How to Manage a Large IT Project

In this lecture, we discuss the initial project interview when you're first assigned to a project.  We'll discuss what questions to expect and what the format of that meeting normally is.  Also, we discuss what questions you should ask so you may understand the project better.

Here, we will discuss what a Statement of Work (SOW) is and how one is prepared.  We'll look at how the milestones defined within this document will have associated costs to them and what is the overall approval process.

We discuss how to work with resource managers to attain estimations as to their monthly availability for your project.  We'll also talk about how to escalate when you don't get the support you need.  Finally, we'll get into an example of how to calculate how much resource efforts will cost based on their hours and the internal labor rates set forth at your organization.

We discuss the different components of the budget plan and how initial values are established.  There are two components to a budget plan - operating and capital - and we'll clarify the difference between the two.

Here, you will understand 4 common project artifacts used to help you manage projects.  We'll go into detail about how to use each and why they are used. 

In this lecture, we will continue discussing aligning resources for your project however we will focus on the integration resources.  These resources are support resources for the systems you're integrating with.  We'll talk about how it needs to be ensured that these resources are available as they are also supporting users not associated with the project.  We'll talk about options to deal with the situation where these support resources are not available.

This lecture discusses how to set expectations for your project team.  Keep in mind that many resources contributing to your project may be participating in a project for the first time.  Since this is the case, you need to establish expectations as to how everyone will participate in the project.  This is an excellent opportunity for you to demonstrate leadership.

Here, we will discuss the project plan draft that should be reviewed with the team.  As we go through the course, we'll discuss each phase of the project plan.

In this lecture, we go over what the project kickoff deck is and how to generate one.  The components of this plan depend on what are the expectations at your organization but I present a general plan for informational purposes.

Here, we will go over the Initiation Phase portion of the project schedule and what are the main activities you need to watch out for as a Project Manager.

In this lecture, we discuss why it's important for the vendor to present how their solution works out of the box.  From here, there can be discussions around how this product can be enhanced to work for our specific solution of building a new PPM system.  Also, we discuss the importance of reviewing current business processes and understanding what will be the future business processes.

This session discusses the understanding you need to establish with the business so as not to have scope creep.  We'll discuss how and when to set up the requirements workshops and what to look for, during these discussions, when scope creep is attempted.

Here, we will discuss the purpose of design reviews and why you need to include these activities into your project schedule.  We'll also discuss what needs to be done to arrange these workshops.

In this lecture, we will discuss the arrangement of the integration requirements workshops.  We'll discuss the purpose of these workshops and the expected outcomes.

It's not enough to attain the product and integration requirements for your project.  We need to also understand what is required from the overall architecture of our final product.

In addition to the requirements, we need to understand what data elements required for the project are sensitive.  Depending on the organization you work at, a data privacy review will be required to ensure sensitive data being transferred is safeguarded.

Here, we will discuss the project schedule from the Requirements Phase point of view.

In order for the software developers to do their work, they will need a functional Development environment to do this.  You need to follow up with the vendor or development team doing the work to keep them on track of setting up the Development Environment.  If there is no environment to work with, the development team can't get their work done.

We need to refine stories by providing proper estimates that the entire execution team can agree to.  From there the development team and the product manager need to set up the backlog that will be used for the upcoming sprint execution.

In this lecture, we will define the set of stories for the Sprint 1 execution.

We will go over how the project manager or scrum master can manage the scrum calls.  We'll discuss what questions to ask and go over the general format of these sessions.

After every sprint execution, the team meets to discuss what worked well during the previous sprint and what did not go well.  Based on this feedback, modifications are made to ensure that future sprints are executed more efficiently.

Here, we will discuss the activities necessary to properly plan sprints.

As you finish sprints, demonstrations of the partially finished product should be done to the business community so that excitement can grow for the product to be developed.  Beware of new requirements attempting to sneak into the product during these demonstrations. 

In this lecture, we discuss the purpose of test script development and the project manager's role in this process.

Not only do you need to plan for the end-user testing of the system as it pertains to the use cases, but you also need to test the back-end integration where data transfers.  We will discuss how to plan for this system's integration testing.

Another aspect of testing that cannot be overlooked is performance testing.  This is especially true if your application is expected to have a high number of users executing transactions at the same time during a short time frame.

In this lecture, we discuss what it takes to plan for UAT and what the project manager needs to coordinate. 

In this lecture, we will review the milestones and activities from the Development phase portion of the project plan.

We will discuss how communications need to be managed during the systems integration period.

In this lecture, we go over what the project manager is accountable for during the SIT execution and how they can set expectations.

The project manager needs to oversee the execution of UAT and ensure activities are on track to finish the project on time.

In this lecture, we discuss the management of the defect sprints.  It's a good idea to have a "defect sprint" factored into the project plan so that the team can focus only on defects to be fixed.

In this lecture, we discuss why it's critical for the project manager to manage scope and ensure there is no scope creep.

Now that we're almost at the end of execution, we need to start planning for post-go-live support.  This activity cannot be overlooked as the support team needs to be ready once the project goes live.

Another sub-plan needs to be developed to document what activities are necessary to properly deploy the product into the production environment.

We review the project schedule for the testing phase.

We discuss how to manage the budget and cost of the project.

We go over how the project manager should manage deep technical discussions. 

We discuss the situation where you realize that the project schedule needs to be replanned.

In this lecture, we discuss reviews of the backlog to ensure it stays accurate during the life of the project and product in the future.

This lecture discusses how the business partners need to arrange the change management process communications on their end.  We also look at what responsibilities the project manager has here.

In this lecture, we discuss a sample scenario where we realize we need a change control.  We discuss a general change control process but this process depends on the requirements set forth by the organization where you work at.

In this lecture, we discuss a general concept of how the project manager should structure their status reporting.  We look at a "project on a page" format.  However, this format depends on what is required at your organization.

The project manager is accountable for the project and this accountability needs to be distributed to the team.  We discuss tactics the project manager can take to keep people accountable.

In this lecture, we discuss the closing out of the project - both from the PMO governance and finance perspectives.

In this lecture, the project manager reflects on their own performance during the project.  What worked well or what didn't work well?

We conclude the course with this presentation.