IT Project Management Standards and Frameworks

By: Nibras Muhsin MBA | IT Project Management Expert

IT Project Management is the process by which the responsibility for the achievement of the basic information technology (IT) goals of an organization is planned, organized, coordinated, and delineated. It involves the supervision of software development programs, hardware installations, network enhancements, cloud computing roll-outs, and the deployment of IT services. Usually, the magnitude of IT project management is more than just implementing knowledge, aligning skills, and using proper tools and techniques to drive the project to completion.

There are a lot of factors that can cause the failure of IT projects such as the implementation of ineffective frameworks, advancements in technology, and many more. Implementing efficient and effective IT project management standards and frameworks is essential to ensure the successful completion of IT projects.

Now, we’ll look closely at the frameworks and standards of IT project management that can enhance efficiency and deliver tangible business benefits

IT Project Management Framework

An IT project management framework is a set of basic concepts, standard processes, and tools that are used to control the initiation, execution, deployment of IT projects of an organization.

It consists of all the fundamental components required for planning, deploying, and monitoring IT projects. These key components are:

1. Project Life Cycle
2. Project Control Cycle
3. Required Tool

IT project management frameworks play an important role in overseeing the IT projects successfully within the defined period of time, cost, and quality.

IT Project Management Standard

It is the foundation of a business and ensures that the IT project management frameworks are up-to-date. It can be in a form of a methodology or a guideline.

An IT project management standard is a document that is established by an organization and is approved by a recognized body. It is developed for common and repetitive use and contains different rules and guidelines to be followed by the employees during IT projects.

IT project management standards provide guidelines for achieving specific project requirements, program and portfolio management results.

There are various project management standards, published by different organizations. These include:

• PMBOK® Guide along with other standards, published by PMI
• IPMA Competence Baseline, published by IPMA
• PRINCE2 Standard by UK Government

Efficient and Beneficial frameworks:

There are various frameworks and standards available and project managers have to choose the framework that works best for the intended projects. Some organizations often leverage multiple frameworks that are particular to a specific department or project type.

There is no specific framework or standard that is perfect for all projects, which is why so many of them have been created over the years.

Given below are some of the best frameworks and standards that encompass particular features and approaches but share a common capability of increasing efficiency and delivering tangible business benefits:

1. Scrum – allows a cross-functional and self-managing team to deliver efficiently and effectively.

Scrum is a project management framework that proposes principles and processes for improving project delivery. Its goal is to enhance communication, teamwork, and speed of development.

Scrum is a project management methodology and a framework for the ongoing development and maintenance of complex products. It is a light approach that defines a set of roles, meetings (Scrum Ceremonies), and tools for delivering valuable and continuous functionality. It is considered to be one of the best IT project management frameworks as it can adapt to rapid changes.

Scrum is specifically about empowering a self-managing team to deliver and define roles and responsibilities to develop and maintain a healthy tension between delivering the right thing, in the right way, and at the right time.

In the Scrum framework, the self-organizing teams work with the Product Owner. The product owner is responsible for the successful completion of the IT product. In this framework, there is a Scrum Master who helps the team by eradicating any sort of issues during the progress of an IT project by holding meetings and preparing the backlog for the next sprints.

2. Kanban – Improves the speed and quality of the project by increasing the visibility of work in progress and restricting multitasking

This IT project management framework is based on Lean principles and a strict process to increase efficiency. It’s similar in many ways to Scrum such as releasing the project early and collaborative and self-managing team. But compared to Scrum, Kanban is a more evolutionary change.

This framework is light, flexible, has no fixed roles, and simply aims to improve the results by enhancing the team’s focus on the most crucial things. Its core practices include visualizing workflows, controlling work in progress, calculating lead time, explicitly developing process policies, and incrementally evaluating the opportunities for improvements.

The main focus of this framework is to deliver the work faster and of better quality. It’s best for such IT projects as the priorities in information technology often change.

3. Lean – streamline and minimizes waste to deliver more with less waste

This project management frameworkfocuses on the concept of efficiency. The Lean framework is all about doing more with less. It starts by identifying a value and then maximizes it through continual improvement by optimizing value flow and reducing waste.

The main focus of the Lean framework is on changing the way we operate. It is about shifting the focus from optimizing separate technologies, assets, and vertical departments to optimizing flow projects through entire value streams that flow horizontally across technologies, assets, and departments to customers.

Lean can be a helpful way of thinking when reviewing your project delivery process. Think about how you can strip your project process back to the bare essentials that deliver value and cut out the stuff that’s just fluff, or the way you’ve always done it, and you’re going to think about Lean.

3. PMI’s PMBOK – implementation of universal standards

The Project Management Body of Knowledge is a standard guideline established by the Project Management Institute (PMBOK). The PMBOK refers to the collection of conventions, processes, practices, terminologies, and guidelines that are accepted as standards for project management.

The PMBOK includes five process steps of project management: initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, and project closure. It includes various project management processes and techniques to analyze or complete the way you run your projects or the methodology you use. It is one of the best standards to be implemented as it enhances efficiency and provides tangible benefits to a business by monitoring the performance of teams keenly and effectively.