Implementation of a Successful Project Management Method to Serve Modern Organizations

The project management arena requires much knowledge, many skills, techniques, tools, and a high level of experience in order to achieve satisfactory results and to add value to organizations. The scope of this paper is to address and discuss many important aspects needed to succeed in project management within Iraqi organizations because Iraqi businesses are developing and expanding their products into global markets. However, most Iraqi organizations struggle to implement and select productive programs and projects that will fit in with their strategic objectives. Therefore, a primary aim of this paper is to discuss the factors that make project management more effective and successful in these organizations. Also, there are many challenges and risks that project management can face during project processes that can have an effect on an entire project and sometime cause project failure. In addition, many organizations have problems with project teams, such as, differences in culture and behavior within the same team. Therefore, project management should have the organizational skills, knowledge, experience, and technical skills in order to meet the project requirements. This paper contributes and clarifies the understanding of project management field and how it works in an efficient manner. The results will help Iraqi organizations to utilize project management skills and knowledge. Also, these skills will help them to reduce budgets and increase the value of the final products within a reasonable time

Pmo Lite for Colorado Housing and Finance Authority

The focus of this professional project was to identify the appropriate services for a lightweight project management office (PMO) to implement at a company referred to with the alias Not-For-Profit Organization (NFPO), and then to complete the first phase of this implementation. NFPO had lower project success rates than desired. They wanted to integrate project management practices into their organization in order to be more effective in meeting their mission. In order to determine the best approach to do this, lightweight and heavyweight project management methodologies and PMOs were examined. Based on NFPO\u27s smaller staff size, their culture, managements\u27 desire to keep overhead low, and their low project management maturity state, a lightweight PMO (PMO Lite) with a supportive nature was tailored for NFPO\u27s needs. This paper presents the results of the first phase of the PMO Lite implementation, which was to implement PMO Lite within the IT division. The next phase planned was to implement PMO Lite company-wide. For the first phase a PMO Lite Project Charter was completed. This document defined the goals and objectives, as well as high level responsibilities and resources for the PMO. A primary service of the PMO was to manage a project management methodology. Next, a simple project management methodology was developed to eventually be used organization-wide for all projects. It incorporated Scrum in a separate project management methodology for the IT application development projects. Document templates and a central document repository were created. IT staff were trained on these methodologies. A business case for NFPO\u27s PMO Lite was presented. The early results of the implementation were favorable. They included executive support of the PMO, IT staff trained on the project management methodologies, and the successful completion of two Scrum projects

Business Intelligence systems development in hospitals using an Agile Project Management approach

"Measure to manage" is a widely used expression to demonstrate that good governance must necessarily go through obtaining good data and information. These will allow managers to know the past and the momentum of the business and also to predict, estimate and take the best-informed decisions. The greater the complexity of the business, the greater this need. Healthcare units, specifically hospitals, are organizations that, due to their function and diversity of areas, are considered one of the most complex. In this context, projects for the development of business intelligence solutions, with huge impact and scope, undergo the need for continuous improvement and incremental evolution. Agile methods, by their nature and principles, are suitable to fulfil this need. The purpose of this dissertation is to support future research towards better models with agile tools to develop business intelligence system in hospitals and, manly, to understand how can Agile methodology improve a Business Intelligence System Implementation. This will be done mainly through bibliographical research on the covered topics, namely, Hospitals, Business Intelligence, Agile and Project Management. The expect results will be some clear practical guidelines, that any IT Project Manager could use for an efficient Business Intelligence System implementation using an Agile methodology. This will be done with the presentation of two use cases, from implementations in two hospitals in Portugal, where the Agile proposed model could be used to improve the outcomes of the projects. For that a deep analysis of the various phases of Business Intelligence development was carried out on the basis of information obtained in the literature and on the basis of information obtained in the practical development of Business Intelligence implementation projects. In the end it can be seen that the application of Agile can bring enormous benefits to the development of this kind of project, as, in addition to the advantages listed and widely known about Agile, it can help intensively to bring together and involve all the stakeholders of a project in a common goal of success and effectiveness

Controlling Lost Opportunity Costs in Agile Development – the Basic Lost Opportunity Estimation Model for Requirements Scoping

We present a model for estimating the final keep/cancel decision point, on a per-feature basis, for scope inclusion in a future release. The Basic Lost Opportunity Estimation Model (BLOEM), based on data from a company that uses an agile-inspired software development model, supports feature selection when the time-dependent business value estimates change as the requirements analysis progresses. The initial BLOEM validation, conducted on a set of 166 features, suggests that the model can valuable input to the feature selection process for a given release, helping to control lost opportunity costs due to feature cancellation. Limitations of BLOEM are discussed and issues for further research are presented

Product development projects and ways to improve and manage them - case company X

This thesis work focuses on project management in product development projects. Meaning and purpose of projects and project management is looked at, as well as different project management methodologies. The research section of the work presents a qualitative research done on the subject of improving project work in product development for a case company that wishes to stay anonymous. The study results are analyzed and from them a conclusion and recommendation delivered to the company. The strategic starting point of this work is the case company’s wish to gain more efficiency and tools to be used in product development projects. The theoretical framework is formed so that it gives a good understanding on the background of the research topic

Program Management for Large Scale Engineering Programs

The goal of this whitepaper is to summarize the LAI research that applies to program management. The context of most of the research discussed in this whitepaper are large-scale engineering programs, particularly in the aerospace & defense sector. The main objective is to make a large number of LAI publications – around 120 – accessible to industry practitioners by grouping them along major program management activities. Our goal is to provide starting points for program managers, program management staff and system engineers to explore the knowledge accumulated by LAI and discover new thoughts and practical guidance for their everyday challenges. The whitepaper begins by introducing the challenges of programs in section 4, proceeds to define program management in section 5 and then gives an overview of existing program management frameworks in section 6. In section 7, we introduce a new program management framework that is tailored towards describing the early program management phases – up to the start of production. This framework is used in section 8 to summarize the relevant LAI research

LAI Whitepaper Series: “Lean Product Development for Practitioners”: Program Management for Large Scale Engineering Programs

The whitepaper begins by introducing the challenges of programs in section 4, proceeds to define program management in section 5 and then gives an overview of existing program management frameworks in section 6. In section 7, we introduce a new program management framework that is tailored towards describing the early program management phases – up to the start of production. This framework is used in section 8 to summarize the relevant LAI research

Mega-project engineering-management processes: pre-planning phase evaluation for construction and mining

Mega-projects internationally continue to experience time and cost overruns. Addressing the pre-planning phase has been assessed as a key requirement. This research-project presents two KSA mega-project resources case-studies towards an evaluation of the management-processes applied at the preplanning, design, construction and design phases to clarify procedure and recommend improvement. Findings note the impact of Stage-Gate Process, Gate-keeper approval, and scope-change processes. Recommendations for a best practice stakeholder guide are developed towards best practice