Project Planning and Management

Project Planning and Management

The dictionary definition put a clear emphasis on the project being a planned activity. The definition of a project as being planned assumes that to a large extent we can determine how we are going to carry out a task before we start. There may be some projects of an exploratory nature where this might be quite difficult planning is in essence thinking carefully about something before you do it- and even in the case of uncertain projects this is worth doing as long as it is accepted that the resulting plans may be provisional and speculative. Other activities, relating for example to routine maintenance, might have been performed so many times that everyone involved knows exactly what need to be done. In these cases, planning hardly seems necessary, although procedures might need to be documented to ensure consistency and to help newcomers to the job.  

Project management is an important aspect of the development of information systems. The focus of project management is to ensure that system development project meet customer expectations and are delivend within budget and time constraints. 

A software project is not only concerned with the actual writing in software. In fact, where a software application is bought in "off-the shelf", these may be no software writing as such. This is still fundamentally a software project because so may of the other elements associated with this type of project are present. 

The f­easibility study, conducted by the project manager, involves determining whether the information system maker same for the organization from an economic and operational standpoint. The study takes place before the system is constructed. If the feasibility, study produces results which indicate that the prospective project appears viable, then planning of the project can take place. Project planning involves defining clear, discrete activities and the work needed to complete each activity within a single project. It often requires you to make numerous assumptions about the availability of resources such as hardware, software and personal. The Project can now be executed. The execution of a project often contains design and implementation sub-phases. ­

The first phase of the system development life cycle is project identification and selection, during which the need for a new or enhanced system is recognized. This find life cycle phase does not deal with a specific project but rather identifies the portfolio of project  to be under taken by the organization. Thus, project identification, and selection is a pre-project steps in the life cycle.