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| By N2H | ||||||||||||||||||||||
PRINCE (Projects IN Controlled Environments)
August 4, 2008
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This project command structure may perhaps not be widely applied but it brings out the nature of the roles we tend to encounter in most systems development projects.
Steering Committee
This committee may go under different titles, but its main role is to guide expenditure on Information systems (IS) with a view to ensuring that such expenditure is in line with the business goals. It is the steering committee’s responsibility to ensure that projects concentrate on solving the business problem. Such a committee may undertake the following duties:
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Formulating the IS strategy/plan
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Prioritization of projects
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Setting terms of reference for individual projects
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Project progress control
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Quality and acceptance testing
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Project funding
Project executive/Sponsor
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Taking care of project funding and organizing for the release of funds that have been allocated to the project.
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Project progress control, perhaps in conjunction with the steering committee if one exists.
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Justification of the project to the management body in charge.
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Specifying the minimum requirements that the projects must meet if it is to achieve its business objectives.
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Provide high level support as a champion for the projects
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Keeping the project board or higher management informed of progress.
Senior User
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Assisting in system requirements definition
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Assisting the project team with quality review of the system interfaces.
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Voicing the concerns of the perceived implications of a proposed system.
Project Manager/Leader
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Supervision and motivation of the project team
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Allocation of duties
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Progress control on a day to day basis
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Reporting on project progress to the project sponsor or senior management
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Recommend termination of the project to the sponsor if necessary
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Select and manage sub-contractors
Quality Control
This role may be served by a quality control team, quality control supervisor or some other person.
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Setting the quality standards
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Suggesting quality review techniques
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Undertaking the quality review and making the appropriate recommendations
Technical roles
Depending on the project any or all of the following technical roles may be applied:
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Business/System Analyst
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Application programmers
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System programmers
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Analyst programmers
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Telecoms engineers
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Designers
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Network technicians
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Secretarial support staff
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Data entry personnel
Analyst/programmer role
This role has become prevalent in the last 15 years and is the result of a number of forces/pressures. An analyst programmer is in charge of both system analysis and programming.
Some of the factors contributing to the increased popularity of this role are as follows:
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A desire to reduce communication problems in system development: in the classical approach an analyst prepares a specification which a programmer subsequently applies a program coding, there is always a chance of communication breakdown between the two parties.
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With the increased use of IT, even small enterprises are investing in the area however the system development workloads tend to be small and more attention is devoted to maintenance of existing system. It is therefore viable to have a limited number of personnel who can carry out both system analysis and programming.
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Desire for increased productivity/efficiency: When a programmer implements a design specification that he wrote himself he may be able to do so quickly because no time is wasted in trying to understand the specification. The system is therefore implemented sooner.
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Changes in a system development approaches, with the increased use of object oriented system development, it appears reasonable that the analysis and programming work is carried out by one person or the same group of people.
NB: This role appear to be quite popular even with the large organization indicating that the arrangement may be working well.
A person designated as a programmer analyst is likely to acquire a broader range of skills on the job with a positive effect on his career progression. However when mistakes are done there is less opportunity for detecting and correcting them. It is also likely there will be reduced rigor in problem analysis with adverse effect on overall system quality.
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