Hello, It is for the book with the IBAN: 9781285452340 INFORMATION TECH.PROJ.MGM

Question

Hello,

It is for the book with the IBAN: 9781285452340
INFORMATION TECH.PROJ.MGMT
by SCHWALBE

Can you give me the solutions for the following questions.

page 76

Exercise

5. Write a short summary of an article that discusses the importance of top management sup - port for successful IT projects. Your summary should include your opinion on this topic.

and

7. Research the agile movement as it applies to software development and other types of proj - ects. See how many books and websites are available on the topic. Is there evidence to show that agile projects are more successful than others? What agile principles can be applied to all types of projects? Write a short paper that summarizes your findings, and cite at least three references. Also include any personal experience and your opinion on the topic.

Thank you for your help

Best regards

Deniz Kaan Kürt

Explanation / Answer

  Importance of Top Management Support for Successful IT Projects

Identifying critical top management support processes for the software sector. These processes may allow senior managers to better use their limited time and budget while supporting projects. . Investigating the actual pattern of support provided by senior managers in software organisations. The objective of this issue is to learn whether senior managers focus on the most effective support processes.

Top management support has become a specifically important factor in the software sector with the introduction of maturity models, such as Capability Maturity Model, Capability Maturity Model Integrated and Organisational Project Management Maturity Model. These models analyse projects as an organisational effort, rather than a project manager’s exercise. An important assumption of these models is that an organisation has a direct effect on the way project managers run their projects. One example of evidence to strengthen this assumption is that top management support highly influences the tools project managers decide to use in projects , so that project successfully completes and being delivered in time.

While there are many ways in which an organisation can support its project managers, it is important to focus on the most effective processes. These are called critical success processes – CSPs A critical success process is one that most significantly improves project success. Critical top management support processes that an organisation may consider to implement, include develop project procedures, involve the project manager during initiation stage, support on going project management training programmes, establish a project management office (PMO), develop a supportive project organisational structure, define clear project success measures and support projects in quality management . However, these processes are general and hence may not be relevant to the unique software industry. These processes may support software development senior managers with limited time and resources in decision making, by choosing to focus on the most effective processes.

In my opinion there is model which needs to implement that moderates the relationship between top management support and project success:

Top Management Support process

1. Schedule overrun

2. Cost overrun

3. Project performance

4. Customer satisfaction

In the overall analysis presented, out of the 17 processes included in the model, ten have been found to have significant impact on project success. These ten critical top management support processes in the software sector are:

This ten critical top management support processes in the software sector are:

Top Management support planning processes are followed:

Conclusion :

Top management support is known to have a positive influence on project success. Indeed, executives in the software sector spend much effort in supporting projects in numerous ways.

Evidence of Success of Agile Projects:

1. Early results of a study on the effects of agile development practices are showing improvements in productivity and quality.

Michael Mah, managing partner of QSM Associates, Inc., explored the results in “Columbus Discovering Agile” at ProjectsAtWork:

“Early results from the Columbus-area participants show that a typical business system comprising 50,000 lines of code is completed 31% faster than the industry average in the QSM industry database of completed projects (4.4 months vs. 6.4 industry average). Even more remarkable is the defect rate, which is 75% lower than the industry norm”

The paper from David includes data from several studies on the results of agile project management:

“Agile project management benefits come from many factors that are too numerous to mention here. The primary drivers are increased productivity and quality. Productivity comes from its streamlined nature and quality from its uncompromising discipline. However, its real power comes from its adaptability to change, collaborative nature, and focus on bottom line business results for the marketplace”

2. According to CHAOS report Agile Succeeds three times more often than Waterfall

Agile projects are successful three times more often than non-agile projects, according to the 2011 CHAOS report from the Standish Group. The report goes so far as to say, “The agile process is the universal remedy for software development project failure. Software applications developed through the agile process have three times the success rate of the traditional waterfall method and a much lower percentage of time and cost overruns.” The Standish Group defines project success as on time, on budget, and with all planned features. They do not report how many projects are in their database but say that the results are from projects conducted from 2002 through 2010.

Reference URL:” https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/agile-succeeds-three-times-more-often-than-waterfall”

Agile Principles Can be applied to all type of Projects:

Agile is not a methodology but an approach to software development that can be applied to every methodology. Methodologies such as SCRUM and XP were designed to make specific use of Agile principles, but this doesn’t mean you need to work this way in order to gain all or most of the benefits of Agile.

The Five Principles that can be followed:

1. Work in smaller chunks

Instead of working with a small number of very large requirements or tasks, break them down into smaller, more easily managed chunks that can be completed in shorter time intervals (days or weeks). This way you are making sure tasks don’t start taking up more resources than you originally allocated (because if you’re planning assumptions start slipping you will notice it within 2 weeks instead 2-3 months into the work) and most importantly, you will be able to deliver features faster to Testing and to Product Marketing and get feedback in time to make the necessary fixes and adjustments without affecting your release date.

2. Increase the collaboration and communication between programmers and testers

If the idea is to get feedback about the features to the developers as quickly as possible then the best way to do so is to test sooner, many times, even in parallel to development.

You can achieve this in multiple ways, for example by inviting testers to run their test directly on the development environment as soon as parts of the features are ready (instead of waiting until everything is completed).

Another way is by having testers work with developers to plan and write their Unit and Integration tests in ways that will help them catch more bugs more quickly. And finally, how about we start teaching programmers how to run at least part of the manual and automatic tests written by the testers as part of their Sanity Sessions before committing their code? We see many teams where developers have their own Test Sets in Practises that they need to run before committing their code to the main branches.

3. Have more automated tests and run them more often

This is one of the first principles applied by Agile teams but in fact, it is logical for every type of project. Make a commitment and a conscious investment in automation.

Start by instructing your developers to create Unit and Integration tests for each new feature or major bug fix.

You can also have your testing team create automatic tests to cover as much of your product as possible, and instruct your developers to code in ways that will make this functional automation simpler and more robust (for example, by using correct instrumentation of the GUI elements).

But creating your tests is not nearly enough. You need to have a framework that runs these tests as often as possible and provides immediate feedback to programmers whenever they’ve introduced a bug.

Today there are a number of very good Continuous Integration Frameworks (such as Jenkins, Bamboo or Team City), all of them can be integrated into Practises using our Robust API.

4. Seek quick feedback and continuous improvement

The greatest enemy of improvement is human behaviour, no one likes being criticized.

That is why whenever we work on something, we don’t like showing it to others unless we feel it is complete..

But as you may already understand, this is counter-productive in programming because if we wait too much to get feedback then we won’t be able to implement any changes without missing our delivery targets.

So what can you do,

Basically, overcome the trauma of being criticized by making it a policy to have everyone present their progress to the rest of the team and product marketing – as they are working.

Work on creating a culture where people know how to give and receive feedback. You can achieve this by making sure feedback is always directed to the work and not to the person, and also by having people give feedback on both the good and bad things in the product (and not only focus on stuff that needs to be fixed).

It may not be easy at first, but it will be easier with time and the value gained by this is simply incredible.

5. Embrace change and work accordingly

This may be the cornerstone of Agile – the realization that regardless of how hard you work on planning your project and how good you are at it, in the end, stuff will change and you will need to adjust your plans.

First of all plan less, not less deep but yes, less for the long-term since you cannot foresee exactly what your reality will be a few months down the line.

Seek feedback sooner rather than later, make sure that if you do need to change features and plans, you know this 2 to 4 weeks into the project and not 6 to 9 months into it.

Plan for change and make sure your team is aware that change will indeed come and it will be accepted; this makes it easier for them when they are faced with that reality and need to cope with it.

ReferenceURL:“https://www.practitest.com/updates/2013/01/5-agile-principles-you-can-apply-to-every-type-of-development-process/”

Personal Experience:

I am a Senior Software Developer in IT Industry; I have also worked in agile methodology,

I found it faster than Water cycle model. Parallel we used to develop the code and also client was able to see what exactly being developed and less time was being consumed to develop the product using agile methodology.

In my opinion it’s a good topic now days everyone should know.

Top Management Support process

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse H
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.