Chapter 10: Project Implementation

State of IS project success

critical success factors

key IS project factors

Need for User Training

State of IS Projects

• Most IS projects fail to some degree– time, cost, technical performance

• Usually don’t know until late in the project– testing the least predictable project element– everything seems fine until the end

ERP & Hershey’s Supply Chain

Stedman [1999]

Osterland [2000]

Songini [2000]

Quotes and Jokes

• A new British survey has revealed that 9 out of 10 people like Chocolate. The tenth lies.

• A chocolate in the mouth is worth two on the plate.

• An old man and a young man worked in office next to each other. The young man noticed that the older man always had a jar of peanuts on his desk. The young man loved peanuts. One day while the older man was away from his desk, the young man couldn't resist and went to the old man's jar and ate over half the peanuts. When the old man returned, the young man felt guilty and confessed to taking the peanuts. The old man responded, "That's ok. Since I lost my teeth all I can do is lick the chocolate off the M&Ms."

History

• 1997 Hershey’s adopted a $110 million ERP system– SAP R/3– Siebel CRM– Manugistics logistics package

• To replace many legacy systems• Original 4 year project

– Compressed to 30 months to precede Y2K– July 1999 three months behind schedule– Adopted big-bang approach to beat deadline

Hershey Business

• Very seasonal– Halloween, Thanksgiving

• Sept 1997 serious order processing & shipping problems– Shipping delays

– Sent incomplete deliveries

– Delivery time formerly 5 days, with ERP 12 days

– Sales revenue dropped 12% from prior year

– Inventory piled up at Hershey warehouses

Problem Diagnosis

• Attempted ERP implementation in supply chain environment– That can be done– Confounding factors

• During peak season• Tried to do too much as once• Complexity from CRM & Logistics Planning add-

ons• Time pressure

Supply Chain

Failure Types - Categories

• Corresponding Failure– fail to meet design objectives, technical failure

• Process Failure– on time & within budget, but no longer justifiable

• Interaction Failure– system not used as much as it was planned.

• Expectation Failure– doesn’t meet stakeholder expectations

Abandonment of Projects

• Total abandonment, complete termination of project activities before implementation.

• Substantial abandonment, major changes in specification resulting in a different project.

• Partial abandonment, reduction in original project scope without major changes in original specification.

Reasons for IS Project Failure

• Lack of Client Involvement, allow user to make suggestions, identify user early in the project, use surveys for feedback, good communication, make sure the managers are highly visible.

• Lack of Top Management Support– project champion helps( project champion has no authority)

• Lack of Project Definition– includes clear plan, goals

– also standards for testing

Project champion vs project sponsor

• The project champion is not a formal role, so he doesn't have standard responsibilities. However, the main role of the project champion is to advocate (support) for the project and market the project at the executive level.

- The project champion does not secure funds for the project, the project sponsor does.- The project champion does not resolve high level project conflicts (at the executive level),

the project sponsor does.- The project champion does not approve an increase of budget, pushing the end date of

the project, or cutting some features from the original scope, the project sponsor is the one who does all these things.

- The project champion is not the project manager's interface with upper management, if

such an interface is deemed to be needed, then it is the project sponsor who should be that interface.

- The project champion does not report to upper management about the project, it's the project sponsor who does that.

Again, the project champion is an informal role, he doesn't really do anything tangible, the only thing that he does is to market the project and advocate for it.

Project Manger VS Project Champion

Project Manager Project Champion

Technical Understanding Cheerleader

Leadership & team building

Visionary

Coordination and Control Politician

Obtain and provide support

Risk Taker

Administrative Ambassador

Implementation Planning

Boehm (1981)

• Stage Relative cost of defect removal

requirements definition 1

design stage 3.5

coding stage 10

testing stage 50

after delivery 170

QUOTES……..

• Don't look where you fall, but where you slipped. • When you start treating people like people, they

become people. • Life is like riding a bicycle - in order to keep your

balance, you must keep moving.  • It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark. • While seeking revenge, dig two graves - one for

yourself. • The best way to predict your future is to create it.  • When you throw dirt, you lose ground.  • The road to success is always under construction.

Quality Control

• Quality control is a process employed to ensure a certain level of quality in a product or service.

• Quality control is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. This approach places an emphasis on three aspects:

- Elements such as controls, job management, defined and well managed processes, performance and integrity criteria, and identification of records

• The quality of the outputs is at risk if any of these three aspects is deficient in any way.

- Competence, such as knowledge, skills, experience, and qualifications - Soft elements, such as personnel integrity, confidence, organizational culture, motivation, and team spirit.

• Quality control can cover not just products, services, and processes, but also people

Quality control VS Quality Assurance

• Quality control emphasizes testing of products to uncover defects, and reporting to management who make the decision to allow or deny the release. whereas

•  Quality assurance, includes all activities related to satisfying

the relevant quality standards for a project. It attempts to improve and stabilize production, and associated processes, to avoid, or at least minimize, issues that led to the defects in the first place.

Quotes…….

• Good control reveals problems early – which only means you’ll have longer to worry about them.

• Quality means doing it right when no one is looking. Henry Ford

• One trouble with one is that he/she is a fixer rather than preventer.

• We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not act but a habit.”

• Quality is not an act, it is a habit.

• If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.

• It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity.

• There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.   • Warning: dates in a calendar are closer than they appear to be.

Quality Control

• The foundation of QC is a defined set of specifications and a procedure for evaluating them.

• It comprised of activities that measure the quality of a finished product or process

• It involves measurement activities such as inspections, reviews, and tests that collectively inure the quality of the product.

• From the measurement the QC team evaluates variation of the finished product.

• The measurement procedures are designed to ensure the product deliverables adhere to the defined specifications.

Quality Control

• Is an important element in implementing the project.• Study of prior projects improved quality (OS/400 R1

50M line code final version 3.6M, 1.2 M reused)• Large number of defects found after delivery were

due to insufficient testing.• Many problem are not identified until the testing

stage of a project, after much of the cost of the project is expended.

• Reusable code and reused test cases made significant contribution to the high level of quality obtained in the OS/400 project.

Implementing QC

• Peer review throughout the project.

• Statistical sampling, randomly.

• Management by walking around, allow yourself to be seen, get out of your office, let your employees know you are available.

• Review by outside experts.

Quotes……

• The bitterness of poor quality lasts long after the sweetness of making a date is forgotten.

• Anything that can be changed will be changed until there is no time left to change anything.

• What is not on paper has not been said.

Total Quality Management

• An organization commitment to introduce quality into every activity through continuous improvement.

• TQM program strives for one basic aim: providing

the best possible services and product to the customers.

• It is a management approach for an organization, centered on quality, based on the participation of all.

• It stresses both current quality and the continuous improvement of product and services to increasing business and reducing losses.

Total Quality Management

• The methodology aims at management and employees working together to achieve these goals.

• Other programs beside TQM are ISO-9000, Zero-defect, and Six-Sigma which aimed at the near elimination of defect from every product, process, and transaction

Total Quality Management

• TQM is a process that involves all employees within an organization working to fulfill their customers’ needs while also working to increase productivity.

• Japanese adopted after WWII. • Continuous Quality Improvement is a theory drive

TQM, all practices within an organization are processes, and these process can be infinitely improved, which result in a better productivity and ultimately higher profitability.

Total Quality Management

• Quality project management comes from the dedication of the project manager and the project Team to completing with enjoyment (gusto) the required activities in each phase to produce an excellent deliverable, anything else should be unacceptable

• Four significant elements of TQM: - employees involvement - focus on the customer - benchmarking, (How others do things better, try to imitate and improve) - continuous improvement

Strategy for Quality

• Revisiting the iron triangle, quality can be achieved with a realistic balance of time, cost, and scope.

• Progress reports– Current status report– Cumulative report– Management summary report– Variance other reports

Key factors for software quality

• Well defined quality goals, driven by market and end user needs.

• Good management of reusable code• Good quality assurance planning & control• Effective feedback

QUALITY INPUT, CAREFUL PRODUCTION, TESTING IN REALISTIC ENVIRONMENT, AND USER FEEDBACK are factors to obtain High levels of quality.

Outsourcing• Outsourcing is the act of one company contracting with

another company to provide services that might otherwise be performed by in-house employees.

• Avoid problems by hiring specialists• It is becoming more popular

– Faster, less expensive, primary reasons driving companies to outsourcing is speed and money.

• Outsourcing can be done in different levels, specific operations or management of IS.

• Lose a great deal of control– Tradeoff: cost & time versus control

• Don’t outsource core competencies, or thing that are key to their business strategy.

Benefits of outsourcing

• Cost savings — The lowering of the overall cost of the service to the business.

• Focus on Core Business — Resources (for example investment, people, infrastructure) are focused on developing the core business. For example often organizations outsource their IT support to specialized IT services companies.

• Improve quality — Achieve a steep change in quality through contracting out the service with a new service level agreement

• Access to talent — Access to a larger talent pool and a sustainable source of skills, in particular in science and engineering.

• Reduce time to market — The acceleration of the development or production of a product through the additional capability brought by the supplier.

When considering outsourcing ask the following questions

• Is it effective?

• Is it productive?

• Is the vendor reputable?

• Consider the culture differences, vendor and customer?

• Who decide the outsourcing, you as a project manager or business manager or CEO?

User Involvement

• Meetings to specify design features

• Meetings during project

• Training– a key part of many projects

User Training• You can build a great system

– If users don’t use, then system is a failure– Sound training helps explain benefits of system

• Common pitfalls– Focus on software rather than business processes– Focus on command sequences without

explanation– Skimping on training time– Tendency of users to solve problems the old way

rather than learn the new system

Options to Deliver Training

• Web-based virtual training

• Computer-based training

• Video courses

• Self-study books

• Pop-up help screens

Installation Options

• Parallel Installation– very expensive

• Pilot Operation, limited bases

• Cold Turkey (direct installation)– not recommended

Summary

Top management support

User involvement

Clear system objectives

• for successful implementation, need – implementation planning– early system testing– user training