IT Project Management: Managing Uncertainty in IT Projects Report

This report delves into the multifaceted world of IT Project Management, providing a comprehensive overview of its core concepts and practical applications. It begins by defining IT PM as the process of planning, organizing, and executing IT goals, highlighting the four main types of IT projects: data management, software development, network upgrades, and hardware installations. The report then explores the IT PM lifecycle, detailing the phases of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing. A significant portion is dedicated to IT project requirements, including business, functional, and stakeholder needs, as well as the identification of common risks such as scope changes, schedule delays, and technical challenges. The report offers a detailed discussion of risk mitigation planning, including evaluating causes, prioritizing alternatives, and selecting resources. Finally, the report outlines various risk mitigation strategies, such as clarifying requirements, integrating risk management, assembling skilled teams, spreading risks, fostering communication, prioritizing risks, and developing contingency plans. The goal is to guide IT professionals in managing uncertainty and ensuring successful project outcomes.

Running Head: IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT
IT PM
Name of the student
Date

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Abstract
The report highlighted the IT PM is mainly the process of planning, delineating as well as
organizing responsibility for completing the particular information technology goals of a
company. It can be said that there are mainly 4 different types of IT projects that the
companies can undertake: Data management, software implementation and development,
network system upgrades as well as installations of the hardware
It has been observed that the IT PM goes through some of the phases and these consists of the
following phases:
- Initiating
- Executing
- Planning
- Controlling
- Closing
Introduction
The entire project will revolve around the main theme that is “How the uncertainty can be
managed in the IT PM”. The IT PM is mainly the process of planning, delineating as well as
organizing responsibility for completing the particular information technology goals of a
company. It can be said that there are mainly 4 different types of IT projects that the
companies can undertake: Data management, software implementation and development,
network system upgrades as well as installations of the hardware. IT PM for the beginners
sometimes consists of the web development, consisting of updating a webpage, creating an
online shopping site, or even developing a total web structure. The following are some of the
elements that highlight a few of the IT project categories such as: Software development,
research, service, needs assessment, needs assessment and infrastructure. However, this entire
report will also highlight the following:
- IT PM process
- life cycle of the IT PM
- IT PM life cycle
- IT project requirements as well as risks
- How to mitigate risks in an IT PM and etcetera (De Bakker, Boonstra & Wortmann,
2010).
IT PM is another form of the PM and it also consists of overseeing the projects for the
software development, network upgrades, business analytics, cloud computing, as well as the
data management projects and implementing the services of the IT. In the first time it can be
said that the IT PM can succumb the entire risk a company assumes when they are
implementing a new technology when the very first time. One of the main reasons behind this
is the technology has not been used or implemented before in the company and there are
likely to be some complexities that will be affecting the project for being successful.

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Body
IT PM process
The phases of the project allow an individual to take the unworldly project and organize it so
that the project manager can wrap their mind around it as well as making progress. The IT
PM consists of the following phases:
- Initiating
- Executing
- Planning
- Controlling
- Closing
Initiation- In this phase mainly the governing team are appointed and they tend to define the
objectives as well as goals of a project. For the project a project manager is assigned, a
project team is also recruited and creation of the project charter also takes place.
Planning- In this particular phase the project team along with the project manager tends to
work together for defining the deliverables or the intended outputs of the project and then
plan each of the tasks so that each of the deliverable can be produced. Furthermore, each of
the tasks have a start date and end date as well as the responsible individuals and all of the
tasks together that leads towards the project plan. However, it is has been observed that this
specific phase can be quite repetitive in nature so it is quite evident that planning might take
place may take place throughout the project (Brewer & Dittman, 2013).
Execution- The project plan is executed by the project team in this particular phase for
creating the deliverables of the project. For instance, in an IT project, the team must begin
working in each and every task that is listed itself on the project plan. For example, with
regards to the specification deliverables for the tablets for sourcing, the team will mainly
begin with gathering each and every deliverable of the tablets, and then they will be drafting
the specification, after that reviewing of the specification will take place and the last step will
be specification approval.
Monitoring as well as controlling- The project team mainly executes the project by the
project team, and the project manager controls and monitors the team work for the scope,
time, cost, risk, quality along with some other factors. The status of the project is reported by
the project manager on a daily basis, as well as the risks and issues, to the committee who has
sponsored for the project. For making sure that the project meets its objectives, controlling as
well as monitoring is also an ongoing process. The project manager will be scheduling
meetings each week or after 2 weeks with the steering committee of the project for providing
them an update about the project on the project budget, status of the project, as well as they
will inform them if there is any risks or issues with the ongoing project.
Closing- It is the last stage of the IT PM. At each and every end phase of the project, the
closure of the project makes sure that all of the project work is completed, approved, and also
the ownership of the project deliverables have been handed over from the team of the project
to the operations (Flyvbjerg & Budzier, 2013).
IT project requirements and risks
The IT project requirements are mainly the tasks or the conditions that must be completed in
order to make sure the completion or the success of the project. Furthermore, they provide a

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crystal clear picture of the work that mainly needs to be done. These are meant for aligning
the resources of the project with firm’s objectives.
The first one is the business as well as the functional requirements- It is the first step in the
project team as well as the end users define and document all functional and business
requirements of the project. It is the process that mainly takes place with the requirements
documents. This particular document consists of all the functional and business requirements
of the project.
Business requirements- It is mainly the high-level needs of the business. It mainly addresses
what is required and why the project is taking place. Furthermore, it can be said that it is the
starting point of the project and also provides some of the guidance for the other types of
requirements. These types of requirements must be communicated in a clear manner and
early.
Solution requirements- It consists of both non-functional as well as the functional
requirements, are the particular features as well as the product’s characteristics or the service
that will be meeting each and every requirements, in terms of stakeholder and business. On
the other hand, the functional requirements mainly describe something that a service or a
product is required to do. The non-functional requirements tend to describe how a system will
be functioning (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017).
Stakeholders- It can be said that the stakeholders are also one of the main elements of the
entire project requirements. The stakeholders are mainly an individual who has interest in the
service or product and there may be internal or the external stakeholders. However, each and
every stakeholder has particular set of requirements that they need to be fulfilled. The needs
of stakeholders must be balanced well with the project. In some of the scenarios the
stakeholders have needs that are quite demanding and may adversely affect the budget,
schedule, scope of the project.
There are some of the IT project risks and these are as follows:
Mid-project changes in scope- the changes are scope are quite frequent in the IT projects.
No matter how much the specification is still suggestions will be coming after the
implementation took place.
Going behind the schedule due to some unforseen complications and it is one of the common
IT PM risks.
Technical inability for a given feature for implementing, it has been observed that the
complications related to the technical features not only delays but it also tends to affect the
scope to a great extent.
Risk mitigation planning
Before suggesting the ways by which risks can be mitigated it is an absolute necessity for
doing the risk planning with the help of these risks can be mitigated. The following are some
of the risk mitigation plans:
- Evaluating the common causes and risk communications
- Characterizing the main causes of the risks that have identified as well as quantified in
the earlier steps of the risk management process.
- Prioritizing and assessing the alternatives of the mitigation

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- Committing and selecting the resources that is required for a particular risk mitigation
alternatives
- Identifying the alternative strategies, tools and methods for the risk mitigation with
regards to each and every task (Kliem & Ludin, 2019).
The ways of mitigating risks in an IT PM
It has been observed that there are some of the ways by which risks can be mitigated in the IT
PM.
Firstly, clarification of the requirements is mainly the first step in terms of mitigating the
risks. The project manager must make sure to use the feasibility studies as well as the user
groups for testing out the ideas before making an entire commitment. However, the agile
techniques is said to make sure that the clients and users are engaged in each and every steps
and also ensuring delivering the exact thing what they want.
Secondly, the IT companies in terms of enhancing their IT PM must involve risk
management in their projects. There are a lot of firms in the recent times that are using the
risk management for training their employees in terms of detecting the risks before things get
worst.
Thirdly, another excellent ways of mitigating the risks in the IT PM is getting the right team.
The individuals with inadequate skills will make the project take longer than the expected
time as they are quite slow in nature. Throwing light on the above-mentioned discussion it
can be said that is it is possible for the IT firm to ring-fence the resources that they need into
team. It will be mitigating a lot of risks that are simply related with the individuals
(Schwalbe, 2015). The IT projects that tends to have the highest priorities must make it a
point of retain after attracting the excellent resources in the firm.
Fourthly, in order to mitigate the risk it is quite important that the risks must be spread.
However, mitigating the risk by dumping it to someone else is not at all the best approach.
The risk must be quantified and the IT Company companies must look out for the ways to
manage the risks in a joint manner with the stakeholders of the project for spreading out the
actions as well as impact should the risk occurrence.
Fifthly, mitigating the risks in the IT project can be done by communicating and listening.
The risks must be communicated in a proper manner and the people related with the project
must be explained how it will likely to impact the project and the steps that can be considered
for mitigating it from taking place. The project manager of the IT Company must make sure
for creating an environment where the individuals are comfortable for communicating clearly
the risks at the firm or one on one session without feeling that they will be penalized for
bearing the bad news.
Sixthly, the risks must be prioritized accordingly and there are mainly 2 types of risks these
are the high-degree risks and the low-degree risks. Furthermore, it is advisable for the IT
companies for opting a method that is realistic in nature.
Lastly, having a plan B as it may happen that the IT firm has planned everything out still they
might have an unforseen risk and the best way for mitigating it is having the plan B. The best
way of planning for unplannable is having alternatives and these could be the following:
floating in the plan, contingency funds, extra resources on standby, as well as options for
breaking the IT project into segments (Ben-Tal and et al., 2011).

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Managing the IT project knowledge areas
It has been observed that there are mainly some of the IT PM knowledge areas. The 10 IT
PM knowledge areas are as follows:
Project scope management- the project scope is documented, defined, as well as approved.
Furthermore, the project scope is also protected from the unauthorized alterations, edited with
approved alterations and also validated by the stakeholders of the project for the acceptance
of the project
Project costs management- It can be said that the costs of the project are estimated so that the
budget for the IT PM can be assigned. The project costs consists of the services, facilities,
materials, software licenses as well as other expenses that attributed to the project in a direct
manner.
Project human resource management- The project manager works with team for verifying
that the assignments is completed by each and every team members, and they are working
well with others as well as their participation is reported to their managers.
Project quality management- the project work is directed by the quality assurance policies
and programs. The work is inspected by the quality control for confirming that the quality has
been ascertained in the work.
Project communications management- In this phase of the IT PM the stakeholders will be
requiring the information from the project manager.
Project risk management- Risk are mainly the events, situations, conditions that can threat
and also sometimes provide advantage towards the IT project objectives. It can be said that
the risks must be analysed, identified, and a response for the risk event should be created.
Project procurement management- There are some of the project managers who tends to
ignore managing the procurement, but they defer towards the centralized purchasing or
procurement department of the company. It can be stated that that the project plan must
address the project’s selection of the contract type, purchasing audits, administration of the
contract and closing of contract.
Project integration management- It is one of the most special knowledge management area
and it tends to coordinate with all the events in all of the knowledge areas. The performance
of the other knowledge areas is said to be affected by how a project manager performs in a
knowledge area. It mainly examines the contingencies and communication among the
knowledge areas for making sure that the project is planned, controlled, executed as well as
closed in an adequate manner.
The above-mentioned 10 knowledge areas need to be managed properly by the stakeholders
throughout the entire project. An IT project manager is likely to encounter all of the 10
knowledge areas in each and every project.
IT project life cycle
There are some of the various approaches for managing an IT project that tends to affect the
project life cycle. The IT companies may choose the below-mentioned following approaches
for helping reducing the risk of the expensive work, risks related with the technology that is
changing in a quick manner.

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It can be also said the IT PM life cycle moves through some of the stages such as planning,
executing as well as controlling until and unless the entire project is closed and transferred
towards the operations. The following are the life-cycle of the IT PM:
Predictive life cycle- It is one of the most traditional and common project life cycle for the IT
projects. The budget of the project, scope, costs of the project as well as the project schedule
is defined by the project manager and the project team before the execution of the project
starts. For making the project to move from the initiation phase towards the closing phase
each of the phase must be started as well as completed in a particular manner as planned. It is
the type of approach that is known as the waterfall approach sometimes as the project
waterfalls down the phases of the project.
Adaptive life cycle- It is the project life cycle that tends to use the planning and executing,
but planning that mostly for the last two weeks. It is also the approach that tends to use the
rolling wave of executing and planning via the planning and executing. The alteration is
expected in this particular phase with regards to the IT project and it is also perfect for the
software development project. The examples of this stage are: Scrum and Agile PM.
Iterative life cycle- This particular approach with regards to the IT PM mainly requires that
the PM must be defined in a clear manner early in the project. On the other hand, the
estimation of the costs and duration of activity are mainly planned in the higher level early
phase in the project.
The above-mentioned life cycle of the IT PM and each of the phases highlighted what type of
work will be taking place in that specific part of the project. The manager of the IT project,
the consumer requirements and the organizational requirements can highly influence with
regards to what type of project life cycle a project manager wants to adopt actually.
The main responsibilities of the IT project manager
The IT project manager’s responsibilities are quite huge and it can be said that they must be
able to juggle a huge amount of tasks as well as responsibilities at the same time. The IT
project managers must be able to handle the software and the firmware integrations, database
management and storage, constructing the website, as well as building geographically diverse
and complicated networks all while planning for the data risks and potential security.
Throughout the entire projects the IT project manager is mainly responsible for the following:
- Communicating
- setting some of the goals
- as well as motivating the team members along with the stakeholders
- managing change
- identifying the particular and right resources for each and every task
- Researching
- sequencing the tasks in a proper manner
- performing the needs assessment
Importance of IT PM
It can be said that the PM is quite vital as it makes sure the progress of a project is tracked
and reported in a proper manner. Furthermore, PM also makes sure that what is being
delivered is right and will deliver right against the business opportunity. Secondly, IT PM is
also vital as it brings direction and leadership to the projects. Without the IT PM a project
team will simply be a ship without a rudder moving forward but without any type of

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direction. Thirdly, IT PM is also vital as it makes sure there is proper plan in terms of
executing on the strategic goals. Fourthly, IT PM is said to be vital as it makes sure perfect
expectations are set with regards to what can be exactly delivered. It is quite evident that
without right type of PM the project delivery timelines and the estimates of the budget can be
set that are lacking analogues estimating insight from the same projects. It simply highlights
the fact that without the right type of IT PM the project deliveries are delayed. Lastly, IT PM
is also important as it makes sure that the risks are managed in a proper manner and mitigated
for avoiding in terms of becoming it an issue. Furthermore, risk management is considered to
be quite important for making a project successful (Tadeu de Oliveira Lacerda, Ensslin &
Rolim Ensslin, 2011).
A project manager who is successful needs to understand the needs of the business as well as
coordinate with the stakeholders for testing, designing, and building a system that needs to
meet the needs. However, the IT expertise is said to be one of the main important element it
is one of the vital part. The internal IT projects must be strategic in nature even if the project
manager is implementing an user-friendly, new interface or upgrading towards a hardware
that is more powerful, the true goals are mainly the objectives that tends to effect the entire
company are as follows:
- Enhanced efficiency and stability
- Enhanced analytics and business intelligence
- Decreased compliance risk and security
- Supporting the long-term needs of the IT with minimum disruption
- Flexibility for harnessing the upgrades of the future technology
Leadership is required by the IT PM as it is not just enough for understanding the software
and the hardware an IT project manager who is successful must understand their business
well. The symmetry project managers are trained properly so that they communicate properly
with each and every level of the company, plan and test in an extensive manner with a
minimum disruption.
One of the main requirements of the IT PM is post-go-live training. A trainer is required who
can help to supervise and train users so that the project manager will be able to start reaping
the ROI as fast as possible. It can be said most of the time the IT projects that are big requires
some of the employee’s alterations in addition to the administrative ones. Most of the firms
do not anticipate the importance of the IT PM in making sure adequate long-term system
monitoring and planning. As an outcome the executives are not at all informed when the
hardware starts for failing or the system runs low on the resources.
On the other hand, there is a lot of importance of the IT PM in the companies. Companies are
continuously facing a lot of new opportunities and challenges. All of the companies need to
take the IT PM in a serious manner for surviving and thriving. Without a clear path for
following when it comes to manage a project the task of achieving their objectives that is
desired would prove to be quite difficult. The IT PM tends to provide a scientific approach
that helps for making sure successful results via organization and structure. It can be said that
the by using the IT PM methods, companies will be able to gain control over running the
projects and ensuring that they are keeping on track within the budget.
IT PM framework
A framework is mainly the tools that are put together for helping an IT project manager for
accomplishing their job in a better and faster manner. Throwing light on the above-mentioned

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discussion it can be said that the IT PM framework is mainly the set of tools, concepts and
methods that is put together for helping the project teams for achieving the following:
- Managing IT project life cycle: For walking the team right through the journey of the
IT project, from the project identification, to project planning, initiation, execution
and closing step-by-step. The activities needs to be performed throughout the entire
life cycle for addressing the management needs of a project
- Documenting project: The documents are said to be produced as the outputs with
regards to the lifecycle activities. The framework tends to provide the templates,
guidelines as well as tools for developing the documents.
- Managing the artifacts and the project documents- The framework mainly arrives with
a conceptual repository that tends to act as an area of the project documents as well as
assets, providing the team with a centralized place so the documents can be retrieved.
Main elements of the IT PM
It has been observed there are three components of the IT PM:
- PM life cycle
- PM repository
- Project complexity classification
PM repository: Throughout the entire PM life cycle, the activities will be performed; the
information that is collected will be organized as well as the output as documents. For
holding this type of documents the PM repository is one of the main elements and other
resources generated as required during the life cycle of the project. Furthermore, it also
provides a common place for the project team for re-usable assets and locating deliverables.
Furthermore, the PM repository main consists of a number of containers for holding various
kinds of projects, artifacts and documents that is also known as the drawers. For example,
there are mainly 5 drawers for holding the documents that is generated by the 5 stages of the
PM life cycle. On the other hand, there are also drawers that tends to store various kinds of
procurement documents for instance, purchase orders, contracts, as well as any statement of
work.
Project complexity classification: There is no one size fits to all when it comes to the IT PM.
If an individual have a clear project understanding then it will be helping for determining
what are the deliverables as well as activities required for managing the entire project.
Throwing light on the above-mentioned discussion it can be said that the IT PM framework
tends to provide a project complexity questionnaire that helps an individual for determining
the complexity of the project simply by answering questions that are complicated, a score of
the complexity will be obtained which will further determine the complexity of the project to
a great extent.
Skills requirement by an IT project manager
There are some of the skills that are required by an IT project manager are as follows:
- Communication: It is one of the most vital skills that an IT project manager must
possess because it will be helping them to convey the ideas, goals, vision as well as
issues in an effective manner along with producing presentations
- Leadership: If a project manager can lead then they will be able to deliver in an
effective manner.

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- Team management: The IT project manager must have necessary team management
skills as they will need it for managing the groups in terms of promoting teamwork,
resolving conflict, delegating tasks, and computing performance.
- Negotiation: Negotiation skills are also quite vital for the IT manager
- Risk management: IT PM requires a various amount of skill set and risk management
is an important part of it.
Conclusion
The project highlighted the main subject matter IT PM in a distinctive manner. The IT PM is
mainly the process of planning, delineating as well as organizing responsibility for
completing the particular information technology goals of a company. The project discussed
the IT PM process that consists of Initiation, planning, execution, and monitoring as well as
closing phase. Furthermore, the IT PM requirements along with some of the risks were also
discussed. It has been observed that for mitigating the risks planning is required. There are
some of the various approaches for managing an IT project that tends to affect the project life
cycle. The IT companies may choose the below-mentioned following approaches for helping
reducing the risk of the expensive work, risks related with the technology that is changing in
a quick manner. It can be also said the IT PM life cycle moves through some of the stages
such as planning, executing as well as controlling until and unless the entire project is closed
and transferred towards the operations. Furthermore, the report also highlighted that there are
some of the responsibilities that must be undertaken by the IT managers.

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