Information Technology Project Management: Providing Measurable Organizational Value, Fourth Edition

PREFACE

Welcome to Information Technology Project Management—Providing Measurable Organizational Value (4th Edition). This book was written to help you learn the processes, tools, techniques, and areas of knowledge needed to successfully manage information technology (IT) projects.

The idea of project management has been around for a long time. In fact, it was around before the great pyramids of Egypt were created. Today, project management has emerged as its own field, supported by a body of knowledge and research. Although still relatively new, the fields of management information systems (MIS) and software engineering have their own bodies of knowledge that include various tools, techniques, and methods supported by a continually growing base of research.

Unfortunately, the track record for IT projects has not been as successful as one might expect, although the situation appears to be improving. One reason for this improvement has been a greater focus on a project management approach to support the activities required to develop and deliver a product, service, or information system. Just as building a system is more than sitting down in front of a computer and writing code, project management is more than just creating fancy charts or diagrams using one of the more popular project management software packages.

We can, however, build a system that is a technical success but an organizational failure. Information systems—the products of IT projects—are planned organizational ...