Article

Global IT Project Management Using Web 2.0

IGI Global Scientific Publishing
International Journal of Information Technology Project Management
Authors:
  • BRITE Professional Services
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Abstract

For many businesses, managing globally distributed IT projects effectively is key to success in today's competitive environment. However, IT projects and their managements are notorious for failures, and managing globally distributed teams poses unique additional challenges. While the Internet, email and the Web have been major means of communication among such teams, new Web 2.0 technologies and applications which have emerged into prominence in the last few years present new opportunities for successfully managing global projects. This paper presents the authors' findings on awareness and level of use of Web 2.0 tools for project management among global teams. It also offers recommendations on how managers of global IT projects can manage their teams more efficiently and effectively using Web 2.0 tools.

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... Project managers have only recently started to use SM for daily tasks, operating activities and processes (Grace, 2009;Shang et al., 2011), or as a strategic component of their PM practices (Silvius, 2016). SM used for communication and management includes blogs, forums, Wikis and virtual social networks (Gantman and Fedorowicz, 2014;Gholami and Murugesan, 2011;Veronese and Chaves, 2016). The interest of the research community in the use of SM within organisations continues to grow steadily (Duffield and Whitty, 2015;Mansour et al., 2013;Standing and Kiniti, 2011;Ngai et al., 2015;Westbrook, 2012); however, the question of their usefulness for PM remains open. ...
... x Gholami and Murugesan (2011) Interaction between team members ...
... In this case, the Wiki would serve as a central interface between the user and the other tools. Previous literature and the data collected during this study show that Wikis are already used for document storage and disseminating information to team members (Arazy et al., 2009;Duffield and Whitty, 2015;Gholami and Murugesan, 2011;Mansour et al., 2013;McAfee, 2006;Richter et al., 2013;Riemer and Richter, 2010;Riemer and Scifleet, 2012;Shang et al., 2011;Standing and Kiniti, 2011;Stocker et al., 2012;Westbrook, 2012). However, Wiki's functionality is not sufficient to support all of the activities required for PM. ...
... Project managers have only recently started to use SM for daily tasks, operating activities and processes (Grace, 2009;Shang et al., 2011), or as a strategic component of their PM practices (Silvius, 2016). SM used for communication and management includes blogs, forums, Wikis and virtual social networks (Gantman and Fedorowicz, 2014;Gholami and Murugesan, 2011;Veronese and Chaves, 2016). The interest of the research community in the use of SM within organisations continues to grow steadily (Duffield and Whitty, 2015;Mansour et al., 2013;Standing and Kiniti, 2011;Ngai et al., 2015;Westbrook, 2012); however, the question of their usefulness for PM remains open. ...
... x Gholami and Murugesan (2011) Interaction between team members ...
... In this case, the Wiki would serve as a central interface between the user and the other tools. Previous literature and the data collected during this study show that Wikis are already used for document storage and disseminating information to team members (Arazy et al., 2009;Duffield and Whitty, 2015;Gholami and Murugesan, 2011;Mansour et al., 2013;McAfee, 2006;Richter et al., 2013;Riemer and Richter, 2010;Riemer and Scifleet, 2012;Shang et al., 2011;Standing and Kiniti, 2011;Stocker et al., 2012;Westbrook, 2012). However, Wiki's functionality is not sufficient to support all of the activities required for PM. ...
... More specifically, the use of social media in projects is a debatable issue. Gholami and Murugesan (2011) present the results of a survey with 56 members of globally distributed IT projects. They identified the main social media (web 2.0) tools used in each phase of an IT project, that is, initiating, planning, design and development, testing, documentation and maintenance. ...
... et al. (2011),Popescu (2014) Tool: website or application for socialization and interaction between users so that they can share their affinities or interests in common Mashups:Gholami and Murugesan (2011), Liu et al. (2011), Vrieze et al. (2011 Service: combine information from different sources with the intent to assist in decisionmaking Tagging:Gholami and Murugesan (2011), Held et al. (2012),Cress et al. (2013) Service: tags for web pages or posts that can be aggregated hierarchically and automatically (folksonomy) and have a popularity rating in a tag cloud RSS:Lan and Sie (2010),Gholami and Murugesan (2011), Ma (2012) Service: used to search content in blog websites, and it allows users to receive information from various sources to be informed about updates on that subject Blogs:Hsu and Lin (2008),Gholami and Murugesan (2011), Papadopoulos et al. (2013), Agerdal-Hjermind(2014)Tool: web page built to share day-to-day stories, in chronological order containing images, texts, videos or links. It contains search engine Microblogs:Günther et al. (2009), Riemer andRichter (2010),Cleveland (2012),Richter et al. (2013) Tool: as a blog, it is a web page built to share day-to-day stories, in chronological order containing images, text, videos or links, but with limited posts in size Wikis:Meloche et al. (2009),Gholami and Murugesan (2011),Standing and Kiniti (2011), Stocker et al. (2012) ...
... et al. (2011),Popescu (2014) Tool: website or application for socialization and interaction between users so that they can share their affinities or interests in common Mashups:Gholami and Murugesan (2011), Liu et al. (2011), Vrieze et al. (2011 Service: combine information from different sources with the intent to assist in decisionmaking Tagging:Gholami and Murugesan (2011), Held et al. (2012),Cress et al. (2013) Service: tags for web pages or posts that can be aggregated hierarchically and automatically (folksonomy) and have a popularity rating in a tag cloud RSS:Lan and Sie (2010),Gholami and Murugesan (2011), Ma (2012) Service: used to search content in blog websites, and it allows users to receive information from various sources to be informed about updates on that subject Blogs:Hsu and Lin (2008),Gholami and Murugesan (2011), Papadopoulos et al. (2013), Agerdal-Hjermind(2014)Tool: web page built to share day-to-day stories, in chronological order containing images, texts, videos or links. It contains search engine Microblogs:Günther et al. (2009), Riemer andRichter (2010),Cleveland (2012),Richter et al. (2013) Tool: as a blog, it is a web page built to share day-to-day stories, in chronological order containing images, text, videos or links, but with limited posts in size Wikis:Meloche et al. (2009),Gholami and Murugesan (2011),Standing and Kiniti (2011), Stocker et al. (2012) ...
Article
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a model of adoption of social media to assist project managers in the treatment of lessons learned (LL). Target, a collaborative model to foster learning in projects, approaches the problem of LL management from nearly a new light and perspective. Design/methodology/approach – This research was conducted using a mixed methods approach with a research design denominated partially mixed concurrent equal status. In this design, both quantitative and qualitative elements were conducted concurrently in their entirety before being mixed at the data interpretation stage. These elements have approximately equal emphasis with respect to reaching the objectives of the research. Findings – The results indicate the most suitable social media that match each LL process. They show how to manage LL through processes made in any phase of the project life cycle. The LL processes most commonly used in the projects are raising awareness, collect and store. According to the questionnaire respondents, 54.5 percent of organizations make use of social media in project management, and among the interviewees, half of them use such tools in projects. In addition, 84.1 percent of the questionnaire respondents believe that social media can assist in the LL management. Research limitations/implications – This study did not get proven successful experience reports in the management of LL. Respondents and interviewees mentioned and recognized such importance, but in projects that use LL management there are no control reports of this learning in organizations in order to measure the gains from the practice of LL management, which indicates an area for future work. An empirical validation of the model proposed in this paper is one immediate research to be done. Another future work is to validate the model in projects from disparate sectors. Practical implications – The Target model could minimize the problem of knowledge drain, which is ineffective learning practices, resulting in knowledge hoarding, limited sharing and superficial LL practices. Thus, the use of processes supported by collaborative tools that promote discussion, with a familiar format for the user and with an efficient search engine, can generate greater involvement in projects. The usefulness is determined as practical and scientific. It is determined as practical use, because the model allows the selection of tools for each LL process and it can be applied to projects in organizations. Originality/value – This research proposes a new approach to the management of LL supported by social media. The Target model adds a theoretical contribution to LL processes associating them to social media. This research revisited the extant LL processes and methods in the literature, proposing a new process – raising awareness – that covers personal and interpersonal aspects for the management of LL. The theoretical contribution lies on incremental originality, since it is based on existing theories, processes, methods and tools in order to provide a solution to a known problem.
... It can also be a place for managing notes, team agendas, project calendar, tasks and documentation. Instead of exchanging e-mails soliciting input and comments and then trying to merge everybody's views, a wiki users can work together on private web pages in near real time (Gholami & Murugesan, 2011). Early in the project life cycle, wikis can serve as a repository of specific customer requirements or functional specifications. ...
... However, the new generation project management tools let organizational actors extent their collaboration to the web (Bradley & McDonald, 2013). Web-based technologies and applications which have emerged into prominence in the last years present new opportunities to support project management activities, collaborate and share information (Gholami & Murugesan, 2011). Web-based technologies are easy to implement and use. ...
... Web-based technologies are easy to implement and use. Their friendly and responsive user interface makes them more attractive to use (Gholami & Murugesan, 2011). ...
Chapter
Full-text available
With growing maturity of social media over the last few years, many companies started using these tools to interact with customers and employees. Business functions such as Sales, Marketing and Human Resources have innovatively embedded these technologies to support their processes and became, as such, an instrument for renewal. The use of social media in Project Management, however, seems to be very limited. The profession lags behind having difficulty keeping pace with the rapidly evolving web 2.0 driven technological innovations which are delivering on their promise to foster collaboration. The paper discusses the potential of social media in the project management practice. As the move towards harnessing the power of social media within the Project Management framework requires adequate organizational change, the study also addresses the implications of such an initiative on structure, culture, and control.
... Web 2.0 tools ease communication and collaboration between people, creating networks of direct communication for all users in the same community, allowing the flow of ideas and knowledge with efficient generation, dissemination, sharing and refining of information [2,3]. Although the use of the internet and emails have been the major means of communication between teams, the use of applications and Web 2.0 tools have emerged in the last few years and present a new opportunity to manage Information Technology (IT) projects successfully [4,5]. ...
... Some PM tend to ignore risks when they perceive that they disturb the project environment. [24,27] Wiki's collaborative nature encourages negotiation and discussion and aids in achieving consensus [4] Project manager's perception of self-efficacy can interfere with risk perception [42] Implementation of wikis stimulates the culture of collaboration [6] There are problems and difficulties in controlling identified risks [12,13,22] Wiki users can help to organize and track information. ...
Article
Despite the positive influence of risk management in Information Technology (IT) project results, many project managers are not managing risks or are managing them partially. To enhance risk management, collaborative project management has gained attention in recent years with the introduction of Web 2.0 tools. Project managers have used such tools to facilitate open communication and distribution of activities. This research introduces a prescriptive framework (W4RM – Wiki for Risk Management) based on a wiki to support collaborative risk management in IT projects. An exploratory focus group was set up and a series of interviews with practitioners was conducted to explore how a wiki can support risk management in IT projects. Findings show that project managers are facing difficulties managing risks and are the only ones responsible for identifying, registering and monitoring risks. By implementing a collaborative tool, managers can disseminate a collaboration culture and participate in risk management processes. This sense of collaboration may be used to keep the community identifying new risks, relating these risks to one or more projects, and facilitating continuous risk management. Practitioners can also adopt W4RM as a tool to support communication regarding risks status to be established for internal team stakeholders.
... Added to these scenarios, IT projects and software quality are very dependent on the definition of the scope, the specification of tasks, communicated and understood. This scenario contributes to the assertion that wikis can be a potential solution for defining scope and tasks effectively used to promote an evolutionary mindset throughout the project (Chaves, Tessi, Winter, & Damasceno Jr., 2015;Gholami & Murugesan, 2011;Han &Anantatmula, 2007;Rosa et al, 2016). Holtzblatt et al. (2010) conclude that the return on investment depends heavily on how the technology is adopted. ...
... This ease of control and identification does not eliminate user mistrust regarding malicious content, posing doubts about the reliability of the wiki. Added to this, security issues should be strongly considered in building the process of using the wiki (Gholami & Murugesan, 2011;Von Krogh, 2012). Figure 1 presents the Target model proposed by Rosa et al. (2016), which is predictive and explanatory in its processes, with support from the wiki . ...
Article
Full-text available
This research explores the gap in the management of lessons learned (MLL) in an Information Technology project (IT), validating a model (named Target) with the support of a wiki platform in a medium-sized company in the IT industry. This model supports the following MLL processes: awareness, collection, verification, storage, dissemination and reuse. This study adopts the paradigm of the Design Science Research and the Technical Action Research method to instantiate the Target model in the implementation phase of an IT project. The theoretical contribution lies in the practical utility of an LL model, which was validated in the field promoting innovation in the MLL. The practical implications can be seen in the company's learning to introduce the MLL, improve design productivity, increase employee collaboration and better disseminate knowledge.
... Web 2.0 platform is a propitious way of developing dynamic and collective learning [28], [29], [31], [32] and promotes continuous interaction between tacit and explicit knowledge. For this reason, Web 2.0 technologies make the process of knowledge creation easieras the process of knowledge creation proposed by Nonaka [26]. ...
... Other participants cited blogs, wikis, mashups, WhatsApp and Twitter as suitable tools to engage LL in project settings with dispersed teams. Their perspective is in tune with that of Gholami and Murugesan [31], who affirm that blogs, wikis, mashups and other Web 2.0 technologies can be used to improve team efficiency in global projects, as well as that of Auinger, Nedbal and Hochmeier [47], who found that wikis are suitable for sharing knowledge and record the project and blogs are adequate for communication and innovation. It is worth noting that the participants frequently mentioned the use of WhatsApp to generate LL. ...
Article
Full-text available
In any organization, dealing with lessons learned is a complex issue that involves people, processes and technologies. Although lessons learned processes are already well established in the project management community, the use of modern web technologies to support them is still in its infancy. This paper introduces a new model to manage lessons learned in PMBoK process groups. This model draws upon interdisciplinary literature, which embeds lessons learned processes, shared context and Web 2.0 service models. The model is supported by Web 2.0 technologies and centered in PMBoK process groups to allow a thorough overview of the project. An exploratory focus group was set up to validate the model qualitatively within a constructivist ontology and an interpretive epistemology. The adoption of this model can help academics and practitioners using PMBoK process groups to acquire a better understanding of managing lessons learned in projects.
... Collaboration with Web 2.0 tools. Gholami & Murugesan, 2011 Geographic communication technology, such as synchronous and asynchronous communication. ...
... Collaboration with Web 2.0 tools. Gholami & Murugesan, 2011 Geographic communication technology, such as synchronous and asynchronous communication. ...
... Measuring the impact of the social media integration and specific use case performances on the ARTICONF project is a way of providing guided analytics to consumers, prosumers, and application providers, and improvement of collaboration and revenues. The impact assessment of using different tools of the members collaboration and teams performance usually is done by quantitative or qualitative measurements [12]. The return on investment (ROI) remains as the most common indicator that measures avoidance and reduction of costs, optimising the business and giving faster business decisions. ...
Preprint
The development of tools that improve efficiency and inject intelligent insights into social media businesses through guided analytics is crucial for consumers, prosumers, and business markets. These tools enable contextualised socially aware and spatial-temporal data aggregation, knowledge extraction, cognitive learning about users` behaviour, and risk quantification for business markets. The proposed Tools for Analytics and Cognition framework will provide a tool-set of guided analytics software for smart aggregation, cognition and interactive visualisation with a monitoring dashboard. The aggregation, monitoring, cognitive reasoning, and learning modules will analyse the behaviour and engagement of the social media actors, diagnose performance risks and provide guided analytics to consumers, prosumers and application providers to improve collaboration and revenues, using the established Pareto-trust model. This framework will provide a seamless coupling with distributed blockchain-based services for early alert, real-time tracking and updated data triggers for reach and engagement analysis of events. Moreover, this will allow users to analyse, control and track their Return on Investment to enhance monetary inclusion in collaborative social media.
... Chai e Kim (2010) made a relationship between trust and the sharing of information in blogs environment and results indicated that trust has a positive impact on information sharing. Gholami and Murugesan (2011) add the main applications in which blogs are being used in projects and organizations: 1. for collaboration of team members in a distributed software team (collaboration tool from one to many); 2. Exchanging ideas and conduct brainstorming; 3. Sharing information about the employee profile (containing personal and professional information); and 4. Providing interaction among project team and stakeholders. ...
Chapter
Information Technologies 2.0 (IT 2.0) is transforming the project management by improving communication and collaboration. It provides better experience than the traditional software package allowing document sharing, integrated task tracking, enforcing team processes and agile planning. Despite the benefits brought by IT 2.0, their use to promote lessons learned (LL) remains unexplored. For many project managers to obtain and integrate information from different tools of previous similar projects remains a challenge. This chapter emphasizes the need of combining traditional LL processes and methods with IT 2.0. It describes the IT 2.0 uses and how these technologies can support LL processes and methods in project settings. It delivers a proposal focusing on both IT 2.0-centered LL processes and an updating of traditional LL methods with IT 2.0. This proposal aims to help project managers to improve the management of LL and, as a result, the project learning. Full Text Preview Using Information Technology 2.0 In Projects The uses of IT 2.0 include supporting knowledge management, collaboration and communication, training, and innovation (Andriole, 2010). IT 2.0 have also the potential to complement, enhance, and add new collaborative dimensions to the processes of storing, capturing, sharing, disseminating and applying LL. Further, these technologies afford the advantage of reducing the technical skill required to use their features, allowing users to focus on the exchange of LL and collaborative tasks themselves without the distraction of a complex technological environment. The main IT 2.0 to be applied to PM and LL include wikis, blogs and microblogs, which are described in the following. Continue Reading
... Measuring the impact of the social media integration and specific use case performances on the ARTICONF project is a way of providing guided analytics to consumers, prosumers and application providers, and improvement of collaboration and revenues. The impact assessment of using different tools of the members' collaboration and teams' performance usually is done by quantitative or qualitative measurements [10]. The Return on Investment (ROI) remains as the most common indicator that measures avoidance and reduction of costs, optimizing the business and giving faster business decisions. ...
Conference Paper
The development of tools that improve efficiency and inject intelligent insights into social media businesses through guided analytics is crucial for consumers, prosumers, and business markets. These tools enable contextualised socially aware and spatial-temporal data aggre-gation, knowledge extraction, cognitive learning about users' behaviour, and risk quantification for business markets. The proposed Tools for Ana-lytics and Cognition framework will provide a tool-set of guided analytics software for smart aggregation, cognition and interactive visualisation with a monitoring dashboard. The aggregation, monitoring, cognitive reasoning, and learning modules will analyse the behaviour and engagement of the social media actors, diagnose performance risks and provide guided analytics to consumers, prosumers and application providers to improve collaboration and revenues, using the established Pareto-trust model. This framework will provide a seamless coupling with distributed blockchain-based services for early alert, real-time tracking and updated data triggers for reach and engagement analysis of events. Moreover, this will allow users to analyse, control and track their Return on Investment to enhance monetary inclusion in collaborative social media.
... The main social media uses in organizations comprise: Wikis. A wiki is a web-based collaborative authoring system for creating and editing content [18]. In addition to facilitating the collaborative creation of content both as a teaching tool [42] and in projects, Stocker et al. [50] reports other benefits of wiki usage from a literature review: enhancing reputation, making work easier, helping the organization to improve its processes, facilitating knowledge sharing and creativity, reducing information overload within the enterprise, and the ability to make knowledge work and its output more visible and transparent. ...
Chapter
This research-in-progress aims to address the complex phenomenon of knowledge sharing within the context of social media. The objective of this paper is to examine how the affordances of social media impact knowledge sharing dynamics in intra-organizational Information Technology (IT) projects. This paper adopts Design Science Research (DSR) as research paradigm and the Technical Action Research (TAR) as validation method. One social media artifact will be designed and investigated within the context of an IT project. The expected contributions of this work will be twofold: (1) The results of this research should add to the literature on empirically tested theory of social media affordances on knowledge sharing dynamics in IT projects; (2) The instantiation of the TAR study will characterize a contribution of the type ‘situated implementation of artifact’. This research should have implications for both the Project Management and Knowledge Management communities. Practitioners should be directly benefited by this work with an in-depth understanding of social media affordances on knowledge sharing dynamics.
... Emerging web 2.0 technologies and applications start to gain visibility and use by project managers to better support daily tasks and processes (Boulos, Maramba, & Wheeler, 2006;Cleveland, 2012;Grace, 2009;Shang, Li, Wu, & Hou, 2011). Gholami & Murugesan (2011) detail how the managers of global IT projects are using web 2.0 technologies to support everyday tasks and thus improve the management of a project as a whole. (Chi, 2008) also describes as project managers are using web 2.0 technologies such as blogs and Rich Site Summary (RSS). ...
Article
Full-text available
The web 2.0 is transforming the project management in organizations by improving communication and collaboration. The new generation of web-based collaborative tools provides much better experience than the traditional software package allowing document sharing, integrated task tracking, enforcing team processes and agile planning. Despite of the indubitable benefits brought by web 2.0, the use of these technologies to promote knowledge management remains unexplored. For many project managers to obtain and integrate information from different tools of previous similar projects in global organizations remains a challenge. This theoretical paper presents a proposal that suggests an innovation in the knowledge management area applying web 2.0 technologies. The main goal is to provide an integrated vision of a set of technologies that could be used by organizations in order to promote better management of lessons learned. The proposal includes the lessons learned processes (e.g. capture, share and dissemination), the process-based (e.g. project review and after action review) and documentation-based (e.g. micro article and learning histories) methods. Results show how web 2.0 technologies can help project managers and team project to cope with the main lessons learned processes and methods to learn from experience. Moreover, recommendations are made for the effective use of web 2.0 components promoting innovation and supporting lessons learned management in projects.Keywords: Project management; Lessons learned processes; lessons learned methods; project learning; web 2.0 technologies; innovation.
... Chai e Kim (2010) made a relationship between trust and the sharing of information in blogs environment and results indicated that trust has a positive impact on information sharing. Gholami and Murugesan (2011) add the main applications in which blogs are being used in projects and organizations: 1. for collaboration of team members in a distributed software team (collaboration tool from one to many); 2. Exchanging ideas and conduct brainstorming; 3. Sharing information about the employee profile (containing personal and professional information); and 4. Providing interaction among project team and stakeholders. ...
Chapter
Information Technologies 2.0 (IT 2.0) is transforming the project management by improving communication and collaboration. It provides better experience than the traditional software package allowing document sharing, integrated task tracking, enforcing team processes and agile planning. Despite the benefits brought by IT 2.0, their use to promote lessons learned (LL) remains unexplored. For many project managers to obtain and integrate information from different tools of previous similar projects remains a challenge. This chapter emphasizes the need of combining traditional LL processes and methods with IT 2.0. It describes the IT 2.0 uses and how these technologies can support LL processes and methods in project settings. It delivers a proposal focusing on both IT 2.0-centered LL processes and an updating of traditional LL methods with IT 2.0. This proposal aims to help project managers to improve the management of LL and, as a result, the project learning.
... No que se refere ao uso da ferramenta wiki em gerenciamento de projetos, verificou-se que existe um maior número de aplicações para atividades onde é mais significativa a interação entre pessoas, produção e consulta de documentos, como elaboração der planos de projeto e cronogramas, elicitação de requisitos, atribuição de tarefas, registro de atividades, acompanhamento de progresso, reuniões e tomadas de decisão (Bean e Hott 2005;Decker et al. 2007;Louridas 2006;Molyneaux e Brumley 2007;Murugesan e Gholami 2011;O'Leary 2008;Xu 2007). Observa-se, portanto, que em todas as dez áreas de conhecimento propostas no PMBoK ® existem oportunidades para o desenvolvimento de ferramentas de apoio baseadas em wikis. ...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Resumo Este artigo propõe WikiRiskMan, um framework baseado em uma wiki para suportar a gestão de riscos em projetos, considerando os processos do PMBoK ®. As ferramentas baseadas na plataforma web 2.0, como as wikis, têm revolucionado a comunicação interpessoal nos últimos anos, facilitando o trabalho colaborativo e aproveitando a inteligência coletiva. Porém, essas ferramentas permanecem mal compreendidas e subutilizadas pela maioria dos gerentes de projeto, que centralizam a gestão de riscos, utilizando ferramentas tradicionais, com foco na comunicação um-para-muitos. WikiRiskMan pretende capturar os padrões de interação muitos-para-muitos entre os participantes de um projeto e aumentar a efetividade dos processos de gestão de riscos. O uso desta ferramenta pode facilitar a comunicação, produzir e gerenciar a documentação, agilizar a preparação e realização de reuniões, as discussões, o planejamento e a tomada de decisão, entre outras atividades da gestão de riscos, reduzindo a sobrecarga de trabalho dos gerentes de projetos.
... Chi (2008) describes how project managers are using Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs and Rich Site Summary (RSS). Gholami and Murugesan (2011) detail how the managers of global IT projects are using Web 2.0 technologies to support everyday tasks and thus improve the management of a project as a whole. IT projects are becoming increasingly complex and thus create the need for business models to develop software to meet the new demands (Hui, 2010). ...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
One of the challenges in Project Management (PM) is the introduction of information technology in PM methodologies. To deal with this issue, the use of Web 2.0 technologies to support virtual work and virtual management of projects has gained attention in recent years. At the same time, the adoption of agile methodologies has grown to better assist mainly the management of information technology projects. This paper proposes a conceptual contribution through the use of Web 2.0 technologies in Scrum methodology. It suggests Web 2.0 tools to fit each artifact and event Scrum, which provide an environment for virtual management of projects. Such tools support meetings and knowledge sharing. It also presents the research questions (RQ) and methods that will be used to conduct this work. RQ1 is “How can Web 2.0 technologies be integrated into Scrum methodology to monitor projects and store and share knowledge generated in the meetings?” and RQ2 is “To what extent do Web 2.0 technologies improve the performance of Scrum teams?” To address RQ1 and RQ2, we will use multiple case study and action research methods, respectively.
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Finding a satisfactory vendor or outsourcer for IT projects is a tedious task in typical public organizations. When there are many alternatives, it may be difficult to choose the right one. Thus, many selection criteria need to be used. In this paper, we present an MIS system that provides supported information for selecting the vendors. First, a standard specification is given to the system. Also, the scoring criteria is defined for each feature in the specification. Then, the vendors propose their product specification to the system. The system gives the summary reports comparing each vendor product and how much the criteria is met. Hence, the user can decide which vendor to choose. We present a case study of three scoring approaches, namely Percentage of Weight, Percentage of Price and Total Percentage, in one of a public organization.
Chapter
This chapter explains the methods and procedures that ensure timely performance in a software project: verifying schedule and budget keeping. It discusses the progress control of software development tasks that can be performed by applying the progress control components. The main components of project progress control are control of risk management activities, project schedule control, project resource control and project budget control. The chapter also discusses the difficulties entailed with controlling external participants and internal projects. The difficulties of distributed software development (DSD) and global software development (GSD) projects include communication and coordination difficulties, and in GSD projects, culture differences and insufficient facility of the English language also. Finally the chapter demonstrates the computerized tools for software progress control which include programs for the planning and control of schedule and resource usage, project progress metrics and progress tracking charts.
Chapter
The purpose of this study was to explore team cognition as a multidimensional activity comprised of team learning, team reflexivity, and team mental model during project teamwork. A laboratory experiment was conducted to examine the effects of two different modes of collaboration - face-to-face and technology-mediated collaboration on team cognition and its subsequent impact on task outcomes. Team cognition was represented as a second-order construct comprised of three first-order dimensions. A direct-observation rating scale used to derive measures of the first-order dimensions was shown to have strong psychometric properties. The partial least squares method was used to test a structural equation model where the second-order construct was presented as a mediator between collaboration mode and task outcomes (productivity and interaction quality). As hypothesized, team cognition significantly influenced productivity and interaction quality outcomes. Further, collaboration mode significantly improved team cognition through its specific effects on the team learning, team reflexivity, and team mental model development. The main contribution of the study lies in its finding that team cognition can be viewed as a hierarchical construct that accounts for distinct yet cognition-related behaviors. This finding offers an extension to current related research models and identifies behavioral indicators that can be monitored by project managers in developing prescriptive measures aimed at promoting project success.
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The purpose of this study was to explore team cognition as a multidimensional activity comprised of team learning, team reflexivity, and team mental model during project teamwork. A laboratory experiment was conducted to examine the effects of two different modes of collaboration-face-to-face and technology-mediated collaboration on team cognition and its subsequent impact on task outcomes. Team cognition was represented as a second-order construct comprised of three first-order dimensions. A direct-observation rating scale used to derive measures of the first-order dimensions was shown to have strong psychometric properties. The partial least squares method was used to test a structural equation model where the second-order construct was presented as a mediator between collaboration mode and task outcomes productivity and interaction quality. As hypothesized, team cognition significantly influenced productivity and interaction quality outcomes. Further, collaboration mode significantly improved team cognition through its specific effects on the team learning, team reflexivity, and team mental model development. The main contribution of the study lies in its finding that team cognition can be viewed as a hierarchical construct that accounts for distinct yet cognition-related behaviors. This finding offers an extension to current related research models and identifies behavioral indicators that can be monitored by project managers in developing prescriptive measures aimed at promoting project success.
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Purpose This paper seeks to present the challenges reported by project leaders of cross‐cultural geographically distributed, or virtual project teams operating within the matrix organisation of ABC, a multinational company based in Switzerland. Design/methodology/approach The research is qualitative and exploratory, taking the form of inductive thematic analysis. Findings The key themes reported to be of significance were the challenge of leadership, managing virtual aspects of communication and developing trust. Sub‐themes consisted of managing the task, managing people, managing language and cultural issues and, lastly, managing the matrix. Practical implications These include attention to the selection of leaders, continued facilitation of face‐to‐face communication in a virtual age and investment in language and intercultural training. Originality/value Future research might investigate the complementary perspective of line management and take up the theme of high fluctuation of team members and leaders.
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Project management success is often elusive, particularly in a complex, systems of systems environment (SOSE). In the information technology (IT) industry, failure rates are approaching 70 percent. Many reasons are cited for this high failure rate, including the shortage of skilled staff, constant changes in technology, too many known IT application constraints, inadequately defined requirements, and poor project management skills among others. This paper proposes a main cause of failure as complexity caused by discontinuities among project objectives and the worldviews, tools and ideas in standard practice in IT project management. This paper will also assert that many IT projects, by their very nature, are complex in design. An understanding of complexity and a change in thinking about IT project management in the modern engineering organization may be indicated. The conclusion of this paper will summarize future research necessary to close this gap.
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Offshore outsourcing (offshoring is increasingly important in IT projects. The anticipated gains are primarily cost savings and span to - amongst others - shorter-time-to-market, address scarce qualified labor force, bypass local regulations, laws, and taxes, and work following the sun. However, many offshoring IT projects fail [3] and significantly miss their anticipated improvements mainly due to cost and quality issues.. We identified categories of projects that are likely to perform well in an offshoring scenario and some that won't. They are related to specific business processes, differences in language (client vs. offshore partners), and tacit knowledge. The paper at hand specifically regards the latter category of projects and suggests an offshoring framework to enable distributed, blended workforce in a real-world business context. The framework has been developed in large scale projects with IT service firms and consultancies and has been evaluated in a large distributed project.
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A wiki is a web tool that allows users to easily create and edit web pages collaboratively. The ease-of-editing feature and accessibility from anywhere by anyone make wikis ideal for project collaboration. Although the wiki was introduced more than ten years ago, its use is relatively new in academia. This research explores the potential uses of wikis in Software Engineering, especially for software project team collaboration and communication. The author introduced wikis in a project-based software engineering course, and students soon discovered a number of innovative ways in which wikis can augment collaborative software development activities. A student survey indicates that vast majority of students found the wiki to be a good tool for project collaboration, and most of them plan to use wikis for future projects even if not required to do so.
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The implementation of IT projects such as acquiring and implementing accounting software systems has become widespread among small and medium sized enterprises (SME). Invariably the SMEs face numerous difficulties, especially at the initial stages of IT project implementation. Using case study approach, this paper explores the nature of and the processes related to managerial aspects of accounting software systems implementation projects in SMEs. The results provide valuable insights to the project management processes with respect to the implementation of software applications in the SMEs.
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This work will describe the reasons why virtual teams are used for project delivery. The advantages of using virtual teams and the benefits of virtual teams to the client and the project delivery organisation, i.e., the contractor or consultant will be discussed. The use of virtual project teams for project delivery, especially for international or global projects, has definite advantages and benefits. However, in order to ensure successful project delivery by virtual teams, the prospective project client needs to have a clear understanding of the environment in which the virtual team can succeed and procure the project appropriately.
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Increasingly, companies are finding that competing effectively on a global scale requires the use of project teams whose members are globally distributed. But, as companies are discovering, managing globally distributed teams presents unique challenges requiring unique solutions. This paper discusses how these challenges were met in the Digital Equipment Corporation to effectively manage their globally distributed teams. The authors discuss actions that the manager of one of Digital's globally distributed teams took to motivate its members, create a “safe” work environment, and manage the electronic workplace. They elaborate on why these and other practices were successful and, lastly, suggest how other companies might benefit from this company's experience
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Reasons for projects relating to information technology, which complete with high costs than budgeted and longer project time-scale than planned, are discussed. The areas responsible for causing project failure include, project conception, project initiation/mobilisation, system design, development, implementation and benefit delivery. Detection and correction of troubled project root causes results in better solutions and proposals, early warning of problems in delivery and the potential to turnaround a troubled project.
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Wikis are especially useful in distributed projects: many teams around the world use them to organize, track, and publish their work. Their flexibility frees a project manager from fretting about getting everything exactly right from the beginning. A wiki can and should change to respond to the project's needs as they arise. While wikis are always easy to change, wiki engines usually incorporate comprehensive versioning and change control for their content. More important than the particular wiki implementation, however, is being sure that a wiki really fits in the culture of the project or organization. It requires tolerance and openness.
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Large IT projects lack a consistently satisfied client because they don't optimally allocate resources toward achieving the most vital organizational business goals. Inevitably, a resource crunch builds up by the time the project reaches midlife. A huge negative sentiment also accumulates, which further vitiates project success. To address this endemic problem, the SGS project methodology ensures that resources are first allocated to the critical deliverables. Achieving the SGS establishes a successful frame of mind for the project team, which also adds to the overall acceptance of the IT solution in the organization. IT project management must find answers for the malaise of myriad failed project. Focusing IT project management on implementing a single overarching goal might substantially increase project successes.
Documentation center, simplifying the documentation of software projects
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Web 2.0 in the enterprise: What the data tells us about adoption and impact.
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IBM Watson research center
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In Web 2.0 business performance management initiatives, wikis and social networks top survey
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Managing globally distributed teams: Beyond technology solutions. Paper presented at the International Conference on Engineering and Technology Management Pioneering New Technologies: Management Issues and Challenges in the Third Millennium
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A sensitivity analysis approach to select IT tools for global development projects
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Selected liability issues: Social networks and blogs.
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Mash-ups give new access to data but require the same care
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Single goal set: A new paradigm for IT megaproject success. IEEE Software, 22(5), 48-53. HR Focus. (2008). What you should know about using Web 2.0.
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IT execs seek new ways to justify Web 2.0.
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Frequently asked questions about IBM mashup center
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Business uses of Web 2.0, potentials and prospects.
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Social project management
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Communication tools in globally distributed software development projects
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