ADVANCED INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Course Syllabus
INSTRUCTOR'S NAME AND CONTACT INFORMATION
LING Zong (凌棕), Ph. D.
Senior Engineer/Scientist, IBM Almaden Research Center/Software Group, San Jose, California, U.S.A.
Course-Email:
Personal-Email (MSN):
IBM-Email:
Web Page:
lingzongUSTC@gmail.com
lingzong@hotmail.com
zong@us.ibm.com
http://software.nju.edu.cn/lingzong
Teaching Assistant (TA)
ZHU Xiaodong (朱小东)
COURSE-Email: Xdzhu001@mail.ustc.edu.cn
YIN Wei (尹巍)
COURSE-Email: yinwei@mail.ustc.edu.cn
WORDS OF WELCOME
Welcome to the course of Advanced IT Project Management!
First of all, I'd like to congratulate you on your decision to take this course! I've been affiliated with some IT related classes for
years over the world to IBM professionals. This is a good chance for me to bring my industry experience to you -- the bright
college students over China, with such a hot topic. I believe that you have made a wise choice to explore this colorful world and I
am excited about the opportunity I've been given to work with you during the course period. Please use OUR valuable time
together well through this course period, and ask for more information or for help when you are struggling. My hope is that ALL of
you will pass this course with flying colors!
READING MATERIALS
For completing this course, the basic requirement of the reading materials is the set of lecture notes (PowerPoint and Word files)
that are available through the course period.
Optionally, the electronic textbook for reading is an online ebook: http://www.epmbook.com/
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course is mainly designed to prepare IT project managers, novice or experienced, with project management skills needed to
better manage IT projects. Built along the IT project management lifecycle, this course covers detailed topics of the basic concepts
of IT project management, including initiating, planning, controlling, executing, and closing projects. The course also shows how IT
projects should be managed, from inception to post implementation review. The audience who take this course will likely improve
their management skills and abilities to define the project scope, create a workable project plan, and manage within the budget and
schedule.
The course covers a lot of material yet is run in a relaxed manner and teaches how to manage projects rather than how to
administer a methodology.
There are no prerequisites - no prior project management training is necessary. No IT knowledge is needed.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
The objective of this course is to provide a foundation to prepare students, as future IT project managers, IT engineers, or system
architects, to play leading roles in the application and management of e-business system construction.
Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:
 Understand the job roles of an IT project manager;
 Recognize the key issues during the IT project management procedures;
 Describe the best practices in IT project management processes;
 Build a performing organization and project team
 Develop Work Breakdown Structures (WBS)
 Establish project estimates and project schedules
 Create project plans
 Manage overall change control
 Control project execution processes
 Terminate a project with a close-out strategy
 Build up the baseline knowledge for further career in IT project management fields.
COURSE OUTLINE
The course describes in a readily understandable way on how projects should be managed. The course covers:

Project management principles - including what constitutes good, useful project management standards.

Project roles and responsibilities – defining project sponsor, project manager, team leader and many more.

Project definition - turning ideas into defined, planned projects.

Project planning, estimating and resourcing - listing the techniques for planning and estimating how much the project
might cost; top down and bottom up methods; rules of thumb; ensuring user resources, are assigned to IT projects

Project issue management - how to manage issues, not just log and forget them; sample issue forms.

Project risk management - assessing and managing risk; includes a very comprehensive risk checklist and a sample risk
register.

Project quality management - walking through inspections, prototyping simulations, quality measurements, cause analysis.

Project change management – introducing mechanisms for controlling change requests; who controls change; sample
change request forms.

Project controlling and reporting - how to use project status data, compare to plan and identify problems, how to report
status vs. plan data at team level, project manager level and project sponsor level.

IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) - introducing the basic principle of technical support processes of IT projects.

Service Science, Management, and Engineering (SSME) – discussing the management topics of IT service projects.

Communication management and team building – discussing the methods for communicating inside and outside of the
project teams, and building up an effective team.
PROJECT PRACTICE
During this course period, you will have a chance to work, either individually or in teams, for an IT project management practice
assignment.
As an IT project manager, you will be in charge of the project to construct an e-Business solution representing as a web site.
Following the instructions in this course, you should be able to define the processes of project design, rule setup, resource
estimation, status tracking, progress report, and etc.
The assignment could be started at the beginning of the course, daily progress could be made along with the daily assignment
during the course, and the final report as an “IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN” should be submitted at the last day of the
course.
ASSIGNMENTS and EXAMINATION
The daily assignments are listed in the Daily Objectives and Assignments section of this document. The deadlines are always
the End Of the Day (EOD) on your local time zone.
Please note, for each of the questions/topics in the assignment, your answers or discussions should be limited within 200 words,
unless you do have a convincible explanation for longer echoes.
Please respond to the questions of daily assignment to the COURSE-Emails of BOTH Instructor and TA. In the subject area of
your response, it is better to specify your student number, your full name, and the assignment index or whatever identifiable easily.
TA will be reporting grades to the daily assignments. Instructor may selectively send you a private note, addressing what you
have mastered and indicating in what areas you might still need to make improvement.
We will have an examination, which will take two hours for you to answer about 50 questions from multiple-choice solutions. It
will be the exam in close-book.
COURSE GRADE PRINCIPLES
Activities
Score
Individual Assignment
25
Project Practice
Assignment
20
Examination
Final Individual Report
Total
50
5
100
Requirement
Submitting (20)
Effort (5)
Observation (5)
Links to Course (5)
Participation (5)
Completeness (5)
Answer 50 Questions (50)
Constructiveness (5)
ACADEMIC HONESTY
Although this should not be an issue during this course session, I include this information as a way of emphasizing to you the
importance of academic honesty and the fact that you are expected to practice.
Academic honesty is highly valued just as it is. A student must always submit work that represents his or her original words or
ideas. If any words or ideas are used that do not represent the student's original words or ideas, the student must cite all relevant
sources. The student should also make clear the extent to which such sources were used. Words or ideas that require citations
include, but are not limited to, all hardcopy or electronic publications, whether copyrighted or not, and all verbal or visual
communication when the content of such communication clearly originates from an identifiable source. At this course, all
submissions to any public meeting or private mailbox fall within the scope of words and ideas that require citations if used by
someone other than the original author.
Academic dishonesty could involve:
1. Having someone else complete a portion of YOUR assignments;
2. Copying work submitted by others;
3. Using information from online information services without proper citation.
CONFIDENTIALITY
One of the cornerstones of the learning model in this course is the practical application of theoretical concepts and we may share
our personal and professional experiences as a means to integrate the knowledge through reflecting on its application. Also,
some of the practical case study may have the restriction for distributing the information. Therefore, it is important to note that we
all are bound by confidentiality in this class. In order to assure that we can have a free and open discussion in which we may
elect to discuss our experience and the policies and procedures as they apply to the course materials, I expect each person to
respect the confidentiality of what you have learned in this class and what we (me and your classmates) are willing to share
among us. While at the same time I ask that each of you exercise good judgment in what you choose to share, avoiding nonpublic or competitively sensitive information.
If you have questions about any of the information contained in this syllabus, or about other aspect of the course, please don’t
hesitate to ask!
Daily Objectives and Assignments
Unit 1: Course Introduction and Overview of IT Project Management
Required reading
PM Course Syllabus.doc, PM Course Introduction.ppt
Project Management Overview.ppt, Project Definition.ppt
Assignments for Unit 1
Read this Course Syllabus.
This is the document you will refer to throughout this course so please be sure you read it and refer to it often.
Please prepare a brief autobiography and send it to Instructor’s COURSE-Email by EOD.
Write the autobiography in the first person (I) with an emphasis on your educational background, achievements or
professional experience, and further expectations, balanced with personal information that helps create the tone you desire.
Please respond to the following questions by EOD.
1)
2)
3)
4)
What does the project manager do?
Why the project definition is important?
How will you know if you could be succeeded on managing an IT project?
How could you effectively measure the benefits of an IT project?
Unit 2: IT Project Planning, Estimating, and Resourcing
Required Reading
Planning.ppt, Estimating.ppt, Resourcing.ppt
Assignments for Unit 2
Please respond to the following questions by EOD.
5)
6)
7)
8)
Do you prefer to use the Milestone-Focused planning approach? And why?
What are the differences between automated scheduling and manual scheduling? Any benefits or problems?
What are the more reliable forms of estimation so that they can be shared and re-used by any Project Manager?
Which estimating approach may be more suitable for a software project in a start-up company? Why?
Project Practice: Initialization
Please plan to manage an IT project.
o As an individual or a team, visit any ONE virtual e-Business System, such as from the websites
<http://www.chenniao.com/ebes_new/index.aspx>;
 For working as teams, construct the team with 2-5 people and distribute the workloads among teammates.
o See “Login.doc” for login ID and password;
o Outline an IT project for implementing the e-Business solution that is represented by the website.
Hints: What is the project definition for this IT project?
What do you plan to do at the start stage of project?
What type of resource you may need to complete this project?
How long time it will be taken for such an IT project? Why?
Unit 3: IT Project Risk, Issue, and Quality Management
Required Reading
Risk Management.ppt, Issue Management.ppt, Quality Management.ppt
Assignments for Unit 3
Please respond to the following questions by EOD.
1)
2)
3)
4)
How do you practically assess the risks in an IT project?
What are the keys to the success of Issue Management Process? For example?
How do you maintain the quality work in an IT project?
As a Quality Auditor, what are the top 3 items in mind to audit a project?
Project Practice: Stage 1
Please plan to manage risks, issues, and quality of this IT project.
Hints: What could the potential risks and issues for this project?
How do you plan to define, manage, and review the quality of this project?
Unit 4: Scope Change Management, Organizational Change Management, Control and Report
Required Reading
Scope Change Management.ppt, Organizational Change Management.ppt,
Control & Report.ppt, Documentation Management.ppt
Assignments for Unit 4
Please respond to the following questions by EOD.
1)
2)
3)
4)
During a project why things need to change?
When a project manager should reject a change?
How do you deal with people’s nervous state due to organizational change?
How much control and reporting do we need to manage an IT project in a start-up company?
Project Practice: Stage 2
Please setup the necessary processes to manage this IT project.
Hints: What processes are necessary for this project?
What changes may occur during this project life cycle?
Unit 5: Contract Management, Team Building, SSME
Required Reading
Contract Management.ppt, Team Building.ppt, SSME Overview.ppt, Project Structure.ppt
Assignments for Unit 5
Please respond to the following questions by EOD.
1)
2)
3)
4)
In contract management, how many methods you may have to mitigate the disputes with vendors?
What top 5 items in the contract checklist you prefer to pick up as the higher priority? And why?
How do you plan to build good team spirit?
How could you effectively measure the benefits of an IT service from the service-profit triangle?
Project Practice: Stage 3
Please manage the configuration and finance for the IT project.
Hints: How much difficulty you may encounter with to manage the configuration of this project?
How do you plan to build an effective team?
Unit 6: Financial Control, Configuration Management, IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)
Required Reading
Financial Control.ppt, Configuration Management.ppt, ITIL.ppt, Project Management Tools.ppt
Assignments for Unit 6
Please respond to the following questions by EOD.
1)
2)
3)
4)
Why the Earned Value method is useful and also difficult to use?
Without Configuration Management, what would happen in a large IT project?
What are the major differences between service support and service delivery in ITIL?
What is your opinion on the "good guy" and "bad guy" roles of an IT project manager in a team?
Project Practice: Stage 4
Please modify your management plan for the IT project.
Hints: What contracts you may have to manage for this project?
Where could be the places that the project would run out of the budget?
Unit 7: Communication Management, Speaker Training, Job Interview Insights
Required Reading
Communication Management.ppt, Speaker Training.ppt, Job Interview Insights.ppt, Course Summary.ppt
Assignments for Unit 7
Comprehensively review the course materials in this course period and be ready for the examination.
Please respond to the following questions by EOD.
1)
2)
3)
4)
What is the difference between communication strategies to external audience and high level management?
What makes an audience listen to your speech?
In your opinion, what are the top 3 important roles in a project team? And why?
What strategies you can utilize on negotiating the price of a service?
Project Practice: Stage 5
Please wrap up your management plan for the IT project.
Hints: What could be your communication strategies throughout this project?
How do you plan to control and review progress of the project?
Unit 8: An introduction to IBM from the perspectives of IT project management
Required Reading
Working @ IBM.ppt, IBM China.ppt
Project Practice: finalization
Please submit your report of the Project Practice assignment (the IT project management plan) by EOD.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Inividual Report:
Please summarize (within 500 words) your (individual) final report on what you have experienced over this course by EOD.
Hints: You may review this course syllabus again and start to answer the questions from, but not be limited by, the follows,
1) Before and after this course period, what could be the difference to your understanding on the IT Project
Management, on the IT industry, and/or on the computing world?
2) What is the most impressive issue which brought your attention over this course period?
3) Do you have any confidence or any clue on where you can start if you are assigned to manage an IT project?
4) Through this course period, have you been inspired or discouraged to your further career development in IT field?
5) Is this course fairly similar to, or significantly different from, other courses you took before? And why?
NINE-DAY CALENDAR
Time \ Day Periods
Morning
1
2
3
4
1
2
Unit
1
Unit
3
4
5
6
7
Unit
5
Unit
7
8
9
Unit
8
Unit
5
2
8
6
Afternoon
Evening
Unit
3
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Unit
2
Unit
3
Unit
6
Unit
4
Exam
Report
December
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
Weekday
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Links of References
http://www.epmbook.com/
http://w3-3.ibm.com/transform/project/
http://www.pmi.org
http://www.maxwideman.com/pmglossary/index.htm
http://www.gantthead.com/article.cfm?ID=94587
https://castlelearning.com/