Choosing your supervisor Projects in Computing and Information Systems A Student's Guide 0273721313 Pearson 2009

60 Chapter 4 n Project planning and risk management Figure 4.1 A generic overview of the project process •

4.1 Introduction

4.1.1 Overview

Before tackling the actual work you need to complete your project, it is important to have some idea of how you are going to undertake that work. Without an appropriate project plan in place you will have little direction, you will lose sight of where your pro- ject is going and you will not complete your project on time. In this chapter we will look at some techniques you can use to plan how you will tackle your project. With a reasonable project plan in place it will enable you to manage your time more effectively, decide on priorities for your project at different stages and give you clear direction and motivation. We will also look at risk management, which will enable you to identify, manage and control any potential risks to your project. We will begin by discussing a generic interpretation of the project process before using this framework to introduce a number of project management techniques.

4.1.2 The project process

Figure 4.1 provides a generic view of the project process and introduces the five elements inherent in all projects – time, resources, cost, scope and quality. This view can be applied to any project to a greater or lesser extent – from large industrial projects right down to small, one-person projects like your own. The diagram shows that all projects consume time, resources and money a budget or cost in order to produce a particular product which has its own scope and quality. This product can be something tangible like a bridge, a report or a software system; or it could be something intangible like a change in working practices, restructuring a department, improving company profits and so on although these projects would undoubtedly have some tangible documentation associated with them. In the case of your own project, Figure 4.1 shows that this will take a certain amount of time to complete and it will require the use of certain resources – primarily you, but probably other resources too – for example, your supervisor, a clientuser, computer hardware, books and software. You should be aware that you will need ‘access’ to these resources as your project progresses and be confident that they will be available as and when you need them.