Summary Chapters 7 – 12

Chapter 7

Project Cost Management

Project cost management is a traditionally weak area of IT projects, and project managers must work to improve their ability to deliver projects within approved budgets. Project Cost Management has three main processes which include:
- Cost estimates are the process that manager should take it seriously if they want to complete projects within budget constraints. It’s important to know the types of cost estimates, how to prepare cost estimates, and typical problems associated with IT cost estimate.
-Cost budgeting involves allocating the project cost estimate to individual work items over time. The WBS is a required input to the cost budgeting process since it defines the work items.
- Cost control, An important goal is to produce a cost baseline. Many organizations around the globe have problems with cost control, because it monitors all the other cost listed above.

Chapter 8

Project Quality Management

Project quality management ensures that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken. It has these main processes:
- Quality planning identifying which quality standards is relevant to the project and how to satisfy them.
- Quality assurance periodically evaluating overall project performance to ensure the project will satisfy the relevant quality standards.
- Quality control monitoring specific project results to ensure that they comply with the relevant quality standards.

Chapter 9

Project Human Resource Management

Project human resource management includes the processes required to make the most effective use of all the people involved with a project. There exist three main processes in project human resource.
These three processes are:- acquiring the project team, developing the project team, managing the
project team.

Chapter 10

Project Communications Management

Project communication management is very important as one of the greatest assests of an organization i sgood communication skills between its workers. Time is of the essence in IT projects and as such any time wasted due to miscommunication can lead to severe impacts in other areas. The goal of project communications management is to ensure timely and appropriate generation, Collection, dissemination, storage, and disposition of project information. It includes the following process:
Communications planning
Information distribution
Performance reporting
Managing stakeholders

Chapter 11

Project Risk Management

Risk are inevitable in life, and as such any project manager should have this in mind and allocate time and resources to fend risks off or at least prepare just incase, as they say “prevention is better that cure. Project risk management is the art and science of identifying, analyzing, and responding to risk throughout the life of a project and in the best interests of meeting project goals. In project risk management there are 6 processes to follow:
Risk management planning
Risk identification
Qualitative risk analysis
Quantitative risk analysis
Risk response planning
Risk monitoring and control.

Chapter 12

Project Procurement Management

Project procurement management involves many process as follows:
Planning purchases and acquisitions
Planning contracting
Requesting seller responses
Selecting sellers
Administering contracts
Closing contracts
From all those processes project procurement management involves acquiring goods and services for a
project from outside the performing organization.

Summary Chapters 1 – 6

Chapter 1:

Introduction to Project Management in IT

Project management concerns planning, organizing, and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of projects. A project is a temporary endeavor, having a defined beginning and end, undertaken to meet goals and objectives, usually to bring about beneficial change or added value. The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast to business as usual (or operations), which are repetitive, permanent or semi-permanent functional work to produce products or services.
The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals and objectives while honoring the preconceived project constraints. Typical constraints are scope, time, and cost. The other main challenge is to optimize the allocation and integration of inputs necessary to meet those objectives.The project manager’s role is the overall responsibility for the successful planning, execution, monitoring, control and closure of a project.

Chapter 2:

The Project Management and Information Technology Content

Project manager need to consider projects within the greater organizational context. Organizations have four different frames: structural, human resources, political and symbolic. Project manager need to understand these different aspects in order to be successful at what he/she does.
Organizational structure can affect project management. A culture where an employer has a strong identity in the organization and where work activities are emphasized in groups. It is important to understand the values and issues that stakeholders have in order to address them and keep everyone on board for the duration of the project. A project should successfully pass through each of the project phases in order to continue to the next phase. Leading project team members with a wide variety of specialized skills and understanding rapidly changing technologies are also important consideration that a project manager has to concern himself with.

Chapter 3:

The project management process

Project management is often a number of interlinked processes. Project management processes are grouped into five: initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing. Normally the executing process requires most resources and time, followed by the planning process.
Some organizations develop their own information technology project management methodologies.

Chapter 4:

Project integration management

Project integration management is usually the most important project management knowledge area, since it ties together all the other areas of the project management. A project manager’s primary focus should be on project integration management.
Project integration management includes the following process:
- Developing the project charter involves working with stakeholders to create document that formally authorize a project.
- Developing the preliminary project scope statement involves further work with stakeholder, especially users of the project’s products, services, or results, to develop the high-level scope requirements.
- Developing the project management plain involves coordinating all planning efforts to create a consistent, coherent document-the project management plan.
- Directing and managing project execution involves caring out the project plan by performing the activities included in it.
- There are several types of software products available to assist in project integration management.

Chapter 5:

Project scope management

Project scope management includes the processes required to ensure that the project addresses all the work required, and only the work required, to complete the project successfully. The main processes of this scope are: scope planning, scope definition, create the WBS (Work Breakdown Structure), scope verification and scope control. If these five concepts of the scope are well managed the scope will function well and the project will succeed.

Chapter 6:

Project time management

Project time management is often cited as the main source of conflict on projects, and most IT projects exceed time estimates. The main factor in this set of activity is to meet the following requirements: Activity definition, activity sequencing, activity resource estimating, activity duration estimating, schedule development, schedule control. A manager has to know and have adequate knowledge about these activities in order to produce a good output in the time required by the project.

About Me

Well Muhammad Shamsuddeen Muhammad is my name, but everyone calls me Sham. I come from Nigeria and I’m 20 yrs old. I am currently pursuing a Bachelors Degree in Computer Science in the International Islamic University Malaysia, and I’m currently in my 3rd year. My parents are living here too in Malaysia as my dad is a lecturer in the same university but in the kuantan campus. My mother is currently a teacher at a local primary school and i have 4 other siblings 1 of whom is studying here too in IIUM. The others are attending primary school.

I love to listen to music and my favorite sport is basketball. Ive loved computers and everything to do with them since i was a small kid, so naturally i would also love playing computer games. I have an interest in the Open Source movement and Networking so i would like to contribute more to the world in those areas.

But all in all, you would have to actually meet me to really know me, so see ya later.