PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Project Management



Element I: Research Proposal

Executive Summary

The ever-increasing penetration of projects as a way to organise work in many organisations necessitates effective management of multiple projects. This has resulted in a greater interest in the processes of project portfolio management (PPM), with more and more software tools being developed to assist and automate the process. Much of the early work on PPM concentrated on the management of IT projects, largely from the perspective of the management of resources and risk. Many of the recent articles have been by vendors of the software, promoting the value of the PPM process. However, the claims made in those articles are typically only supported by anecdotal evidence. In this paper, it would be assessed whether there is a correspondence between the use of PPM processes and techniques, and improvements in the performance of projects and portfolios of projects. Based on findings, a three-stage classification scheme of PPM adoption will be introduced, and a strong correlation between (1) increasing adoption of PPM processes and a reduction in project related problems, and (2) between PPM adoption and project performance would be identified.

Project Management

Background

Recently, information technology (IT) has moved beyond the implementation of IT applications to an age of IT-enabled change. The trend towards increasing use of IT continues and the challenge remains how to better manage IT projects in order to maximise their economic benefits. Part of that challenge can be tackled by “doing projects right” and part by “doing the right projects” . While Project Management concentrates primarily on the former, Project Portfolio Management, hereafter referred to as PPM, is focussed on the latter. Contrary to Project Management, which focuses on single project, and Programme Management, which concerns the management of a set of projects that are related by sharing a common objective or client, or that are related through interdependencies or common resources, PPM considers the entire portfolio of projects a company is engaged in, in order to make decisions in terms of which projects are to be given priority, and which projects are to be added to or removed from the portfolio (see also Lycett et al.).

The organization that I mainly concern is six sigma software company. The project management body of knowledge become an accepted standard that it is used in many industries around the world. The methodologies by PMBOK and six sigma have a great deal in common. Both seek to establish a planning, cost, identify and communicate with stakeholders, conduct regular review and cost. It initiates the process improvement programme and it is repacking of all old concepts.

For achieving organisational objectives more and more businesses are implementing quality improvement methodologies such as total quality management, total quality control and six sigma across all functional departments inside their organisation. Six sigma uses DMAIC which stands for define, measure, Analyze, Improve and control. As DMAIC is used for project management, the probability of failures and redundancies is reduced substantially.

A Six Sigma process is one in which ...