Course Title

- IT support for project management processes
- Course description
- Chapter 1 - Introduction to project management
  - Objective
  - 1.1 Project management
  - 1.2 Limitations
  - 1.3 Task
  - 1.4 Project planning
  - 1.5 V-model
  - 1.6 Summary
  - 1.7 Questionnaire
  - 1.8 Bibliography
- Chapter 2 - Introduction to PRINCE2
  - Objective
  - 2.1 Introduction
  - 2.2 Principles
  - 2.3 Themes
  - 2.4 Processes
  - 2.5 Tool demo example
  - 2.6 Summary
  - 2.7 Questionnaire
  - 2.8 Bibliography
- Chapter 3 - Introduction to PMBOK
  - Objective
  - 3.1 Description
  - 3.2 PMBOK's methodology
  - 3.3 PMBOK Core Areas
  - 3.4 PMBOK Facilitating Areas
  - 3.5 PMBOK Integration Management
  - 3.6 Summary
  - 3.7 Questionnaire
  - 3.8 Bibliography
- Chapter 4 - Introduction to Agile
  - Objective
  - 4.1 Description
  - 4.2 Sprints
  - 4.3 Roles
  - 4.4 Communication
  - 4.5 Requirements management
  - 4.6 Measurement
  - 4.7 Summary – pros and cons of Agile
  - 4.8 Questionnaire
  - 4.9 Bibliography
- Chapter 5 - Advanced Agile
  - Objective
  - 5.1 Description
  - 5.2 Kanban Development – Just-In-Time logistics
  - 5.3 Extreme Programming – Simplicity with a scent of quality assurance
  - 5.4 Crystal methodology – According to project size & criticality
  - 5.5 Dynamic Systems Development Method – Business value
  - 5.6 Feature-Driven Development – Business model
  - 5.7 Summary
  - 5.8 Questionnaire
  - 5.9 Bibliography
- Chapter 6 - Introduction to Lean
  - Objective
  - 6.1 Introduction
  - 6.2 History
  - 6.3 Lean basic concepts
  - 6.4 Further Principles
  - 6.5 Lean tools
  - 6.6 Basic overview of concepts and tools
  - 6.7 Lean improvement cycle
  - 6.8 Tool demo
  - 6.9 Summary
  - 6.10 Questionnaire
  - 6.11 Bibliography
- Chapter 7 - Advanced Lean
  - Objective
  - 7.1 Introduction
  - 7.2 Lean Principles
  - 7.3 Lean Software Development
  - 7.4 Summary
  - 7.5 Questionnaire
  - 7.6 Bibliography
- Chapter 8 - Discussion
  - Objective
  - 8.1 Introduction
  - 8.2 Modelling a project
  - 8.3 Other methodologies
  - 8.4 Related fields
  - 8.5 Groupwork, homework
  - 8.6 Summary
  - 8.7 Questionnaire
  - 8.8 Bibliography
- Chapter 9 - Comparison
  - Objective
  - 9.1 Introduction
  - 9.2 Principles – processes – tools
  - 9.3 Modelling the project
  - 9.4 Classifications of project management methodologies
  - 9.5 Proposed method
  - 9.6 Groupwork, homework
  - 9.7 Summary
  - 9.8 Questionnaire
  - 9.9 Bibliography
- Chapter 10 - Project management tools basics
  - Objective
  - 10.1 Description
  - 10.2 Desktop tools
  - 10.3 Cloud based tools
  - 10.4 Summary
  - 10.5 Questionnaire
  - 10.6 Bibliography
- Chapter 11 - Project management tools advanced
  - Objective
  - 11.1 Description
  - 11.2 Demonstration
  - 11.3 A walkthrough on Redmine
  - 11.4 Redmine deficiencies
  - 11.5 Summary
  - 11.6 Questionnaire
  - 11.7 Bibliography
- Chapter 12 - Summary, conclusion
  - Objective
  - 12.1 Project management methodologies and software solutions
    - 12.1.1 PRINCE2
    - 12.1.2 PMBOK
    - 12.1.3 AGILE
    - 12.1.4 Lean
    - 12.1.5 Discussion and comparison of the methods
    - 12.1.6 Various project management tools
    - 12.1.7 Redmine
  - 12.2 Groupwork, homework
  - 12.3 Questionnaire
  - 12.4 Bibliography

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# 6.4 Further Principles

Constancy of purpose

- Clarity about what are the most important long term objectives
- What do we need to focus on?
- Persistence direction influencing the behaviour

Respect for People

- All of the employees have the potential for innovation and creativity
- The input of an employee should not be disregarded because it results in passivity later
- Active participation, mentoring, coaching, collaborating
- Questioning the way we have always done it is respected and welcomed
- Humility: everyone must feel safe about sharing his/her ideas. Do not ridicule!

Continuous Improvement, Pursuit of Perfection

- We should see our job as: daily work, daily improvement
- Change is inescapable and even desirable, proactively meet challenges!
- Shift the tone from reactive firefighting to proactive problem solving
- Problem: people don’t like changes but like their comfort zone, old habits and patterns are difficult to change.
- Requires to become a learning organization

- Continuous development of people’s capabilities to understand complexity and to improve shared understanding

Proactive behaviour

- Merriam-Webster definition of proactive: “controlling a situation by making things happen or by preparing for possible future problems”
- take the opportunity to make a difference every day
- Time Management Matrix

- 1. Important, not urgent: proactive. Long term sustainable quality born here. Planning, prevention, preparation, new opportunities, learning, developing.
- 2. Important, urgent: reactive, demand. Firefighting, crisis, interruptions, rework, pressing problems.
- 3. Not important, urgent: deception, illusion. Questionable and misaligned tasks and objectives. Unproductive meetings, excessive emails, interruptions.
- 4. Not important, not urgent: waste, escape. Junk mail, escape activities, internet surfing, time wasters, excessive TV.

Figure 6.2: Time management matrix

We should try to follow the order: most of the times to be proactive, if needed be reactive but try to avoid to being illusive or wasting our time.

Voice of the customer

- To focus on the right issues you have to listen to the voice of your customer, regularly, continuously
- Who is your real customer? It is not so trivial sometimes…

- The domain expert who is your official contact or the external sales contact of the company, or the end user of a potential buyer?

Quality at the source

- Doing the things right for the first time
- Problem: we will fix it later approach is accepted and prevalent
- Best time to solve a problem when it appears

- The problem is understood
- The circumstances in which the problem can occur are available
- If we don’t fix it then further problems/side effects may also appear
- If we fix it now then it means much less extra work (documentation, communication, etc.)
- We can take steps to prevent the appearance of the same or similar problems in future

See the whole, Systems thinking

- See all of the processes, activities, tasks, work steps, etc. with all relationships between them in one big picture. Concentrate on the whole not on the small, locale parts.
- Avoid creating locally optimized solutions.
- Problem: we have a narrow focus on local parts of a big picture.
- Cross functional teams can ensure systems thinking (by their breadth expertise and understanding)

Flow, pull, Just In Time (JIT)

- Uninterrupted flow (progression) of everyday work, materials, services and information.
- Too much unfinished (and obsolete) tasks vs. flowing the tasks one by one.
- Problems: inventory of materials, paper, document (all have to be managed and tracked), tasks queue.
- Eliminate interruptions and delays by pulling the work if it is demanded

- The work is performed when the customer demand appears (Just In Time)

Culture

- The shared beliefs and values of an organization is the basis to build a culture

- beliefs and values are the building blocks of the attitude and behaviour of people
- people will be engaged and committed to the organization by the shared beliefs and values
- culture can create the shared capability of proactive problem discovering and solving

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