Abstract
Project management is a carefully planned, organized effort to manage the resources in order to successfully accomplish specific project goals and objectives. It involves the entire life cycle of a project right from the feasibility study of the project, project planning, implementation, evaluation, support, and maintenance of the project. Each phase of the project is a vast topic within project management. The topic of interest for this chapter is quality assurance and its relationship project management. By defining quality and situating the concept within the frame of project management, the authors’ scope and understanding of project completion will be improved.
TopAnticipating And Mitigating Employee Concerns
Management’s announcement that a new and efficient computerized system will soon replace the old manual system is likely to garner less employee enthusiasm than what is hoped for. Never mind that employees have complained for years about the inherent problems of the old system, the typical human response to management change initiatives is one of employee resistance resulting in performance degradation (Elrod & Tippett, 2002). Knowing this, management can anticipate employee response and structure the introduction of the change so that employees are less likely to reject it.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Participatory Change: Change initiatives in which the individuals who will experience the change are invited to contribute their thoughts and ideas to the nature, scope, and timing of the change proposal.
System Optimization: The activity of enhancing system capabilities and integration of subsystem elements to the extent that all components operate at or above user expectations.
Task Analysis: A high-level assessment with a concentrated effort expended on detailing all of the tasks and sub-tasks performed by system users. Not only routine tasking, but also sporadic event tasking and emergency event tasking is included.
Needs Assessment: An activity that takes place during the early stages of the system development life cycle and that attempts to discover and make known the explicit needs of the business owner (customer) as well as those who will operate (users) the new computerized system.
COTS: An acronym for Commercial Off the Shelf – used in reference to original hardware and software purchased from a commercial vendor and installed into an operational system without first undergoing modification by the purchaser.
Technology Trust: The perception that the technology can be depended on to correctly accomplish the user’s tasking and that any errors or malfunctions that do occur are easily recovered from and will not have catastrophic consequences.
Computerization: The activity of facilitating or automating procedures or activities by means of electronic computer.