System Integration Project

Awareness and Experience of Information System Integration Project Management

At present, the implementation of project management in the traditional industry has been very common, and in the information system integration industry, people are increasingly aware of the importance of the implementation of project management. Due to the high technology content of the information industry, information systems integration projects often encounter variable demand, technology updates and rapid changes in the environment, the frequent turnover of personnel and so on, so the information systems integration industry is more in need of scientific and standardized project management. Therefore, only the implementation of project management of information systems integration projects, in order to standardize project requirements, reduce project costs, shorten the project duration, to ensure the quality of information engineering.

So, we know the importance of the information systems integration industry to implement project management and the need, but how many companies have implemented project management in real life? And how many companies to implement project management has made remarkable achievements? Let's take a look at the operating model of these companies: Company A implemented project management, but the project manager is very modest, the size of the problems raised by the customer are given to solve the problem, the customer is very satisfied. However, the project is delayed for a longer period of time, the customer always wants to change all the problems before, has been repeatedly postponed. Company B has also implemented project management, but the project manager is overbearing, the problems raised by the customer are generally not solved, although the project progress control is better, basically on schedule to complete the project, but the customer is very dissatisfied. Company C has implemented project management on the surface, but the project manager has no real name, and each functional department works separately. The project has been delayed and overspent due to the cooperation between departments, but the end result is that the departments are complaining about each other. The operating model of these companies is only a drop in the ocean of the operating model of many companies, so the effective implementation of project management in the information systems integration industry is still a long way to go.

So, how to effectively implement project management in the information systems integration industry? I personally believe that from the following aspects:

One, the project feasibility study

In a certain organization, there is no completion of the project feasibility study, a project will not be officially launched. Many companies in the project feasibility study there will be many problems, such as: the depth of the study is not enough, the quality is not high enough to meet the needs of decision-making; do not pay attention to the argumentation and comparison of multiple programs, can not be preferred

; investigation and research is not enough to lead to the project investment return calculation is distorted; the preparation of feasibility study report lack of independence, impartiality and objectivity; and so on. In this regard, first of all, we must correctly understand the feasibility study of the stage of division and functional positioning. Second, according to the requirements of the feasibility study, correctly determine its basis. Thirdly, adopt scientific methods and advanced technology. Fourth, the establishment of scientific decision-making system and management mechanism.

Two, the project initiation stage

The project initiation stage needs to define the work objectives and work tasks; get the support of the boss or senior management; set up an excellent project team; prepare sufficient resources; establish good communication; and the positive response to the customer to carry out appropriate monitoring and feedback.

The most important and difficult task in project management is defining the work objectives and tasks, that is, determining the scope of the project. Lack of proper project scope definition and verification is the main reason for project failure. Through and project stakeholders in the project to produce what kind of product to reach the **** knowledge, product description, strategic plan, project selection criteria and other aspects of the information using project selection methods and expert judgment to output the project's formal approval documents, that is, the project charter.

As a project manager, how do you organize your project team? What type of organizational structure is used? Is it a vertical solution, a horizontal solution, or a hybrid solution? A team organized in a vertical scheme is made up of multi-faceted individuals, with each member fulfilling multiple roles. Teams organized in a horizontal scheme are made up of specialists, with each member fulfilling one or two roles. Teams organized in hybrid scenarios are composed of both polymaths and specialists. Projects with many cross-functional activities are most effectively organized in a matrix structure. Projects that require the tightest control of project resources are most effectively organized as project-based.

Establishing good communication requires the project manager to spend 75-90% of his time on communication. Project managers need user involvement, support from the boss or senior management, and a clear articulation of priorities and needs when communicating. These are the three elements on which the success of a project depends.

After completing the project charter, the project kicks off with a project team kickoff meeting, which focuses on establishing the formal team, providing roles and responsibilities of team members, providing performance management methodology, and providing members with the project scope and goals. Project startup also have to hold a project kickoff meeting for the customer, in this meeting the project manager will establish a formal communication channel with the customer, a comprehensive description of the project, so that project participants to understand each other, and to establish a project manager as the core of the management system.

Three, the project planning stage

1, WBS

This article is reprinted from the Alliance of Project Managers

The project will be broken down into manageable activities, that is, what we usually call WBS. through the understanding of the purpose of the project, to determine the work is divided into which parts of the main top-down part of the decomposition of the larger part of the next level, each component will be and then breaking it down into sub-components, completing each level until the work can be assigned and monitored, and developing a WBS dictionary and a numbering system for the WBS. Through the use of WBS, the project cost can be estimated, is the basis of the project plans and control measures and the main basis for the preparation of the project, to ensure that the project structure of the systematic and complete, you can establish a complete project assurance system to facilitate the implementation of the implementation and realization of the objectives of the requirements for the establishment of the project information communication system to provide a basis for easy to grasp the key points of the information is the basis of the scope of the project to change the control and the basis of the project risk management plan preparation. The basis for the preparation of the plan.

2, project schedule

Project schedule is to determine the start and completion of each activity. If the start and completion time is not realistic, the project is unlikely to be completed according to the schedule. Develop a project schedule plan first to define the specific activities that must be completed to produce the deliverables identified in the WBS, to get a list of activities; and then through the lead diagram method, arrow diagram method or critical path method tools and techniques will be the order of the activities are arranged to determine the logical relationship between the activities; followed by the use of analogies, expert estimation, WBS-based sub-activity estimation methods or quantitative estimation methods on the Activity duration is estimated; finally, based on the above mentioned activity definition, activity sequencing and activity duration estimation and other data acquisition, iterative improvement is carried out to obtain a schedule suitable for this project.

3. Project Risk Management

Risk is definitely uncertain, but an event with uncertainty is not necessarily a risk. Therefore, we can also define the project's risk: the project's risk is in the project management activities or events in the negative, the potential for project managers do not want the consequences of the occurrence.

Risk is characterized by the following:

First, the objectivity and universality of the existence of risk.

As the uncertainty of the occurrence of losses, risk is not subject to human will and beyond people's subjective consciousness of the objective existence, and in the whole life cycle of the project, the risk is ubiquitous, there is no time. These explain why although human beings have always hoped to recognize and control risk, but until now can only change the conditions of the existence and occurrence of risk in a limited space and time, reduce the frequency of its occurrence, reduce the degree of loss, but can not and can not completely eliminate risk. Project Managers Alliance article, in-depth discussion.

Second, the contingency of the occurrence of a specific risk and the inevitability of the occurrence of a large number of risks.

The occurrence of any specific risk is the result of many risk factors and other factors **** the same role, is a random phenomenon. The occurrence of individual risk incident is accidental, haphazard, but the observation and statistical analysis of a large number of risk incident information, found that it shows a clear pattern of movement, which makes it possible to use probability statistical methods and other modern risk analysis methods to calculate the probability of occurrence of the risk and the degree of loss, but also led to the rapid development of risk management.

Third, the variability of risk.

This means that throughout the process of project implementation, various risks can be qualitatively and quantitatively variable. As the project proceeds, some risks are controlled and eliminated, some risks will occur and be dealt with, while at the same time in each stage of the project may generate new risks.

Fourth, the diversity and multilayered nature of risks.

Large-scale development projects with a long cycle, large scale, wide range of risk factors, the number and variety of risk factors lead to a variety of risks in the whole life cycle. And a large number of risk factors are intricately related to the complexity of the internal relationship between the risk factors and the external cross-influence and make the risk of displaying a multi-layered nature.

How to identify risks?

Project Managers Alliance, Project Management Issues.

1, the principle of decomposition: that is, the complexity of the project management process is difficult to understand things broken down into simpler things that can be easily recognized, the large system is broken down into small systems, which is also commonly used by people in the analysis of the problem (such as the project Work Breakdown Structure WBS);

, Fault Tree (FALT TREES) method: that is, the use of the form of the graphic will be a large Risk decomposition into a variety of small risks, or a variety of causes of risk decomposition, which is a favorable tool for risk identification. The method is the use of tree diagrams will be the project risk from coarse to fine, from large to small, hierarchical arrangement of methods, so that it is easy to find out all the risk factors, the relationship is clear. Similar to the fault tree and probability tree, decision tree, etc.; This article is transferred from the Project Managers Alliance

3, expert investigation method: because the main task in the risk identification stage is to identify a variety of potential hazards and make qualitative estimates of their consequences, not required to make a quantitative estimate, but also because of the risk of some of the difficult to be confirmed in a short period of time using statistical methods, experimental analysis methods or causality argumentation. (e.g. the impact of changes in market demand on the economic efficiency of the project, the competitive impact of similar software developers on the Organization, etc.). There are two main types of this method: the brainstorming method and the Delphi method.

After risk identification, how do we analyze it?

Risk analysis is the analysis of the consequences of any event that may occur in the course of project management, based on the identification of risks, in order to determine the probability of the occurrence of the event and the potential associated consequences that may affect the project. The starting point of risk analysis is to reveal the causes, effects and magnitude of the observed risks and to propose and examine alternatives.

Project Managers Alliance, Project Management Issues.

In response to the likelihood of a risk appearing, some means of controlling the risk is required, and we recommend using the following risk control steps:

Project Managers Alliance, Project Management Issues.

1, in consultation with the project members now in service, to determine the reasons for the turnover of personnel (for example, poor working conditions, low income, competition in the human market, etc.);

2, before the start of the project, to mitigate these reasons (risk avoidance) work included in the control plan that has been drawn up; Project Managers Alliance, project management issues.

3, when the project is initiated, prepare for the fact that personnel turnover will occur, and take steps to ensure that the project can continue once personnel leave (mitigate risk);

4, establish a project team so that all project members have access to timely information about project activities;

5, develop documentation standards and establish a mechanism to ensure that the documentation can be produced in a timely manner;

6. Organize detailed reviews of all work so that more people can complete their work according to the planned schedule;

7. Develop backup personnel for each key technical staff;

8. Conduct event tracking and major risk factor tracking at project milestones for reassessment of risk;

9. In the project development Maintain the collection of information related to risk factors during the process.

Fourth, the project control implementation phase of the Project Managers Alliance, project management issues.

Project Managers Alliance article, in-depth discussion.

The project control implementation phase is mainly to progress control, cost control and quality control.

1, progress control

Project progress control is based on the project schedule to control the actual progress of the project, so that the project can be completed on time. The key to effective project progress control is to monitor the actual progress of the project, timely, regular comparison of it with the planned progress, and immediately take the necessary corrective measures. The components include: influencing the factors that cause schedule changes to ensure that they are recognized by all parties; ascertaining whether the schedule has changed; managing actual changes as they occur; and schedule control should be tightly integrated with other control processes and should continue throughout the project. Project Managers Alliance, Project Management Issues.

2, cost control project cost control refers to the project organization in order to ensure the realization of its budgeted costs under changing conditions, in accordance with the pre-drafted plans and standards, through the use of a variety of methods for the implementation of the project in the process of various actual costs incurred in the process of comparing with the planned costs, checking, supervising, guiding and correcting, and as far as possible, to make the project's actual cost control in the plans and budgets within the scope of management processes Project cost control is a management process to control the actual cost of the project within the scope of plan and budget. Project cost control is based on the cost budget of the various tasks of the project, cost baseline plan, cost performance report, change request and project cost management plan; cost change control system, performance measurement, supplemental programming and computer tools and other methods.

3, quality control

Now many companies believe that the company's staff is responsible for quality issues, and not the responsibility of management, this view is wrong. Total quality management emphasizes the pursuit of customer satisfaction, focusing on prevention rather than inspection, and emphasizes the management's responsibility for quality as well as full participation in continuous improvement. Quality control is based on work results, quality management plans and bath definitions and test lists; inspection, statistical sampling, checklists, permutation charts, histograms, scatter plots, control charts, flow charts, trend analysis and the 6 δ management method as a tool.

Project Managers Alliance, Project Management Issues.

V. Project Closeout Phase

1. Project Closeout

At the end of the project, the project manager has to submit the final system solution to the user, complete all the submittals of the project, collect all the information of the project and close the project, complete or terminate the contract, and sign the documents related to the end of the project.

2. Project Completion Meeting

When the project ends, there is still a meeting to be held, with seven main topics: technical performance, cost performance, schedule performance, project planning and control, project communication, identifying problems and solving problems, and comments and suggestions. Lessons learned are also summarized.

3. Customer Satisfaction

The best way for a project team to get customer satisfaction ratings is to submit a project satisfaction survey to the customer, and get good feedback from the customer as proof of the case for successful completion of the company's project.