsoft (amongst others) wasn’t satisfied with all the information it already can retrieve about internet users through its IE browser: “The feature in IE 5 and above, referred to by Microsoft as "persistence," is designed to let Web pages remember information such as search queries entered by visitors.” (Festa1, 2000) that they created CardSpace.
“CardSpace, identification technology that is built into Windows Vista and is available for download for XP” (Grossman, 2007) is another type of information collection tool that can invade your privacy. Being a tool that is integrated with your operating system, it can allow even further profiling by sending information related to your offline activities such as software installations, type of computer used, other browsers installed …
However, I’d consider the email vulnerability to be the most serious of all privacy invasions. Surfing my Gmail I keep on getting advertisements that are related to the mails’ subjects I am reading. Well, that makes me wonder what kind of profile they have about me! What attributes it contains? How big it is? Does it include attachments, pictures…? How far would they go?
With such concerns, phishing scams, which “are usually perpetrated through spam e-mail messages that direct consumers to phony Web sites that are often exact replicas of legitimate Web sites and that ask for passwords and sensitive personal or financial information.” (Microsoft.com, 2004), and web bugs, “which send messages back to the sender when previewed or opened” and “can also place a cookie on the hard drive, providing the IP address for pop-up ads” (The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, 2004), become of much less importance.
Other types of intrusions come in the form of “Internet Relay Chat” (The Office of the Australian Privacy Commissioner, n.d.), “WAP gap” (Ghosh and Swaminatha, 2001) amongst other types of tools/ways where your privacy is at stake.
Of course for most web-developers, “There are a number of trackers available to help you get an idea of who is surfing your website. These trackers will record:
-- The user's IP address
-- Which ISP they use
-- What country they are located in
-- What operating system they use
-- What browser they are using
-- what page they looked at immediately prior to visiting your page” (Missy, 2002)
such trackers include Big Tracker, SiteMeter, StatCounter, etc… or simply the use of simple built-in functions in PHP, ASP,… can do the trick. Having discussed most of the tools and ways by which internet privacy is risked, let us discuss briefly the opinions regarding this issue: privacy dilemma vs. ground-breaking evolution. In some recent survey “by TNS Global on behalf of consumer privacy organization TRUSTe s almost three-quarters said that they are aware that their browsing history "may be collected" for advertising purposes.” (Cheng, 2008) Most of which, however, didn’t mind it but preferred to have “more of a say in how their information is used” (Cheng, 2008); they (91 percent) were moreover, “willing to act in one way or another to help ensure better privacy when it comes to targeted advertising if presented with the proper tools.” (Cheng, 2008)
But is that the case? "No matter how much we assure anonymity, there is still significant discomfort with the idea of tracking," TRUSTe executive director Fran Maier said in a statement.” (Cheng, 2008)
In general, “Privacy advocates don't disparage the use of cookies…, but when third-party Web sites, such as advertisers, start handing out unique identifiers that track computers from site to site, those advocates cry foul.” (Festa2, 2000) Usually such advocate cries are responded to carelessly by company executives with simple statements such as: "This feature has a trade-off, like almost every other feature on the Web--in this case, between functionality and a minor, potential privacy exposure," said Michael Wallent, product unit manager for IE at Microsoft.”(Festa1, 2000)
But if you were like Kim Cameron, wanting simply: “to re-engineer the Internet so it has what he calls an ‘identity layer’. Because: ‘There is no mechanism for knowing who you're talking to.’ ” (Grossman, 2007) Then such issues will surely fall under the category of evolution; solid one.
Now, not to take sides, I prefer to say that internet users today still have a say, they could, by following very strict rules, protect their privacy to a major extent. Many organizations were created, many policies were devised, many lists of best-practice exist (check references section for some of these). But the question is really how far are such policies being followed? How influential these organizations are? What level of privacy such practices will provide?
Finally, I believe such collection of personal information surely has some advantages when it falls in trusted hands (Microsoft.com, 2004) however the risks are big if otherwise.
References:
1. Paul Festa1, Staff Writer, CNET News (September 11, 2000 1:50 PM PDT) IE feature can track Web surfers without warning [Article-Online] Available From: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-245556.html
2. Sebastian Castro, Duane Wessels, Marina Fomenkov, Kimberly Claffy (October 2008)A Day at the Root of the Internet [Paper] Available From: ACM Digital Library - ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review Volume 38, Number 5
3. Wendy M. Grossman (Wednesday, 16 May 2007, 3:06 PM) Microsoft man seeks to re-engineer the Web Speakers' Corner Kim Cameron, Microsoft [Article-Online] Available From: http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2007/05/16/microsoft-man-seeks-to-re-engineer-the-web
4. Microsoft- REDMOND, Wash. (July 21, 2004) Microsoft Teams With National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance To Fight Cybercrime: NCFTA Provided With Full-Time Microsoft Analyst and More Than $46,000 in Software[Article-Online] Available from: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/jul04/07-21NCFTAPR.mspx
5. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (July 25, 2004) Protecting Your Privacy on the Internet- Canada’s new privacy law: Surfing the Net can be fun and educational. [Online] Available from: http://www.privcom.gc.ca/fs-fi/02_05_d_13_e.asp
6. The Office of the Australian Privacy Commissioner (n.d.) Protecting your Privacy on the Internet [Online] Available from: http://www.privacy.gov.au/internet/internet_privacy/
7. Anup K. Ghosh and Tara M. Swaminatha (February 2001) SOFTWARE SECURITY AND PRIVACY RISKS IN MOBILE E-COMMERCE: Examining the risks in wireless computing that will likely influence the emerging m-commerce market. [Research Paper] Available from: ACM Digital Library - COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM /Vol. 44, No. 2.
8. “Missy” (Sep 20, 2002 14:03 PDT) identify web surfers [Online] Available from: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/67353.html
9. Jacqui Cheng (March 31, 2008 - 09:55PM CT) Web surfers know advertisers are watching—and don’t like it [Article-Online] Available from: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080331-web-surfers-know-advertisers-are-watchingand-dont-like-it.html
10. Paul Festa2 - Staff Writer, CNET News (September 13, 2000 2:30 PM PDT) Microsoft quietly shadows Web surfers across MSN sites [Article-Online] Available From: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-245680.html
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
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
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
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
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.
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.
Project Schedule Conflicts
Often conflicts arise in projects between the different parties involved. Most of the conflicts, however, seem to be related in some way or another to the project schedule.
In the following paragraphs, we will try to identify the link between schedule issues and conflicts within projects.
Schedules are related to both time management and tasks distribution. These two aspects fall under the responsibility of the project manager. Project managers are responsible not only for managing conflicts, but also controlling and resolving any that might arise in this regards.
Conflicts related to project schedule are of many types and can arise on several different levels within the project team: stakeholders/management vs. project manager, project manager vs. team member(s), and finally team member(s) vs. another team member(s).
Stakeholders are usually concerned with projects meeting deadlines that are sometimes very stressful. “Every time you increase schedule pressure, you increase the likelihood of not meeting your deadlines.” (Richard, 2005) Any delay with the project schedule can cause a conflict between the shareholders and the project manager.
On the other hand, since project managers bear the responsibility of meeting deadlines, they might request more staff members or hiring a third party contractor for a specific job when they feel that the schedule might slip or in order to accommodate to some project change. Such requests might implicate budgetary increases and as a consequence create conflict again with the management.
Conflicts related to schedule between the stakeholders/management and project managers usually reflect on the project team’s schedule. Tighter deadlines, additional tasks, changes to be accommodated within the same deadline will surely add pressure on the project team and create further conflicts.
“Developers tend to think that managers don't respect them, or simply don't care about them. “I have to work yet another weekend because my Project Mangler, who clearly doesn't understand the first thing about software development, thinks that this feature can be done in 3 weeks even though I clearly stated that I would need 5”, is the type of comment often overheard from developers.” (Richard, 2005) This creates yet another type of conflict between the project manager and his team.
Furthermore, team member(s) unsatisfied with task distribution within the schedule provided might complain to the project manager. Conflict in this case might be due to the unjust distribution by the project manager, or the fact that some tasks are more important for future career advancement than others. For instance, discrimination against women is common in this sense. Some consider women less competent in completing certain tasks related to IT due to many gender related reasons. One paper written by four University of Arkansas graduates, highlights this fact with a full study entitled: “Barriers Facing
Women in the IT Work Force.” (Riemenschneider, Armstrong, Allen, and Reid, 2006)
Other types of conflicts can exist when project managers are discontented with the performance of their team. If the team effort is not enough, deadlines might slip. Project managers, in this case, need to find solutions in order to keep the project on-schedule and avoid further conflicts that might arise in case of failure in doing such.
“You might get lucky on a few features, but sooner or later, one of them will slip. And instead of working with you to catch up, the developer will start pointing the finger at you. Then you'll point the finger at him.” (Richard, 2005)
In case a failure happens in delivering any or all parts of a project, more serious problems arise. Blame-game is common in this sense between project owners, project managers, and project team. “Ultimately, people will start caring more about who gets blamed for what than saving the project.” (Richard, 2005)
This type of conflict might reflect into conflicts within the team itself. “Slippages in schedule are not the only source of conflict among developers, and concerns over the allocation of component tasks are especially prevalent among student teams, in which no line management accountability has been established.”(Hogan & Thomas, 2005) Each member starts blaming the incompetency or poor effort of other members in order to take the blame off his/her shoulders.
As a conclusion, project schedules and project conflicts’ are closely linked due to the stress and consequences often related with deadlines and tight schedules. Conflicts can arise between the different involved parties in a project. It is, however, the project managers’ responsibility in all cases to resolve such by using different approaches and skills including: leadership, communication, team motivation, incentives, clear job definitions, team balance, trust, commitment, accountability, discipline, and negotiation.
Reference:
1. Richard, Luc K. (November 7, 2005). Excessive Schedule Pressure [online] available from: http://www.projectmangler.com/content/regular/art20051107.htm
2. Cynthia K. Riemenschneider, Deborah J. Armstrong, Myria W. Allen, Margaret F. Reid (Fall 2006) The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems - Fall 2006 (Vol. 37, No. 4): “Barriers Facing Women in the IT Work Force” [Research Paper] Available from: ACM digital library.
3. James M. Hogan and Richard Thomas (2005) Centre for Information Technology Innovation - Queensland University of Technology. ACM International Conference Proceeding Series; Vol. 106 & Proceedings of the 7th Australasian conference on Computing education - Volume 42; ISBN ~ ISSN:1445-1336 , 1-920682-24-4; “Developing the Software Engineering Team” [Paper] Available from: ACM digital library.
In the following paragraphs, we will try to identify the link between schedule issues and conflicts within projects.
Schedules are related to both time management and tasks distribution. These two aspects fall under the responsibility of the project manager. Project managers are responsible not only for managing conflicts, but also controlling and resolving any that might arise in this regards.
Conflicts related to project schedule are of many types and can arise on several different levels within the project team: stakeholders/management vs. project manager, project manager vs. team member(s), and finally team member(s) vs. another team member(s).
Stakeholders are usually concerned with projects meeting deadlines that are sometimes very stressful. “Every time you increase schedule pressure, you increase the likelihood of not meeting your deadlines.” (Richard, 2005) Any delay with the project schedule can cause a conflict between the shareholders and the project manager.
On the other hand, since project managers bear the responsibility of meeting deadlines, they might request more staff members or hiring a third party contractor for a specific job when they feel that the schedule might slip or in order to accommodate to some project change. Such requests might implicate budgetary increases and as a consequence create conflict again with the management.
Conflicts related to schedule between the stakeholders/management and project managers usually reflect on the project team’s schedule. Tighter deadlines, additional tasks, changes to be accommodated within the same deadline will surely add pressure on the project team and create further conflicts.
“Developers tend to think that managers don't respect them, or simply don't care about them. “I have to work yet another weekend because my Project Mangler, who clearly doesn't understand the first thing about software development, thinks that this feature can be done in 3 weeks even though I clearly stated that I would need 5”, is the type of comment often overheard from developers.” (Richard, 2005) This creates yet another type of conflict between the project manager and his team.
Furthermore, team member(s) unsatisfied with task distribution within the schedule provided might complain to the project manager. Conflict in this case might be due to the unjust distribution by the project manager, or the fact that some tasks are more important for future career advancement than others. For instance, discrimination against women is common in this sense. Some consider women less competent in completing certain tasks related to IT due to many gender related reasons. One paper written by four University of Arkansas graduates, highlights this fact with a full study entitled: “Barriers Facing
Women in the IT Work Force.” (Riemenschneider, Armstrong, Allen, and Reid, 2006)
Other types of conflicts can exist when project managers are discontented with the performance of their team. If the team effort is not enough, deadlines might slip. Project managers, in this case, need to find solutions in order to keep the project on-schedule and avoid further conflicts that might arise in case of failure in doing such.
“You might get lucky on a few features, but sooner or later, one of them will slip. And instead of working with you to catch up, the developer will start pointing the finger at you. Then you'll point the finger at him.” (Richard, 2005)
In case a failure happens in delivering any or all parts of a project, more serious problems arise. Blame-game is common in this sense between project owners, project managers, and project team. “Ultimately, people will start caring more about who gets blamed for what than saving the project.” (Richard, 2005)
This type of conflict might reflect into conflicts within the team itself. “Slippages in schedule are not the only source of conflict among developers, and concerns over the allocation of component tasks are especially prevalent among student teams, in which no line management accountability has been established.”(Hogan & Thomas, 2005) Each member starts blaming the incompetency or poor effort of other members in order to take the blame off his/her shoulders.
As a conclusion, project schedules and project conflicts’ are closely linked due to the stress and consequences often related with deadlines and tight schedules. Conflicts can arise between the different involved parties in a project. It is, however, the project managers’ responsibility in all cases to resolve such by using different approaches and skills including: leadership, communication, team motivation, incentives, clear job definitions, team balance, trust, commitment, accountability, discipline, and negotiation.
Reference:
1. Richard, Luc K. (November 7, 2005). Excessive Schedule Pressure [online] available from: http://www.projectmangler.com/content/regular/art20051107.htm
2. Cynthia K. Riemenschneider, Deborah J. Armstrong, Myria W. Allen, Margaret F. Reid (Fall 2006) The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems - Fall 2006 (Vol. 37, No. 4): “Barriers Facing Women in the IT Work Force” [Research Paper] Available from: ACM digital library.
3. James M. Hogan and Richard Thomas (2005) Centre for Information Technology Innovation - Queensland University of Technology. ACM International Conference Proceeding Series; Vol. 106 & Proceedings of the 7th Australasian conference on Computing education - Volume 42; ISBN ~ ISSN:1445-1336 , 1-920682-24-4; “Developing the Software Engineering Team” [Paper] Available from: ACM digital library.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Project Cost Management
Why many information technology professionals have a poor attitude toward project cost management and how this attitude might affect the poor track record for completing projects within budget.
By simply searching Google or Yahoo with strings like “IT Project failed” or “IT Project goes over-budget” one will immediately understand how often IT Projects fail due to failed cost management. One survey reported that “Projects that are considered 'challenged' – usually due to cost or schedule overruns – account for 51% of all projects.”(PM Today, n.d.) Cost management is one of the most critical aspects that fall under the responsibilities of the project manager. Cost estimation, budgeting, and cost control are usually the reasons for most of the project managers’ nightmares. IT project managers in particular, tend to have a poorer attitude toward project cost management. But why is that?
IT project managers have a poor track record for completing projects within budget due to the fact that they are more interested in closing the project on-time then within budget.
“According to KPMG, only 9% of organizations feel that delivering projects within budget is their most important measurement for success. Also, only 21% said that being on-time was their top driver.” (OUT-LAW News, Nov. 2002) Due to the fast evolution of technology, project managers tend to be more concerned about the timeliness of their projects.
Cutting short the time required to estimate costs is a common practice amongst IT project managers. Quick decisions, while evaluating the required costs for a project, opens the door for speculations and unsound decisions. In general, human beings are biased toward underestimation; specially programmers. The ego, overconfidence, and unawareness in tracking time, drive programmers to give lower estimates concerning the time needed to complete any particular task. Less time estimates implies lower estimated costs.
The real nightmare of the project manager in fact is due not during the estimation phase, but at a later stage during management and control of such. In fact most project managers have the hardest time completing this task: “For many project managers managing budgets along the critical path becomes both a challenge and a source of frustration.” (BCS, n.d.) Frustration, in this sense, is due to the poor estimations previously done. But what is done is done.
Finding solutions in order to cut down further costs adds to the frustration. In order to request more funds for a project from upper management, project managers need proper supporting reasons which most of the time don’t exist.
Since project initiation, stakeholders, and especially the financially related ones, require accurate and precise cost estimates in order to assess the feasibility of any project. However, this is not the case with IT PM. Knowing the amount of work and the huge number of different responsibilities that fall under an IT project manager’s job description, finishing within budget becomes of lower priority. In fact, he/she might even purposely underestimate a project’s budget in order to get approval the fastest possible and initiate a project.
Time is the main concern for IT project managers. Initiating projects faster, estimating cost faster, and pushing their teams to finish on-time is a priority. Producing output and visual proof of project progress are the only things that relieve both the project manager and the stakeholders.
However, coming back to cost control, IT project managers face their toughest challenges. Early budgetary estimations usually are accurate when it comes to tangible requirements like software and hardware requirements. The remaining costs are related to man-hours which are the hardest to minimize. Man-hours, eventhough related to the team’s morale which affects directly productivity, has however limitations. Some things are simply impossible to be done unless given a minimum timeframe.
Cutting down on costs, therefore leads project managers to think about ways to cut down on time required which in turn leads project managers to sometimes jeopardize the quality of the resulting project. Skipping on documentation, code comments, and frequent testing of modules are some of the strategies that are used in this context.
As a summary, IT project managers face a very challenging problem when it comes to cost management and therefore tend to have a rather poor attitude towards it. The problem comes as a tradeoff between cost, time, and quality; and IT professionals choose time.
Nowadays, however, in order to avoid having these problems, “Most other Fortune 1000 companies are in the process of setting up PMOs.” (Hertzberg, May 2007) Saving them money on experienced and skilled human resources required, management headaches, and getting better results makes PMOs most appropriate. “Effective project management can save organizations millions, if not billions of dollars in lost revenue, says J. LeRoy Ward, PMP, PgMP, executive vice president at ESI International”.(PM Today, n.d.)
References:
PM Today (n.d.) Troubled projects costing billions worldwide.[online] Available from: Project Manager Today: http://www.pmtoday.co.uk/content/en/news_details.aspx?guid=94ACA134-74CA-43C6-9AC3-F9C6A6318552
BCS (British Computer Society) (n.d.) Keeping projects under cost control [online] Available from: http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=ConWebDoc.5912
OUT-LAW News (Nov. 2002) Failed IT projects cost businesses millions, says survey [Online] Available from: http://www.out-law.com/page-3149
Hertzberg, Robert (May 07, 2007) I.T. Cost Containment: 5 Best Practices. [online] available from: http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Projects-Management/IT-Cost-Containment-5-Best-Practices/
By simply searching Google or Yahoo with strings like “IT Project failed” or “IT Project goes over-budget” one will immediately understand how often IT Projects fail due to failed cost management. One survey reported that “Projects that are considered 'challenged' – usually due to cost or schedule overruns – account for 51% of all projects.”(PM Today, n.d.) Cost management is one of the most critical aspects that fall under the responsibilities of the project manager. Cost estimation, budgeting, and cost control are usually the reasons for most of the project managers’ nightmares. IT project managers in particular, tend to have a poorer attitude toward project cost management. But why is that?
IT project managers have a poor track record for completing projects within budget due to the fact that they are more interested in closing the project on-time then within budget.
“According to KPMG, only 9% of organizations feel that delivering projects within budget is their most important measurement for success. Also, only 21% said that being on-time was their top driver.” (OUT-LAW News, Nov. 2002) Due to the fast evolution of technology, project managers tend to be more concerned about the timeliness of their projects.
Cutting short the time required to estimate costs is a common practice amongst IT project managers. Quick decisions, while evaluating the required costs for a project, opens the door for speculations and unsound decisions. In general, human beings are biased toward underestimation; specially programmers. The ego, overconfidence, and unawareness in tracking time, drive programmers to give lower estimates concerning the time needed to complete any particular task. Less time estimates implies lower estimated costs.
The real nightmare of the project manager in fact is due not during the estimation phase, but at a later stage during management and control of such. In fact most project managers have the hardest time completing this task: “For many project managers managing budgets along the critical path becomes both a challenge and a source of frustration.” (BCS, n.d.) Frustration, in this sense, is due to the poor estimations previously done. But what is done is done.
Finding solutions in order to cut down further costs adds to the frustration. In order to request more funds for a project from upper management, project managers need proper supporting reasons which most of the time don’t exist.
Since project initiation, stakeholders, and especially the financially related ones, require accurate and precise cost estimates in order to assess the feasibility of any project. However, this is not the case with IT PM. Knowing the amount of work and the huge number of different responsibilities that fall under an IT project manager’s job description, finishing within budget becomes of lower priority. In fact, he/she might even purposely underestimate a project’s budget in order to get approval the fastest possible and initiate a project.
Time is the main concern for IT project managers. Initiating projects faster, estimating cost faster, and pushing their teams to finish on-time is a priority. Producing output and visual proof of project progress are the only things that relieve both the project manager and the stakeholders.
However, coming back to cost control, IT project managers face their toughest challenges. Early budgetary estimations usually are accurate when it comes to tangible requirements like software and hardware requirements. The remaining costs are related to man-hours which are the hardest to minimize. Man-hours, eventhough related to the team’s morale which affects directly productivity, has however limitations. Some things are simply impossible to be done unless given a minimum timeframe.
Cutting down on costs, therefore leads project managers to think about ways to cut down on time required which in turn leads project managers to sometimes jeopardize the quality of the resulting project. Skipping on documentation, code comments, and frequent testing of modules are some of the strategies that are used in this context.
As a summary, IT project managers face a very challenging problem when it comes to cost management and therefore tend to have a rather poor attitude towards it. The problem comes as a tradeoff between cost, time, and quality; and IT professionals choose time.
Nowadays, however, in order to avoid having these problems, “Most other Fortune 1000 companies are in the process of setting up PMOs.” (Hertzberg, May 2007) Saving them money on experienced and skilled human resources required, management headaches, and getting better results makes PMOs most appropriate. “Effective project management can save organizations millions, if not billions of dollars in lost revenue, says J. LeRoy Ward, PMP, PgMP, executive vice president at ESI International”.(PM Today, n.d.)
References:
PM Today (n.d.) Troubled projects costing billions worldwide.[online] Available from: Project Manager Today: http://www.pmtoday.co.uk/content/en/news_details.aspx?guid=94ACA134-74CA-43C6-9AC3-F9C6A6318552
BCS (British Computer Society) (n.d.) Keeping projects under cost control [online] Available from: http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=ConWebDoc.5912
OUT-LAW News (Nov. 2002) Failed IT projects cost businesses millions, says survey [Online] Available from: http://www.out-law.com/page-3149
Hertzberg, Robert (May 07, 2007) I.T. Cost Containment: 5 Best Practices. [online] available from: http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Projects-Management/IT-Cost-Containment-5-Best-Practices/
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