The Success Of It And Is Project

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Affecting the success of IT and IS Project

In a brief description project management is a way to discipline and organize the tangible resources (such as financial resource, human resources, hardware resources) and intangible resources (such as knowledge) in the desired timeline to achieve the specific goal, which can be lunching a new product, developing a software or even constructing a building.There are three factors that constraining the projects to lead to success, which are time, scope and time.These factors are considered through the project lifecycle. Project lifecycle shaped by five factors of initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing.All phases consists of processes that move the project from idea to implementation.(Phillips. J, 2011)

Since 1970’s project management played an important role in IT field development such as e-commerce, ERP system or developing new software and researches shows 166 per cent grow per decade on IT spending from 1970. (Cohan, 2005)

There are some constraints impacting the success of an Information System project management that could lead the project to failure.Obviously organizations have financial, time and other constraint therefore they demand projects that meet their business and financial requirements. Feasibility analysis, which is a vital section in the planning stage of the system development life cycle (SDLC) developed to ensure and demonstrates the risk of a project that a company is going to undertake.

The growing demand of the project management has led to development of the controlling and monitoring software tools such as Microsoft project, AceProject to increase the success rate of a project.

This research is going to discuss the importance of the feasibility study on project management success and also it evaluate the advantages of utilizing IS project management software tools to monitor and control the progress of the project.

Importance of the feasibility study on IT Projects

One of the essential factors of System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is system analysis. Once the requirement has been collected and analyzed then system analysis has to be conducted. There is number of analysis in system analysis stage, feasibility study is considered as one of the main factor in system analysis.

Feasibility study or feasibility analysis is an evaluation of project success rate considering every aspects of a project. It demonstrates the primary analysis to define a project probability. The outcome of these results will be used to make decision whether the project will fulfill the requirements. This stage will determine how the project will work considering number of factors like the equipment, resources technology being used, financial factors as well required capital.

Feasibility study aids organizations decision-making by developing a technical and economical perception on the project.

A good or proper feasibility study will ensure enough cash flow and returns of the project while confronting the risks to the project and remain sustainable during the project lifetime and achieve the objectives of the business. These risks does not only fall under new star up business as (Hofstrand and Holz-Clause, 2006) stated that the risks does not only fall into new start up business, but the risk could be purchase of a different business or expansion of the existing business.

As organizations become increasingly dependent on technology they also become highly vulnerable to risks of IT failure. (Parker. D, Mobey. A, 2004).

The feasibility stage starts by defining the problems at the beginning stage of the System Development Life Cycle SDLC and it is used by organizations on decision-making that allows further work on the project.

Since feasibility stage is conducted at the early stages of the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) the procedure will disclose unforeseen difficulties that can lead the project to failure or it can alter the business goals and objectives. Therefore it is highly recommended to realize these problems before the company undergo a notable investment. Hence if the feasibility study is not conducted properly there are serious consequences that lead the whole project to a high risk of failure.

Hence before funding the proposed project, the project manager has to evaluate whether the project is economically feasible and the funding benefit compensate the confronted risks. Information Technology investment has risen considerably in past decades, as companies tends to use technology as a key factor for their business growth, however considering this huge investment the benefit return on this investment are difficult.

Furthermore there are many feasible Information Technology projects that organizations could invest on. If organizations had limitless resources as well as unlimited time, then each project will be feasible.(Pressman 2005)

Yet the shortage of time and limitation of resources of organizations are the problem.

Project managers are confronted with an extensive range of potential investment yet they are required to select one project over the other possible options. Additionally the projects have to be developed under a limited funding’s as well as time constraints.

As mentioned earlier in this paper feasibility study allows project managers or stakeholders to preview the possible result, by evaluating this result project manager or stakeholder will decide on whether to continue the project.

Conducting feasibility study requires expense, while this cost might look high, but this cost is fairly small comparing the total project cost. Therefore it can help organizations to prevent a larger loss by just conducting feasibility study.

There are six factors that should be considered while evaluating feasibility of a project which are operation feasibility, Technical feasibility, financial feasibility, scheduling feasibility, culture feasibility and legal feasibility.

Operation feasibility

An evaluation on how good the result encounters the known system requirements to solve the problem. Base on the gathered information in problem analysis stage, organizations should be able to answer some vital question for example; to what extent does the result satisfy the user requirements? How this result can change user-working environment? And what user would feel about the stated result?

Technical Feasibility

An evaluation on the feasibility of technical solution, as well as the availability of the technical resources and skills or capabilities. The main factors of technical feasibility are as follows; the practicality of the proposed solution or technology, and is the required technical expertise such as hardware, personnel and software available?

Financial feasibility

An evaluation on the cost effectiveness of the project will have three main factors; is the software or solution cost effective? Can this solution or software cover expenses made? And is the solution or software beneficial?

Scheduling feasibility

An evaluation on how realistic the project timetable is? Meaning does the project meets the required time frame while designing and completing the solution.

What is the time frame available for the project manager to develop the new system?

And how much time is needed to build the solution or the software?

Culture feasibility

An evaluation on how good the solution or the software will be adopted in the organization environment, meanings what is the end-user opinion about the proposed solution and a measure on whether the solution or software can work in the particular environment.

Legal feasibility

An evaluation on how good the solutions can be employed considering the legal and predetermined compulsions. Observe the possible legal agreement consequences of the system as well as copyright law and code ownership.

Impact of the project management software tools on IT projects

As it explained earlier project management is a technique of planning, organizing, leading, communicating and controlling of activities to reach the desired goal within the specific time and cost. Earlier all these activities used to implement by only pen and paper, however development of the project management software tools had vast influence on managing the projects. Project management software assist managers to manage the initiation, execution, monitoring and controlling and closing of projects.

The importance of the monitoring and controlling in the project lifecycle is that it identifies the potential problems in time before it causes failure. This phase aid the project managers to take corrective action to control the project to ensure the successful implementation of the project plan" (Aquila, 2007).

Monitoring and controlling process,which also considered as quality assurance in each stage consist of different considerationsuch as Measuring the ongoing activities of the project progress, Monitoring the variables such as cost, quality and time and comparing it against the project management planed, Recognizing corrective actions to address the problems and risks and Ensuring that only approved changes are implementing by analyzing the change control. All these consideration of monitoring and controlling are very difficult without utilizing project management software tools and introducing software management software tools provided many advantages to the project managers.

Management oversight

One of the most important aspects of using project management software tools for monitoring and control is the visibility over the ongoing project. It assists the project manager by providing granular view over the timelines, budgets and project assets.

Team tracking

Project management software tools provide features for tracking time logs and team member schedules. This feather is mainly aiding the project, which involves high number of human assets, since the capability of managing and tracking the personnel is a vital aspect to lead the project to success.

Accountability mechanisms.

Another very important aspect that the project management software tools are benefiting the project manager in terms of monitoring and control is Gantt charts, timelines and other tools to maintain accountability mechanisms for every individuals or department that participating in the project.The importance rises when there are dependent events in the project progress, and this feather reduces the risk of a single individual or department holding up the whole project due to another event.

Continuous improvement:

Any parameter that is measurable and is able to analyze can be improved. Therefore reports that generated by the project management software tools enables the project managers to identify the problems and risks and makes continuous improvement through monitoring and control steps.

Conclusion

Project management is the submission of "knowledge", skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the specific project requirements.(Lierni.C.P, 2008)

Billions of dollars are been spending on information system (IS) and information technology (IT) projects, meanwhile most of this projects lead to failure. According to this fact feasibility study been developed to analyze and study the success rate and viability of a project by considering the project variables such as cost, scope and time to identify that whether or not the project that a company is going to undertake will meet the business, financial and other intended requirements. The feasibility study considers various criteria such as operational feasibility, technical feasibility, economical feasibility, schedule feasibility, legal feasibility and cultural feasibility This stage might look expensive however a proper feasibility study ensures the investment that the IT company is going to undergo will direct the firm to their goal.

Beside feasibility study is to ensure the success of a project before planning it, although to ensure that the ongoing project is on the right track monitoring and controlling are required. Therefore project management software tools such as Microsoft project been developed to assist the managers by automating many project management duty like scheduling, reporting on time and expenses. It also enables the project managers to have access to real-time analytics, which will lead to the efficient management of resource allocation and utilization. Beside that it benefits the project managers to improve resource utilization and will reduces gap, and also aids communication and decision-making.

1926 wordsReference

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