The complexities of recent projects and strong demands for project success have been requiring highly skilled project managers who can accomplish a project certainly and punctually. Organizations are requested to develop project managers having such competencies, steadily, promptly, and continuously. However, it is not easy to develop human resources for the purpose of competency acquisition without recognizing a concept of competency properly. This paper considers the effects of our own competency framework based on the requirements which are demanded from a competency model. We adopted a unique training technique for comprehension of the competency framework as to be utilized effectively as a tool for self-ability improvement. The effectiveness was demonstrated by the results of the training we carried out.

View full abstract

In today's information system development projects, we are expected to achieve short-term delivery at low cost and ensure high productivity. Our organization has made an effort toward the visualization of productivity in information system development projects, based on the function point method as a new indicator to evaluate productivity, to carry out the improvement cycle including target setting, policies to enhance productivity, and measurement of efficiency. In this process, we found that in some projects, the serious problem that a more number of person-hours than we had imagined ware required to quantify the scale using the function point method as the base to assess productivity. In this paper, we will explain our efforts to reduce the number of person-hours required for scale quantification using the function point method while ensuring accuracy at an acceptable level.

View full abstract

As quality evaluations of specifications in our company, we had used almost qualitative adequacy methods, for example using provided checklists. Then, quantitative evaluation to compare with the target value and pointed out number of review was not done enough. Because the design process was different from each other project, it was difficult to set the target value for the relative evaluation. However, evaluation process in design process is becoming to be unified by introducing a uniform method of review, and it is becoming to be able to collect the results data. In this paper, the method of setting the target value for quantitative evaluation based on the results data is examined, and it evaluate the method.

View full abstract

In today's world, the surrounding environment of IT service activities is rapidly changing. Naturally, the roles of IT service managers, who are responsible for the operation services of their client systems, are expanding. The service managers should face the reality and fulfill their roles to achieve their service business targets. I have put together a concrete approach for that, based on five different viewpoints. I would like to take this opportunity to present the essential points of the approach, while also briefing how the service managers should conduct the activities.

View full abstract

When discussing risk management, risk management focuses on the event of a risk and evaluates it statistically. In this paper, I explain the bottom line of the risk event is the psychological human behavior. That is to say, I discuss risk management from human psychological behavior view rather than carrying out risk management statistically like the most of IT risk management. What means by the risk management being based on human psychological behavior on concrete, Thereby, I show the risk recognition, evaluation of the risk management based on the psychological view.

View full abstract

In case of the Eastern Japan earthquake, Tsunami and the subsequent aftershocks due to earthquake occurred in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Tohoku region had caused extensive damage and many problems for the first responders and disaster revivals have been pointed out. Although it is necessary to implement measures in accordance with the Disaster Measures Basic Law and the related laws, the Government gropes for the measures and there are not necessarily the best way employed now on the process of planning, organizing teams, executing and controlling the activities. In terms of the revival, we must seek the way how we can promote more quickly and firmly, it seems to be a good way to adopt the PM methodology as the framework. In this paper, it was verified that applying the PM techniques in disaster revivals was valuable by referring to the lessons learned of Great Hansin-Awaji Earthquake.

View full abstract

The purpose of this paper is to discuss a competency in Personal Project Management. 1) It is helpful to notice the necessity of competencies to utilize the framework of Personal-PM as competency elements, 2) The achievement needs are not easy to be seen, but they are indispensable for the improvement in competency, and 3) An active own action is needed for the competency that is tried to be acquired.

View full abstract

In the best seller "What if Drucker", the female manager of a high school baseball team applies Drucker's management to achieve the project objective to qualify for the national tournament. In the PM world, many would like to try to compare it to modern PM, because PM is no less a way to achieve the objectives within a limited timeframe. By discussing the purpose, customer, and marketing for an organization dealt with by the novel, it becomes clear how the modern management and PM are related to and distinct from each other. This paper aims at showing that PM is more appropriate and specific knowledge to achieve the objectives and goals.

View full abstract

In the present age when a social and economic situation changes rapidly and technology also evolves, it is said that an actual project is not well manageable, even if using the conventional traditional project management methodology. Namely, these arguments say that it is important to permit changes and complexity and to manage complexity as it is. The center of these arguments is management of complexity. Human factors, such as un-shared goals and goal pass, such as unclear meaning of projects and hidden agenda, are also included in complexity. And in order to make a project successful, it is thought that not the conventional managerial method (planning, command and monitoring and control) but the leadership of PM is more important. In this paper, I consider these arguments from a viewpoint of PM competency, and I discuss the hint of future PM training.

View full abstract

Reasons for failed system development projects may include inaccurate estimation and failure in the selection of software architecture. In addition, they may also include other unconsidered risks. In order to avoid failed projects resulting from these reasons, at NTT Data Corp., we perform reviews and take support measures over a wide range. When these measures are taken, however, as of starting the project formally, most matters have been already determined and cannot be changed; therefore, suggestions or advice through these measures do not function effectively, resulting in insufficient reduction of potential risks in some cases. In this paper, in order to avoid such cases, we will propose how to get a complete picture of a project earlier at the launch of the project and take various measures in a timely fashion. Specifically, registration of project information upon study of the project can help the Measures Promotion Dept. grasp the outline of the project to take various measures at just the right time. With this approach, we could successfully prevent often-repeated oversights when putting the complete picture of the project together.

View full abstract

In this organization, the activities to establish and penetrate standard processes had been conducted in order to continue the high quality service of the systems. In addition, the scheme of project management to improve standard processes, by everyone in the organization, systematically and quantitatively has been established. This has enabled to maintain high quality and improve productivity, and to shorten the delivery, and consequently, to improve customer satisfaction. As a result, the organization has achieved CMMI level 5. Here we describe the scheme of the project management that was established at this organization, and its effects.

View full abstract

Spending two and a half years, we reconstructed the financial mainframe system to the open system. This system handles 600 millions of financial data. And in this project, there were many technical difficulties from the beginning, such as data migration from three-dimensional database and strict performance requirements. Moreover, in point of the business requirements, this project faced many development risks, because these requirements, following the existing system specifications, could be ambiguous. In this literature, we verified the risk management for these problems indentified when this project launched, and its result. This system is going to start its service in the summer of 2011. We hope that this risk management process and the measures will help your future project.

View full abstract

We have already proposed the PAI Model in order to evaluate project performance with categories, and made clear the difference between independent and interdependent case among categories by introducing the dependent matrix of AHP. In this report, we reconstruct the interdependency among categories derived from NN Model through the dependent matrix of AHP and then make clear the difference of interdependency between PAI-AHP Model and NN Model.

View full abstract

Talent in the software field is insufficient in Japan. There is Project Based Learning class to solve this problem. In the Project Based Learning class, the techniques for the software development project of the industrial world are used to improve practical skill. Therefore, it is requested to deliver the system surely in the delivery date. However, all members are often constructed with the member who doesn't experience the project development, so estimating the effort accurately becomes very difficult. Use Case Point method was proposed as one of the solutions. The author applied the Use Case Point method in Project Based Learning that participated, and verified the effect. In the result, some problems became apparent. This paper discusses the effect and the problem of the Use Case Point method in Project Based Learning.

View full abstract

The authors propose a framework for software quality management processes, where undetected defects in software are viewed as risks. According to the software reliability model, quality improvement is measured by defects discovered during the test execution phase. In order to realistically estimate the software reliability curve and the number of remaining defects, sufficient field data should be collected for analysis throughout a project. In a small project with limited team members and time, however, it is difficult to collect such data of acceptable quantity. The authors applied the proposed framework to their small project, using the data from previous projects, to see how the model stands. When a test team is small, test progress and discovery of defects are largely affected by skills of each member, test methodology, and work assignment. From this view point, the authors report their findings in quality management in a small team.

View full abstract

The writer has carried out a Project Based Learning subject for students of master grade as a full-time employment teacher University of Tsukuba graduate school since September in 2010. In this subject five projects which has four or five students and they try to develop the agreement for their customers, managed to develop system and carry it out till they hand the system to customer. The writer evaluated the activity results and devised the PMS for PBL planning developed newly in 2011. It is described about the PMS planning for PBL.

View full abstract

Use case is one way to analyze the request in software development. There are lecture-style exercises to develop software at the University of Tsukuba Graduate School, and students have been analyzed using the use case. However, because of poor development skill, they had several mistakes during the early stages of creating use cases. So they had spent extra time in correcting it. In this paper, by analyzing the use cases created by the students, I describe the pitfalls one encounters when students creating use cases, and suggest that measures.

View full abstract

This project is system development managed by students. Its approach includes, requirement definition with a customer that is outside the school, external and internal design, and project management. The customer of this project is T Co.,Ltd. that is consultancy firm. T Co.,Ltd. supports a cooperated organization about silk. The center of the organization is Y Co.,Ltd. Base on the requirement from the customer, we develop a supporting system that uses the ICT technology for buyers and sales people. As a part of system development activity, we plan to do the quality management based on last year's system development. Because last year's activity needs improvement, we planned the quality standard based on remediation. This paper reports the plan of quality management on this project.

View full abstract

The authors have been analyzing challenged projects and found a project manager's negotiation skill is one of the key factors to a project success. When negotiating, the followings are key factors to a successful negotiation. 1. Try to find a win-win solution. 2. Separate the people from the problem. 3. Focus on the interests, not positions. 4. Find options for mutual gains, based on available in formations. 5. Insist on using objective criteria.

View full abstract

The Hitachi Information Academy Co., Ltd has been established as an training center of Hitachi and its group companies. It always worried us about that they ask us to provide "PM practical training" other than IT industry, because we had used case studies of IT to the training. We had to create the case studies according to their each business requirement. As the first challenge, we provided them a practical training with specific cases that trainee brought into the class of engineers who belong to the social infrastructure systems configuration section of Hitachi. The class was formed by several groups assigned each different case. This method requires an instructor possess wide and deep experiences and knowledge, it is very difficult though. As a result, we got very high evaluation by trainee because the practical training was along with their real business. The method will be applied as an effective and practical training for every different industry, from now on.

View full abstract

The case method practice using Short cases is aimed to develop project manager's skills. Short cases are written in several sentences and made from various situations that actually occurred in the past projects. One of its objectives is training project manager to improve adaptability to the various situations through "Mock experience". And this paper describes the merits of using Short cases.

View full abstract

This paper reported a trial to quantify architectures through one of the IBM Technical Leadership Master Course (ITLMC) titled "A trial to quantify architectures" in 2009. Difference between business and IT has been a critical issue for a long time. Quantifying architectures of business and IT might be the first step to make the difference smaller. To try this approach we studied Some techniques and methods such as text mining, Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method^<SM>(ATAM) and graph theory seemed to be helpful for our trial. We studied and examined them but as a result we couldn't success to quantify architectures. However we got some hints and tips to go ahead.

View full abstract

In aiming at the stable system operation and efficient maintenance activity, it is important to decrease number of the problem and to accomplish the problem solving efficiently by providing a chain of flow like the problem analysis, the specific of cause, the priority level putting, and the execution of measures and the verification of the effect, and to execute these flow continuously. This paper is an introduction of the case that the problem management was systematically accomplishment by using Causal Analysis and Resolution.

View full abstract

In the field of system development, the education for young systems engineers is one of the most important tasks. We have worked on this task by promoting the acquisition of PMBOK's qualification, as well as through the PM education, and OJT, etc. at Fujitsu Limited. In order to make our efforts more effective, we also started a Working Group (WG) that consists of experienced systems engineers in actual projects. In this WG, we firstly collected case studies which give solutions to the projects' problems at a certain point. Based on this data, we nextly developed short-story style workbooks, and used them at Fujitsu's PM community. Good evaluations from readers of our mail magazine and students of the trial PM education in this community demonstrated favorable effects to improve the young systems engineers' practical skills.

View full abstract

The Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, did catastrophic damage into vast areas. In this article, we report our efforts to visualize schedule for a production recovery project in a damaged factory. We tried to model and to visualize a schedule by integrating various types of schedules planned in the project. Concepts of both multi-viewpoints WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) and OR-type precedence-successor relationships are devised in order to manage the complexity of both manufacturing processes and their precedence-successor relationships. Moreover, an IT system with these concepts had been developed rapidly, and started actual operations. Finally, production recovery was successfully achieved in a short term.

View full abstract

This paper points out the conventional strong need problem portions to fill the insufficient problem portions in conventional WBS management method and answer each solved results by having "The redefinition of WBS method and its use".

View full abstract

Software Quality Accounting is a software quality management technique originated by NEC Corporation. Among the Quality Accounting techniques, defect root-cause analysis and 1+n procedure are introduced in this paper. The defect root-cause analysis and 1+n procedure are techniques to analyze root-cause of a defect and detect same-type defects which are injected by design and undetected by design review and/or testing. The defect root-cause analysis and 1+n procedure are described exactly and the application way and its effects explained. Further, the characteristics of the defect root-cause analysis and 1+n procedure are considered.

View full abstract

As requirements for embedded system become more demanding and scales of development larger each year, managing embedded system development today is arduous which heavily relies on earned skills of individual developers. The authors conducted a survey to grasp the reality of embedded system development on the front line, so that the authors would have more concrete views on what the engineers and managers are experiencing and how they are coping with issues. Instead of asking the respondents to simply fill in a questionnaire, the authors decided to interview them directly. That way, the authors can ask questions in a direct and structured manner and solicit opinions that are not superficial. In this paper, the authors analyze the survey result and suggest solutions to problems they uncovered.

View full abstract

As requirements for embedded systems become more demanding and scales of development larger each year, managing such projects today is arduous which heavily relies on earned skills of individual developers. Recognizing this alarming trend, the authors and others conducted a pre-study survey on current practices by interviewing the engineers and managers on the front line, soliciting issues they face and asking how they cope with them. Based on the survey, this paper contrasts the development of embedded systems with that of enterprise systems; it presents the analysis viewed from six axes of project characteristics. This paper also proposes desirable development process and project management methods for embedded systems, in addition to competency measures and training models for the project managers.

View full abstract

In revamping project of control systems for iron and steel plant hot rolling mill, there are many risks, which are potential events and factors to become the menace for start up in site, which are the disincentive of the commissioning. In this article we build a new presentation for site risk management of revamping project and we think to establish the site risk assessment model, the effective countermeasure for risk minimization. Therefore we can execute the site risk management effectively and surely, and we can propose the management technique which can perform site risk management effectively. Furthermore, we can utilize the knowledge of site manager's experience depend on classification of site risk and development of evaluation standard.

View full abstract

Kaetsu University has established "teaching assistant and student assistant (TA/SA)" system based on "studying through teaching" concept. Although, at first, the system worked only in helping smooth management of classes, it later on contributed in accelerating learning effect by sharing the know-how of experiences among TA/SA's, thus having increased the number of TA/SA's to meet the needs of classes requiring TA/SA supports. As a result, we had to employ many students having less skills or supporting abilities, and we had to prepare training process of TA/SA's to guarantee their qualities. In this paper, we formulate the developments of TA/SA's ability in terms of the SECI model and evaluate the system based on TA/SA questionary investigation.

View full abstract

In this thesis, we speak about a project that was the university-industry collaboration project "Collaborative Management Laboratory", intended for undergraduate students of the Keio University in fiscal year 2010. This project had problems of the task management and communications within team was a problem in this project. We proposed to focus on the real-time attribute of collaborative work under the ticket-driven development.

View full abstract

In Multi-National Vender project, Project Manager has a responsibility to manage progress and quality for all the artifacts. The communication with this multi-national project member contains various noises and disturbances such as a language, region, time-zone, and culture but Project Manager cannot control all communication in a project. To manage appropriate communication, the project manager has to identify the information that when and which project member needs what kind of information. This paper will explore how the effective communication has done according to the experiences of multi-national vender projects. We also points out useful communication rules to communicate without misunderstanding among multi-national venders.

View full abstract

The purpose of this study is to: 1. Identify the current issue of IT Project, 2. Find out the countermeasures, 3. Propose the solutions. Mental disorder has become serious social issues and number of the patients has been increasing every year. Due to the complexity of the work environments, IT projects get more people who suffered from depression than other industries. It is also said the significant increase can be found in younger employee. Project needs to consider that as a critical risk and to find out the solutions. In this research, I would approach depression from the viewpoint of psychology, and then describe the finding from the interviews.

View full abstract

In the manufacturing industry, it is an indispensable subject to improve a quality, a cost and a delivery schedule, in order to win a competition in a market. Since the improvement is limited by one engineer even the engineer is very skillful, then the numerical technique for the process management, which grasps a problem numerically and is improved, has been progressed. A visualization method (MIERU-KA) in the Toyota Production System is one of the ideas so that a problem of a work flow can be easily understood by all the people. Once the problem is visualized, the improvement point becomes very clear for a worker and a management, and it will also drive a motivation. This is also applicable to the software development. This paper shows how to utilize measurement using a technic of the visualization, and how to improve measurement process using some statistical method. Furthermore, this paper shows how to lead a project to a success performing project management based on project performance prediction model,

View full abstract

According to PMBOK, a project consists of a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a "unique" product, service or result. Even a project with high uniqueness can use the PM knowledge defined in PMBOK. For many young project managers, however, a project with high uniqueness may often make learning skills (tips) to apply PM knowledge to actual projects difficult. In order to learn such skills, it is effective to directly show young project managers the procedure of a project as a good example, which is called the apprenticeship system, and then make them responsible for another similar project. In this paper, we will describe an example of young project manager training using an actual very similar project.

View full abstract