Project Management Utilization Measurement Instrument
in IT-entrepreneur project
Saber Kahalian and Mohd Zaidi Abd Rozan
The purpose of the paper is to propose an instrument to measure utilization level of project management (PM) methodology of PMBOK in information technology (IT) entrepreneurs’ project. IT entrepreneurs as owner and project manager try to find the best project management methodology which is suitable for their project. This proposed instrument is a tool that IT entrepreneur can employ to measure the utilization level of project management methodology. In the other word, how much their management processes are near or far to standard project management. A pilot test was done by employing the instrument to 15 IT-entrepreneur in Malaysia through a dialogue session in Johor, Malaysia.
Field of Research: Project Management Methodology, IT entrepreneur, Utilization 1. Introduction
A project is a transient attempt to achieve a goal and having a pre-identified period (Carl and Timothy, 2007). It is defined to carry out a unique goal and objectives (Nokes Sebastian, 2007). Nowadays, Project Management (PM) has been one of the most significant fields, particularly in sustaining a business. Project Manager has been applying different methodology to manage projects better and achieve success in project goal and completion. So Project management methodologies developed, which consists of various forms, templates and guidelines to manage a project. IT-entrepreneurs manage own projects by the own way. They have own process and methods in managing the project. As observed, there is no specified project management methodology for IT-entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs as a project manager customized various project management methodologies to fit them with their project. Entrepreneurial project in small business has so many limitations in budget, and time compares to others. The entrepreneurs always face with several uncertainties, they need to know which methodology more fit to their business and in which phase of projects is better to go through formal project management or informal one.
Becoming more familiar with project management methodology for IT-entrepreneurs will be more sensible when they decide to employ any methodology for the management of the project. There should be bunched of knowledge on how much current management process go throughout Standardized Project Management, and then, which process that they already utilize is standard project management. There should be a comparison of the current process of project management in the project with standard project management methodologies that already exists. So it can be seen the lack of instrument to measure utilization of PM methodology for the IT entrepreneur project.
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Saber Kahalian, Faculty of Computer Science & Information Systems, Universiti Technologi Malaysia email: [email protected]
Mohd Zaidi Abd Rozan, Faculty of Computer Science & Information Systems, Universiti Technologi Malaysia, email: [email protected]
2. Literature Review
In this section, firstly, there is a short review on IT entrepreneur; then followed by definition of output oriented control of project management, and then in continue a review on project management and PM methodology definition in the literature will be there. Then after reviewing PMBOK as a PM methodology base line of instrument, there will be a review on PM maturity as a base of rating for utilization level of utilization measurement in the project.
2.1 IT Entrepreneur & IT Entrepreneur Project
There are several definitions on entrepreneur as it is challenging on different literature for several years. Bearing of risk is a prime factor in the entrepreneurial character and function (McClelland, 1961; Palmer, 1971; Timmons, 1978; Welsh & White, 1981).
Entrepreneur is a person that seizing opportunity and try to release their idea into an innovative product on that opportunity. As it can be observed, there is increasing penetration of IT in most businesses and industries, and IT is the backbone of the world economy.
Actually, there is no universal definition of an entrepreneur who accepted by all literatures (Gartner, 1989). In fact, it is a subject has made various controversies. Thus, according to Gartner (1989), the type of entrepreneur who is the focus for a research study, should precisely be defined.
Any type of entrepreneurs (creating a new enterprise, launching a product or service, exploring a new market and, etc.) with an IT solution suppose as an IT entrepreneur; for example, retail of computer product without any IT solution is not included in this definition.
IT entrepreneur project expected to be shorter as duration and number of employee. As the size of an IT entrepreneur project is always small or medium, so there is budget limitation in those projects compare to others, and they always managed by own (Hamilton, 1994).
2.2 Output Oriented Control
Based on theory of learning the quality of the output is a frequent procedure to generate the output. As it has shown in research of „„Learning Curve‟‟ there is an ongoing improvement of performance as a function of the number of times the operation is repeated (e.g. Griffith, 1996; Snead & Harrell, 1994; Watson & Behnke, 1991; Yiming & Hao, 2000). Thus, the „„Expectancy Theory Model‟‟ proved that a process without any worthy added value to one‟s objectives would not be repeated (Vroom, 1964). According to Tatikonda and Montoya-Weiss (2001) that they found the market outcomes goal was come by achievement of operational outcomes in 120 development projects. Finally, although there is so many literature today that discussed on controlling the processes rather than the outputs (see the all series of ISO 9000), it can be seen control models suggest that In Operational process same as Project Management it could come to „„output oriented control‟‟ ( Veliyath,
Hermanson, & Hermanson, 1997).This assumption will be the most important base line of the paper as the instrument proposed base on this assumption as it can be seen in design section later.
2.3 Project management
“Project management” can be defined as the organizing, planning, scheduling, leading, communicating, and controlling of work activities to achieve a predefined outcome and goals, within defined budget and on time. Failures in Projects done often so many times – just some will be putting in the headlines; and the majorities are forgotten very soon. There is a varied and wide reason for failure. Generic causes are:
Table 1: generic cause of project failure
With the absent of a project management, people that direct a project, those who manage that and those people who are staff on a project would be ambiguity about how events and activity will be organized; They could not recognize an accomplishment of the project. Members of the project will not know what are responsibility, accountability and authority of them, thus, there will be so many unclearly about the project. Lacking a project management methodology in the projects will cause the project do not complete on planned time and along an acceptable cost.
An appropriate project management will help the project to obtain the desired results by a pre-designed, managed and set of clear activities and responsibility. These principles of good project management are: Bounded process in a limited period that has an identified end point and start point called project; Projects Process should be come, ordered and managed to obtain its objectives become successful, and all aspects of the project must be defined. Project management methodology should answer these questions: Why the project should be run? What it is planned and expected to obtain? How the outcome is to be achieved? What responsibilities are in the accomplishment of the project?
2.4 Project Management Methodology
“Methodology” generally consists of procedures, practices, and rules used by those who work in a particular discipline (Josler and Burge 2005). Jason Charvat in 2003 advocates following definition for methodology:
"A methodology is a set of guidelines or principles that can be tailored and applied to aspecific situation. In a project environment, these guidelines might Lack of co-ordination of resources and activities
Lack of communication with interested parties, leading to products being delivered which are not what the Customer wanted
Poor estimation of duration and costs, leading to projects taking more time and costing more money than expected
be a list of things to do. A methodology could also be a specific approach, templates, forms, and even checklists used over the project life cycle."
Project management methodology helps a manager to deliver projects. According to Cheryl and James in 2005 a project can be accomplished on time, within budget, and to satisfaction of stakeholders if utilizing project management methodology. Selecting correct methodology that fit to project activities will help to focus on product and goals of the project rather than focusing on the process that has no purpose, without wasting time on administrative tasks (Charvat 2003).
2.4.1 The PMBOK guide
The process-based project management named Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) Guide. The process-based methodology means that work will be completed within various processes of project. The PMBOK Guide has several standards of management same as “ISO 9000” of CMMI (“the Software Engineering Institute”). Processes are described on 3 concepts (Table 2).
Table 2: 3 Concept of Process in PMBOK
Inputs (documents, plans, designs, etc.)
Tools and Techniques (mechanisms applied to inputs) Outputs (documents, products, etc.)
PMBOK methodology consists of forty-two processes, and these processes categorize to five essential process groups and also fall into nine knowledge areas; those will be common in most projects as can be seen in Table 3.
Table 3: Five Process group of PMBOK
Those five process group called on project phases. Each of the nine knowledge areas contains the processes that need to be completed through their procedure and obtain an appropriate management method. Each process would sub line of a knowledge area, also into a process group. The “PMBOK Guide” offers a general process guideline to manage most projects within the defined time.
2.4.2 Using PM methodology by IT- entrepreneur
Recently, base on their experience project managers have believed that, they cannot simply use a methodology exactly in practice as it settled in standard. They found that they should have customized and tailor methodology that became selected to achieve their own company project needs within defined budget and time bounding (Charvat, 2003).
As we observe there is not special and formal Project Management methodology for IT-entrepreneur to apply to the project in small business. They are tailoring and using selective different process and documentation from various standardized project management that currently use in projects. Entrepreneurs in small business are in front line. Every management activity and plans come to those.
As small business make up more than 90% of the businesses in many countries, there are should be more severe research relevant to this operative section of the economy (Bannock, Daly 1994).
No Process Group 1 Imitation
2 Planning 3 Executing
4 Monitoring and Controlling 5 Closing
2.5 (PM)
2Maturity Assessment Methodology (Kwak & Ibbs, 1998)
There should be an agreed measures to organization be able determine that its project management process is appropriate and then compare its management of projects with best practice (Hillson 2001). A research team formed by Professor William C. Ibbs at the University of California at Berkeley set itself the goal to investigate the financial and organizational benefits to organizations that result from the implementation of project management processes (Kwak & Ibbs, 1998). Ibbs proposed five level of maturity on implementing PM processes as following.
Table 4: Project Manaegment Maturity (PM)2 Model Level Level Description
Level 1 Organizations at level 1 do not use formal procedures for executing a project. Project activities are poorly defined and cost estimates are inferior Level 2
At the planned stage, informal and incomplete procedures manage a project. The organization has strength in doing similar and repeatable work
Level 3
Most of the project management problems are identified and informally documented. PM data for project planning and management are collected across the organization
Level 4
Integrated Stage: At the integrated stage, an organization can manage, integrate, and control multiple projects efficiently. PM process data are standardized, collected, and stored
Level 5
Sustained Stage: At the sustained stage, PM processes are continuously improved. PM data are collected and rigorously analyzed to improve processes. Innovative ideas are vigorously pursued
Kwak in 2002 defined 3 key aspects that first one is key PM Process in 5 level as can be seen in Table 5. Other key aspects were Major Organizational Characteristics and Key Focus Areas.
Table 5 Key PM Processes of the (PM) 2 Model (Kwak & Lbbs, 2002)
Maturity Level Key PM processes
Level 5 PM processes are continuously improved PM process as fully understood
PM data are optimized and sustained Level 4 Multiple PM (program management)
PM data and process are integrated
PM Process data are quantitatively analyzed, measured and stored Level 3 Formal project planning and control system are managed
Formal PM data are managed Level 2 Informal PM processes are defined
Informal PM problems are identified Informal data are collected
Level 1 No PM processes or practices are consistently available No PM data are consistently collected or analyzed
The Key PM processes are the base line to rating utilization level of PM methodology in the project.
3. Methodology and Research Design
In this section firstly, the definition of Utilization Level will be proposed. Then Methodology that used in designing the instrument will be discussed and in continue designing process and finally reliability test done to finalize the instrument.
A quantitative method use to design instrument as the instrument is a measurement tools and we need a metric result. IT entrepreneur invited as a respondent and 15 data collected to analysis and test of instrument.
The paper aimed to design an instrument to be used by IT-entrepreneur to measure PM utilization in the project. An instrument base on project management maturity and project management product proposed and a pilot test done within entrepreneur in Johor, Malaysia.
3.1 Utilization Level (UTL) Definition
As we know every project to be handled to need a project manager. However, some project manager manages their project by applying standard project management and some other just goes by informal management. In the IT entrepreneur project as we discussed, they manage by own, and going more by sense. Now, how much they go throughout SPM and how much informal it is a level of utilization. So if they go more formal applying SPM process, they will be high in utilization level. In contrary if IT-entrepreneurs going more informal without following any SPM process and documents utilization level would be low.
Figure 1: Utilization Level
3.2
Design instrument
As discussed in literature review that PMBOK process consists of three concepts that the last concept was output. Base on Output oriented control that discussed in literature the products (output) of PMBOK can be used to designing the instrument. In the other word, if any project manager covers products, it means that the process
Project Management
Informal Project Management
Standard Project Management (SPM)
PM Utilization Level
High
implemented to achieving that output. The study used output of PMBOK and identifies processes that need to achieve each element of those products.
PMBOK same as other project management methodologies have several output. Every process of project management has one or more deliverable as products of these processes. In the following subsection, process will be identified from products and then base Project management maturity methodology rating of the process will be defined. Finally, measurement instrument will be proposed, and reliability test will be done to finalize the instrument.
3.2.1 Identify factors (Process)
There are so many products in every phase of the project. For instance, the initiation phase consists of these products: Project Charter, Stakeholder registration, Stakeholder Analysis Matrix, Stakeholder Management Strategy. Every product has several elements as an example can be seen five elements of the project charter in table 6.
Table 6: Project Charter Elements Project Purpose or Justification
Project Description
Project and Product Requirements Acceptance Criteria
Initial Risks
Then from those elements that are base on PMBOK handbook template, following process are identified.
Table 7: Extracted process from Project Charter Elements Defining Project Purpose
Provide a summary-level or high-level information of product and project deliverables Determine the criteria that must be met to project become accepted by customer or sponsor Identify initial project risks
Then for every product of all phase of project these steps repeated: Step1 – Extract Elements from products.
Step2 – Identify Process from elements.
Covering every process by IT-entrepreneur means that the products covered and base on output oriented control assumption the process utilized. Base on identified process several questions defined.
3.2.2 Define rating for utilization
As it can be seen (PM)2 maturity defined five levels on the key concept of PM
process, so base on Key concept and (PM) 2 maturity model levels following perform level defined for rating process in the instrument (5-point Likert Scale):
Table 8: Perform Level
Perform Level Description
Level 1 do not perform the process (No PM process) Level 2 perform the process without store in document
Level 3 perform the process and store the result in document(reporting) Level 4 perform the process and store the result in standardized project
management document and analysis those
Level 5 perform the process and store in standardized document and then analysis and improve the process by innovation (having innovation in standard process)
Those level defined to know how much the process utilize base on perform level.
3.2.3 propose instrument
A questionnaire proposed base on identified process and defined rating consist of 145 questions. For every phase of project questions defined:
Table 9: number of defined questions by project phase Project Phase Number of Question
Initiation 23
Planning 17
Executing 40
Controlling & monitoring 31
Closing 34
Respondent should rate questions base on defined rating. Level 0 add to the questionnaire to answer those processes that IT entrepreneur not familiar with those. Level 0: do not know this process
The questionnaire is too lengthy to publish, Just an example of those publish in the following.
Table 10: Example of proposed questionnaire
Initiation Phase Perform Level
0 1 2 3 4 5 1 Defining Project Purpose
2 Provide a summary-level or high-level information of product
and project deliverables
3 Determine the criteria that must be met to project become
accepted by customer or sponsor
Planning Phase Perform Level
0 1 2 3 4 5 1 Determine Requirements of Stakeholders
2 Prioritize the Requirements of Stakeholders in total or by
category
Finally, the result of rating would be the average of all rates. The utilization level will come out from averaging responds to questions to all factors. Question without response assumes as zero utilization. Utilization Level of 1 is low utilization, and 5 is high utilization.
3.2.4 Reliability test
A workshop conducts to invite entrepreneur as a respondent and provide a place to doing data collection. The conducted workshop named dialogue because that was more same as dialogue than a workshop. People come and join the dialogue and answer the questions by guiding of the assistant who was familiar with the topic of data collection.
A pilot test defined to produce a more reliable questionnaire. The test conducts by interviewing and discussion with a few IT entrepreneurs in order to achieve comment to make a more reliable questionnaire. Then base on their comments some questions become edited to make clearer questions. As the draft version of the questionnaire was just rating to perform level of product and as the researcher observed that meaning of some term can be hard for IT-entrepreneur to understand so, processes extract from product, and this last version of the questionnaire proposed. Then the reliability coefficients (Cronbach‟s alpha) of the measures done as can be seen in table 3.1.
Bagozzi and Yi (1988) suggested a measuring instrument will be highly reliable if value of alpha is 0.5< value of alpha< 1.0 . 5 part of measurement instrument had a high alpha value so result obviously point out the high reliability of the questions.
Table 2: Results Analysis of Reliability Test
Alpha Value Number of Item/questions
Group name
0.851 23 INITIATING
0.821 17 PLANNING
0.882 40 EXECUTTING
0.915 31 MONITORING & CONTROLLING
0.819 34 CLOSING
4. Analysis of Results
The pilot implementation test has done within IT-entrepreneurs in Johor, Malaysia. As you can see in figure 2, the qualification of respondents takes apart 58.3% on university degree, and none of those had PMP or PRINCE II certificate, 33.3% of those had other degree, and 8.3% had not any qualification.
Figure 2 Qualification of respondents
Furthermore, most of IT entrepreneur managed project by owned, the percentage is 84 and just 16% of those manage by employ a full-time project manager. Also, 84% of respondents mentioned that project management process was an identifiable process in the project; this high rate was not expected and then there was not any special pre-defined process in project management in 16% of respondents.
As it can be seen in figure 2 most of the utilization level is between 2.9 (Lower) to 3.5 (Upper) bases on analysis.
Figure 3: Utilization Level
5.
Discussion of Findings
Base on the data and analysis of those, it can be seen that IT-entrepreneur does not utilize project management methodology so much, or if they utilize they only perform the process without documentation or standard reporting. As well as it was expected, too bureaucratic and reporting of process cause IT-entrepreneur just utilized some process without reporting or just reporting in informal. So they need project management process but with lighter standard of documentation and reporting, less bureaucratic.
As we discussed with IT-entrepreneur in the dialogue session, they had few concerns on utilization of project management methodology; several of those prefer doing project without spending any time on long and complicate reporting and documentation of project management methodology. And also there was some
ambiguity for them that project management methodology will influence the success of project, and it will help to obtain more success, or it will decrease that.
6.
Research limitation
There was concerned about collecting information on PM practices. Ideally, measuring was better to be done by visiting respondent and conducting an in-depth interview. As the dialogue conducted as a data collection session and assistant help respondent to answer so the accuracy of data is acceptable; moreover, as people always tend to score higher when they answer by themselves, so interview could help to avoid this problem. In the personally interview people would try to be more honest. Because of limitation of time to having IT-entrepreneur in a session and interview was time consuming it was impossible to interview those.
7.
Conclusion
With the proposed instrument IT-entrepreneur can measure how much their management process is near to standard project management. As we know if anyone wants to participate in the bigger project need more standardization. However, there should be defined special standard project management methodology for IT-entrepreneur project with fewer bureaucratic processes, reports and documentation that this instrument can help researchers on this matter.
The proposed measurement instrument in the future researches will be used to study more on relation of utilization level with success in the project and impact of project characters on utilization level in IT-entrepreneur project. In summary, study represented a new quantitative measurement instrument to identify and measure implementation of the project management methodology in the project.
8.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thanks Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and Ministry of Higher Education for FRGS Vot No. 78434 that has supported this research.
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