IT Project Management: Analysis of Project Management Concepts

This assignment delves into the multifaceted world of IT project management, addressing critical aspects such as balancing operational and project work, identifying stakeholder engagement strategies, and analyzing project governance roles. It explores the importance of stakeholder identification and the information contained within stakeholder plans. The assignment examines scope management, change processes, and the tools used to capture the scope baseline. It also defines project quality, its relevance, and the systematic tools applicable to quality costs. Furthermore, it addresses the cost management plan's role in managing project costs and the challenges of estimating project costs, alongside the benefits of budgeting processes. Finally, it emphasizes the significance of human resource planning for project success, providing a well-rounded overview of key project management principles.

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Information technology in project management
Student’s name
Professor’s name
Institution affiliation

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Question one
a. What are challenges in trying to balance operational work along with project work?
The challenges that the project managers do face are enormous. These challenges or
hiccups may include insufficient skill available for the project which needs
implementation. It is crystal clear that a planned project at long last will require skills that
may sometimes not be available among the individuals undertaking the project. The only
solution to this problem is to train individuals before the project begins. Lack of
accountability is one of the severe challenges that project managers and their teams may
face. It is upon each member of the project team to be aware of his or her responsibilities
and duties before commencement of any project thus if this concern implies not given a
detailed consideration it can lead to a complete halt of the said project. Another issue that
may be a challenge to the project managers is improper risk management; risks are
always prevalent in different projects .they do vary depending on the type of the project
which is going to be launched or initiated.
b. What are the examples of possible justifications criteria in selecting a project?
The project team should conduct groundwork. That will help cement to identify various
issues concerning the intended project. Some of the effects of concern are: who are the
sponsors or the stakeholders of the project, what type of skills are needed to deliver a
practical plan, and what are the benefits of the project to the community, and the
stakeholders. Another issue that should be taken into consideration is that the project
managers need to know the scope of the project and the requirements of the said project,
like looking at the project charter. Last but not least, the project team managers and their

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various teams need to have a work plan schedule that has the possible risks that the
project may encounter and how to mitigate them.
c. What roles does governance play in project management?
Project governance is a set of regulations, policies, procedures, functions, and process
that define the development, and administrative control of programs. The role of
governance in project management is vital as it means having the ability to understand
the mission, vision, and the goals of various projects hence using several techniques
needed to get where the organization desire (Joslin, and Müller, 2015). Governance is an
essential tool in project team management as it defines an enterprise case and giving
priority to the right initiatives, implementing these initiatives with various programs and
projects, and lastly, governance helps the project managers to realize the benefits of what
they had initiated.

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Question two
a. Why is it important to identify stakeholders in any project?
Indeed, stakeholders, as their name suggests means: They are organizations or individuals
participating actively in projects or those people who are influential in the organization.
So identifying stakeholders who are involved in projects can increase the ability to
examine the variance in their desires, interests, influence, and importance. Identifying the
stakeholders do hold some significance as it is a tool that communicates what the project
is all about and its timeline( Carvalho, and Rabechini Junior, 2015). It also helps the
project implementers to know the desires of these stakeholders. Finally, identification of
stakeholders always helps those people who are involved in the project to understand
what the project requires.
b. What are different stakeholder engagement strategies? give an example
The stakeholder engagement strategy is just but a process that is used by most of the
organizations, and companies to engage relevant stakeholders to attain positive feedback
from the engagement (Mok, Shen, and Yang, J, 2015). An evident illustration is pushed
communications, which are preferred as the ultimate solution towards curbing profound
influence or interest among the stakeholders. There are some known stakeholder
strategies; need to survey stakeholders which, helps project team members to know some
of the relationships that exist within the organizations' network, and turn them so that
they can amplify some of the issues drawing the attention of interested parties. Another
engagement strategy is giving both the influence and interest of the stakeholders' priority.
It is vital as it can help us in segmenting some of the organization engagement. The last
strategy of stakeholder engagement is communicating organizations activities regularly.

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An example is where the coca cola demonstrates when it launches a new product in the
market, making the promotion of new community resourcefulness or the launch of the
super bowl adds that shows that there is a new message from Coca-Cola Company.
c. What information will stakeholder plan contain?
Stakeholder plan is a management process of establishing clear organization strategies to
engage participants throughout the lifespan of the project efficiently. Therefore, based on
the analysis of their needs, desires, and potential impacts of the said project. Stakeholders
plan is an essential document that helps the project implementers to know the things they
need to accomplish within some allocated timelines. Inclusion of their titles and names
will make them be identified as a stakeholder. They pose an essential impact on the
project direction. It also contains information about those sectors that are directly
impacted by the project. Apart from those critical issues, stakeholders always give a more
exceptional description on the following matters; stakeholder identification, the
management process of the stakeholders, and an overview of stakeholder management.

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Question three
a. What are some of the tools and techniques used to capture the scope of the baseline?
Scope baseline is part and parcel of the project supervision plan, and it also acts as the
point of reference throughout the projects life cycle. The scope of the benchmark does
comprise the following things: the scope of the project document, WBS, and the WBS
dictionary.
b. How does scope management differ from scope control?
Scope control in project management entails assessing of the current status of a project as
well as managing observable changes, and product scope. Scope management, on the
other hand, does involves the amount of workforce required to achieve or to deliver a
quality service or product that means stakeholders desires.
c. What are the essential components of an effective change process?
Most of the change techniques which are used to support that change are cumbersome.
Based on that, it clarifies that engaging people, initiating processes, and continuously
adjusting for perfection is precarious to success. Some of the well-known components of
the change process are communication, continuous evaluation or monitoring, buy-in, and
lastly resources.

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Question four
a. Define the term quality and its relevance in project management.
The project quality management does incorporate the procedures and the events that they
do utilize to figure out and attain the quality that is desired by all the stakeholders.
Quality aspect or feature is linked with likely or the possibility of the project to achieve
its missions and visions as enshrined in the project plan. Three vital things should be
considered to accomplish a project that meets all its quality objectives. Project quality
does entail the following project quality control measures, project quality assurance, and
quality management (Graham, and Daniel, 2017). The quality of a project is essential
because it establishes customer satisfaction as we get to know what clients or customers'
needs.
b. What systematic tools or techniques are applicable to direct and indirect quality costs?
Indeed, the quality cost is another crucial aspect, which needs to be given detailed
Attention as it is the total amount of charges or expenses sustained for the price of an
item
this is the fault, and quality process. Therefore monitoring these quality costs is also
necessary as it enhances competitiveness since some of the expenses incurred are
robustly
associated with the organization’s annual revenue. One of the techniques which are being
used in both indirect and direct quality costs. Is are prevention appraisal failure. It is a
technique which suggests that investments in the fields of assessment will lead to a
decline
in the letdown costs, and auxiliary investments in the inhibition activities and some other

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comparable preventive procedures will automatically lead to decrease in the failure costs.
Crosby model is also one of the essential techniques or tools that are used in reporting
both indirect and direct cost of quality. The method deals with the elements of
non-conformity and conformity. Crosby points out the value of quality as, a summation
of
both the price incurred on nonconformance and the amount that will conform with
expense incurred.
Lastly, the process cost model is another viable method. Process Costing
mainly deals with quality cost systems that focus on procedures rather than services.
Therefore, process cost can be defined as the total cost of both nonconformance, and
conformance of various procedures (Sarkar, Chaudhuri, and Moon, 2015).
c. How is quality control different from quality assurance?
Undeniably, quality assurance is a procedure or set of processes which are used to
evaluate or assess and assure consumers about the quality of a service or product that has
been processed or manufactured. While the other terminology which is known as quality
control does mean that it is the process or the procedure of ensuring that all services and
products to meet the desires and the needs of the end consumers. An evident difference
between both quality assurance and quality control is that quality control is product or
service oriented while on the other hand quality assurance deals or majors on the
processes or procedures which has been followed to develop a product or a service
(Hazır, 2015).

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Question five
a. How will a cost management plan address the challenges of managing project cost with
internal financial procedures and accounting codes of the organization?
The cost management plan is very vital as far as project management is concerned. It is
because it helps project managers and the stakeholders in planning, budgeting, funding,
estimating, and regulating the costs which will be incurred for the project to be complete.
Going by that definition cost management plan helps both the managers to work within
their budget so that they may not incur costs that they had not planned for; cost plan
management also helps to address budgeting problems such as resource allocation
towards main elements of a project thus providing cost control.
b. What are some of the challenges of estimating project costs, and how can these be
overcome?
We do know that project estimation costs do vary depending on the lifecycle of the
project. Therefore, some of the primary problems facing project estimations are
overestimation here is where both the projects managers and the stakeholders may over
quote the prices of items or materials required to execute a project. The other problem
associated with estimation cost in project management is underestimation; here is where
the teams or the project leadership may lowly quote the price of items or material to be
used in the intended project. Hence, at long last, the project will face a financial crisis. To
curb these two issues, the project managers and all the stakeholders need to acquire skills
and training in the field of BAs/PMs in cost estimation, both in bottom-up estimates, and
parametric.

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c. What benefits do budgeting processes bring to projects and what weaknesses to the
project?
The budgeting process in project management helps as in allocating appropriate resources
allocation to various elements in a project. Budget process also helps the project
managers or the stakeholders to know where they will get the resources to fund the
project and the required amount to complete the project. Budgeting also helps in
identifying which elements of the project need to be given priority and to see the number
of phases the project will undergo.

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Question six
a. Why is human resource planning fundamental to the success of a project?
Human resources planning do deals with the management of employees and their well-
being in their various places of work. Therefore planning in the human resources
management helps project managers to allocate employees responsibilities or duties
depending on their job functions. Their job functions are where an individual’s skills,
interest, and expertise are given consideration.
b. What information and decisions must be factored into to acquire a project team?
It is upon all the project managers to engage in elicit obligation from all his other team
members, e.g., clients, all the known stakeholders, and top management. All these
individuals have posed great importance in Project Team management, as they will
project team managers to make an informed decision towards establishing a capable
project team. Then lastly the project supervisor should ensure that all the deliverables and
the objectives of the project are measurable, specific, time-bound, and relevant.

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Question Seven
a. Summarize the steps in project risk and identify the role each step plays in
proactive risk management?
Five risk management steps entail the identification of the risk. It helps the project team
managers in knowing the real problem. The second risk management step is the analysis
stages this where the identified problem is analyzed. Then the third risk management
stage is the evaluation level that helps the managers to know the gravity of each risk.
Then rate them according to their severity. The fourth stage is solving the problem that
the threat has caused to the project. The final step is monitoring and reviewing the posted
solution of the, whether it has a positive outcome or a negative outcome.
b. What are the common risk response strategies for both threats and
opportunities during the project?
As I had mentioned before, we do have five risk management steps. After managing
the risk, we need to move to the next stage. The next issue that project managers
focus on after undergoing through all the risk management process, they do engage in
finding the means and ways of tackling responses that pose threats. They do include
avoidance, acceptance, mitigation, and transfer.

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c. What are the individual actions required to be performed under risk control?
Establishing a strategic mitigation technique is one of the required individual
actions in risk control. It is a technique or method that aims at, primarily reducing
the severity of the effects and the possibility of occurrence. It can affect several
perils, which, includes the following examples like reducing the scope of the risk
and increasing staffing in project management.

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Carvalho, M.M.D., and Rabechini Junior, R., 2015. Impact of risk management on
project performance: the importance of soft skills. International Journal of Production
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Graham, C.M., and Daniel, H., 2017. Millennial's Virtual Teamwork and Technical
Proficiencies Impact on Project Quality: Is Commitment Required in Virtual Team
Projects?. International Journal of e-Collaboration (IJeC), 13(1), pp.10-26.
Hazır, Ö., 2015. A review of analytical models, approaches, and decision support tools in
project monitoring and control. International Journal of Project Management, 33(4),
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Joslin, R., and Müller, R., 2015. Relationships between a project management
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