Poor-quality IT systems – Late delivery of IT systems – Cost overruns on IT systems development. Fifty years ago, in 1968 in Garnish Germany, these outcomes led to delegates at the first NATO conference in software engineering to coin the term “Software Crisis”. Despite advances in technology and development approaches, it is still hugely challenging to deliver IT systems that satisfy stakeholder expectations in relation to delivery dates, costs and usefulness.
IT project management is notoriously difficult due to the rapid increase in possible IT solutions leading to users and other stakeholders often only coming to realize that what they require is not what they initially requested! In many cases, solid predictive project management with rigorous change controls has been used to tackle this issue – sometimes successfully but not always! As the world becomes increasingly complex and IT demands become more diverse, another more agile project management approach has proven to be more effective in meeting stakeholders needs. This training course presents generally accepted practices (as outlined in the PMI® Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) used in both predictive and agile project management approaches.
Course Objectives
By the end of the course, participants should be able to:
- Understand when to use different project lifecycles for different IT projects
- Reflect on the importance of enabling effective collaboration in IT projects
- Perform core practices used in both predictive and agile IT management approaches
- Recognize and tackle common issues that can occur in IT project management
- Control IT project progress and report status appropriately
Who Should Attend?
This training course is targeted at both management and team members engaged in IT projects. The training course is designed to clearly explain formal project management approaches and enable delegates to recognize “warning signals” that indicate when IT projects are about to encounter issues. While delegates learn generally accepted practices widely used in predictive project management, they are also trained on how to refine predictive thinking in order to apply agile IT project management practices.
This training course is suitable to a wide range of professionals but will greatly benefit:
- IT Directors considering digital transformation
- IT project managers
- Business analysts, programmers, quality assurance specialists
- Other technical specialists involved in IT projects (e.g. DBA)
- Stakeholders in organizations who influence IT projects
Course Content
Day One: Nature of IT Projects
- Characteristics of projects
- Fundamental concepts of project management
- IT project lifecycle – core phases performed in IT projects
- IT Product Management
- Key IT Project Considerations – Globally Distributed Teams
- IT project initiation – establishing the project charter
Day Two: Scope – IT Requirements
- Requirements Engineering
- Stakeholder management
- Requirements elicitation
- Quality factors in requirements engineering
- Key roles: Product Manager – Product Owner – Business Analyst
- Managing emergent requirements
Day Three: Detailed Planning
- Software Engineering Methods
- Work Breakdown Structures
- Building the project schedule – critical path management
- Establishing the release plan
- Key roles: Technical Architect, Designer, Developer Quality Assurance Specialist (QA)
- IT Project Quality Management – planning, executing and controlling quality
- Developing the Quality Assurance Plan (QA plan)
Day Four: Managing Project Execution
- Understanding IT Project Costs
- Software engineering teamwork – developing and managing the team
- Managing uncertainty – addressing risks
- The challenges with using Waterfall (predictive project management)
- Agile Software Development – values and principles
- Adaptive (Agile) Project Management (SCRUM)
Day Five: Controlling and Closing IT Projects
- Preparing the progress report – traditional approach
- Progress dashboards using Earned Value Management
- Controlling value generation using Scrum (Agile) – Reviews
- Measuring Success – requirements traceability matrix
- Measuring Success – confirming value generation
- Continuous improvement – Lessons Learned and Retrospectives
General Notes
This course is delivered by our seasoned trainers who have vast experience as expert professionals in the respective fields of practice. The course is taught through a mix of practical activities, theory, group works and case studies.
Training manuals and additional reference materials are provided to the participants.
Upon successful completion of this course, participants will be issued with a certificate.