Mastering IT Project Management

Mastering IT Project Management, Best Practices, Tools and Techniques,  

Murali Chemuturi, J Ross Publishing 2013

A reference book designed to offer tools to set infrastructure and appropriate measurements for running successful IT projects, this book contains samples and illustrations of commonly used tools, along with their definitions.   Main sections include an introduction to IT project management, including key phases and how this type of project compares to other project areas; project approaches, including process and schedule driven approaches; feasibility studies and how to decide whether to in-house or outsource the study; project execution methods and when and how to handle hardware;  cost control; quality assurance in IT project management; how to conduct performance appraisals of the IT project team;  pitfalls and best practices in IT project management.

Lean IT professionals will find the discussion about configuration control particularly important, especially in mixed environments hosting legacy systems, silo’d design and manufacturing, or no integrated systems.  Although many system enterprise architecture questions will become more easily solved in the next 3 – 5 years, the challenge of building and maintaining consistent, integrated data base foundations for key data elements – Bill of Materials, cost data, time standards, etc. – can be one of the biggest barriers to successful implementations and tests. 

Configuration control and data testing are also covered, key areas to maintain data integrity.

Once your organization has a definitive EA (Enterprise Architecture) strategy in place, use this book to plan and execute the migration to the new system. 

Mill Girl verdict:  a good way to prep and work through the challenges of IT installations, redesigns and upgrades. Use this project selection and management guide with a solid EA plan.