IT Architecture from A to Z: Theoretical basis. First Edition

Executing

This phase deals with the main project activities, i.e. writing the code, erecting the building etc. Following the developed plans leads to the previously defined content of the project, and the selected metrics are controlled. In the second part of this phase, the product is tested, it is checked for compliance with the customers and stakeholders’ requirements. During testing, the product deficiencies are identified and fixed.

This phase includes the allocation of responsibilities to carry out the assignments. Creating an effective group is both: an art and a science. To create an effective project team, one should consider not only the technical qualifications of the project manager and the members of the project team, but also their critical roles and interpersonal relationship. The selection of a project manager and team members will not be perfect – there is always a risk in any HR decision. The main goal when choosing a project manager is to appoint an experienced and competent person who is able to get the final result duly and meet the project requirements with the resources available. From this point of view, all the basic qualities of an effective project manager can be attributed to one of the following five categories:

• Education and experience;

• Leadership and strategic thinking;

• Technical competence;

• Ability to work with people;

• Proven managerial skills.

The choice of project team depends on the following factors:

• The objectives and goals of the project;

• The nature of the activities to be performed;

• the qualifications required for hiring, assigning, obtaining authority, control, communication and performing the required activities at each stage of the project;

• Availability of appropriate personnel in the organization where the project will be carried out.

It is important for the project manager and the members of the project team to know that the newly formed teams go through go through the five stages of team development which are:

• Forming stage takes place when the team first meets each other, breaks ice build relations.

• Storming stage is natural and not avoidable. The members of the team test each other, establish a sense of boundaries and trust.

• Norming stage implies developing the norms of behavior and acceptable unwritten rules obeyed by all members. Team members know what to expect from each other in the process.

• Performing stage takes place when the project team is ready to implement the project.

• Adjourning is the last stage when project is ending and the team members are moving off into different directions.

Reintegration of the project member is the process of introduction / withdrawal of the project member to / from the project. The project manager prepares the re-integration of employees (conducts personal interviews with staff and their line management) upon termination of the project. Tasks of the project manager are:

• Monitoring the development of the team members;

• Training project participants;

• Provision of project instructions, documentation;

• Reintegration of new or returned team members;

• Returning the project participants to their units or to the line manager upon the project termination.

The project participants should be informed about their reintegration. Staff reintegration plan is a consistent withdrawal of personnel from the project. The goal of HR management is to create and maintain a highly efficient project team. Communication skills, group cohesion, ability to resolve conflicts and conducting effective meetings can accelerate the transition to executing. The project manager should always remain these stages under review and strive to reach executing as soon as possible. The performing group includes the following processes:

• Leadership and management of project;

• Quality assurance;

• Recruitment of project team;

• Development of the project team;

• Project team management;

• Communication management;

• Procurement;

• Stakeholder management.

Monitoring & Controlling

Regularly evaluates project progress and monitors to detect deviations from the project management plan, and, if required, take corrective actions to achieve the objectives of the project.

Monitoring also involves defining and creating a reporting system to provide information on the project status at specified points in its life cycle. The reports are supposed to not only reflect the chronology of events, but also provide early warning of cases and situations indicating deviations from the plan.

Monitoring is an integral part of project management and transparently present at all stages. The main objective of this phase is to monitor the status of selected metrics for compliance with the customer and stakeholders’ requirements. Identified product deficiencies are addressed during the project implementation phase.

As soon as the situations requiring changes to the work plan has been detected, the project manager should use the mechanisms for making changes that are part of the project management process.

Arranging effective project meetings will take more time than any other task. The skills of conducting meetings and ensuring their attendance are to be mastered. First, a question arises: whether a meeting is needed. If yes, what for? If not, how to get staff aware? Is it possible to solve this problem at one meeting, or via a letter, written reference, and phone call? If a meeting is required, the following recommendations should be followed:

Preparation

• Set several achievable goals for the meeting. Formulating of these goals should be concise and precise.

• Select key participants for the meeting; exclude employees whose presence is not required.

• Choose a meeting time and venue that meets the participants’ requirements.

• Prepare an agenda and bring it to the participants’ attention before the meeting.

• Include agenda items to be considered, and expected or required outcomes.

Conducting:

• Start duly.

• Instruct someone to take meeting minutes.

• Review the agenda with each participant before the meeting ends.

• Introduce participants to each other.

• Follow the agenda. Do not deviate from the topic.

• Thank all speakers at the meeting.

• Finish the meeting with the main decisions made, the main outcomes, and provide detailed information about the next meeting.

Regardless the completeness and accuracy of the plan, there will be events having hard-to-control-consequences. Such events will occur at the most inappropriate time (as per Murphy’s Law) and the success of the whole project will depend on them. The project manager must track the project status, in particular the state of the managerial triangle:

• Scope of work, quality – whether everything is developed in accordance with the work plan, or there is anything missing?

• Deadlines – whether the project’s deadlines are met.

• Money – whether the planned budget, outflow, and capital inflow are observed?

The algorithm of project control is:

• Set targets;

• Get project status and current indicators;

• Compare plan with fact;

• Set the deviation, trends and influence on the project objectives;

• Modify the plan and/or set measures to mitigate interferences leading to a delay.

Identification of controls to focus on one or more main project components is a condition, cost, and implementation terms. These means are used for three reasons:

• Tracking project status;

• Detection of deviation;

• Taking corrective actions.

There are two types of control:

• Operational Control monitors changes in the potential of the company, which allows prompt response in order to maximize the benefits for the company. Planning includes short-term and medium-term planning, i.e. 1—3 years. Management is carried out by comparing the values of fact to plan.

• Strategic Control analyzes the future chances of the company, ways of development, and possible risks. These are the tools to move forward. Planning includes long-term development, up to 10 years.

Any project may have typical deviations from the initial plan. In this case, the deviations can be:

•Positive – proceeding ahead of schedule or implementing a project at less cost are deviations from the plan that sounds delightful for the project manager. Positive deviations enable revising the plan and executing the project ahead of schedule or at a lower cost.

•Negative – delay or overruns. This situation may arise because the project manager / the project team is unable to control the process. Regardless of the reason, the project manager must find the ways to remedy the situation. In addition to identifying the cause of the deviation from the plan and its correction, the manager must find the ways to transfer resources from non-critical tasks to those resulted in negative deviation from the plan. The goal is to align the project with the plan. In any case, these deviations should be recorded in the periodic project status reports.

Getting attracted to controls and related reports is very easy. The more controls are taken into service, the less likely the project will fail, and vice versa, the weaker the control, the higher the risk of detecting serious problems when it is too late to solve them. The solution is a compromise in the control system. The control should not be too frequent. People need to be given time to work, not to collect regular statistics. The monitoring and management group includes the following:

• Monitoring and management of project activities;

• Change management and change control;

• Content verification;

• Content control & management;

• Schedule control & management;

• Cost control & management;

• Quality control;

• Communications monitoring & control;

• Risk monitoring & control;

• Procurement / contract control;

• Stakeholder involvement monitoring.

Closing

Once the project is implemented, it approaches its final stage, i.e. termination. The project is terminated in terms of achieving the project goals and obtaining the expected outcomes. The project owners or the management of the organization may decide to terminate the project ahead of schedule, or change the project objectives to terminate it. The basis for the project termination are:

• Formal contract closure with suppliers, manufacturers and customers;

• Official termination of assignments carried out by project team;

• Acceptance of project and end products by the customer;

• Ensuring that all outcomes are received duly, within the budget and in accordance with project requirements;

• Proper documenting the project and providing basic information to facilitate the staff interaction or making changes that may be required in the future;

• Issue and ratification of the final report or project status report, which shows that the expected end outcomes have been achieved;

• Termination of all work on the project, within the organization and beyond.

There are three types of project termination:

•Termination by extinction means that the planned project activities have been either successfully terminated or unsuccessful, and the decision was made to terminate it.

•Termination by addition means that the project has been successful, and its final products have been implemented.

•Termination by integration is the most common way of dealing with successful projects, and the most complex. Equipment, materials and personnel must be returned to the parent organization. Unlike termination by addition, a project cannot be considered as a competitor in the integration of resources.

In any case, the project termination includes the following main stages:

• Acceptance of the final product by the customer,

• Project documentation,

• Auditing after project implementation;

• Issue of final report.

The following checklist may facilitate in determining the project’s readiness for termination without taking into account published or planned dates and deadlines:

• Whether the project is still consistent with the objectives?

• Whether it is practical / helpful?

• Whether the leadership concerned enough in the project to support its implementation?

• Whether the organization has sufficient financial resources to implement the project?

• Whether the support of this project is sufficient for its successful implementation?

• Whether the organization has the required qualifications for the project?

• Whether the project has lost a key figure or support?

• Whether the project team is interested in the success of the project?

• What is the likelihood of achieving the minimum project goals?

• Whether it is still profitable and timely?

The complexity and duration of the project termination is determined by the size, complexity and scale of the project itself. One of the most important questions at the end of the project is reward for success and lessons learnt. The final processes contains are the following:

• Close Project or Phase;

• Close Procurement;

Termination may also consist of:

• Tests of the system developed (test protocol);

• Acceptance procedure, transfer of working papers;

• Personnel certification, lesson learning, experience sharing;

• Financial calculation and analysis of actual expenses;

• Liquidation of jobs and re-integration of staff.

Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK)

Project Management Body of Knowledge describes ten areas of knowledge that a project manager should possess. The standard considers each area of knowledge separately, describes its input and output. Knowledge area processes are represented in PMBoK as discrete elements having well-defined boundaries. However, in practice, these processes are iterative – they can interact with each other and overlap each other. The standard addresses the following areas of project management knowledge:

Project Integration Management

Integration refers to the integration, consolidation, articulation, and various integrative actions aimed at successfully managing the stakeholders’ expectations and meeting certain requirements. Integration describes the distribution of project resources, finding compromises between conflicting goals and alternatives, and defines the integral links between other areas of knowledge.

Project Scope Management

Scope management refers to the processes that allow selecting, filtering, and grouping activities required for the project manager to complete the project successfully. Project scope management is directly related to the definition and control of the content to be included / not included in the project. It describes diagrams of the Collection of Requirements, the Definition of Project Scope, the Creation of a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), a Content Confirmation and a Content Management. When developing WBS, the rule “8/80” (1 day – 2 working weeks) is used. The Work Breakdown Package WB should be developed for 8 – 80 hours. Each Work Package must be assigned to a specific department or employee.

Project Time Management

Project time management or project terms, (since time is a broader concept), refers to the processes to ensure timely project completion. The scheme of these processes includes: Definition of operations, Definition of operations sequence, Assessment of operational resources, Assessment of the duration of operations, Development of the schedule and Management of the schedule.

Project Cost Management

Project cost management refers to the processes of planning and budgeting, as well as cost management, which ensure the project completion within the estimated budget. The process flow chart includes: Cost Estimation, Budget Definitions, and Cost Management.

Estimation is a foundation of planning. Considering the work packages, we estimate time, staff, and costs. Estimation is a certain value based on the experience of working with other projects. To increase the reliability of estimates, once can use the following Cost Estimate methods: Method of analogies, Expert assessment or Method of indicators.

As mechanisms and techniques for estimating the calculation of the project cost Expert opinion, similar project, Parametric, Ballpark Estimate (Rough Order of Magnitude ROM), Top-down, Three-point Estimate or Button-up methods can be used.

The most accurate method is Button-up, but it requires the Work Breakdown Structure.

Figure: Division into groups of project management processes and areas of knowledge.

Project Quality Management

Project Quality Management refers to the processes and various actions by the executing organization, approaches and quality policies, goals, objectives and areas of responsibility. The project must meet its initial needs. The quality management is carried out via quality management system, providing a set of specific rules and procedures, including actions for continuous improvement. The best practice is carrying out these activities throughout the entire project. The quality management diagram includes: Quality Planning, Quality Assurance and Quality Control.

Project Human Resource Management

HR management within the organization includes approaches to the project team management and leadership. A project team means a pool of qualified workers with specific roles and responsibilities are defined for project implementation. During the project implementation the professional and quantitative composition of the project team may change. Proper distribution of project roles and responsibilities between project team members allows all team members to get involved in project planning and decision-making. If project team members are attracted in the early stages, their existing experience may be applicable at the planning stage of the project, and help strengthen the focus of the project team on achieving certain results. The scheme of HR management includes: Developing an HR management plan, recruiting a project team, developing a project team and managing a project team.

Project Communications Management

Communication management is used to ensure the timely formation, preparation, distribution, archiving, transmission, receipt, and use of project information. Being a link between the various stakeholders involved in a particular project, project managers spend most of the time on communicating with team members and other project stakeholders. Proper communication management consists of uniting diverse cultural and organizational peculiarities, consolidating accumulated experience, comparing different views and interests in order to build a basic project management structure. The project communication management diagram includes:

• Identification of project stakeholders;

• Communication planning;

•Spread of information;

• Stakeholder expectations management;

• Performance reports.

The information is distributed through the following channels:

• Project manager – project commission, head of enterprise. Project reports, costs, trend analysis of milestones and costs, causes of deviations.

• Project team – project manager. The team reports on the work done and challenges. The project manager provides the team with information on further actions and decisions that affect their work.

• Users, product consumers – project manager. Information on the project development.

• Project manager – project plan. Plans are constantly monitored, since this is the basis of project controlling.

• Project team – heads of functional units. In the case of a functional organization of the company the owner of the resource must control his/her employees in terms of competence, knowledge, motivation, and project distribution.

Project Risk Management

Project risk management is understood as risk management planning, identifying and analyzing risks, developing risk response methods, controlling, monitoring and managing risks during project implementation. Using project risk management, project managers achieve increasing the likelihood of the occurrence and impact of favorable events on the project and reducing the likelihood of the occurrence and impact of adverse events on the project when executing project. The project risk management diagram includes:

• Risk management planning,

• Identification of risks

• Qualitative risk analysis,

• Quantitative risk analysis,

• Planning to respond to known risks

• Monitoring and risk management.

Project Procurement Management

Project procurement management includes the purchase or acquisition of certain required entities (products, services, results, documents) produced by external organizations in relation to the one in which the project is implemented. The organization carrying out the project, can act as a buyer or seller of these entities. In addition, the project’s procurement management include the contract and change management sub-processes required to develop and maintain contracts or purchase orders. Thanks to the project supply management processes, administering all purchase contracts during the project and managing the contractual obligations assigned to the project team are possible. The project supply management diagram includes:

• Procurement planning,

• Procurement,

• Procurement management,

• Procurement closure.

Project Stakeholder Management

Managing project stakeholder’s expectations is understood as communication between the project team and stakeholders, as well as work aimed at meeting their needs and solving emerging problems that may entail changes in the project. Property building up relationships between all stakeholders on a project allows the project manager to increase the likelihood of success.