Applicability of standard project management approach in solving issues related to software projects : the case study of CEB

Abstract

Ceylon Electricity Board is the national electricity utility provider for the whole island. Incorporation of state of art technologies and standards are vital within the responsibilities bounded for the organization to fulfill the electricity requirements of the nation. With the increase of number of software projects, which are in multiple stages, it is required for the IT division to manage those projects efficiently and effectively. In order to meet this requirement, the research work focuses on deriving a Project Management Model with Processes Management, which is required to be tailored to the business need. Further, this dissertation gives in detail the findings of a case study carried out by investigation of a suitable Project Management Model. In this process, existing software environment was investigated including as to how the IS activities were carried during past 20 years, main project types, major activities and current stages of those projects. With the increases of software to be handled, users of software systems might encounter certain difficulties in the absence of an appropriate management approach. Therefore, the dissertation has also included the approach carried out for the exploring significant problematic areas faced by the software users within the CEB environment. The result indicates a Project Management Model, which incorporated practices from PMBOK, PRINCE2 and DSDM. According to the outcome, Project Management Model consists of four layers. Layer 1 indicates the factors affecting the project. This mainly consists of PMBOK knowledge areas. Majority of user problems were represented because of the lack of utilization of activities of these knowledge areas. Layer 2 indicates the strategic focus, which needs to align with the software environment. Layer 3 represents the project process, which consist of initiation, planning, execution and closure. Set of practices and tools were introduced for software implementation projects. Finally, the Layer 4 represents some major factors, which functions as foundation for many projects. Some of them are skills development, project environment and job positions. All in all, the above four layers of this PM model represent a comprehensive PM solution that is well represented by the findings of this research.