IT Methodology

[tbohon]

Does anyone have, or have a reference to, a working project management methodology for IT projects?

I work in a hospital and we do no development work - everything we install is an existing commercial product. In the 6 years that I've worked here (lots more years in IT and as a PM before that) we've looked at and tried to use 4 or 5 different methodologies. None have been successful for one reason or another.

I'm facing a major system install later this year and am trying to come up with a proposal to try something different - hopefully something that works - and am interested in seeing what others have used successfully for their IT projects.

Thanks in advance for any input/response to this post.

Tom

 

[moclore]

Tom,

I have a project management methodology at

http://www.TenStep.com.

Take a look and see if it is helpful to you. (Note that there is a small license fee to use on a company-wide basis.)

 

[ElbaStevenson]

Two books I like are Project Management Maturity Model by J Kent Crawford and CMMI Distilled by Dennis Ahern, Aaron Clouse and Richard Turner

 

[greymatterindia]

Dear TOM,

I have developed a tailor made Project Management Process(PMP)- UAD Mantra. UAD stands for Understand-Architect- Deply. Detals about UAD is avilable in

http://www.greymatterindia.com

under "Process" section. I would like you to have a look at it and you talk to me to clear your clarifications.

Srini

Consultant
Grey Matter India Technologies Pvt Ltd

 

[dianne001]

I have found this book to be very helpful. Title - "Project Planning Scheduling and Control" third edition, by James P. Lewis.

It is for Project Management and covers the Hard to manage projects.
Hope this book will help you.

 

[debby101]

I've often gone to the site

http://www.projectconnections.com.

They have a free membership level that gives you access to some stuff that could be useful...

 

[ponderworks]

tbohon...

If you've tried 4-5 methodologies and none of them were successful, then you may have a bigger problem that will not be solved by spending yet more money on yet another methodology.

Can you tell us what happened?

et, PMP

 

[kmason8282]

In some respects differing project management methods have their good and bad points. Some are weighted more to process then to actual artifacts, some more aligned to qualtity and away from project financials. In my experience I have tried to take the best out of each methodogy (RUP/ Prince2 / et other less known) and apply it to the circumstances that I am in at the time. However, I start with a one mission statement, ie a project to deliver to the customer within cost, timescale and the quality expectations."

This may not answer you question, but hopefully will a shed light that the depth and breadth of the project and program management is as broad as the subject of IT as a whole.

Best of luck

K

 

[kmason8282]

In some respects differing project management methods have their good and bad points. Some are weighted more to process rather than the production of actual artifacts. Some more aligned to qualtity and away from project financials. In my experience I have tried to take the best out of each methodology (RUP/ Prince2 / et other less known) and apply it to the circumstances that I am in at the time. However, I start with a one mission statement, ie a project is to deliver to the customer within cost, timescale and the customers quality expectations."

This may not answer your question, but hopefully will a shed some light upon the depth and breadth of project and program management and their retrospective relationship to IT as a whole.

Best of luck

K

 

[norwood]

Tom,

One word of caution, don't rely on methodology alone. There is not a 'best' methodology, but you should rather adapt it to your particular situation. If you tried several and none worked, you might have a more fundamental problem that is really understanding what the project you're managing is all about.

What problems specifically have you faced in past projects? Was scope creep a problem? Customer satisfaction? Cost overrruns? Things like that can be minimized but not solved with a methodology. If you could be more specific as to what you want to accomplish in this project we can give you better advice.

daniel

 

[puresilk]

Tom

I agree with the general consensus that one method cannot fit all situations but the following sites and templates should give you good guidance particularly the dhs site which has a comprehensive list of templates to use with instructions and examples for varying situations and they all fit into the generic project phases ie Initiating Planning Executing Controlling Closing, so your not learning something new for each project


Try

http://www.method123.com

or

http://www.dhs.state.or.us/admin/ois/pmo/

hope this helps

Mark

 

[puresilk]

Re: my previous post about project management templates forgot to mention they're free to use too, which is rare to find.

Mark

 

[cezarn]

Tom,

IMO the methodology you want to/have to use depends on the type of project. Some types of applications dictate a specific type of process. The existing models doesn't give you the exact receipe for your project, it's just a general method proven to be working for certain types of projects.
In my PM classes we had a look at Pressman's classic "Software Engineering - A Practitionar's Approach" which describes many different methodologies and even gives you an example of which one is good for what.
You should do a post-mortem of your projects (usualy time gives you a better perspective) to see what went wrong so you can pinpoint a specific problem. You cannot reject a methodology just because it didn't work on a certain project.

Good luck,
Cezar