Although project management systems have been evolving from mainframe -based, big-iron programs into microcomputer-based, GUI (graphical user interface) programs, they are still in their infancy for enhancing fundamental functions. The fundamental functions and new features that these current project management systems lack include:

-   Historical project databases

-   Knowledge-based methodologies

-   Multimedia -enabling capabilities

-   Flexible navigation mechanisms

The significance of these shortcomings is that, without these features, systems are insufficient to facilitate project management automation from the planning phase to the controlling and executing phase. Consequently, the attitude toward a project stays the same: instead of using project management systems, many project managers continue to employ paper and pencil as the principal tools; therefore, project management remains mainly a manual process.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES

The main goal of project management is to develop an acceptable information system on schedule and within the allocated budget. Projects usually involve a team of analysts, programmers, technic al specialists, and user representatives who work together. Managing projects is the continuing, iterative process by which an analyst plans, controls, and executes tasks and resources, and communicates progress and results. Specifically, project management involves the following fundamental activities:

-   Planning a project, including:

-   Controlling the execution of the project, including:

o  Coordinating the tasks and resources according to the plan
o  Monitoring and measuring project progress against the plan
o  Presenting and communicating progress and results with management, team members, and clients

Project Planning

Planning is a critical part of project management. The project plan, resulting from the completion of planning, is the basis for coordinating, measuring, and communicating. Lack of planning has been cited as one of the major factors contributing to the failure of many systems projects. The failure to perform planning partly results from the nature of planning itself:

-   Uncertain or unstructured conditions often exist. For example, problems that trigger a development project are usually not understood completely at the early phases of the systems development process.

-   Heterogeneous staff possessing various skill levels are common in most organizations.

-   Planning techniques (e.g., estimating techniques) are imperfect.

The results are obvious. Some project managers rely primarily on their own experience to perform planning activities because few tools appear to be available for planning. The estimated time required for completing a given task is often highly inaccurate because there is little project data for prediction. The sequence of the tasks is not consistent because project methodology is not standardized and historical project databases are nonexistent. As a consequence, rarely are solid project plans created.

Despite the difficulty in planning, the following steps to improve planning may be considered:

-   Establishing the project development methodology for determining and sequencing the development tasks

-   Maintaining the historical project databases to support, for example, estimations

-   Building knowledge or expert system to assist analysts in resolving such issues as task sequences, personal assignments, and estimation techniques

Project Control

Project control includes coordinating activities and measuring for the execution of the project plan. First, coordinating involves integrating the activities for the ease of interaction among the team members. Creating a cooperative working environment that allows the team members to easily share project information or knowledge is important for the success of the project. Information or knowledge that may be shared includes the entire project plan and the status or progress of the project.

Second, measuring involves tracking and assessing the progress of the project. Without knowledge of individual and team progress, the problems cannot be identified, and the project managers cannot reshuffle the staff or revise the schedule to achieve the goals.

To assist the project team to perform project controlling activities better, the following steps can be taken:

-   Gathering project data to support the process management

-   Keeping track of the status of tasks, alerting the project manager and team members when tasks are incomplete or resources are not used effectively

-   Creating a distributed environment that can coordinate works

Project Communication

Project communication involves reporting, presenting, and accessing. Traditionally, project status, project plans, and other reports are prepared in the forms of text, tables, or graphics on paper using a manual method and a batch-oriented approach. Increasingly, such reports are also available on computers that can be accessed interactively.

Additional features are necessary for effective communication:

-   Digitized project information or knowledge to support automated access

-   Flexible approaches to access project information or knowledge

-   Automated tools for the preparation of project reports, presentations, or demonstrations in multimedia forms

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Historical project databases and knowledge-based project methodology are essential for effective planning, control, and communication. This section identifies and describes specific information technologies that may automate historical project databases, knowledge-based project methodology, and others. Current project management systems are also examined, and the limitations and advantages of these systems are identified.

Current Project Management Systems

Almost all the current products for project management are microcomputer-based GUI programs aimed at both technical project managers and analysts. Examples are Microsoft Project and SuperProject for Windows (by Computer Associates International Inc.). These products are designed to support the process management for single projects consisting of approximately 200 to 500 tasks. Although in their infancy as single -project, single -user, record-keeping systems, these programs are already starting to offer some fundamental functions:

-   Simplifying the preparation of CPM, PERT, and Gantt charts

-   Generating a simple project plan

-   Assigning people and cost resources to tasks

-   Reporting project progress

-   Answering simple “What -If” questions

These microcomputer-based project management systems, however, lacked sufficient functionality, including:

-   Multiproject capabilities

-   Support of historical project databases

-   Knowledge-based project methodologies

-   Advanced decision support functions

-   Expert guidance for generating a customized plan

Relational Database Systems

The widespread use of relational database technology and its advantages have been well documented. Such use has been applied mainly to critical business applications in the user department. One essential task in relational technology is to plan an enterprise data model that can support the development of various applications.

Theoretically, the enterprise data model can also be extended to support project management applications in IS departments. However, project data must be planned as an integral part of the enterprise data model. With relational technology, the project database offers many advantages over current, microcomputer-based project management products, including:

-   Consistent and friendly data structure

-   Openness or connectivity

First relational databases incorporate easy-to-understand tabular structure to store data.
Relational databases also provide an open architecture to support additional functionality involving multiprojects or other non-project-specific systems. For example, a relational project management system may interface with the accounting system, the human resource system, and the financial system to automate charge back, comprehensive resource management, and resource forecasting. This is in contrast with the current microcomputer-based project management systems that can primarily support record-keeping activities typically within a single project.

Relational Database Management System/4GL Development Tools

A relational database management system (RDBMS) has two parts: the back end, which provides the basic data management funcitons, and a set of front ends, which support applications development.

The back-end DBMS is typically equipped with a nonprocedural language that can be used to create, update, and maintain the project database. It also provides concurrent control, recovery support, and data security. Some back ends provide a data dictionary to store metadata about objects and therefore provide a unified view of data. Popular RDBMS products include DB2, Informix, Oracle, Sybase, and Microsoft SQL Server.

The relational front ends constitute a set of facilities for assisting in the process of developing database programs. For the past decade, the front ends have made significant changes to allow for the development of client/server, multiplatform applications.

The front -end tools range from 3GL-like procedural language to nonprocedural database languages, from character-based text modes to object-oriented modes, and from menu-driven 4GLs to graphical 4GLs. These 4GL - type front -end tools support prototyping and have proved to be able to shorten development time significantly. It is expected that the modern front ends are adequate to facilitate the development of the various project management programs, including:

-   Transaction programs to request and accept the actual time spent by a person on a specific project

-   Data maintenance programs to modify a person’s assignment and the projected time for a task

-   Decision-support inquiry and project-data reporting programs to generate, for example, a new project plan in response to schedule slippage

Most of the host- or server-based RDBMS have graphical 4GLs (e.g., Informix 4GL, Microsoft Visual Basic, and Sybase Powerbuilder). Some PC-based RDBMS, such as Microsoft Access, Microsoft Visual FoxPro, and Corel Paradox, also provide front -end tools. This means that there are many choices available for automating project management programs in relatively short periods.

Expert, Hypermedia, Relational Technologies

A knowledge-based project methodology should provide, among other functions, a knowledge base about the development methodology and its expert guidance to assist the project manager to derive the first -cut plan and then to customize a plan. The methodology should also provide other types of knowledge bases and their expertlike guidance for selecting the appropriate techniques and tools.

To implement such knowledge-based systems, various information technologies can be employed. For example, hypermedia and expert tec hnology can be used to implement a knowledge base that may be composed of a set of digitized objects. These objects are used to represent knowledge about tasks, phases, techniques, tools, deliverables, skills, and so on. Each of these knowledge-oriented objects is modeled as an independent object that can be further divided into one or more subobjects for the detailed references. The objects may hold text, bit -mapped diagrams, and even animation. Specific rules used to provide guidance for using the project methodologies can also be automated as one component of an expert system.

Besides the above technologies, relational database systems (e.g., DB2 and Oracle) have added hypermedia, object, and knowledge components to make relational DBMSs multimedia capable, object capable, and more intelligent in addition to their standard database management functions. The significance of this development is that relational technology may eventually be able to support project management automation by itself.

Hypermedia Browsing and Relational Query

Hypermedia browsing allows the user to access project databases and knowledge bases in a nonlinear way and may serve as a fundamental navigation mechanism for a project management system. Such a navigation mechanism is interactive and flexible; it can enhance information access in two significant ways. First, it uses a technique known as hypertext to integrate menu items into information. With hypertext, the users can explore the knowledge bases and project databases from one object to the related objects through the embedded menu items. The users can also navigate from one object to other objects through cross-reference links or direct links. Second, it allows text, graphics, images, audio, and video to be combined to form multimedia objects.

Other advanced mechanisms involve a sophisticated query/search technique for flexible and filtered access to project databases. Such mechanisms allow users to see the desired picture of a project, to identify the critical path, and to filter exceptional problems concerning schedules, budgets, or resources. Relational query tools may be used to facilitate the implementation of such advanced mechanisms.

CONCLUSION

This article has discussed automation in the context of project management. Although microcomputer-based GUI products for technical project managers and analysts have begun to offer some fundamental functions, they lack sufficient functionality for project management automation from the planning phase to the coordination and execution phase. Three major functions among others that remain difficult to automate are the historical project databases, the knowledge-based project methodologies, and the flexible navigation mechanisms.

Current IT developments are emerging that provide the solutions if they are fully utilized. This article identified the specific technologies for project management automation:

-   Expert systems, hypermedia, and image/object technology, which can be used to develop the knowledge-based project methodology

-   Relational database technology, which can be used to implement the multiproject historical databases and to assist the development of various project management programs

-   Multimedia, which can be used to represent knowledge or project data in the forms of text, graphics, images, audio, video, and animation

-   Hypertext techniques and relational queries, which can be used to provide a flexible navigation mechanism

Until these technologies are fully incorporated into the systems, project management will remain one of the thorny problems for managers. To alleviate this problem, a new project management system must be planned and built as an integral part of the organizationwide information system. Because relational technology is the best complete technology currently available to support the overall information system, it should be used to implement a project management system.

To better prepare for a new era of relational technology-centered project management automation, the following steps are suggested:

-   Standardizing the project methodology. A proven project methodology must be chosen. The chosen methodology standardizes project development activities.

-   Planning and building the project database with a RDBMS. First, the project database must be planned as an integral part of the enterprise data model. Emphasis should be placed on data aggregation and data sharing. Second, the project data can be defined, stored, and maintained with the use of the back end of a relational DBMS.

-   Developing the project management programs with the front -end tools of RDBMS. The 4GL development tools can be used to facilitate the rapid development of the various project management subsystems including transaction processing, management reporting, and information inquiry.

-   Implementing expert guidance and hypermedia navigation. These functions may be delayed until RDBMS or other technologies are proved to be capable of implementing them.