Slide title In CAPITALS 50 pt Slide subtitle 32 pt Improved project management practices as a key to the successful IS implementation Željka Požgaj*, Hrvoje Sertić** and Alen Škatar *** * Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb, J.F.Kennedy Square 6, Zagreb, Croatia ** Ericsson Nikola Tesla d.d., Research & Development Center, Krapinska 45, Zagreb, Croatia *** Sales department, T-HT d.d. - Region 3 west, Ciottina 17a, Rijeka, Croatia

Top right corner for field-mark, customer or partner logotypes. See Best practice for example. Slide title 40 pt Slide subtitle 24 pt Text 24 pt Bullets level pt Content  Introduction  Project manager's role in development organization  Method for improved project management  Results of the method application  Conclusion

Top right corner for field-mark, customer or partner logotypes. See Best practice for example. Slide title 40 pt Slide subtitle 24 pt Text 24 pt Bullets level pt Introduction  Project organization for the IS development is a highly demanding task  Traditional project organization methods are no longer suitable to answer all challenges and quickly respond to change requests  This work: –analyzes typical project organization practices –proposes method to organize IS development projects –evaluates proposed method on the actual project  Two main goals: –efficiently use all available competences –provide a way to implement changes during the project execution

Top right corner for field-mark, customer or partner logotypes. See Best practice for example. Slide title 40 pt Slide subtitle 24 pt Text 24 pt Bullets level pt Project manager's role in development organization  Typical development projects: –some sort of formal organization with high-level roles and responsibilities –Project Manager assigned to the project –frequent changes of development area and used technologies  Analyzed areas: –project planning –knowledge utilization and role assignments –requirement definition –change management

Top right corner for field-mark, customer or partner logotypes. See Best practice for example. Slide title 40 pt Slide subtitle 24 pt Text 24 pt Bullets level pt Project manager's role in development organization  Identified problems caused by: –poor project planning (not based on realistic estimations or prior experience) –complicated project plans with too much details –changes during implementation and customer change requests not handled properly –unnecessary use of state-of-the-art technologies –poor project communication –inadequate role assignments –lack of knowledge about actual competences –lack of information about project environment –poor requirement management practice –poor change management

Top right corner for field-mark, customer or partner logotypes. See Best practice for example. Slide title 40 pt Slide subtitle 24 pt Text 24 pt Bullets level pt Method for improved PM  Defines activities aimed to enable efficient IS implementation  Focused to: –Preparation of development project –Execution of implementation activities –quick response to change requests

Top right corner for field-mark, customer or partner logotypes. See Best practice for example. Slide title 40 pt Slide subtitle 24 pt Text 24 pt Bullets level pt Results of method application  Method was applied on the development project in the ETK Company –development of IS aimed to provide statistics information for mobile operator’s  Development project –involved 24 developers located on four sites –preparation phase and three development iterations  Focus on the environment analysis resulted with –in-depth analysis of actual development constraints –several organizational decisions –all members aware of actual project goals, schedule, their role and actual customer expectations at the project start.

Top right corner for field-mark, customer or partner logotypes. See Best practice for example. Slide title 40 pt Slide subtitle 24 pt Text 24 pt Bullets level pt Results of method application  Each development iteration: –organized according to the experiences from the previous one –project plans were constantly adjusted –significant number of change requests  major impact on project execution and required additional effort for implementation  all change requests implemented in short time frame –all planned tests were performed despite occurred problems in the code design –included retrospective activities resulted with several valuable improvements in project organization

Top right corner for field-mark, customer or partner logotypes. See Best practice for example. Slide title 40 pt Slide subtitle 24 pt Text 24 pt Bullets level pt Conclusion  Efficient utilization of available competences and well-organized development activities are mandatory for IS development  Traditional project management practices are no longer suitable –project must answer large amount of change requests in short time frame  Development and test activities must be constantly coordinated  Proposed method: –enables project managers to focus to the important organizational issues –creates efficient project organization –provides foundation for quick response to change requests  Achieved results: –project organization can be constantly improved through the project, therefore resulting with better IS implementation

Top right corner for field-mark, customer or partner logotypes. See Best practice for example. Slide title 40 pt Slide subtitle 24 pt Text 24 pt Bullets level pt