Managing It Projects for Business Change: From Risk to Success

241 Pages·2013·12.02 MB·English

by  Jeff Morgan, Chris Dale

MANAGING IT PROJECTS FOR
BUSINESS CHANGE
BCS, THE CHARTERED INSTITUTE FOR IT
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MANAGING IT PROJECTS FOR
BUSINESS CHANGE
From risk to success
Jeff Morgan and Chris Dale
© Jeff Morgan and Chris Dale 2013
The right of Jeff Morgan and Chris Dale to be identified as authors of this Work has been asserted by them in
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iv
CONTENTS
List of figures and tables vii
Authors ix
Acknowledgements x
Preface xi
1. INTRODUCTION 1
Who this book is for 1
Definitions 1
Our main themes 4
What to expect in the following chapters 11
In summary 13
2. THE BUSINESS CONTEXT FOR SUCCESS 14
Defining success 15
How business context characterises success 20
The nature of success 28
Benefits: tests of success 31
Planning for risks 42
Managing expectations 43
Making a success out of necessity 47
3. ENABLING SUCCESS 51
Project objectives 51
4. DESIGNING THE PROJECT 60
Scope and deliverables 61
Choosing the project manager and senior staff 68
Assessing the working environment 76
Project discipline 77
Communications 80
Standards and their effect on business consent 81
Planning for failure 82
In conclusion 83
5. MAKING A START 84
Business case sensitivity, assumptions and risks 85
Project pace 93
Standards, methods and tools 95
Staffing and resourcing 99
Acceptance 100
Project processes 100
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CONTENTS
6. PLAN, PLAN AND PLAN AGAIN 107
A plan as the ‘path to success’ 109
Layering of plans 111
Understanding a plan 114
Creating a project management plan (PMP) 115
The communications plan 127
Completion plan 129
Detailed planning 130
Re-planning: plan, plan and plan again 131
7. CHECK WHERE YOU ARE 136
Keeping time 137
Communication 148
Checking and acting on risks 150
Checking and acting on issues 151
What’s coming up? 152
8. DO UNTIL FINISHED 153
The critical aspects of execution 154
Other tasks you may have to do 166
9. DEALING WITH TROUBLE 172
Our knowledge of trouble 172
First indications of trouble 174
Lines of defence 175
Lessons learned 178
Severe trouble 180
Sources of trouble 180
Dealing with the consequences 183
10. CAPTURING SUCCESS AND MOVING ON 187
Completing and closing the project 187
Learning the lessons 190
11. CONCLUDING LESSONS 197
How can projects succeed? 197
Why do projects fail? 198
The lessons 204
APPENDIX A: WORK BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE 206
Work Breakdown Structure example 206
Brief description of WBS entries – budgets allocated by category 206
APPENDIX B: A NOTE ABOUT PROJECT PLANS 212
Other management plans 212
APPENDIX C: THE MOSCOW RULES FOR CATEGORISING 215
REQUIREMENTS
Cost-plus contracts 216
References 218
Index 222
vi
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
Figure 1.1 Project tensions 9
Figure 1.2 Layout of the chapters 12
Figure 2.1 Business change – drivers, goals and scope 20
Figure 2.2 The scope and depth of change 27
Figure 2.3 Change: little overlap between IT and operations 27
Figure 2.4 Change: interaction between IT and operations 28
Figure 2.5 Benefits framework 32
Figure 2.6 Benefits framework: timing 34
Figure 2.7 Road map 36
Figure 2.8 Relationships between needs, benefits and project work 37
Figure 2.9 Key dates leading to improvements 41
Figure 3.1 How ideas can change 56
Figure 4.1 Profile of a project based on the chosen factors 74
Figure 4.2 Profile of candidate A vs project profile 75
Figure 4.3 Profile of candidate B vs project profile 76
Figure 5.1 Risk management 89
Figure 5.2 Process framework 101
Figure 5.3 The two project ‘clocks’ and how they are related 102
Figure 5.4 The tasks of the project team and project owner 105
Figure 5.5 The role of the project manager 105
Figure 5.6 What can go wrong 106
Figure 6.1 Example of planning with templates for sets of activities 113
Figure 7.1 The two project clocks 137
Figure 7.2 Case 1: project running over cost and behind schedule 139
Figure 7.3 Periods 1–16 of Case 1: cost vs budget 140
Figure 7.4 Periods 1–16 of Case 1: earned value vs budget 140
Figure 7.5 Case 2: project running over cost but ahead of schedule 141
Figure 7.6 Case 3: project running under cost and behind schedule 142
Figure 7.7 Case 4: project running under cost and ahead of schedule 142
Figure 7.8 The project schedule shows where benefits are measured 146
Figure 7.9 Measurement used to relate progress to business need 148
Figure 9.1 Degrees of knowledge about different aspects of a project 173
Figure 9.2 Sources of trouble that can cause a change of direction 181
Table 2.1 Process performance chart 25
Table 4.1 Examples of project set-up questions 61
Table 4.2 Questions for scope analysis 64
Table 4.3 Factors for discriminating between projects 72
Table 5.1 Risk prioritisation 91
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MANAGING IT PROJECTS FOR BUSINESS CHANGE
Table 5.2 Guidelines for choosing methods depending on priorities 97
Table 6.1 IT project review structure 110
Table 6.2 Layering of plans 114
Table 6.3 Earned value methods 120
Table 6.4 Levels of re-planning 134
Table 7.1 Outcome for the business 143
Table 7.2 Outcome for the supplier 144
Table 8.1 Service level agreements for response times 157
Table 9.1 Dealing with trouble 185
Table 11.1 Why projects fail 199
Appendix 1 Work Breakdown Structure example 207
viii