IT Project Management has become known as its own separate field which is maintained by a body of research and knowledge spanning fields with approved professional certification. The IT field is fast becoming more dependable, quicker and more affordable, the costs, complications, and dangers of IT projects keep increasing.

Extensive cited studies and reports show the majority of IT projects are either discontinued or completed over budget and/or over schedule and failed to meet the original instructions. Failure can be credited to several factors, most of them which are easily fixed. Companies have to recognize information technology as a long-term investment to be controlled and not just a cost to be managed. New techniques of IT project management welcome the socio-technical approach and see the execution of new IT systems as planned organizational revision.

IT Project Management is rooted on a project life cycle that is a group of well-organized stages that defines the life of a project from its beginning to end in order to explain, build, and carry out the product of a project — that is, the information system.

The Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) explains nine understanding areas for understanding project management:

• Project Integration Management
• Project Scope Management
• Project Time Management
• Project Cost Management
• Project Quality Management
• Project Human Resource Management
• Project Communication Management
• Project Risk Management
• Project Procurement Management

These parts are all crucial to the successful result of any IT project and show the best practices in IT projects.

The start of an IT project begins with an idea and opening phase. This phase explains the project goal and measurable organizational value (also known as MOV). The MOV shows the real calculation of the success or failure of an IT project and is based on an organizational aim or master plan. Stakeholder examination and buy-in is a crucial function of this phase as well as the recognition and connection of the senior organizational sponsor. Another vital deliverable is the business case that interprets the project team, measurable organizational value (MOV), substitutes (if any), total price of ownership, total benefits of ownership, and the benefit-cost analysis of substitutes and recommended possible alternatives.

The next phase of the IT project focuses on the evolution of the project charter and project baseline plan. The project charter is an agreement between the organizational senior sponsor and the IT project manager that defines what is going to be, and needed to be, done, how it will be achieved, when it will be completed, and how much the total cost will be by the end of the IT project. The answers to these questions are clearly explained in the Project Charter or the baseline project plan and budget.

The next phase is the implementation of the IT project plan. This phase of the project puts the plan into effect. As work on the project moves forward, the scope, the schedule, the cost and budget, and the people, must be actively managed to make sure that the IT project reaches its desired goal. The communication of the project’s progress and operation production to the stakeholders is a vital component of the execution phase.

The concluding phases of the IT project require the official acceptance and assessment of the IT project. The rating of the IT project shows the critical importance of process advancement and improvement and the capture of organizational understanding for future IT projects.

Parallel Project Training offers a wide range of courses suitable for IT project managers including PMP certification from the USA based project management institute and APM qualifications from the UK Association for Project Management

As we enter the Teens (if that’s what this decade is called), what will future hold for project management?

A little look at history might help predict the trends of the future, but what do you think? Vote in our poll on the  Parallel Project Training website here: What will be the project management trends in the teens?

50’s Conception

The 1950 were the start of project management with the application of Taylor’s scientific management to the management of projects. Project management was based on the marriage of the Henry Gantt’s time based chart and Fayol’s five principles of management planning organising, commanding, coordinating and controlling. These principles still form the foundation of our modern bodies of knowledge.

60’s Learning to Walk

The value of project management was demonstrated on major projects. Many of these projects have attained mythical status in project management including the Polaris missile programme, b DuPont Corporation and Remington Rand Corporation development of the critical path (I bet they wish they had patented to method). The decade finished with the formation of the International Project Management Association (IPMA) in 1967, the PMI in 1969, forerunner of the APM, called Internet (another good name) in 1972.

70’s Slow Growth of Early Adopters.

Project Management saw slow growth in recognition during the 1970, along with the birth of IT systems, Apollo space programme project management and the application of project management to the development of cold war defence systems. The membership of the APM reached 1000 by the end of the decade.

80’s Gantt chart for the masses and a decade of unconscious incompetence.

The development of microcomputers in the 1980 saw the explosion of the project management for all, with its ubiquitous symbols the Gantt chart. Some adventurous people even implemented earned value management. During the 1980 every organisation and government department had its own approach to project management, with the expected chaos.

90’s Codification and certification.

1989 saw the launch of PRINCE (followed by PRINCE2 in 1996) following the PMI PMP certification launched in 1984. The 1980 became the decade of codification, standardisation and with growing acceptance that a common approach to project management was beneficial.

Noughties the decade of certification, globalisation and information overload and the credit crunch.

For project management the Noughties as were decade of globalisation for project management with the connectivity of the internet leading to teams outsourced across the world, increasing recognition for project management certification across the globe be it PRINCE2 or the PMI’s PMP. Towards the end of the decade management in general including project management discovered the Blackberry and all of a sudden we struggled with information overload. What had been manageable communications channels became frenetic with ongoing 24 hour activity to suit the new global projects.

What will be the project management trends in the teens?

They say the past is no predictor of the future but what will the up and coming trends for the teens. Will

1. The fallout from the credit crunch and severely reduced public spending lead to a sever reduction in the demand for project management and a decade of cost cutting and cancelled projects?
2. Will the increasing pressure change lead to an increasing demand for truly professional project managers, maybe (or maybe not) linked to chartered status?
3. Will pressure for consistency continue with consolidation between the different methodologies (PRINCE2, APM, PMP)?
4. Will new social media tools such as Google wave help us organise the mass of information generated by project using meta tags and search tool in the same way Google Search Engine made sense of the web.
5. Or all of the above
6. Expect the unexpected.

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