BUS605: Strategic Project Management

Up to this point, we have looked at IT project management from a very high or strategic level. The first phase of the IT project management methodology focuses on conceptualizing and initializing the project. The primary deliverable or work effort of this phase is the development of a business case. The business case defines the project's goal and value to the organization and includes an analysis and feasibility of several alternatives. Moreover, the business case plays an important role in the project selection process by providing sufficient, reliable information to senior management so that a decision whether the organization should support and fund the project can be made.

The basic question when conceptualizing and initializing the project is, What is the value of this project to the organization? Making the right decision is critical. Abandoning a project that will provide little real value to an organization at this early stage will save a great deal of time, money, and frustration. On the other hand, failure to fund a project that has a great deal of potential value is an opportunity lost.

The development of the business case and its subsequent approval represents closure for the first phase of the IT project methodology and the beginning of the next. This second phase, Develop the Project Charter and Plan, requires the planning, creating, review, and acceptance of another project deliverable before considerable time, resources, and energy are committed. This requires a subtle yet important transition from a strategic mindset to a more tactical one that integrates a number of subplans to identify, coordinate, authorize, manage, and control the project work.

These sub plans are separate plans for managing the project's scope, schedule, budget, quality, risk, and people. Together with the processes, methods, and tools defined in the project's methodology, all these areas come together to make up a project governance framework or project infrastructure. Unfortunately, the knowledge, tools, processes, and techniques required to develop a complete project plan cannot be presented in a single chapter. Therefore, the next several chapters will focus on human resources management, scope management, time management, cost management, and so forth that are integrated into a larger and more complete project plan.

Before we get to the details, this chapter provides an overview of the project planning process. This overview will include a more detailed discussion of the five project processes that were briefly introduced in Chapter 2 as part of the IT project methodology. More specifically, it explains how these processes are integrated with the various project management knowledge areas in order to support the development of the project's tactical plan. In fact, it will concentrate on one of the nine knowledge areas called project integration management.

The project charter and detailed project plan make up the project's tactical plan. The project charter defines the project infrastructure and identifies the project manager, the project team, the stakeholders, and the roles each will play within the project. In addition, the project charter formalizes the project's MOV, scope, supporting processes and controls, required resources, risks, and assumptions. This project infrastructure provides the foundation for developing a detailed project plan that answers four major questions: How much will the project cost? When will the project be finished? Who will be responsible for doing the work? And, what will we ultimately get at the end of the project?

In addition, a project planning framework will be introduced in this chapter that links the project's MOV to the project's scope, schedule, and budget. This framework outlines the steps necessary to create a detailed project plan so that management can determine whether the project's budget aligns with the cost analysis conducted in the business case. If the budget exceeds the overall cost envisioned in the business case, iterations to change the plan may be necessary to bring the project's scope, schedule, and budget in line. Cost cutting measures may require using less expensive resources or trade-offs in terms of reducing the scope and schedule. If the total cost of the project exceeds the expected organizational value, then the decision to cancel the project may be appropriate before more time, money, energy, and resources are committed to the next phase. However, once the project plan is approved, it then becomes the project's baseline plan that will be executed and used to benchmark actual progress.