Reflection on the IT Project Management Class

In the Name of the Most Gracious the Most Merciful…

Alhamdulillah I have completed this course with the assistant of our beloved lecturer Madam Masita. Thank you Madam for guiding us to be a better person by giving us this knowledge. May Allah bless u madam. First and foremost, the best about this course is that I manage to know well how to be a good project manager and successful team leader.

Maybe I could not manage to be a good project manager during our class time. But InsyaAllah madam, with your dua and permission from Allah, all what you have teach to me I will not just take it in theory, but I will implement and teach others too. All the subjects in this course really benefit me to be a successful IT person, InsyaAllah.

The thing I dislike most about the course is not about the course, but it is the student who studies the course. While you are teaching, there are some student didn’t give a full concentration to our discussion. And I sorry if I have done like that before.

To improve the delivery of the course maybe we need to consider for variety our teaching method. For me, this course is all about team work. Whether we are the leader or not, we are standing as a team. Such the module like Ta’aruf, team building, Ice-breaking need to be consider while letting the student to be in their group by their own. A good project manager or a good leader come from a good project follower or project team member. Letting them to jump to be a leader might cause a problem on the future.

In term of the content, I think we must move forward in generating the Muslim IT minded. We need to setup the vision for each of class members to become a project manager that can contribute something for the ummah, not just for our own seek. Islamic perspective need to be emphasized in every chapter of PMIT. Amanah, Siddiq, Fathonah and Tabligh are the basis items for each project manager. InsyaAllah madam, we’ll be generating the next Salahudin generation to take back Islam to the glory and created the new civilization better that ottoman and others empire, InsyaAllah.

If I have more time, I wish to have an ice-breaking module and group binding modules. Thus, fun learning can be implemented also to attract the student to love the course. If can we all together want to be a team in PMIT for this year and That will bind our heart to create a magnificent ukhuwah and lead us to be a good manager and leader in the variety of areas in the future.

InsyaAllah.

Chapter 12

Project Procurement Management

Procurement means acquiring goods and/or services from an outside source. Procurement is sometimes called outsources. We outsources to reduce both fixed and recurrent costs, to allow the client organization to focus on its core business, to access skills and technologies, to provide flexibility and to increase accountability.

A contract is a mutually binding agreement that obligates the seller to provide the specified products or services and obligates the buyer to pay for them. There are 6 processes in project procuremeny management:
— Planning purchases and acquisitions
— Planning contracting
— Requesting seller responses
— Selecting sellers
— Administering the contract
— Closing the contract

The first process is planning purchases and acquisitions. It can be made by identifying which project needs can best be met by using products or services outside the organization. as make-or-buy analysis is one of the Tools and Techniques for Planning Purchases and Acquisition.


Different types of contracts can be used in different situations:
— Fixed price or lump sum contracts
— Cost reimbursable contracts
— Time and material contracts
— Unit price contracts

The Point of Total Assumption (PTA) is the cost at which the contractor assumes total responsibility for each additional dollar of contract cost. Contracts should include specific clauses to take into account issues unique to the project and require various educational or work experiences for different pay rights. A termination clause is a contract clause that allows the buyer or supplier to end the contract. A statement of work is a description of the work required for the procurement.

Planning contacting involves preparing several documents needed for potential sellers to prepare their responses and determining the evaluation criteria for the contract award. Request for Proposals: used to solicit proposals from prospective sellers. And Requests for Quotes: used to solicit quotes or bids from prospective suppliers.

Requesting Seller Responses is deciding whom to ask to do the work, sending appropriate documentation to potential sellers, and obtaining proposals or bids. In selecting sellers the activities involves
— Evaluating proposals or bids from sellers
— Choosing the best one
— Negotiating the contract
— Awarding the contract

Administering the contract is to ensures that the seller’s performance meets contractual requirements.

Closing the Contract involves completing and settling contracts and resolving any open items. The project team should, determine if all work was completed correctly and satisfactorily.

Chapter 11

Project risk management

As we know, risk can be negative (understanding potential problems that might occur in the project and how they might impede project success) or positive (risks that result in good things happening; sometimes called opportunities). Risk utility or risk tolerance is the amount of satisfaction or pleasure received from a potential payoff. There are six processes involved:
@ Risk management planning
— Risk identification
— Qualitative risk analysis,
— Quantitative risk analysis
— Risk response planning
— Risk monitoring and control

The main output of risk management planning is a risk management plan—a plan that documents the procedures for managing risk throughout a project. A risk breakdown structure is a hierarchy of potential risk categories for a project. Similar to a work breakdown structure but used to identify and categorize risks.


In addition, Risk identification is the process of understanding what potential events might hurt or enhance a particular project. Risk identification tools and techniques include: brainstorming, the Delphi Technique, Interviewing and SWOT analysis. Thus, a risk register is a document that contains the results of various risk management processes and that is often displayed in a table or spreadsheet format and for documenting potential risk events and related information.

Top Ten Risk Item Tracking is a qualitative risk analysis tool that helps to identify risks and maintain an awareness of risks throughout the life of a project. A watch list is a list of risks that are low priority, but are still identified as potential risks.

Quantitative Risk Analysis often follows qualitative risk analysis, but both can be done together. Main techniques include: Decision tree analysis, simulation and sensitivity analysis. After identifying and quantifying risks, you must decide how to respond to them. Four main response strategies for negative risks:
— Risk avoidance
— Risk acceptance
— Risk transference
— Risk mitigation

Workarounds are unplanned responses to risk events that must be done when there are no contingency plans.

Chapter 10

Project Communications Management

The process involves communications planning, Information distribution, Performance reporting, managing stakeholders.

First and foremost, communications planning determining the information and communications needs of the stakeholders. The output is stakeholder analysis. Communication management contents requires stakeholder communications , information to be communicated, including format, content, and level of detail, the people who will receive the information and who will produce it and suggested methods or technologies for conveying the information.


Secondly, information distribution determining the information and communications needs of the stakeholders. Research says that in a face-to-face interaction:
58 percent of communication is through body language
35 percent of communication is through how the words are said
7 percent of communication is through the content or words that are spoken

Communication consider rarely does the receiver interpret a message exactly as the sender intended or geographic location and cultural background affect the complexity of project communications like:
Different working hours
Language barriers
Different cultural norms

Next, performance reporting collecting and disseminating performance information, including status reports, progress measurement, and forecasting. Thus, Status reports describe where the project stands at a specific point in time. Progress reports describe what the project team has accomplished during a certain period of time. Forecasts predict future project status and progress based on past information and trends.

Last but not least, managing stakeholders managing communications to satisfy the needs and expectations of project stakeholders and to resolve issues. Two important tools include expectations management matrix and issue log.

There are some suggestions for improving project communications; manage conflicts effectively, develop better communication skills, run effective meetings, use e-mail and other technologies effectively and use templates for project communications.

Groupthink is conformance to the values or ethical standards of a group; groupthink can develop if there are no conflicting viewpoints. On running effective meetings we must: Define the purpose and intended outcome of the meeting, determine who should attend the meeting and provide an agenda to participants before the meeting, run the meeting professionally and build relationships. The project manager and project team members should each prepare a lessons-learned report. Lastly, a reflective statement which is lessons learned report that documents important things an individual learned from working on the project must be provided.

Chapter 9

Project Human Resources Management

Project HR management is Making the most effective use of the people involved with a project. The processes includes; Human resource planning, acquiring the project team, developing the project team and managing the project team. In human management, Thamhain and Wilemon’s produce the ways to have influence on projects. For examples; authority, assignment, budget, promotion, money, penalty, work challenge, expertise and friendship.
As we know HR planning Involves identifying and documenting project roles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships and the outputs include: project organizational charts, staffing management plan, responsibility assignment matrixes and resource histograms. A responsibility assignment matrix (RAM) is a matrix that maps the work of the project as described in the WBS to the people responsible for performing the work as described in the OBS.

Next, acquiring the project team, it’s important to assign the appropriate type and number of people to work on projects at the appropriate times. In resources assignment Staffing plans and good hiring procedures are important, as are incentives for recruiting and retention.

In developing the project team, the main goal focus on is to help people work together more effectively to improve project performance. In Managing the Project Team, Project managers must lead their teams in performing various project activities. Some of the tools and Techniques for Managing Project Teams; Observation and conversation, project performance appraisals, conflict management and issue logs.

Project managers must treat people with consideration and respect, understand what motivates them and communicate carefully with them. Thus they must focus on your goal of enabling project team members to deliver their best work.

Chapter 8

Project Quality Management

(ISO) defines quality as “the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills requirements” (ISO9000:2000). Project quality management ensures that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken. The processes in quality management are Quality planning, quality assurance and quality control.

As we know cost planning is the ability to anticipate situations and prepare actions to bring about the desired outcome. And, design of experiments is a quality planning technique that helps identify which variables have the most influence on the overall outcome of a process.

In quality management there are scopes in IT projects; functionality is the degree to which a system performs its intended function, features are the system’s special characteristics that appeal to users, system outputs are the screens and reports the system generates, performance addresses how well a product or service performs the customer’s intended use, reliability is the ability of a product or service to perform as expected under normal conditions and maintainability addresses the ease of performing maintenance on a product.

Secondly, quality assurance. It is includes all the activities related to satisfying the relevant quality standards for a project. Benchmarking generates ideas for quality improvements by comparing specific project practices or product characteristics to those of other projects or products within or outside the performing organization. Quality audit is a structured review of specific quality management activities that help identify lessons learned that could improve performance on current or future projects.

The main outputs of quality control are; acceptance decisions, rework and process adjustments. Thus, there are Seven Basic Tools of Quality that help in performing quality control:

1. Cause-and-effect diagrams trace complaints about quality problems back to the responsible production operations.
2. Control chart is a graphic display of data that illustrates the results of a process over time.
3. Run chart displays the history and pattern of variation of a process over time.
4. Scatter diagram helps to show if there is a relationship between two variables.
5. Histogram is a bar graph of a distribution of variables
6. Pareto chart is a histogram that can help you identify and prioritize problem areas
7. Flowcharts are graphic displays of the logic and flow of processes that help you analyze how problems occur and how processes can be improved.

Six Sigma is “a comprehensive and flexible system for achieving, sustaining, and maximizing business success. Six Sigma is uniquely driven by close understanding of customer needs, disciplined use of facts, data, and statistical analysis, and diligent attention to managing, improving, and reinventing business processes.” Six 9s of quality is a measure of quality control equal to 1 fault in 1 million opportunities. In the telecommunications industry, it means 99.9999 percent service availability or 30 seconds of down time a year.

In the testing for the project it must be done during almost every phase of the IT product development life cycle. There are 4 types of testing:
* Unit testing tests each individual component (often a program) to ensure it is as defect-free as possible
— Integration testing occurs between unit and system testing to test functionally grouped components
— System testing tests the entire system as one entity
— User acceptance testing is an independent test performed by end users prior to accepting the delivered system

Juran, Crosby, ishikawa are the quality experts in quality management. In U.S, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award will be given to companies achieved a level of world-class competition through quality management. And for the CMMI levels, from lowest to highest, are:
— Incomplete
— Performed
— Managed
— Defined
— Quantitatively Managed
— Optimizing

Chapter 7

Project Cost Management

As we know Cost is a resource sacrificed or foregone to achieve a specific objective or something given up in exchange. There are usually measured in monetary units like dollars, Malaysia Ringgit and many more. There are 3 processes involve in cost management; cost estimating, cost budgeting and cost control. All this processes are interrelated among each other. Some basic principle of cost management like profit, life cycle costing, cash flow analysis, tangible or intangible costs or benefit, direct and indirect costs sunk cost are important to know before handling cost.

First and foremost, there are three types of cost estimating; Rough of order, budgetary and definite. A cost management plan is a document that describes how the organization will manage cost variance on the project. Some basic tools and techniques for cost estimates; Analogous or top-down estimates, bottom-up estimates and parametric modeling. Furthermore, typical problem with IT cost estimates;

# Estimates are done too quickly
— Lack of estimating experience
— Human beings are biased toward underestimation
— Management desires accuracy

Next, cost budgeting involves allocating the project cost estimate to individual work items over time and the goal is to produce a cost baseline. Last but not least, Project cost control includes:
— Monitoring cost performance
— Ensuring that only appropriate project changes are included in a revised cost baseline
— Informing project stakeholders of authorized changes to the project that will affect costs

EVM is a project performance measurement technique that integrates scope, time, and cost data. Some terms in EVM are planned value (PV), Actual cost (AC), earned value (EV).