GIST 8110: GIS Management Issues€¦ · 1 April 2014 ©Robert Hewlett Slide 4 Sin 2 •Not...
Transcript of GIST 8110: GIS Management Issues€¦ · 1 April 2014 ©Robert Hewlett Slide 4 Sin 2 •Not...
1 April 2014 Slide 1©Robert Hewlett
GIST 8110: GIS Management Issues
Lecture 8: Project Planning Mistakes & the PMLC
Instructor: Robert Hewlett
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Objectives
• Discuss the nine deadly sins of project management
• Discuss countermeasures for common project management failures
• Discuss the PMLC
• Describe the blending of PMLC and SDLC
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Sin 1
• Not planning at all
• RU serious?
• Yes
• Caveat: Inexperienced but details orientated people who know the business beat a “seasoned” professional planner … every time
• Who was that in the FBI case study?
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Sin 2
• Not planning enough
• Several things fall into this category
– Missing tasks
– Missing people: sick, vacation, better job
– Missing windows
• I cannot stress enough– there are windows that you must hit
– windows do not always reopen
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Sin 3
• Not planning for risk
• Everything you do has risk
• Have the honest talk
• Know them, manage them
• Remember:
– “If you do not actively attack the risks on your project, they will actively attack you.”3
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Sin 4
• Blindly using the same plan for every project
• Why does this happen … laziness
• Although a project might look similar, just like people, they are unique
– Slightly different problems
– Slightly different risks
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Sin 5
• Using someone else's plan indiscriminately
• Very related to 4 … 4 by proxy
• The lack of thought should be obvious
• There is no substitute for:
– Detailed orientated people who know the business
• Remember the managers retreat story ***
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Sin 6
• Allowing the plan and reality to diverge
– You cannot change reality
– Reality is reality … that is the whole idea
– You can change the plan
– Believe what your eyes are telling you
– Adjust the plan
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Sin 7
• Too much detail too early
• Busting out the details when things are extremely fuzzy is precarious
• Completing the WBS before a charter has been written and approved– This should be a classic mistake
• Leads to six
• Do not confuse with high level estimates– AKA fuzzy estimates
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Sin 8
• Planning to catch up later
• Thinking the team will magically catch up once they get a feel for the project
• You have to reassess the schedule
• Remember:
– There is no time machine, there is no time stretcher, there is no time tree
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Sin 9
• Not learning from you mistakes
– Do not repeat 1-8 over and over again
• Rookies making mistakes is predictable
– expected
• You want to be better
• How to avoid:
– Take the time to have a post mortem
– Put a formal review process in place
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Reason projects fail
• Poor problem identification
• Poor problem definition
• Poor communication
• "Too much cake to eat"™
• No support of M and no involvement of EU
• Bad or partial/incomplete design
• No standards
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Factor 1
• Poor problem identification
– Solving the wrong problem
• Oh yeah … all the time
– This should be a classic
• A blunder you should be fired
• Sometimes the core is too tough or not glamorous enough (insidious reasons)
– Scanning paper documents/maps
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Factor 2
• Poor problem definition and analysis
• You are just bad … find another career
• Sometimes things a fuzzy:
– Prototype for clarity:
• Make a sample map
• Make a sample model
• Make a sample schema, load and test
• Get around the cycle more than once
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Factor 3
• Poor communication
• Have a plan
– Regular meetings and reviews
– When does one CC and when does one not CC
– When does one decide independently and when does one need to ask the boss
– Who is allowed direct contact
– Do not go dark
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Factor 4
• Project is too ambitious
• This could be in any of the speed dimensions
– People, Product, Technology, Process
• There are more dimensions
– Time, Organizational Culture, Data, Infrastructure
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Factor 5
• Lack of top management support
• RU serious?
• RU working for free?
• They control the money
• You need money … end of story
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Factor 6
• Lack of management and user involvement
• RU kidding me!
– How do know what to make?
– Try JAD
– It is not enough to know who the champion is and who the end-user are
– You have to communicate with them, follow up, manage expectations
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Factor 7
• Inadequate or improper system design
– Adopt CASE tools
• MySQL Work Bench, PG Designer, Oracle Designer
– Be open to different approaches
– Have Plan A, B, C
– Learn UML
• Eclipse had a UML plugin: Use Case, Sequence, Activity, Class, etc
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Factor 8
• Lack of standards
• Get some … there are a lot out there
• No excuse on the spatial side
• Other types of standards
– ISO 9001
– Project management standards
– SDLC, CMMI
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PMLC
Initiation
Planning
Monitor
Execution
Close Out
Charter
Modified from Yeung and Hall 2007
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Project Charter
• The “Before we start anything document”
– What is your idea? Scope? “box it!”
– Identifies: Sponsor , Champion, Stakeholders
– Lists: reasons, objectives, directions of the possible solution (high level)
– GIS external data, data capture, just analysis of existing DW data
– Several standards and agencies require a PRJ-C
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Project initiation
• Refine the problem / opportunity
• Refine the established project goal
• Refine the project objectives
• Perform cost/benefit analysis
• Determine success criteria
• List assumptions, risks and obstacles
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Project Planning
• Identify project activities (WBS)
• Estimate resource requirements
• Construct workflow
• Prepare project proposal
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Project Execution
• Recruit / organize project team
• Establish team operating rules
• Assemble project resources
• Schedule / execute work plan
• Document work progress
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Monitor and Control
• Monitor project progress against plan
• Establish reporting protocol / procedures
• Install change management procedures
• Establish problem resolution mechanism
• Revise project plan if necessary
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Close-out and Evaluation
• Conduct acceptance testing
• Establish roll out plan / schedule
• Complete project documentation
• Conduct post-implementation audit
• Complete final project report
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WAR
Planning
Execution
Charter
Initiation
Monitoring
Evaluation close-out
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PMLC & SDLC Merge
• The 2 processes are not mutually exclusive
• They feed each other
– PMLC handles a lot of the distribute elements
– SDLC generates many of the work elements
• During the project execution phase the SDLC dominates the “boots-on-the -ground” activities
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The End