1. Explain the IT and its organizational structures in detail? Ans:
Traditional organizations are hierarchical, flat or matrix in design. (Fig. 1.1)
• In hierarchical organizations, middle managers tell subordinates what to do and tell superiors the outcomes. IS supports this hierarchy.
• In flat structured organizations, work is more flexible and employee do whatever is needed. It allows offloading extra work and supports intra-firm communications.
• In matrix organizations, work is organized into small work groups and integrated regionally and nationally/globally. It reduces operating complexes and expenses by allowing information to be easily shared among different managerial functions.
Fig. 1.1: Types of Organizational Structures
1.4.1 Hierarchical Organizational Structure
The key features of Hierarchical organization structure are given below: • It is based on the concepts of division of labor, specialization, and unity of command.
• Key decisions are made at the top and filter down through the organization.
• Middle managers do the primary information processing and communication function.
• It is typically used to store and communicate information along the lines of the hierarchy and to support the info management function of the managers.
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... as dictating how information flows through the organization. On the other hand, Principles of organizational structure helps in maintaining the structure. Different organization structure offers different merits ... as the typical hierarchical arrangement of lines of duties, communication authority, and authority of an organization (Aart, 2005). The organization structure determines how the ...
1.4.2 Flat Organizational Structure
Following are the key features of Flat Organizational Structure:
• Decision-making is centralized.
• As everyone does whatever needs to be done, they can respond quickly to dynamic, uncertain environments
• However, this organizational structure often becomes less flexible as the organization grows.
• Routine work is often off-loaded but, as a hierarchy develops, becomes the „glue‟ tying parts of the organization that would not otherwise communicate.
1.4.3 Matrix Organizational Structure
The features of Matrix Organization Structure are listed below:
• This typically assigns workers with two or more supervisors in an effort to make sure multiple dimensions of the business are integrated, with each supervisor directing a different aspect of the employee‟s work.
• Matrix organizations often fail to enable managers to achieve their business strategies because of the inability to cope with increased information processing demands.
1.4.4 Networked Organizational Structure
Following are the advantages of Networked Organizational Structure:
• Rigid hierarchies are replaced by formal and informal communication networks that connect all parts of the company.
• Defined by their ability to promote creativity and flexibility while maintaining operational process control, which is achieved by substituting hierarchical controls with controls based on IS
• Extensive use of communication technologies and networks also makes it easier to coordinate across functional boundaries. The networked organization structure is shown in the Fig.1.2. [pic]
Fig. 1.2: Networked Organizational Structure
1.4.5 T-form Organization
Features of T-form Organization are as follows:
• T-form (“Technology-based”) organizations take the networked structure one step further by combining IT with traditional components to form new types of components.
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• These include electronic linking, production automation, electronic workflows, electronic customer/supplier relationships and self-service Internet portals
• Work is often coordinated electronically, while systems enable information to more easily move around the organization, and decentralizing decision-making
2. Explain different roles of the software development?
Ans: The following are the roles based on the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF).
• Middle-Management Leadership
Manage people, resources, and budgets. Oversee and provide vision for several major projects simultaneously. Review employees in all other positions. Work with other MM leaders for interaction between projects.
• Team Leadership
Manage people, resources, and timelines for one major project or several minor projects. Act as the central point of contact on those projects. Involve or aware of virtually every issue or decision in project. Team Leader is responsible for all aspects of the project. Work with all other positions.
• Product Management
Work with clients to define requirements and resolve issues. Design and maintain functional specifications and other documentation. Often provide prototypes for user interfaces or design interface of services. Work with Team Leadership and Software Development.
• Logistics
Manage hardware/software requirements for development, testing, validation, and production environments. Perform or oversee installations. Own the installation process and any installation utilities. Work with resource teams to obtain servers/software and address issues within the environments. Work with Team Leader.
• Software Development (Programming)
Design and code the software to match the specifications, prototypes, and other documentation. Define timelines. Work with Product Management to refine expectations and clarify requirements. Often interact with Team Leader, Tester, User Documentation, and User Education.
• Software Testing
Define testing procedures and certification process. Define timelines. Create and execute tests on software. Manage a bug-tracking procedure. Work with Team Leadership. Collaborate with Product Management to define areas and specifics of testing. Often interact with Software Developer. Work with Team Leader.
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... project scope management, and why is good project scope management so important on information technology projects? Scope refers to all the work involved in creating the products ... 7.Why do you need a good WBS to use project management software? WBS helps to more accurately and precisely define ... of users and stakeholders. This is why they are almost always significantly over budget in a project. It ...
• User Documentation
Create and maintain user-centric documentation. Work with Product Management and Software Development to define and document functionality. Often provide training materials for User Education. Work with Team Leader.
• User Education
Create training procedures and policies. Design training materials. Execute training sessions. Work with Product Management and User Documentation. Work with Team Leader.
• Software Support
Define support procedures. Handle user issues. Provide resolutions or formulate work-around for software issues. Forward hardware/infrastructure issues to Logistics. Notify Software Testing and Development of software bugs. Work with Team Leader.
3. Define project management using a suitable diagram?
Ans: Project Management is the discipline of organizing and managing resources in such a way that these resources deliver all the work required to complete a project within defined scope, time, and cost constraints. A project is a temporary and one-time endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service that brings about beneficial change or added value. This property of being a temporary and a one-time undertaking contrast with processes, or operations, which are permanent or semi-permanent ongoing functional work to create the same product or service over and over again. The management of these two systems is often very different and requires varying technical skills and philosophy, hence requiring the development of project management. The first challenge of project management is ensuring that a project is delivered within the defined constraints. The second, more ambitious, challenge is the optimized allocation and integration of the inputs needed to According to PMBOK (Project Management Institute – PMI), “Project Management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements”. Factors Influencing Project Management
Project management is often summarized in a triangle as shown in Fig. 2.1. The three most important factors are time, cost and scope. These form the vertices with quality as a central theme. [pic]
The Business plan on Project Cycle Management
Chapter 3 introduces the Logical Framework Approach (LFA), explaining its role in project design with a simple project example. It explains how sustainability / quality factors can influence a project’s chances for success, and indicates the range of Where to tools that are available to take account of these factors. It also explains how you can find what? use the logframe matrix to develop ...
Fig. 2.1: Project Management Triangle
1) Projects must be delivered on time.
2) Projects must be within cost.
3) Projects must be within scope.
4) Projects must meet customer quality requirements.
More recently, this has given way to a project management diamond, with time, cost, scope and quality the four vertices and customer expectations as a central theme. No two customers’ expectations are the same so you must ask what their expectations are.
4. List out different project development stages in detail? Ans:
the project development process will have the same major stages: Initiation, Planning and design, project implementation and closing/maintenance. Initiation
The initiation stage determines the nature and scope of the development. If this stage is not performed well, it is unlikely that the project will be successful in meeting the business’s needs. The key project controls needed here is an understanding of the business environment and making sure that all necessary controls are incorporated into the project. Any deficiencies should be reported and a recommendation should be made to fix them. The initiation stage should include a cohesive plan that encompasses the following areas:
• Study analyzing the business needs in measurable goals.
• Review of the current operations.
• Conceptual design of the operation of the final product.
• Equipment requirement.
• Financial analysis of the costs and benefits including the budget.
• Select stake holders, including users, and support personnel for the project.
• Project charter including costs, tasks, deliverables, and schedule.
This phase can also be called initiation phase, where in people has to identify the following,
• Information to be processed.
• Functions required.
• Performance required.
• System behavior should be determined
• No of interfaces required should be estimated. This may be difficult to do. But tentatively allowed.
Some times project can be dropped during at this phase.
Planning and Design
After the initiation stage, the system is designed. Occasionally, a small prototype of the final product is built and tested. Testing is generally
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performed by a combination of testers and end users, and can occur after the prototype is built or concurrently. Controls should be in place that ensures that the final product will meet the specifications of the project charter. The results of the design stage should include a product design that:
• Satisfies the project sponsor, end user, and business requirements.
• Functions as it was intended.
• Can be produced within quality standards.
• Can be produced within time and budget constraints. During this phase the following issues are addressed,
• How design should be converted into code?
• Testing strategy should be planned
• Strategy for module integration.
• Architectural issues are evaluated
• Interfaces are characterized etc.
Project Implementation
Against the project plan and project organization structure defined in the previous stage, the project activities are executed, tracked and measured. The project implementation stage not only includes the completion of planned activities, but also the evaluation of the success and contribution of this effort and the continual review and reflection of project status and outstanding issues against the original project business case. The implementation is basically concerned with the development of code and deploying the code. There should be synchronization between the code and design. Tools are available to synchronize both code and design. (Ex: UML – Visual Paradigm, Rational Rose etc).
Once implementation is over, proper testing is required. Testing can be unit testing, performance testing, load testing, integration testing and system testing. Closing and Maintenance
One of the key success criteria for continuous process improvement involves defining a formal process for ending a project. This includes evaluating the successful aspects of the project as well as identifying opportunities for improvement, identification of project “best practices” that can be leveraged in future projects, and evaluating the performance of project team members. Closing includes the formal acceptance of the project and the ending thereof. Administrative activities include the archiving of the files and documenting lessons learned. Maintenance is an ongoing process, and it includes:
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• Continuing support of end users
• Correction of errors
• Upgradation of software and hardware etc.
• Documentation preparation (user manuals).
5. Describe work break down structure? Ans:
Most project control techniques are based on breaking down the goal of the project into several intermediate goals, each of which can in turn be broken down further. This process can be repeated until each goal is small enough to be well understood. We can then plan for each goal individually – its resource requirements, assignment of responsibility scheduling, etc. The development of a project plan is predicated on having a clear and detailed understanding of both the tasks involved, the estimated length of time each task will take, the dependencies between those tasks, and the sequence in which those tasks have to be performed. Additionally, resource availability must be determined in order to assign each task or group of tasks to the appropriate worker. One of the methods used to develop the list of tasks is to create what is known as a Work breakdown structure (WBS).
A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a hierarchic decomposition or breakdown of a project or major activity into successively levels, where each level is a finer breakdown of the preceding one resource .
A semiformal way of breaking down the goal is called the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).
With this technique, one builds a tree whose root is labeled by the major activity of the project, such as “build a compiler”. Each node of the tree can be broken down into smaller components that are designated the children of the node. This “Work Breakdown” can be repeated until each leaf in the tree represents a piece of work that the manager feels confident to estimate in terms of size, difficulty, and resource requirements. Figure 3.1 shows the work breakdown structure for a simple compiler development project.
