TABLE OF CONTENTS If you read the introduction to this book, you already know what project management has to do with IT, but now we re going to break it down a bit further and look at how Information Technology (IT) projects benefit from project management and by extension, how your career will benefit from project management. In this chapter, we ll begin by looking briefly at business process improvement and how project management fits into that world. We ll also look at some of the brutal facts about project success (or rather, failure) rates as well as the factors that can have the most impact on project success. We ll close out the chapter by looking at project constraints and elements to give you a solid foundation for the subsequent chapters. Let s start by looking at business process improvement systems and where project management fits.
Business process improvement (BPI) has been around in different flavors for decades. Companies continually look for ways to become more efficient, and with efficiency often comes competitive advantage. If a company can create a computer program or a part for a car at a lower cost than another company, it has a distinct advantage. It can sell the part for less than its competitors, which often leads to greater market share. That company also has the option of selling the product for the same as its competitors, but making a larger profit on each unit. With more profit comes the ability to pick and choose...
