Improving the ICT service: Managing projects

Produced by: Socitm Insight

Type: Reports

This report, the sixth in the series on improving the ICT service, describes the four key stages for managing projects with a significant ICT element.

1 Introduction

Delivering products and services is the mainstay of any ICT team. Effective project management is the key to ensuring that what is delivered actually supports the business aims and realises the anticipated benefits. The ICT unit should lead the way in this skill as the centre of good practice for other services to follow. This report looks at how to optimise the project management framework and the tools to ensure success.

2 Project inception

Project requests come from all parts of the organisation. The one driving factor many project requests seem to share is the need for them to be completed as quickly as possible. Managing expectations and setting priorities come into their own at this stage.

3 Project validation

As other methodologies do, Prince 2 terms this phase as project planning. However, planning should occur across all phases of the lifecycle and the term, therefore, can be misleading if used to describe a specific phase. Project validation is a more accurate term, as it also encompasses the process of challenging the business case to ensure that the project will deliver the optimum results.

4 Project delivery

The validation process is now complete and the business case signed off. The project is live and its delivery starts. This section describes the tools to manage project delivery and techniques to overcome problems that may affect project progress.

5 Project close

This project close phase signals the completion of the project delivery, but it does not signal the end of the project. It is at this point that the benefits realisation can be judged; yet in many projects closing the project formally is often overlooked and so this removes an excellent opportunity to prove the value of the project.

6 Conclusion

One of the biggest challenges with project management is moving the conceptual ideas into practical actions. This section addresses the top ten actions that can be taken to achieve successful project management in the workplace. It also provides four case studies of good practice.

Last modified: 19th January 2010