Managing project interdependencies in IT/IS project portfolios: a review of managerial issues

Coordination of teams is critical when managing large programmes that involve multiple teams. In large-scale software development, work is carried out simultaneously by many developers and development teams. Results are delivered frequently and iteratively, which requires coordination on different levels, e.g., the programme, project, and team levels. Prior studies of knowledge work indicate that such work relies heavily on coordination through "personal" modes such as mutual adjustment between individuals or through scheduled or unscheduled meetings. In agile software development processes, principles and work structures emerge during the project and are not predetermined. We studied how coordination through scheduled and unscheduled meetings changes over time in two large software development programmes relying on agile methods. Our findings include transitions from scheduled to unscheduled meetings and from unscheduled to scheduled meetings. The transitions have been initiated both bottom-up and top-down in the programme organizations. The main implication is that programme management needs to be sensitive to the vital importance of coordination and the coordination needs as they change over time. Further, when starting a program, we recommend to early identify the important scheduled meetings, as having enough scheduled meetings is important to develop a common understanding of domain knowledge.

Section: Coordination In Agile Project Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

To schedule or not to schedule? An investigation of meetings as an inter-team coordination mechanism in largescale agile software development

Moe

Dingsøyr

Rolland

2022

“…Finally, design decisions are not always communicated with those involved in the project organization [1], [4]. Hence, being dependent on the documented information of others, different teams cannot continue their work activities or have to make assumptions which may turn out to be wrong [5], [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The documentation of design decisions in engineering projects: A study in infrastructure development

Kinneging¹,

Siebelink

Graaf

et al. 2021

In most design projects, the documentation of design decisions is considered important. Among others, documentation of design decisions contributes to the traceability of decisions that shape a project’s development process, helps deal with changes in the project and prevents the recurrence of old discussions. Yet, little attention is given to documenting design decisions in the engineering literature. In this study, a theoretical framework for the key elements of this documentation process was developed. Four infrastructure projects were studied and compared to this framework by means of pattern matching. This method compares theoretical and empirical patterns and determines whether they match or do not match. The findings demonstrate that accessibility of documentation for all involved project parties and the division of documentation tasks are in accordance with the literature. However, the documentation of design decisions and their rationale is not done as completely as is recommended in theory. Literature states that the documentation of interrelations and context of decisions should be described thoroughly, but that is barely done in practice. In addition, the findings show that neither immediate documentation nor periodical monitoring of documentation is applied. Based on these findings, this research proposes a strategy for improving the documentation of design decisions.

“…PgM can also be clearly distinguished from Project Portfolio Management, which has its roots in the management of capital investments. Portfolio Management takes a relatively narrow investment perspective and pursues the ultimate goal of maximizing the risk-returns-ratio across the entirety of an organization's projects [38,39]. Finally, with its orientation towards specific strategic goals and its association with organizational change, PgM can also be distinguished from multi-project management, which has an operational focus on resource allocations, scheduling and day-to-day coordination [40,41].…”

Section: Program Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

IT program management challenges: insights from programs that ran into difficulties

Teubner

2022

The use of Information Technology (IT) to drive organizational change has gained momentum in both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations, and currently culminates in a vivid discussion on what many call “Digital Transformation”. It is not surprising then that practitioners seek guidance on how to manage such transformation. Professional bodies have addressed this need by issuing best practice standards for Program Management (PgM), but we know little about their value in managing programs in general and IT programs in particular. Academic research on IT PgM is still in its very infancy. Taking this as motivation, we have investigated the challenges that managers faced in five IT programs that encountered problems. Our analysis reveals a set of management issues and shortcomings including, among others, a lack of architectural overview, difficulties in dealing with scope changes, stakeholder interest, diverse business groups and cultures, as well as a lack of internal PgM competences and unclear management responsibilities. In this paper, based on our findings, we present a first checklist for managing IT programs across their life cycle. Though still tentative and not necessarily comprehensive, we were able to confirm that our checklist provides relevant guidance for managing IT programs in practice.