BTS730 Communications Management Chapter 10, Information Technology Management, 5ed

Communication RESPECT

Communication Management Processes: –Planning –Information Distribution –Performance Reporting –Stakeholder Management Expectations, responses

Communication Plan Communication Plan must address –Audience –Content –Medium for delivery –Timing –Communication Deliverables –Responsible person

Communication Plan Sample

Organizing Team Meetings Planning –Schedule reoccurring meetings, preferably at the same time –Each meeting must be planned separately –Prepare meeting agenda –Structure the meeting time well with clear understanding of the discussion topic –Agenda must show how long each item should take –Presenter must be assigned to each item

Organizing Team Meetings Managing the meeting –Open the meeting by presenting the agenda –Manage the discussion Do not allow time exceeding. If the time appears to be not sufficient move the topic to offline discussion or schedule another meeting –Make a summary at the end Outline the discussion results, decisions made, and outstanding issues –Close the meeting

Supporting Documents See the template in the attached MS Word documents –Agenda Made and distributed in advance for every meeting –Meeting notes Made and distributed after the meeting –Decisions Log Maintained over the time and distributed after every meeting –Issues Log Maintained over the time and distributed after every meeting

Face To Face 58% body language 35% tone 7% words

Table 10-2: Media Choice Table Information Technology Project Management, Fifth Edition, Copyright 2007

Challenges in (Global) IT Cultural differences (different norms) Language differences Different working hours & time zones Different knowledge levels

Communication Tips Have approval of your broadcasting messages Reflect communication actions in your project plan Have a one responsible for each communication item

Communication Tools Use communication tools –Teleconferencing –Sharepoint – Be aware about security issues Protect messages with encryption

Procurement Management Purchasing –Hardware –Software –Vendor Services –Consulting Services Outsourcing development Training Services Maintenance Documents –Contract –Specification –Statement Of Work, aka Terms Of Engagement

Statement Of Work (SOW) Is made to outline the service provided by a third party/contractor (see the sample) Must be detailed enough to manage expectations in terms of –Scope of work –Timing –Deliverables –Price –Terms of payments

Vendor Management Major activities –Marketing research to determine current industry standards and offerings –Communicate to vendors to clarify their prices and offerings if necessary. This will bring only initial understanding of their products –Make short list of vendors (3 to 5) who appears to be most promising –Send the detailed questionnaire (usually is a part of Request For Proposal (RFP))

Vendor Management (cont) Obtain vendor responses Examine the responses and evaluate them –Involve Subject Matter Experts (SME) Conduct meetings with vendors to clarify their responses Prepare the spreadsheet where you will record the evaluation results

Vendor Management (cont) Discuss the results with your team and SME Make well grounded conclusion Setup the meeting with your sponsor Obtain the sponsor approval

Questionnaire This is a critical part of your activity It must not be built on the basis of marketing materials and brochures submitted by vendors It must reflect current industry practice adjusted by your specific needs Discover the specific needs – they will work as the points of differentiation between the vendors

Questionnaire Recommended sections –Company assessment Market presence Financial viability Vision Customer support Cost of ownership –Product Functional Assessment Include detailed criteria to evaluate the product features

Questionnaire Product Technical Assessment Include detailed criteria to evaluate non-functional (architectural) characteristics –Usability –Scalability –Flexibility –Performance –Security –Platform

Evaluation Evaluation criteria must be developed at once with the questionnaire Recommended to include –Importance (1 to 5, or sometime 0.1 to 1) –Evaluation marks (1 to 5) Importance is used as a weight to balance evaluation marks Calculate a score as = Importance * Evaluation marks

Evaluation Calculate total score for each vendor Use MS Excel chart diagrams to visualize the comparison, e.g. radar, or lines, or bars (see next slide)

Technical Assessment: The following “Radar” diagram shows how four vendors relate each other in terms of technology criteria

Conclusion Do not expect the conclusion be made on the basis of calculated score only A lot depends on the partnership established between the company and a vendor

Words of cautions Some procurement manager may want to drive the vendor selecting activities Their reason is that they have to manage the partnership This is not a good practice –To begin with, they are not SME –The partnership is a prerogative of top management Drive the selection yourself