Summery of the first six chapters in PMIT

Chapter 1:

Introduction to Project Management in IT

Summary:

Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives. It is often closely related to and sometimes conflated with program management.

A project is a temporary endeavor, having a defined beginning and end (usually constrained by time, but can be by funding or deliverables), undertaken to meet particular goals and objectives, usually to bring about beneficial change or added value. The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast to business as usual (or operations), which are repetitive, permanent or semi-permanent functional work to produce products or services. In practice, the management of these two systems is often found to be quite different, and as such requires the development of distinct technical skills and the adoption of separate management.

The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals and objectives while honoring the preconceived project constraints. Typical constraints are scope, time, and budget. The secondary challenge is to optimize the allocation and integration of inputs necessary to meet pre-defined objectives.The project manager's role is the overall responsibility for the successful planning, execution, monitoring, control and closure of a project.

Chapter 2:

The Project Management and Information Technology Context

Summary:

Project manager need to consider projects within the greater organizational context. Organizations have four different frames: structural, human resources, political and symbolic. Project manager need to understand this aspect to be successful.

Organizational structure can affect project management. A culture where an employer has a strong identity in the organization and where work activities are emphasized in groups. Running a successful project requires a high degree of stakeholder management. So who are stakeholders? A stakeholder is anyone who has an interest in your project or will be affected by its deliverables or output. It is important to understand the values and issues that stakeholders have in order to address them and keep everyone on board for the duration of the project. A project should successfully pass through each of the project phases in order to continue to the next phase. Leading project team members with a wide variety of specialized skills and understanding rapidly changing technologies are also important consideration.

Chapter 3:

The project management process

Summary:

This chapter speaks about project management processes. Project management is often a number of interlinked processes. In this chapter we see that project management processes are grouped into five: initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing. Normally the executing process requires most resources and time, followed by the planning process.

Some organizations develop their own information technology project management methodologies.

The JWD consulting case study demonstrates how one organization managed an information technology project from it initiation through its closure. The case study provides several simple of output produced for initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing.

Chapter 4:

Project integration management

Summary:

Project integration management is usually the most important project management knowledge area, since it ties together all the other areas of the project management. A project manager’s primary focus should be on project integration management.

Project integration management includes the following process:

- Developing the project charter involves working with stakeholders to create document that formally authorize a project.

- Developing the preliminary project scope statement involves further work with stakeholder, especially users of the project’s products, services, or results, to develop the high-level scope requirements.

- Developing the project management plain involves coordinating all planning efforts to create a consistent, coherent document-the project management plan.

- Directing and managing project execution involves caring out the project plan by performing the activities included in it.

- There are several types of software products available to assist in project integration management.

Chapter 5:

Project scope management

Summary:

Project scope management includes the processes required to ensure that the project addresses all the work required, and only the work required, to complete the project successfully. The main processes of this scope are: scope planning, scope definition, create the WBS, scope verification and scope control. If these five concepts of the scope are well managed the scope will function well and the project will succeed.

Chapter 6:

Project time management

Summary:

Project time management is often cited as the main source of conflict on projects, and most IT projects exceed time estimates. The main factor in this set of activity is to meet the following requirements: Activity definition, activity sequencing, activity resource estimating, activity duration estimating, schedule development, schedule control. A manager has to know and have adequate knowledge about these activities in order to produce a good output in the time required by the project.