Defining the project
• You have presented your project proposal and
you have the go-ahead to start the project.
Before you start you need to ensure everyone
is singing to the same song sheet! It would
only take one of your stakeholders to have a
slightly different idea of what the project
should achieve, and you could have a serious
problem on your hands.
• You need everyone’s agreement on what the
aims of the project are and how the success of
the project is going to be measured. This can
all be done by what is known as a definition of
scope. Before we go into what a definition of
scope is we need to look closely at the project
life cycle.
The project life cycle
• You may have come across the system life
cycle at GCSE, well the project life cycle is very
similar. It allows us to form a view of the
stages a project needs to go through to allow
for successful completion.
The project life cycle phases
• The project life cycle is a series of activities
sorted into five or six chronological phases.
The six phases can be labelled ‘concept’,
‘definition’, ‘design’, ‘development’, ‘handover’
and ‘management’. The project is usually
considered complete once the project has
been handed over.
• At this stage the project manager’s job is over
and he or she has little to do with the
management phase, except that many of the
management procedures agreed for the
running of the completed project will have
been written during the design phase.
Concept
• The concept phase of the life cycle is
essentially thinking about what the overall
aim of the project is. An idea is conceived and
investigated until such time as the project
takes shape, i.e. we have identified a situation
where a project could be of benefit to
someone, we have identified who is involved
and have put forward a few ideas on how to
proceed.
Definition
• This phase is what we are about to do. We
are going to find out exactly what our project
should achieve. We are also going to decide
what our success criteria are; what would
constitute a successful project?
Design
• It is tempting to think of the design phase of
the project life cycle as being the actual
designing of whatever it is we are producing
(i.e. sitting in front of the computer designing
software). Although this is part of what we
will have to do, we have to actually design the
project itself. Planning the project on a
theoretical level (what will our product do,
and how?)
Development
• As part of your ‘project’ you will be creating
something to do with ICT i.e. a spreadsheet or
a database system, or a multi-media exercise.
A key part of the development section is the
building of the system or exercise. In the real
world this would mainly be done by other
members of the team.
• As project manager your job now would
involve you reviewing the plan at regular
intervals and adjusting it to take into account
of unforeseen circumstances. In the case of
this project you will be involved in the building
of the system or exercise.
Handover
• This is often the phase of the project that is
forgotten about, and is very much more than
just simply saying to the customer ‘here you
are, the finished product’. Your customer
needs to feel confident the system works and
will not let them down. They will need to be
involved in the testing of the system and they
will need to be able to implement the
changes/new system in a way that will protect
them from disaster.
• A phased introduction of the system is
advisable. This is called ‘parallel running’
where old and new run alongside until
confidence in the new system is raised.
Management
• The project should be over at the handover
point, though some of the deliverables at
handover could be any documentation
relating to this stage such as user guides.
System life cycle phases
• As with the project life cycle the system life
cycle follows much of the same sequence,
though once again the titles of the phases and
even the number of phases will vary
depending on who you talk to.
• The traditional systems life cycle is often
cyclical, the idea behind this is that if and
when there is a problem the whole process
can start again.
• For our purposes we will have the following
phases for the system life cycle –
identification, feasibility study, analysis,
design, implementation and maintenance.
Activity
• Identify both life cycles for your project and
display diagrammatically. Then combine the
two cycles together.
Producing the definition scope
• What it should contain –
– Purpose of the project (scene setting)
– Benefits to the organisation
– Objectives of the project
– Key success criteria
– Deliverables
– Constraints
– Areas of risk
– Project roadmaps
– Project resources
– Target completion date
The initial plan – the project
roadmap
• GANTT chart ‘v’PERT chart
• Both are good ways of diagrammatically
presenting data
Activity
• Create a leaflet explaining what PERT and
GANNT are and how they can help project
planning
Setting parameters
• (i.e. Setting a project start date and working
times)
Activity
• Schedule your project. Set start date and
working times. Checking timetable carefully!
Enter any holiday times and dates where you
won’t be working.