Critical Evaluation of Project Management and Team Work in IT Project

This article discusses the critical evaluation of project management choices and team work in an IT project. It covers the use of agile scrum methodology, project scheduling, and risk management. The strengths and weaknesses of the team work are also evaluated. The article also highlights the professional and legal issues associated with the project, such as privacy and confidentiality of customer data, risk insurance, and legal risks associated with the project contract.

Running head: IT PROJECT
IT Project
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
1. Critical Evaluation of Project Management Choices......................................................2
2. Critical Evaluation of the Strength and Weakness of the team work..............................4
3. Professional and Legal Issues..........................................................................................7
References............................................................................................................................8

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1. Critical Evaluation of Project Management Choices
The project is undertaken for Lizzie’s Leather Belts Company, which is a medium sized
company and sells over 50 different styles of leather belts. The company aims at expanding its
business and therefore, it will be developing a website for targeting the online customers. Since
this project falls under the category of an information technology project, it is mandatory to plan
the project implementation stages before the beginning of the project. The project team members
have worked hard in identifying the project goals and in planning the different stages of project
implementation1. In implementation of an information technology project, proper project
scheduling plays a significant role. My team members have ensured that the entire project is
planned at the beginning of the project, which was further necessary for completing the project
within the scheduled time2.
In order to implement the project in a proper way, it is very essential to choose a proper
project management approach. Since the main purpose of the project is to develop an online
website or a web portal for the company, it is essential to choose a proper project management
approach that will ensure that the requirements of the company are met with the project.
This project is implemented with an agile methodology coupled with scrum. This
methodology is chosen for this project as it starts with the clear perception of the project goals,
which in turn properly analyses the need and requirement of the project owner3. In agile scrum
the entire project is divided into a number of sprints that hardly lasts for 1 to 4 weeks. The use of
1 Kerzner, Harold, and Harold R. Kerzner. Project management: a systems approach to planning,
scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons, 2017.
2 Larson, Erik W., and Clifford Gray. Project management: The managerial process with MS project.
McGraw-Hill, 2013.
3 Heagney, Joseph. Fundamentals of project management. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn, 2016.

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agile scrum methodology allows the customers in reviewing their products before the final
delivery of the project4. Therefore, the project might experience a scope creep or change in the
scope during the project implementation phase. The agile scrum methodology is chosen in order
to provide the customer with a high quality product according to the requirement of the
customer5. In order to develop the website according to the requirement of the customers, it is
ensured that the project owner clarifies the requirement of the project before its implementation.
The use of agile scrum project methodology has therefore ensured successful implementation of
the project6.
The choice of agile scrum has a high impact on the project scheduling. In agile scrum, the
entire project is divided into three major phases such as Pre development phase, development
phase and the project implementation phase. Proper project scheduling is essential for ensuring
that the project is not delayed much. The project releases are therefore decided at the beginning
of the project implementation phase as per the nature of the agile scrum project methodology.
Requirement analysis is a major requirement for the project. The major requirement of
the project includes the analysis of the business requirement, Analysis of the user requirement of
the website, the business rules associated with the website and the market analysis. Detailed
research about the project is done at the project initiation phase and therefore, it can be said that
the agile scrum project methodology has helped in proper requirement analysis for the project.
4 Mahnic, Viljan. "A capstone course on agile software development using Scrum." IEEE Transactions on
Education55, no. 1 (2012): 99-106.
5 Harrison, Frederick, and Dennis Lock. Advanced project management: a structured approach. Routledge,
2017.
6 Burke, Rory. "Project management: planning and control techniques." New Jersey, USA (2013).

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The choice of the agile scrum project methodology has therefore ensured the elimination
of certain risks associated with the project, which includes the schedule risks, requirement and
the budget risk7. Furthermore, in agile scrum, the risk management is generally implemented at
the beginning of the project implementation phase and therefore it becomes easier to implement
the project in a risk free environment. Furthermore, the risks associated with the project are
properly managed and monitored in implementation phase as the entire project is divided into
smaller and manageable units called sprint8. Furthermore, since there is a scope of change in the
process of project implementation, agile scrum ensures that a good quality product is delivered to
the customer9.
The coding is done at the development phase of the project and is released in the second
sprint for the review of the customer. Therefore, it can be said that the agile scrum has a positive
impact on the code quality. Since the customers are able to review their product and the
customers’ feedback are considered in project implementation, it was an efficient decision of
implementing the project in agile scrum methodology as it offers a high delivery value to the
customers.
2. Critical Evaluation of the Strength and Weakness of the team work
Working in a proper team environment and in a properly managed team is necessary for
successful implementation of a project. In order to properly manage the team work, the different
7 Flyvbjerg, Bent. "From Nobel prize to project management: getting risks right." arXiv preprint
arXiv:1302.3642 (2013).
8 Nguyen-Cong, Danh, and De Tran-Cao. "A review of effort estimation studies in agile, iterative and
incremental software development." In Computing and Communication Technologies, Research, Innovation, and
Vision for the Future (RIVF), 2013 IEEE RIVF International Conference on, pp. 27-30. IEEE, 2013.
9 Hodgson, Damian, and Louise Briand. "Controlling the uncontrollable:‘Agile’teams and illusions of
autonomy in creative work." Work, employment and society 27, no. 2 (2013): 308-325.

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responsibilities associated with the project is divided among the different members of the project
team. Each team member has taken the responsibility of the tasks in which they have a proper
knowledge. The different responsibility of the project work has been assigned to the different
team members based on their knowledge, experience, strength and weakness. The individual
strength of each team members all together defines the strength of the entire project team.
Likewise, the weaknesses of the team members reflect to the weakness or loopholes in the team
work. Knowledge about the strength and weakness associated with a team work is essential for
planning and implementation of a project as it defines the limitation and capability of a particular
team.
The identified strength of the team work associated with the project is as follows-
1. The project team members were co operative and were experienced in working on a
team environment.
2. The team work included working in sync for the project work. That is, each member of
the team was assigned a particular task to work on, which ensured simultaneous implementation
of the different project works. This is a major strength of the team work of my entire team/
3. The team members had knowledge and understanding of proper project scheduling,
which in turn has ensured that a high quality team work is delivered.
4. Another major strength of the teamwork is regular monitoring of the project progress
and circulation of the progress report to the stakeholders associated with a project10. It is the
responsibility of each team member to circulate the project progress report of the part of the
project they are monitoring.
10 Schwalbe, Kathy. Information technology project management. Cengage Learning, 2015.

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5. Another strength of the team work of my team includes easy implementation of
complex and challenging projects as well.
These are the major strengths of the team work associated with my team. The strength of
the different team members are channelized in implementing the project in a controlled
environment and successful implementation of the same11. The team members have maintained a
friendly relationship, which worked for the successful project implementation.
However, there are certain constraint or weakness associated with the team work which
are discussed as follows-
1. If the team by any change fails to maintain a friendly relationship with the team
members, it becomes very difficult to implement the project in a proper way.
2. Failure in work of a single member might affect the entire project team and the project
work. This is a major weakness of the team work.
3. My project team had very little experience about the project team and therefore, a lot
of research and brainstorming was essential in implementation of the project, which is another
weakness of the team work associated with the project.
These are the major weaknesses associated with the project team which were efficiently
managed in order to deliver a successful product to the Lizzie’s Leather Belts. In order to
maintain a cordial relationship with the team members, it was made mandatory that the team
members spend a considerable amount of time with each other. Furthermore, it was ensured that
regular meeting were held in order to discuss the concerns of the project team. The weaknesses
11 Jammalamadaka, Kiran, and V. Rama Krishna. "Agile software development and
challenges." International Journal of Research in Engineering and Technology 2, no. 08 (2013): 125-129.

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of the team members are properly addressed in order to eliminate the risk of project failure.
Furthermore, proper research has been done in the field of agile scrum for a flawless project
implementation12.
3. Professional and Legal Issues
The professional and the legal issues are associated with this project are as follows-
1. Since an online website will be developed, one of the major legal issues associated
with this project is the privacy issue. It is essential to consider the privacy and the confidentiality
of the data of the customer in development of the website for Lizzie’s Leather Belts.
2. There is a legal issue associated with the Risk insurance. All the project risks are
needed to be addressed in order to develop the project according to the requirements of Lizzie’s
Leather Belts.
3. Another major risk that is associated with the project is the legal risk associated with
the project contract. Therefore, the project should be drafted considering all the associated legal
risks.
4. The requirement gathering associates with the legal risk and therefore, this phase
should be completed in a legal manner. Private information should not be collected from any
entity or disclosed while implementing the project.
References
12 Rubin, Kenneth S. Essential Scrum: A practical guide to the most popular Agile process. Addison-
Wesley, 2012.

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Kerzner, Harold, and Harold R. Kerzner. Project management: a systems approach to planning,
scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons, 2017.
Heagney, Joseph. Fundamentals of project management. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn,
2016.
Flyvbjerg, Bent. "From Nobel prize to project management: getting risks right." arXiv preprint
arXiv:1302.3642 (2013).
Harrison, Frederick, and Dennis Lock. Advanced project management: a structured approach.
Routledge, 2017.
Schwalbe, Kathy. Information technology project management. Cengage Learning, 2015.
Larson, Erik W., and Clifford Gray. Project management: The managerial process with MS
project. McGraw-Hill, 2013.
Burke, Rory. "Project management: planning and control techniques." New Jersey, USA (2013).
Nguyen-Cong, Danh, and De Tran-Cao. "A review of effort estimation studies in agile, iterative
and incremental software development." In Computing and Communication Technologies,
Research, Innovation, and Vision for the Future (RIVF), 2013 IEEE RIVF International
Conference on, pp. 27-30. IEEE, 2013.
Rubin, Kenneth S. Essential Scrum: A practical guide to the most popular Agile process.
Addison-Wesley, 2012.
Mahnic, Viljan. "A capstone course on agile software development using Scrum." IEEE
Transactions on Education55, no. 1 (2012): 99-106.

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Hodgson, Damian, and Louise Briand. "Controlling the uncontrollable:‘Agile’teams and
illusions of autonomy in creative work." Work, employment and society 27, no. 2 (2013): 308-
325.
Jammalamadaka, Kiran, and V. Rama Krishna. "Agile software development and
challenges." International Journal of Research in Engineering and Technology 2, no. 08 (2013):
125-129.