Radiant info school Project Management Project Management Life Cycle Managing your digital media project is one of the most important and often overlooked aspects of the development process. You will find that effort you put into planning, scheduling, and organizing your project will pay off enormously. Here we'll outline some proven techniques for planning, scheduling, and completing your project. A project has five phases. Here's a brief summary of each: . Initiation Articulate your vision for the project, establish goals, assemble your team, and define expectations and the scope of your project. Develop a Business Case Undertake a Feasibility Study Establish the Project Charter It will help you to define the scope of your project. Writing the Project Charter is typically one of the most challenging steps in the Project Life Cycle, as it defines the parameters within which the project must be delivered. It sets out the project vision, objectives, scope and implementation, thereby giving the team clear boundaries within which the project must be delivered. Appoint the Project Team Set up the Project Office Perform Phase Review Radiant info school Project Management . Planning Refine the scope, identify specific tasks and activities to be completed, and develop a schedule and budget. Create a Project Plan Create a Resource Plan Create a Financial Plan Create a Quality Plan Create a Risk Plan Create an Acceptance Plan Create a Communications Plan Create a Procurement Plan Contract the Suppliers Define the Tender Process Issue a Statement of Work Issue a Request for Information Issue a Request for Proposal Create Supplier Contract Perform Phase Review execution Build Deliverables Monitor and Control Perform Time Management Perform Cost Management Perform Quality Management Perform Change Management This process helps you to manage all requests for change within your project. By putting this change process in place, you'll easily be able to monitor and control the amount of change that takes place.Within the Change Management Process, each of the key steps for managing change are included. It also tells you how to implement control change, through change approvals and reviews Perform Risk Management Perform Issue Management Perform Procurement Management Perform Acceptance Management Perform Communications Management Controlling Monitor changes to the project, make corrections, adjust your schedule to respond to problems, or adjust your expectations and goals Radiant info school Project Management CLOSURE Perform Project Closure Review Project Completion PROJECT LIFE CYLCE Stages might have included: • Feasibility investigation – producing business case Feasibility studies aim to objectively and rationally uncover the strengths and weaknesses of the existing business or proposed venture, opportunities and threats as presented by theenvironment, the resources required to carry through, and ultimately the prospects forsuccess. A feasibility study is a preliminary, low-cost, high-level assessment to determine whether it would be practicable, desirable and worthwhile for an organization to pursue change or innovation through one or more projects. Starting a significant project without any form of pre-project study is akin to teaching firearms safety with a “Fire! Aim! Ready?” approach. In project work, such an approach can create potential for risks to be overlooked, needs and outcomes mismatched, eventual costs to become unacceptably high and for key dates to be missed. Operational Evaluation This evaluation is to examine how closely any proposed solution will meet operational requirements, so work done by the stakeholders and study team to define these at the start of the study will provide the yardstick against which every proposed solution can be measured. Prioritise each requirement into „Must-Do,‟ „Ought to Do‟ and „Nice to Do‟ categories before the analysis starts. As soon as a potential solution fails an operational „Must Do,‟ or looks to have unacceptable operational risks, set it aside with brief justification and move on. Technical Evaluation Here you need to examine some, perhaps all, of whether you have, or can acquire, the technical skills, capabilities and resources to design, develop, test, install, repair, maintain and modify the Radiant info school Project Management solution and confirm that it will fit with existing and any planned technology. The criteria applied in this section will naturally differ when evaluating self-build versus procured and packaged versus bespoke solutions. The yardstick to use is a high level technical specification for the required solution, again developed between the study team and the organization‟s technical specialists. Eliminate any proposal that misses „must-have‟ technical requirements or appears to have unacceptable technical risk. Economic / Financial Evaluation Can the organization afford to build or procure, install and operate this solution? If one solution costs more than another to put in place, but less to operate, which is the better financial deal? If cost saving is a requirement (and where isn‟t it these days?) how quickly will the proposed solutions accrue these savings? How long is the payback period likely to be? What is the predicted rate of return on the organization‟s investment? For change and innovation that is mandatory, concentrate on investment costs and running cosT Business case A Business Case document is used whenever the expenditure on a project has to be justified. Completing a Business Case document is usually the first step in the Project Life Cycle. Once the Business Case document has been completed, it is presented to a Sponsor for approval. The Business Case is referred to frequently during the project, to determine whether it is currently on track. And at the end of the project, success is measured against the ability to meet the objectives defined in the Business Case. So the completion of a Business Case is critical to the success of the project. By creating a convincing Business Case, you can document the return on investment for your solution, thereby creating a compelling Business Case for approval by your sponsor. It will help you identify the detailed benefits and costs of your solution, giving your sponsor confidence that the solution recommended is the most viable solution available. This will help you to gain approval of the business case and secure the funding you need, to get started. By using the Business Case document, you can: Research the business problem or opportunity Identify the alternative solutions available Quantify the benefits and costs of each solution Recommend a preferred solution to your sponsor Identify any risks and issues with implementation Present the solution for funding approval The business case for the project is maintained as long as the development and operational costs of the application to be delivered do no exceed the value of the benefits of the project. Increased costs, reduced functionality, and deferred delivery could all have an impact on this business case Radiant info school Project Management • Requirements analysis (That follows requirements elicitation) – There could be a variety of Products if something like SSADM has been used In order to ensure that the system specifications properly meet customer expectations we need to follow a solid requirement analysis process. Requirement analysis is critical to the success of a development project. It takes into account all the tasks that determine the needs for the project. • System design/architecture design (which is at a higher level than software design) Systems design is the process of defining the architecture, components, modules, interfaces, and data for a system to satisfy specified requirements • Build/test – producing unit-tested software components • Integration – producing an operable integrated system • Acceptance – producing possible modifications, but eventually a sign-off • Installation – resulting in an installed operational system Bespoke vs. off-the-shelf software Whether to buy tailored software solutions or off-the-shelf software packages is common dilemma. Marc Bray, marketing director of international software applications company, Logsys, examines the pros, cons and cost implications of both. Growing companies are investing an increasing amount in IT systems to automate and simplify business processes. This means the market for such systems is vast, with imagination and budget the only boundaries. As companies look to automate different business functions the question of bespoke or off-the-shelf is usually raised sooner rather than later. Whether relying on an in-house IT team or outsourcing the work to a specialist company, the decision to purchase a ready made solution or to have software specifically developed raises a number of issues that must be considered. The beauty of bespoke systems is that they are tailored to the exact requirements of the company allowing the software to fully integrate, helping to meet legislation or key business objectives. Scalability is also a positive factor, with bespoke systems able to accommodate business growth and contract with any necessary downsizing. The system should evolve with the company to provide an ongoing perfect fit. Radiant info school Project Management This is possible because bespoke systems are designed with the long term IT plans of a company in mind. Software of this type ensures that the company can move forward instead