The US space shuttle "Columbia", which has completed many space expeditions, suddenly disintegrated when it returned to the ground during a space expedition mission in February this year, killing all the crew members. The reason identified is that a piece of heat-resistant material fell off after being hit by an external object, causing the space shuttle to be unable to withstand the high heat generated by friction with the atmosphere when it returned to the ground, resulting in disintegration in the air. This event once again proves a conclusion of system theory: as the scale of man-made systems becomes larger and larger, it becomes more and more difficult to ensure the quality of the system.
There are 2.6 million parts in the space shuttle, and a flaw in every part can have fatal consequences. An information system is similar to the space shuttle: it is also a complex system. An information system includes various components such as computer equipment, network equipment, software, database, etc. Its data processing and business logic involve all levels, departments, personnel and activities in all aspects of the enterprise. Therefore, it is not an easy task to effectively manage various related factors in the implementation of the information system. According to our observation, many enterprises just because they do not know how to effectively manage and control informatization projects, as a result, they passively cope with various events in the process of informatization, resulting in frequent project delays, funds exceeding budget and other problems. . This tells us that project management knowledge is very important for enterprise informatization.
Why is IT Project Management More Difficult? The knowledge of project management originated from the research in World War II, and played a huge role in the US Apollo moon landing program during the Cold War, thus becoming a theory widely concerned by management scholars. General engineering projects often have the following characteristics: firstly, they must be completed within a certain time frame; secondly, they are limited by resources such as human, financial and material resources; thirdly, it requires the personnel of the construction team to carry out effective implementation according to a certain plan Cooperation. Information construction also has these characteristics. However, it should be noted that the goals of informatization projects are more difficult to clearly define, the quality requirements that the project should achieve are often unclear at the beginning of the project, and the requirements of customers may also change. Therefore, informatization project management is more difficult than general engineering project management.
Because the implementation of information system projects is the key to enterprise informatization, the project manager is responsible for the success or failure of enterprise informatization. Therefore, the project supervisor must be given the corresponding authority and management terms of reference. Usually, the informatization project manager should be the CIO of the enterprise, or a deputy general manager in the enterprise leadership team.
With the advancement of software technology, the project management team can now use ready-made project management software packages to help us well control various related activities in information engineering. By means of PERT diagram, Gantt diagram, etc., the connection relationship between the beginning and the end of related activities and which activities are "key activities" can be clearly represented on the screen. In this way, it can help the project controller to find the bottleneck in the project and determine the impact of each activity on the final completion of the project. This kind of graphical project management software usually has the following functions:
◎ Certain milestones can be selected to divide the development project into different stages; ◎ Feasibility analysis can be performed to better complete the specification of the project; ◎ Detailed specification standards of the project can be established; ◎ Project approval can be established process.
Clarify the elements of project management Although project management software packages can help us improve the efficiency of project management, in fact, informatization projects also involve many complex factors. For project managers, ensuring that projects are completed within a predetermined time frame is an essential goal. But at the same time, other goals in the informatization project must also be considered, and these goals are often mutually restrictive. In order to ensure that the project is completed on time, omitting some seemingly unimportant work may reduce the quality of the final developed system. Because the development project exceeds the planned time, using more programmers to speed up the development may cause the development cost to exceed the budget. Therefore, project managers should generally consider a variety of factors that affect the progress of the project.
The basic content of project management Human resource management informatization project is a knowledge-intensive project, closely related to the human resources of the project team, the composition, responsibility, ability and stability of the project team members are decisive for the quality and success of the informatization project Impact. The project manager should effectively use human resources, clarify the responsibilities and tasks of the main developers, and make arrangements for the strength of the relevant personnel in advance, so as to try not to change too much of the personnel in each engineering stage.
Cost management First, the project is decomposed by system, subsystem and life cycle, and the cost of each subsystem at each stage is estimated separately, and then these costs are aggregated to estimate the cost of the entire project. In the implementation process, the actual cost is controlled so that the project cost will not exceed the budget.
The quality management of the quality management informatization project is not only the inspection after the project is completed, but also includes the comprehensive quality control during the implementation of the information system to ensure the quality of the work results at each stage in the entire development process. The project team should organize relevant managers and employees to review and test the phased work results, which is also called milestone review. By ensuring the quality of the results of each stage, the quality of the overall system is ultimately guaranteed.
Knowledge asset management In the process of informationization project implementation, many work results are inevitably made into documents or electronic documents. In order to obtain high-quality documentation, this work needs to be institutionalized, normalized, and standardized. In addition, these work products involve the enterprise's intellectual assets and business information. Special personnel must be set up for custody, and a borrowing system must be established to prevent these work results and business information from flowing out of the enterprise.
Risk management informatization projects involve organizational change risks, economic risks, psychological risks, etc. In the process of project advancement, these risks should be recognized in advance, and once relevant problems occur, they can be dealt with calmly and calmly.
Communication and scope management informatization projects often involve cooperation with multiple companies, for example, entrusting part of the project to other companies for implementation. In the process of cooperation, the respective scope of work and responsibility must be written down, and information exchange and phased results confirmation should be carried out continuously. Progress management often has various changes in actual informatization project advancement, and it is unrealistic to advance the project completely according to the planned schedule. When the project schedule needs to be adjusted, the focus of the adjustment should be on strengthening the control over the activities that will occur in the near future; or adjusting the activities with the longest estimated duration or the largest estimated budget.
Finally, we must point out that people-oriented should be put in the information project management, and the imaginary plan should not be used to rigidly set the reality. Project management in informatization is not a rigid plan, but a planned change process.