The Development Of Information Technology

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

With the rapid development of information technology, IT project management becomes the most significant parts in most organizations. This leads to the importance of Agile development methodologies and approaches in IT projects, and the SCRUM method has been particularly popular among organizations. This report discusses the key features of the Scrum methodology and the difficulties when applying Scrum in PMBOK. Then it explains how those difficulties could be outcome and their influence. Finally, it explains how the use of project management methodology contributes to the project success.

Keywords: IT, Agile, Scrum, PMBOK, project management methodology

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

With the rapid development of information technology, IT project management becomes the most significant parts in most organizations. This leads to the importance of Agile development methodologies and approaches in IT projects, and the SCRUM method has been particularly popular among organizations.

SCRUM methodology is like a framework for team cooperation on complex projects and could provide structure for the team to improve the likelihood of project success. However, many PMOs and managers are not sure how to use project management methodology like SCRUM methodology correctly to ensure the success of IT project.

This report will describe the key features and positions of SCRUM methodology. Then the difficulties of using the SCRUM methodology will be defined, and how those difficulties could be solved as well. Finally, it will explain how the project management methodology are seen improve the successes of the project and how the difficulties can impact that improved.

2. Project Management Methodology

2.1 Features of SCRUM

According to the Scrum.org, SCRUM is an agile framework for teams to cooperate effectively. SCRUM methodology is a kind of iterative and incremental agile development methodologies that manage the software project and develop the applications.

Product owner, ScrumMaster, and Team Member are the three fundamental roles in Scrum (Juyun Cho, 2008). The product owner has the priority among three roles and its duty is to communicate the vision of producing. ScrumMaster is responsible for ensuring the success of team and minimizing the return on investment. And the role of the team member is to complete work.

According to Jeff Sutherland (2010), iterative and incremental are the most significant features in Scrum. Teams work in cycles called sprints and iterations are typically two to four weeks in duration. In each sprint, teams choose items to work, called a sprint backlog. A sprint backlog is a set of items from the product backlog that teams commits to complete. Product owner responsible for creating the product backlog and break it down into smaller tasks in Sprint Planning Meeting (Jeff Sutherland, 2010). During the meeting, product owner determines each item of the product backlog. Meantime team members can ask questions that they do not understand and record the tasks they need to complete during the next sprint in the sprint backlog. After the previous sprint ends, a new sprint starts immediately. Additionally, scrum also has constantly re-prioritized features, because the short iteration cycles focus on the most priority features. Those two features make it easier to deal with changes.

Scrums are daily meetings which process is reviewed every day. As a result, the document can be reduced to a minimum size; the issues could be identified and then be resolved in time according to daily meetings.

Scrum has been one of the world’s most popular frameworks for organizations in varieties fields. Many famous companies use it, including Internet Companies, Software Corporations, telecommunications companies, like: Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, SAP, Motorola and so on. As well as the universities that can watch how the students work on their projects.

(Flowchart from Juyun Cho, 2008)

2.3 Difficulties

Although Scrum as an agile method has become the most popular project methodology implemented in many organizations, there still exist some limitations. It is purposed to shorten the development life cycle, adapt the changes during project development and improve customer satisfaction, but through some in-depth case study in a company, some challenges and difficulties were found. Thus, whether Scrum is a long-term implemented methodology is suspected.

The PMBOK’s framework is process groups and encompasses a more complete project management discipline. According to Duncan Haughey, it defines project management as using various tools to measure progress and track project tasks and can be divided into five-process groups: initiation, planning, executing, controlling and closing. And it can apply to all industries and lifecycle, while Scrum Applies only to some Software development projects. Due to some divergences, when the use of Scrum methodology present in PMBOK based on IT environment, there are some difficulties.

One of the difficulties is the different role of project manager in Scrum and PMBOK. In Scrum, the scrum master is just like a facilitator that optimizes the team performance and the team member has the freedom. While in PMBOK, project manager controls all the aspects of the project and masters the information detail as much as possible. Therefore, how to balance this change when applying Scrum in PMBOK is a critical issue in most IT projects. This needs a mind change of project manager in PMBOK that they need to give up some control when applying Scrum method. That means they empower their team members to make their own decisions. Whereas, the IT project environment should be chaotic and complex, the degree of power that manager gives to team needs to be considered a lot.

Another difficulty is the different emphasis. On one hand, the Scrum method is like a value-driven, which means its focus on the highest value features in each sprint, like: Scope, Time and communications. In other hand, the traditional project management system emphasizes on the detail planning which defines the task details in each level throughout the whole project. And it addresses the whole domain of project disciplines. That could be time-consuming and inefficiency in some extent. As a result, Scrum method may not apply to some project. For example, once customer asked about detail planning in one IT project, like: risk analysis or budget assessment, project manager using Scrum may not provide this detailed information. This will result to the mind-change of customer, and Scrum method will be given up. However, Scrum and PMBOK could be interoperable. Scrum can assist PMBOK in some aspects to improve the flexibility and productivity in one IT project and PMBOK can cover some limitations applied in Scrum.

Furthermore, there exist the different communication management styles in both methodologies. In PMBOK, it uses formally communication management plan that is documented. While in scrum, it emphasizes the informal face-to-face communication. Communications between team members in one team can be directly improved due to the Daily Scrum Meetings. Additionally, stakeholders are encouraged to engage in cross-functional teams. As a result, the improvement of information sharing can contribute to more efficiency of information distribution in the whole IT project. But this kind of communication also leads to the lack of communications between teams. Thus, when applying Scrum in PMBOK, it is better to combine both formality and informality communication style, because Scrum and PMBOK are mutually inclusive. For example, use the documentation and face-to-face communication in the same project.

2.3 Improvement

Many have tried to define the project management since 1950s. And the definition of project management varies due to different description. For example, Roger Atkinson defined Project management as "The planning, monitoring and control of all aspects of a project and the motivation of all those involved in it to achieve the project objectives on time and to the specified cost, quality and performance." Later, for the sake of project complement and project success, project management methodology is recognized to organize work around the project. It consists of five processes: initiation, planning and design, execution, monitoring and controlling, closing; and one control system (Duncan Haughey, 2010). In the first initiation stage, the project scope should be determined. And project groups should analyze some main issues, like: project objectives, risk issues and cost estimate, etc. In the planning and design stage, the time, cost, resources should be planned adequately. Then, project group starts to execute the project, including the integration and performance with the activities, as well as the coordination with the team. The fourth stage is monitoring and controlling, the potential problems can be identified by monitoring and tracking the process. The last stage is a significant part, because it includes the conclusion of the project, just like a summary of the project.

Every organization and the stakeholder want their projects succeed. Before they start one project, it is crucial to identify the meaning of project success. Like: whether the customer is satisfied with the outcome of the project, whether the money spent is worth and so on. According to Shane Hastie defined project success as "Project Success is a measure of the effectiveness of the organization's processes for implementing new IS projects, up to the point of deployment of the new system to the end user community". A successful project can be balanced in seven dimensions:

1. Complete a project with a satisfied client group

2. Outcome meets the project’s objectives and requirements

3. The project is within budget, including resources, capital, equipment

4. The product is delivered on time

5. The project adds value for the organization

6. The project meets quality requirements

7. Having a sense of professional satisfaction for the team

Project stakeholders need to consider and balance those elements to identify if the project is successful. According to the project management institute, ninety percent of senior managers see Project management methodology as important framework and competitive advantage in IT project. Therefore, properly implement project management methodology can bring many benefits to the companies and improve the likelihood of project success.

One of the significant improvements is that the project can be delivered on time and within budget. With the help of project management, each process of the project is understood and documented clearly in the early stage of the project. That means everything involved is structured, like: team distribution, target dates, capital cost and some other requirements. That schedule can make sure the tasks in each stage are not omitted and over budget. Since the desired outcomes and results measure whether the project was successful or not, a project management method contributes to managing resources and time in the most efficient way. Therefore it can optimize performance and make the project be delivered on time.

Then, using project management method can ensure the outcome meets clients’ objective and increase customer satisfaction. In IT industry, the environment is complex and the customer requirement mat is changeable. Project management methods can make customer participate in the whole process and Obtains "up front" customer involvement instead of informing them in the end of the project. Since whether a company and clients sustain a high quality, working relationship is a significant part to decide whether a project is successful or not, therefore, better customer satisfaction, more success likelihood.

Furthermore, project management methodology also has a positive impact on stakeholder satisfaction. One of the parts of project management methodologies is about ‘Project communication management’, which makes a connection among people, idea and information. Project Communication Management consists of the communication plan, information dissemination, performance reporting and management ending. The result of the communication plan includes a communications management plan and the results of the analysis of the project stakeholders. During the preparation stage of the project communication plan, the project managers will analysis the stakeholders. The most important and common stakeholder is the customer. Some customers prefer to check the progress of the project regularly while others like the weekly telephone exchanges. Different situations must be taken into account, so that the analysis of the results is able to reflect on the communication plan and to meet the information needs of different people. And only in this way, the communication system they created can be comprehensive and effective. An effective communication will get effective feedback from the stakeholders. That will result a satisfaction of stakeholders and achieved the project success.

However, the difficulties addressed above might have negative impacts on improving the likelihood of project success. As mentioned before, different role of project manager in PMBOK and Scrum may meet conflict. Teams implementing Scrum are used to making own decisions while teams using PMBOK tend to comply with the team manager. If those teams using totally opposite management model cannot coordinate well with each other in one project, it could dramatically decrease the efficiency project or even worse. Another negative influence is that Scrum method reduces the great amount of documentation and depends on the communication in the daily meeting. That could be a troublesome for developers because it is difficult to finish tasks for the new developers or developers who are not working on this part of system before (Juyun Cho, 2008). For instance, if those developers ask a lot of questions about the project, this will waste time. And that might become a weakness in the whole project instead of increase the speed. What is more, Scope management plan in Scrum is not needed. While in traditional project management, managers try to plan all the details. That will lead to conflict as well. Consequently, if cannot overcome those difficulties, and the changes between agile Scrum and PMBOK cannot be adapted, the effect of improvement in Scrum will be decreased, even worse.

3. Conclusion

In conclusion, Project management methodology has been discussed in this report. For example, Scrum has been applied in many organizations due to its high visibility of process, regular feedback from customer, cross-functional, self-organized teams and face-to-face communication. Thus, the use of Project Management Methodologies are seen improves the likelihood of project success. Nevertheless, the PMBOK approach is a plan-oriented and traditional methodology. There are some difficulties when applying agile Scrum in traditional project management method, like: PMBOK. The different role of project manager, different emphases on detail planning and different communication styles increase the difficulties for managing project when present Scrum in PMBOK. And those difficulties have a negative impact on improvement of the likelihood of project success. Consequently, when apply Scrum in PMBOK, the project manager needs to have a clear reorganization and understanding of both methodologies, such as both benefits and drawbacks. Try to adapt some change to make those two methods co-exist and improve the project's success likelihood.