Abstract— The aim of this study is to define the framework for the selection of appropriate project management (PM) software for Information Technology domain Professionals. The analysis is based on the results of a random survey of project managers of different IT organizations. We organized a framework that considers External factors (demographics and work environment characteristics), Transitional factors (PM software usage category and historical use patterns), and conclusions (level of software package selected). The research analysis shows strong differences in amount of usage, type of usage, and PM application selection based on individually significant External and Transitional factors. It also holds up the hypotheses relating to amount of software use and level of software package used and provides qualified support for the hypothesis relating to software use for planning only, versus planning and control. These results will authenticate the developed framework.
I. INTRODUCTION
P
roject management has become more critical in organizations as the growth in using projects to organize and manage work is increased. We need to improve the process of project analysis. Methods like PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) and CPM (Critical Path Method) were developed to improve project planning and control. Techniques like Monte Carlo simulation were introduced for risk analysis and earned value for tracking the work. [1] In the 1980’s with the introduction of PC, more emphasis was to use the software based project management applications for project management. These project management applications included techniques of CPM,and PERT. The IT industry has also become one of the leading industries and they also need project management applications for tracking their software project efficiently. The Gartner Group estimates that vendors in the PM applications market offering consultancy and support services have earned revenue of $800-$900 millions per year with a constant increase yearly. [2]PM application selection for all project managers in general and IT project managers in particular have significant resource implications. One of the main problems of the selection of PM application is deciding the extent of usage and the appropriate application required for their specific organizational needs.
The PM application selection requires a statistical analysis and assessment of the factors that influence the extent of usage, type of usage, and selection of PM software. Organizations need to select the PM application depending on their work environment and specific needs and understanding of the relationship between work environment factors and software usage patterns. [4]
In order to improve the success of IT projects, we are using already established criteria reported by numerous authors like Blaney7, Duncan8 and Redmill9 and Walteridge2 and cover
the following aspects: 1- Meeting Budget 2- Meeting Timescale
3- Meeting user requirements and specifications The above three are also called triple constraints.
The purpose of this paper is to define a framework for selection of PM application for the IT industry of Pakistan. Specifically this paper will serve as a guideline for project managers/organizations in IT industry in selecting the appropriate software which will help in managing their projects.
II. SURVEY
We did a random survey of several project managers from IT Industry of Pakistan. The survey consists of 19 items which deals with the information about work environment and demographic factors, PM application usage as well as PM technique usage. Based on this survey, we made the framework for selection of project management application for IT industry of Pakistan.
Appropriate Project Management
Application for IT Industry of Pakistan
Kamran Arshad
1, Tariq Rafique
2, Azam Ishaque
3, Asim Nisar
4[email protected]
1, [email protected]
2, [email protected]
3,
[email protected]
4Center for Advanced Studies in Engineering Pakistan
1,2,3, Asian Institute of
Technology
Thialand
414th Toulon-Verona Conference “Organizational Excellence in Services” University of Alicante - University of Oviedo (Spain) September 1-3, 2011 pp. 109-113
III. BACKGROUNDANDSUMMARYOFKEY FINDINGS
We present the initial findings of the survey which will lead to the framework.
DEMOGRAPHICS
In our survey, 12 % of the organizations have 1000+ employees while 36% have less then 50 employees. The project managers have a median of 8 years of experience in project management. Nearly all the respondents have 40% of their time in project management activities.
Figure1: PM Application Usage
PM SOFTWARE USAGE
The use of project management applications grew in 1980s with the introduction of the PC. Our survey results suggest that almost 90% of the project managers in IT industry use some form of project management application for planning or planning and controlling their projects.
PM APPLICATION SELECTION
The survey results also show us the PM application selected by the IT managers. Nearly 85% of the respondents use Microsoft Project for their project tracking. The exceptions are the open-source industry and the web industry which uses web-based online project planning applications. Primavera was used by 5% of the industry while 10% of open-source applications were used for PM.
According to PMI, the PM applications are categorized as high-end or low end based on the cost. A cost of $900 plus is considered to be higher-end while a package cost less then $600 is considered as the low-end. The high-end applications like Primavera have additional features like contract management, risk analysis and ability to handle complex portfolios with multitasking and multi-user.
TYPE OF PM APPLICATION USAGE
90% of the respondents use the PM application for planning while 70% of them use it for planning and control. Planning
a project consists of defining the constraints scope of the project, time and resources. Control includes the monitoring of project performance and updating the project status. The project managers which use planning only applications, use the PM application during the start of the project while the planning and controlling applications are used throughout the project management life cycle.
Figure2: Framework
IV. ORGANIZINGFRAMEWORK
The framework [1] is created from the survey based on the External factors, Transitional factors and outcomes.
EXTERNAL FACTORS: This group consists of following
factors:
Organization size;
Percentage of work effort in PM; Years of experience in PM;
Number of activities in a typical project; Number of projects worked in last 12 months;
TRANSITIONAL FACTORS: This group consists of following
factors:
Application Category;
Initial years of Application usage; Percent of work done on that application;
Analysis: This group consists of the level of the respondent’s
most frequently used software package over the years preceding the study. The figure.2 represents the relationship of the factors involved in the framework. We can infer from the framework that that the External and transitional factors give us the usage of the PM application by IT organizations. Also the External and intermediate factors give us the PM application usage for planning or planning and control. We can also infer the selection of level of PM application usage from these factors.
We will address the below three hypothesis;
H1:Extent of PM Application Use
H2: Use of PM application For Planning or Planning
and Control H3: Level of PM Application Usage of PM Software Selection of Project Management Package Level Demographics and Working Environment
Outcomes
External
Factors
Transitional
Factors
V. ANALYSIS
A. Approach
We start our work by calculating the correlation matrix for the variables for the factors which we defined in the framework. The correlation matrix suggests us that the highest squared correlation is between percent of PM application usage in the past year and two previous years. The correlation of PM application usage of past year and last 5 years also has a high squared correlation. However
none of the value is close to 0.80 to suggest a problem of multi co linearity among the variables.
For analyzing each hypothesis, we will perform a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) for each of the dependent variable versus all the independent variables.
The dependent variable for will be the PM application usage in last 12 months. For H2, the dependent variable is categorical and it is usage of PM application for planning
Figure3: CORRELATION MATRIX
only or planning & control. For H3, the dependent variable is categorical and it is low-end or high-end PM application.
B. H1: Extent of PM Application Use
The dependent variable in this case is the extent of PM application usage in the past 12 months. The ANOVA suggests that the PM application usage for the past two and five years show high significance.
C H2: Use of PM application For Planning or Planning and Control
The dependent variable in this hypothesis is usage of PM application for planning versus planning &control. The ANOVA results suggest that PM application usage since the past 12 months, no. of activities and no. of projects shows high significance whereas PM application usage during last five years also shows significance.
D H3: Level of PM Application
The dependent variable is level of PM application which can be lower end or higher end. According to PMI standards, a PM application which costs 900$ or more is considered to be High-end application whereas an application which costs less then 600$ is considered a low-end application. The anova result shows that the no. of projects, percentage work in PM shows high significance.
Firm Size No of Projects Years of Experience Percent PM Software Usage (Preceding 12 month) Percent PM Software Usage (Preceding 02 Years) Percent PM Software Usage (Preceding 05 Years) No of Activities (Typical project) Percent Participated last 12 Month PM Firm Size No of Projects .582** .001 Years of Experience .533** .003 .220 .146 % PM Software Usage (Preceding 12 month) .453** .011 .451* .012 .066 .378 % PM Software Usage (last 02 Years) .098 .320 .275 .092 .080 .352 .766** .000 % PM Software Usage (Preceding 05 Years) .051 .404 .246 .118 .084 .345 .758** .000 758** .000 No of Activities (Typical project) .636** .00 .572** .001 .575** .001 .252 .112 .014 .475 .057 .394 % Participated last 12 Month PM .044 .417 .320 .59 .120 .270 .268 .098 .288 .082 .231 .133 .087 .339
TABLE1: ANOVA Results for Extent of Usage of PM Applications (H1)
Sum of Squares DF Mean Square F Sig.
No. of Projects B/W Groups 447.507 15 29.834 2.908 .055
Within Groups 92.333 9 10.259 Total 539.840 24
Years of Experience B/W Groups 107.667 15 7.178 1.685 .216
Within Groups 38.333 9 4.259 Total 146.000 24
PM Usage during last 2 years
B/W Groups 5358.143 15 357.210 5.116 .009 Within Groups 628.417 9 69.824
Total 5986.560 24
PM Usage during last 5 years
B/W Groups 5012.127 15 334.142 5.774 .006 Within Groups 520.833 9 57.870
Total 5532.960 24
Initial year of usage B/W Groups 29.307 15 1.954 .824 .644
Within Groups 21.333 9 2.370 Total 50.640 24
No. of activities B/W Groups 1828.243 15 121.883 1.918 .163
Within Groups 571.917 9 63.546 Total 2400.160 24
Percent Work Done in PM
B/W Groups 4856.377 15 323.758 2.550 .080 Within Groups 1142.583 9 126.954
Total 5998.960 24
TABLE2: ANOVA Result for Type of Usage (H2)
Sum of Squares DF Mean Square F Sig.
No. of Projects B/W Groups 161.840 1 161.840 9.847 .005
Within Groups 378.000 23 16.435 Total 539.840 24
Years of Experience B/W Groups 18.286 1 18.286 3.293 .083
Within Groups 127.714 23 5.553 Total 146.000 24
PM Usage during last 2 years
B/W Groups 991.203 1 991.203 4.564 .044 Within Groups 4995.357 23 217.189
Total 5986.560 24
PM Usage during last 5 years
B/W Groups 616.016 1 616.016 2.882 .103 Within Groups 4916.944 23 213.780
Total 5532.960 24
Initial year of usage B/W Groups .140 1 .140 .064 .803
Within Groups 50.500 23 2.196 Total 50.640 24
No. of activities B/W Groups 669.303 1 669.303 8.894 .007
Within Groups 1730.857 23 75.255 Total 2400.160 24
Percent Work in PM B/W Groups 720.968 1 720.968 3.142 .090
Within Groups 5277.992 23 229.478 Total 5998.960 24
PM usage during last 12 Months
B/W Groups 2292.054 1 2292.054 10.698 .003 Within Groups 4927.706 23 214.248
TABLE3: ANOVA Result for Level of PM Selection
Sum of Squares DF Mean Square F Sig.
No. of Projects B/W Groups 111.090 1 111.090 5.959 .023 Within Groups 428.750 23 18.641 Total 539.840 24 Years of Experience B/W Groups 8.048 1 8.048 1.342 .259 Within Groups 137.952 23 5.998 Total 146.000 24 PM Usage (last12Months) B/W Groups 853.772 1 853.772 3.085 .092 Within Groups 6365.988 23 276.782 Total 7219.760 24 PM Usage (last2year) B/W Groups 285.274 1 285.274 1.151 .294 Within Groups 5701.286 23 247.882 Total 5986.560 24 PM Usage (last5year) B/W Groups 265.008 1 265.008 1.157 .293 Within Groups 5267.952 23 229.041 Total 5532.960 24 Start of Usage B/W Groups .688 1 .688 .317 .579 Within Groups 49.952 23 2.172 Total 50.640 24 No. of activities B/W Groups 359.600 1 359.600 4.053 .056 Within Groups 2040.560 23 88.720 Total 2400.160 24 % Work in PM B/W Groups 1864.972 1 1864.972 10.376 .004 Within Groups 4133.988 23 179.739 Total 5998.960 24 VI. CONCLUSION
Our findings are that PM application is used by almost all the IT organizations these days. Most use it for initial planning of their projects while there are handfuls of organizations which also use it for controlling their whole project life cycle. The key factors influencing the PM application usage is the complexity of the projects and size of the organization. MS Project seems to be the choice of most of the IT organizations. Primavera is dominant in the construction and other engineering industries but seems that it is not the choice of IT organizations. There is also a small share of open-source PM applications mostly used by organizations which use PM applications for planning only.
The analysis in our study reveals strong support for the hypothesis 1 (Extent of usage), hypothesis 2 (planning & control) and hypothesis 3 (level of software package used) defined in the framework.
The results show that the extent of usage is influenced by the application usage of past two and five years. The use of PM application for planning only versus planning and
control is influenced by the PM application usage since the past 12 months, no. of activities whereas PM application usage during last five years also shows significance. The type of PM application used shows no. of projects, percentage work in PM as significance variables.
[1] Factors Influencing the Usage and Selection of Project Management Software (Matthew J.Liberatore & Bruce Pollack-Johnson) [2] IT Projects: A Basis for Success (John Wateridge)
[3] Current Practices in Project Management: An Empirical Study (Diana White, Joyce Fortune)
[4] An Integrated Framework for Project Portfolio Selection (NP Archer & F Ghasemzadeh)
[5] Criteria of Project Success: An exploratory Re-Examination ( C S Lim & M Zain Mohamed)
[6] E. H. Miller, “A note on reflector arrays (Periodical style—Accepted for publication),” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagate., to be published.
[7] Duncan, W 'Get out from under' Computerworld 9 Mar 1987 89-93 [8] Blaney, J 'Managing software development projects" Proc Project Management Institute Seminar~Symposium Atlanta, GA, USA (Oct 1989) 410-417
[9] Redmill, F J 'Considering quality in the management of softwarebased development projects' Information & Software Technology 1990 32(1) 18-22
