ABSTRACT
Project Overview .................................................................................................... 385 Identify Phase Exercises ........................................................................................ 386 Identify Phase ......................................................................................................... 387 Identify Phase Case Discussion ............................................................................. 392 Define Phase Exercises .......................................................................................... 394 Define Phase ........................................................................................................... 394 Define Phase Case Discussion ............................................................................... 399 Design Phase Exercises ..........................................................................................400 Design Phase ..........................................................................................................400 Design Phase Case Discussion ............................................................................... 413 Optimize Phase Exercises ...................................................................................... 414 Optimize Phase ...................................................................................................... 415 Optimize Phase Case Discussion ........................................................................... 422 Validate Phase Exercises ........................................................................................424 Validate Phase ........................................................................................................ 425 Validate Phase Case Discussion ............................................................................. 430
The Information System Division of a major Fortune 50 corporation develops applications to support the business. The division had been reviewing and approving the projects in a cross-divisional weekly meeting with the senior executives. The project charter is developed by the application development team working with the business to understand the scope of the proposed project. The project charter includes a description of the business opportunity, identification of the customers and stakeholders, the goals and objectives of the project, as well as the metrics that assess the successful completion of the project. The project charter also includes identification of the potential risks that could prevent the project from
being successfully completed, and the assumptions that are assumed to be true. An initial estimate of the resources and project costs and the hard and soft benefits for doing the project are also assessed. The hard benefits identify financial savings that impact the financial statements, whereas the soft benefits include cost avoidance and intangible benefits to the business for doing the project. The customer signatures signifying buy-in to the project are also included on the project charter. The division’s program management office (PMO) provides project management standards, guidance, and training to the division. They have recently decentralized the project charter approval process to the senior vice presidents’ (SVP) areas. The review and approval of projects had been performed at a divisional level, looking only at projects that were >1000 hours of effort. If projects were <1000 hours of total effort, they were reviewed by vice presidents (VPs), but not across the SVP area. The goal was to get more visibility of all projects across the entire SVP area. The approval from the customer will be attained, and then the information system division SVP area will review the project charter to identify any cross-area conflicts or overlap and ensure that resources are available to work on the project.
