Role of the Project Steering Group
The roles of the steering group include approving budgets, creating and shaping the project’s business case, and risk management. A project budget includes all anticipated costs of the project. A project budget is, therefore, an estimation of the all costs associated with every phase of the project. As a result, there is an expected variance between budget estimates and actual project costs. A good project budget must, therefore, anticipate changes due to the mentioned variances. During the planning phase, a good project team should establish the procedures for changing, controlling and approving the budget. In the Payables Audit System (PAS) project, it is the responsibility of the steering group to approve all matters budget (Martin, 2012).
Enterprise technological projects have an economic effect on implementing organizations. This is because the project is usually conducted in the organizational environment which is driven by business goals. As a result, business goals override project goals. Projects are normally launched to support an organization meet its business goals. In the PAS project, it is the role of the steering grouping to determine the project’s business goals. According to the various reports commissioned by the group, the PAS project was supposed to meet several business goals . These were to reduce the cost of voucher processing in the next three years , reduce the number of personnel required to process vouchers by 50% within five years and reduce the processing and payment period of vouchers . Also, the project was aimed at provid ing the metrics required to assess the performance of vendors and accounts payable , and support systematic integration across the entire supply chain (Martin, 2012) . This project is expected to save the firm $85,000 and $50,000 in personnel and system maintenance costs respectively.
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Finally, the steering group is significant in the risk management process in the PAS project. Risks are obstacles towards attaining the project’s objectives. In project contexts, risk management entails identifying and classifying the project risks, risk avoidance and planning how to detect, mitigate against and recover from risks in the event they occur (Brown et al., 2012) . Risk management in this project is achieved through planning and anticipation. As a result, project risks are categorized into problems and issues . T he former requir e immediate attention while the latter are potential challenges , which if not addressed will escalate to problems.
Role of the IS Management
According to the organizational policies of Consumer and Industrial Products, Inc. (CIPI), the IS group is responsible for all corporate systems and databases , and the divisional systems and databases that affect the former. Based on the project's complexity, the IS group either managed or provided technical support for all projects under their purview. In the PAS project, the IS group seconded an IS management team to the Disbursement Division for the purpose of planning, designing, implementing and monitoring this project. Overall, the involvement of the IS management in the project revolved around advising and training the project director, reviewing the project plan and guaranteeing that the project received technical assistance from the IS group. The IS management team in the PAS project included a number of persons. These include an IS manager of financial systems whose involvement was limited to strategic client relationship support , an IS supervisor of disbursements who supervised the project director and a project director who was responsible for managing the technical team as well as client relationship management (Martin, 2012) .
Concerning technical support, the IS technical team was also involved in the Outline Physical Design phase of the PAS project. Specifically, the IS technical team is tasked with the responsibility of assessing whether the designed PAS is compatible with organization technological infrastructure. This technological infrastructure includes programming languages and utilities, logical processes and hardware. Further, the team also reviews whether the logical framework adopted by the system is the best available alternative. Finally, the IS management team is also tasked with the role of developing the methodology used to implement projects. Recently, the IS group adopted the Stradis methodology that provides for step - by - step planning and documentation.
The Role of the Stradis Methodology and its Advantages and Disadvantages
It was evident in four ways that the Stadis methodology was useful in the project . These were role delineations, project planning, project staffing and project implementing. Based on the Stradis methodology, the PAS project had several roles . These were the executive sponsor, project director, user project manager, IS management and the steering group. Also, the methodology is also significant in the planning phase. T he project director is expected to have two sets of detailed plans at the end of each phase . These include a plan for the next phase and the remaining part of the project. Due to other project commitments, the project director was forced to rely on contractors to staff the PAS project to cover the skill gaps of the project team (Brown et al., 2012) .
Finally, the project was carried out in eight phases as stipulated by the Stradis methodology. These steps included the initial study which changed the scope by upgrading the Computerized Invoice Matching Systems (CIMS) to developing a new PAS in addition to defining the high-level business objective of saving $135,000 annually . In addition to elaborating the business objectives, the detailed study report established that the PAS project would cost between $250,000 - $350,000 and that the next phase will require an investment of $40,000 and 1,250 hours over two and half months . T he draft requirements study phase , on the other hand, yielded detailed information on inputs, outputs, processes, and data of the new system . It was also useful in estimating that the next phase would require an investment of $25,000 and 600 hours over six weeks . Further, the outline physical design phase caused the project budget to increase to $560,000 as a result of the technical team’s decision to move from the IBM mainframe to the LAN (Martin, 2012) .
The Stradis methodology is advantageous in various ways. Firstly , planning and scheduling are done phase by phase hence ensuring detailed documentation of activities and tasks that are supposed to be completed in the phase (Adesi et al., 2015) . Planning of the next phase can only be commenced after the previous phase has been completed. However, implementation of the succeeding phase cannot commence unless the current phase is approved by both the user and IS management teams. This ensures that both the division implementing the project and IS group own the outcomes of each phase increasing their involvement in the project. Step - by - step planning of each phase is however disadvantageous in the fact that it could result in the scope creep. The scope of the PAS changed twice . This was from upgrading CIMS to creating PAS , and from PAS being IBM mainframe - based to LAN - based. The second change in scope had the financial consequence of increasing the cost at most $350,000 to at least $560,000 which raised concerns within the CIPI management.
Major Problems of the PAS Project and Their Mitigation
T he PAS system was supposed to be interfaced with six other systems . These includ ed Purchase Order Control, Supplier Master, Front-End Document Control, Electronic Data Interchange, Corporate Approval, and Payment. Similar to PAS, four of these system s were under control implying that compatibility problems were bound to arise. The project team resorted to using substitute sources of data in the interim to interface with PAS (Allen et al., 2015) . Further, the project team should also plan for the upgrading of PAS in line with the other four completed systems. The disbursement team should also be rigorously trained on how to use these four new systems.
Because the IS group was running multiple projects at the same time, technical personnel were overstretched. As a result, the PAS project had to depend on external staffing in the form of contractors. Despite the fact that the contractors were competent, experienced and highly skilled, this robbed off CIPI of organizational learning . This is because, at the end of the project , they will be reallocated to other assignments by their mother organizations. To counter this, the project team can ensure that the IS technical team is trained by the contractors on the specifics of this system before closure of the project (Allen et al., 2015) .
During the outline technical design phase, the IS technical team decided to change the PAS system from IBM mainframe - based to LAN - based. Consequently, this led to a significant increase in project costs that could not be immediately absorbed by the company hence jeopardizing the implementation of the PAS project. The project team must, therefore, revert to hosting the PAS system on the IBM mainframe for the first year of operation before upgrading to LAN as recommended by the IS technical team . This is especially given that unlike the latter, the former understands that projects are carried out in consideration of limited resources and time (Adesi et al., 2015) .
Finally, the project director ’s accident could potentially derail the PAS project. The progress made by the project thus far can be directly attributed to her competency. This is evident in the fact that all the project s under Anderson's purview are behind schedule except the PAS project . Therefore , Anderson must request the IS director to second another project director to the PAS project on an interim basis as Watkins recuperates. Given the detailed nature of the Stradis methodology and handholding from both Watkins and the remaining project team members, the interim project director would be in a position to move the PAS project forward .
References
Adesi, M., Owusu-Manu, D., & Badu, E. (2015). Rethinking methodology in project management consulting context. International Journal of Construction Project Management, 7(2) , 79-100.
Allen, M., Carpenter, C., Hutchins, M., & Jones, G. (2015). Impact of Risk Management on Project Cost: An Industry Comparison. Journal of Information Technology and Economic Development , 6 (2), 1.
Brown, C. V., DeHayes, D. W., Hoffer, J. A., Martin, E. W., & Perkins, W. C. (2012). Managing information technology. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall/Pearson
Martin, E. W. (2012). Managing a systems development project at Consumer and Industrial Products, Inc. In C. V. Brown, D. W. DeHayes, J. A. Hoffer, E. W. Martin, & W. C. Perkins, Managing information technology (pp. 432-441). Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall/Pearson .
