Purpose And Scope


Technical Purpose

The technical purpose of a technology-based tool is to make the underlying method more efficient and effective. As an example, e-mail automates some simple communications by substituting for fax machines. The underlying method is communications.

A second technical purpose is that the technology be simple to use around the world. It often does not help if the technology is only available in one country for an international project. Going into a related subject, the technology must be supported in the countries in which it is used. As an example, suppose that you were using a new mobile communications device that worked in Europe or Japan, but did not function in North America due to different communications protocols. Figure 6.1 presents a checklist for evaluating new technologies. A basic question to answer is always:

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Figure 6.1: Checklist for Evaluating and Selecting New Technology Products

If you did not use the technology, what would you do and use?

Addressing this question helps you sort out whether you are looking at a technology in search of a problem or a technology that has real use.

Business Purpose

The business purpose is that the use of the technology product will make the project leaders, managers, and team members more useful and productive. Hopefully, they will then spend less time in administrative work and more time doing technical or management work.

Another business goal is that through the use of a common set of technologybased tools and methods, you can achieve greater standardization. This has a benefit similar to that of templates cited earlier. In fact, templates, issues, and lessons learned cry out for technology-supported tools. It is difficult to imagine how these could be easily employed in a manual mode.

Political Purpose

One potential political purpose is to show the outside world that you are on top of the technology. This can be a useful point when you are competing for a contract. The technology shows to people that you are really organized. However, if the technology is not well organized, your firm can look like a fool.

An internal political purpose is to show the employees that you take the methods seriously enough that you are willing to invest in technology-based products to support the methods. This can help get people behind the use of the technology.




International Project Management
International Project Management: Leadership in Complex Environments
ISBN: 0470578823
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 154

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