Kyushu Branch was established in Oct. last year as the second branch of the society. In this year, we have been studying the knowledge of project management with the twice symposiums and every month meeting of the special interest group. We will begin the research on actual themes provided by the branch members in the next year.

View full abstract

The purposes of our research group are to discuss some different issues for project management, and propose a framework of effective and feasible communication architecture. In this paper we would suggest CBS for our first draft.

View full abstract

The effectiveness of the progress management using EVM - Earned Value Management, no longer remains in the level of research or theory, and its recognition is increasing also in the practical area especially among project managers. Since EVM has a characteristic of converting every settlement of work to earned value, i.e. a project or a subsystem, there is a problem that it is difficult to grasp the actual condition of progress only with EVM in the operating process. Although correspondence of using other progress management techniques together as solution can be considered, it cannot be sufficient. In this paper, I will solve the mentioned issue above and propose a method of introducing the view point of critical path into EVM, for heightening the effect of progress management using EVM.

View full abstract

We can find the utilization of the EVM to IT project to be drawing attention in Japan, for example, from the publication of "Guide line for introduction of project management that utilize EVM(Earned Value Management)" by the Information-technology Promotion Agency, Japan (IPA). However it is very much a situation in which there are only few cases which utilize EVM, even though the effectiveness of the idea is understandable, due to the lack of detailed procedure for the utilization of EVM to design, development and testing in IT project and the additional amount of man-hour required. In this article, targeting the project manager who may be considering the utilization of EVM, we will set up a model project comparable to the actual project handled by engineers and investigate the EVM utilization procedure and any action assignment that the engineers may confront.

View full abstract

The necessity of project management by EVM has been acknowledged for recent years in Japan. "Reexamination of government procurement system regarding information system", which was presented in the liaison conference of the ministry of government procurement office concerning information system, emphasized the consideration of applying EVM. And moreover, EVM application guideline was published by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the Information-technology Promotion Agency last year. There are not so many EVM application cases in Japan now. Therefore, consideration points of applying EVM has been researched using real projects data. As one of those real cases, in which EVM was practically applied in the several projects in the company, essential requirements for applying EVM successfully are examined in this paper.

View full abstract

As a part of reform in the Japanese government procurement procedure, implementation of the EVM (Earned Value Management), one of the project management methods, has been discussed. The EVM is mentioned in various articles including the "Journal of Society of Project Management" (Society of Project Management, March 2002) and "Enterprise Architecture" (Council of IT Associate, December 2003). In NTT DATA, we have studied application and effectiveness of the EVM since 2002. In order to maintain project management properly with the EVM, we need to have a very accurate project plan. However, we have experienced huge difference between plans and results due to the addition of safety margins in baseline plans at our early stage of implementation of the EVM. In response to this, we have introduced the critical-chain method to the EVM to make baseline plans without safety margins. In this paper, we explain our implementation of the critical-chain method in the EVM and study its effectiveness.

View full abstract

This study proposed a process for project progress management. Heretofore, project decision-making depended mainly on the project manager's experience and instinct and needs reasonable process of progress management. Progress management has a common cycle, "Grasp", "Work out", "Predict", "Evaluate" and "Decide". Nowadays, there is quantitative technique to "Grasp" project situation. It becomes a basis to "Work out" action sets. However, there is no quantitative technique to predict an effect of action sets. Hence, there is no way to compare action sets with quantitative criteria. On the other hand, there is EVM as method of measuring project progress quantitatively. We propose EVM to use "Predict" and "Evaluation" technique and clarified the process of progress management by using EVM as a quantitative basis.

View full abstract

Earned Value Management System (ibid. EVMS) is one of the important tools for project communication management. Measuring, analyzing and evaluating a project data and to report the result is the basic functions of EVMS, and it is often employed as the condition of a contract in public procurement. EVMS has become an important tool that is used in almost area of project knowledge. But it is not always the practical tool for improving the project management process. Much money and the anguish of project members are required to obtain a project data. Therefore, the obtained data should be utilized to analyze the project status. But there are few previous studies about such theme. In this paper, to get a clue for solving the above mentioned subject, the statistical model of behavior of earned value is provided. The estimator of completion time of project and of earned value that based on the model is proposed.

View full abstract

Mitsubishi Electric Information Systems Corporation is promoting the process improvement for the purpose of managing the project as planned and providing high quality solutions with which customers are satisfied, and we have achieved maturity level 3 of CMMI in some business groups in June 2003. Now, we are aiming at CMMI maturity level 3 in the whole enterprise and we are promoting the process improvement for maturity level 4 and 5 in the business groups that have achieved maturity level 3. In this report, we present the practice of Earned Value Management, the pitfalls with this practice, and the methods to avoid these pitfalls.

View full abstract

One key factor for the successful completion of an IT (Information Technology) project is selecting and organizing the suitable contract. In Japan, the full-turn-key with Fixed-Price is mainly used for IT projects. In United States there is an incentive type contracts and used to motivate the contractor on federal acquisition. In this paper, we explain the characteristics of contract types which are mainly used in federal acquisition in United States, and consider and classify them from the point of view of motivation. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the characteristics- of contract types. In federal acquisition in United States, motivating type contracts can classify to "incentive type" and "award type". "incentive type"' mainly aims at cost and uses a function to evaluate, on the other hand "award type" aims at quality e.g. and uses scoring. We classify the contract types from the point of view of risk and motivation, and considering the Japanese commercial practice, FPAF is suitable when quality is the important factor for the IT projects.

View full abstract

On System Development, the numerical data between making plans and completing project, is not only important source for analyzing the project but also important intellectual property for the next project. In this paper, we report about the example of the project management system for gathering numerical data without burden to project members.

View full abstract

Mitsubishi Electric Information Systems Corporation is promoting the continuous process improvements using CMM models for the purpose of providing high quality solutions with which customers are satisfied, and now, some business groups have achieved maturity level 3 and are aiming for level 5. But measuring, providing and utilizing the performance data of past successful projects were found to be insufficient for securely performing the quantitative project management of maturity level 4. This article presents the introduction and the practical usage of the Process Performance Baseline (PPB) Providing System which was built for supporting the creation and analysis of PPB from the performances of past successful projects in order to realize the improvement of the accuracy of estimation and planning.

View full abstract

Process improvement activities in a software development company based on appraisal experience and results using the CMMI model are described. In particular, major improvement opportunities pointed out are explained. A statistical analysis method for the effectiveness of the improvement activities is defined and its applications are described. Furthermore a new chart named 'K-chart' is devised and its actual use is illustrated.

View full abstract

Manufacturing industries are now facing the integration of enterprise management system and control system. In this study, we discuss the application of IDEFO for describing MES reference model that is the interface of these two systems. It emerged that there were several advantages and limits in this modeling, and these items are presented in this paper.

View full abstract

Regarding software development project, risk is recognized in advance, the fact that this evasion and ex post facto measure are done is job of important project management. But regarding the project of part, there is a circumstance where systematic risk management is not done. As one of these reasons, it can cite the fact that the man-hour which is bet, on risk management such as small-scale project does not come off. In this report, there are no times when man-hour is taken, they introduce concerning study, and this development concerning the simple risk management system where you can obtain the effect.

View full abstract

For dealing with risk management, there are many companies(including our company) in which project leaders who have few experiences can make risk management items by using the standard template of the company. In our company, project leaders sometimes add the items by the particularity of each project. In this paper, I specialize in the risk management items which are needed only in the strategy agenda, and report a way of clarifying items and applying items to projects, based on the actual example.

View full abstract

ERP package will make it possible to integrate each administrated systems that built individually, and to reorganize one's businesses utilizing the standard model which package has. ERP package supply harmonious introduction of the system, earlier - cheaper - higher quality compared to original built total system. However, most of middle-scale companies do not introduce all packages together in a short term, but select the best package for each operation and introduce as each select. Let me consider the points on project management when build systems combining packages.

View full abstract

Although the recognition about the importance of the project management in IT project in recent years is increasing also to the former, it does not require a brake for reduction of a failure project. I surmised that there were very many organizations which do their best so that the knowledge system (PMBOK) of project management may be utilized and a project may be led to a success, and it was rare to leave the risk of the project discriminated at the time of starting, and thought that many of troubles into which a failure project lapses would have a problem in the risk management in a project execution stage.

View full abstract

Compared with development of the operating system of the former project construction (it is henceforth called SI project) of the unified type system which consists of two or more operating systems, an operating side, an organization side, and a period become large-scale, and many risks hang around development. What does the risk of a project generate as a cause when? You discover. How should you cope with it? The point of the risk management for leading SI project to a success is considered from a real failure project.

View full abstract

In order to support the risk management of a construction project, we have developed the system which uses progress simulation technology and supports evaluation of the problem of a project and the decision of countermeasures to a problem. This system is characterized by having the progress evaluation simulation logic which evaluates detailed progress of each work of a project serially per week. Moreover, it also has the function to take into consideration situations, such as change of working efficiency, and increase of the personnel of the number of workers, in simulation logic. This system was evaluated using the data of an actual project, and the validity of the project evaluation result using the various functions of a system was checked.

View full abstract

When we run a project, we need to make efforts to concert each member's knowledge, creativity and originality, exert organizational strength as a team, encourage skill development so as to achieve a successful project. This paper focuses on our approach to implementing autonomous project teams. In this paper, we explain how to extract individual capabilities and achieve strengthening organizational capacity. In addition, we study project member's change of consciousness during the implementation.

View full abstract

We developed a knowledge sharing system for system engineer to support their proposal, design, and maintenance activities. One of the most important system engineer's missions is proposing a solution for a customer to solve a customer's problems, needs and business strategies. So they have to make the most use of not only knowledge and skills of individuals but also those of organizations with a knowledge sharing system. But it is impossible to continue using such a system because of trade-off between system utilization and information storage. We proposed two new functions for a knowledge sharing system to solve the problems. The first function is document management by a document gatekeeper and the second function is cross-file retrieval function with document association. In this paper, we described the knowledge sharing system and promotion of knowledge sharing among the organization.

View full abstract

In this research, the evaluation sheet of the competency in a software development project was developed based on the action characteristic of the high performer who produces high achievements officially and the method of social psychology. The evaluation index of a project manager and each software engineer was analyzed by questionnaire method and principal component analysis. And it became possible to measure the individual competency characteristic quantitatively by principal component score.

View full abstract

We did the test project to research influence of team development on productivity. Three project teams consist of new employees inexperienced in a project. And they built the web system in l3days. Based on the test project, we analyzed about difference in productivity by member's skill and communication between members.

View full abstract

In a small-scale project, the motivation of the project member (partner) is considered one of the most important factors to success. We introduced the concept of PS (partner satisfaction) to detect the factor (motivator) which influences the motivation of a small-scale project, and we analyzed the main motivator by contrasting with a general project. We considered the method of the motivation management with the tendency and the feature of a motivator of a small-scale project.

View full abstract

In order to lead a project to a success, communication in a software project must be appropriately performed among the stakeholders. Generally, the exercise of communication in business is required to establish the effective communication. However, for the members in software project that is characterized by the key words, e.g., "low budget", "short delivery time" and "small team", such kind of exercise is very difficult. Then, without premise knowledge and training, to realize the communication that can make a common understanding among members is expected. In this paper, the faces method is employed to present a project manager's information to the stakeholders. The complex numerical / language data can communicate among stakeholders by applying the face method. According to the results of prior-research, the number of parameter of face chart is decided, and the metrics for each parameter are also proposed. The effectiveness of the proposal is evaluated by experts in project management, and the 90% of them show the efficiency of proposal.

View full abstract

In Japan IT market, most of the articles or books about software metrics discuss the "Code Metrics in project lower phase" rather than the whole project management or project upper phase. Also metrics has been researched and practiced for couple of decades, but these researches are not enough except Defect Density in deliverables. Even if these kind of researches are concluded, the "quality in deliverables", "Risk Management" are not connected with the software metrics. This is an experience report on how to improve quality assess and quality verification with "the Quality Inspection" in project upper phase. And also reports how to apply the software metrics data. Also define new objectives for measuring the metrics with our new concept "Quack-Model" (collaboration model between quality management and risk management with metrics data)

View full abstract

In order to sustain providing high quality products and services, it is essential to improve the processes producing them. We developed a prototype of quality management system evaluation method that can evaluate quality of product development processes, identify the weak points, and guide the improvement actions. In this paper, basic concepts and details of the method such as its questionnaires, input items, quantitative evaluation procedure, output forms to facilitate improvement actions, were described. Moreover, we address the results of feasibility verification by applying to seven piloting business units.

View full abstract

We generally guess the quality of software system by examining whether or not the status of detecting the bugs and the number of test items are within standard range. But there are problem projects even if they satisfy the quality revel. Moreover the problem projects cause the delay of schedule, because the problem wouldn't come out until the next process. In this paper, we will explain the method based on the technique to measure the quality level, in addition to the quality range management. The method includes incremental development management which evaluates the quality at critical points in the development process and risk management which verifies the quality in an each downstream process in the development of software system.

View full abstract

To get the skill of the aspect of project manager's attitude is very difficult for the candidates of project manager. But this project manager's skill is great influence on the success of project. The cause of its difficulty is in the lack of senior project manager that has enough experience and has knowledge in the project management. In this paper, the WBT system with courseware that expresses the experience or the knowledge of past projects is proposed. The effectiveness of this system is verified by the experts in project management. The result of the verification shows the good performance for the development of project manager's attitude.

View full abstract

This study takes Reviews/Inspections in software development projects as an opportunity for personnel skill training, and covers the affects and steps needed behind an effective personnel skill training based review/inspection.

View full abstract

NTT DATA, a system integrator, provides many socially important nationwide systems or services. It is assumed that if the systems are corrupted by a disaster, such as an earthquake, it will cause a great impact to the society. Recently, it has been said that a massive earthquake may come. As opposed to the risk that assumes the occurrence of the disaster, we reviewed the conventional formal disaster prevention activities and established a new corporate contingency plan in the viewpoint of how quick and exact actions can be taken at the time of an actual disaster. This paper describes the overview of the contingency plan and training, which is necessary to validate the plan.

View full abstract