Information Assurance

Running Head: PORTERS MODEL, CSF & KPI 0

Porter’s Five Force model, CSF & KPI

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Introduction As we are towards the completion of Master’s program our focus is towards achieving our professional goals. This is the time to utilize all the skills we learnt throughout our Information assurance program. I come from a management background where I learnt management concepts while I did MBA in XXX. After completing Masters in Information assurance, I will be able to integrate my management skills with information assurance concepts. Therefore, I choose Project Manager as my professional goal. Project managers in information technology (IT) are responsible for planning of projects within a company and ensuring that they are executed and on-track through every stage of the process. Project managers are change agents that make project goals their own and use their skills and expertise to inspire a sense of shared purpose within the project team (Project Management Institute (PMI), n.d). Project Manager, Information Technology (IT) involve tasks such as assisting technical team in design and development, utilize software life-cycle methodology, create and maintain information technology project plan that communicates tasks, milestone dates, status and resource allocation, coordinate delivery of development and production releases that meet quality assurance standards, assist test team in creating test plans and testing efforts. (Project Management Skills, n.d)

Every profession comes with some challenges. It is important to analyze the forces responsible to create those challenges. Porter in his five forces theory mentioned that to sustain success and profitability, business strategists must recognize and respond to competition (Galbraith, 2013).

Porter’s Five Forces

In the Five forces model Porter explains, to understand the competitive forces around it, every organization needs to analyze the environment in which it operates.

The Five forces, Porter identified are as follows (Integrating The Enterprise, IS function & IS technologies, n.d):

Buyer Power: The ability of the buyer to influence the prices.
Supplier Power: The power of the supplier to drive up the price for the material or service they provide.
Threats of Substitute: Alternative or substitute available to the customer, can act as a competitive threat factor.
Threats of New Entrants: New competitors’ capability to influence the position of existing players.
Rivalry among existing competitors: Power of existing competitors

Any profession whether internally i.e. within the organization or externally i.e. within the industry faces similar five forces of competition. An IT Project manager may also come across such forces. The impact of the five forces towards achieving the professional goal can be explained as follows (Galbraith, 2013):

Buyer Power: A project manager is in a commitment to offer quality service to the stakeholders. Stakeholders command over the project can influence the dynamics of the project in terms of the project requirement, cost / budget, timeline, etc.
Supplier Power: Project manager need supply of skilled resources, expert knowledge and material. These supplies can be internal i.e. within the team or may require hiring as per the project requirement. This can influence the cost or budget of the project if it comes as an immediate need.
Threats of Substitute: With technological innovations, there are multiple options available in the market. While opting for technological solutions, organizations have a choice either to build new software or buy new software from the market. This puts the project manager’s profession at stake.
Threats of New Entrants: New competing projects could cause a barrier to a successful project, preventing project manager’s ability to find sufficient resources. Any Project manager already working on projects using those resources could retaliate against any new entrants.
Rivalry among existing competitors: Organizations may have multiple projects running at the same time. Current projects, both yours and others competing for resources can hamper your project performance

Overcome the Five forces

To stay ahead in the race and fulfil the professional and organizational goals, it is critical to have the necessary analytical skills required to overcome the above competitive forces. The following can be some of the possible outcomes for the above mentioned challenges:

Effectively managing the scope and planning can help meet the Buyers demand i.e. stakeholders requirements. Getting approvals in terms of the project cost and requirements from the get go can avoid the influence of any change in demand, thus assisting the project manager to fulfil its professional goal.
Timely resource planning and allocation, expert time commitments, preparation for back up resource can avoid unnecessary pressure and changes on the resource budget.
Providing the benefits like on budget, on time project delivery, long term benefits, etc. can help prove your calibre as the project manager. This will assist the organization to make the right decision for selecting you as a professional to fulfil their goals and ultimately your professional goals.
Planning ahead of time and making negotiations with the key stakeholders to make accommodations as per the priority can help overcome the rivalry situation and also threat of new entrants.

Critical Success Factors (CSFs)

To achieve the above objectives, it is vital to understand the Critical Success Factors (CSF). CSFs are the crucial steps organizations perform to achieve its goal (Integrating The Enterprise, IS function & IS technologies, n.d). It helps to prioritize the task in the project and to maintain the quality of the end results.

Following are some of the critical success factors for an IT Project manager which will help him/her to achieve professional goals (Yochum, 2016) :

Timeliness: The most critical factor of any project is to complete and deliver the project on time. On target results is one of the key requirements of all the stakeholders.
Budget: Maintaining the allocated cost of the project and achieving the desired results is every organization’s focus.
Quality: With the time and budget it is also important to deliver quality product. This makes not only the end users happy but also can act as a driving force to any professional career.
Effectiveness: Every organization needs effective results of their time and money invested on the project. Thus, managing the project effectively is another critical success factor.

Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

Each of the above critical success factors need to be measured using the quantifiable metrics to evaluate progress (Integrating The Enterprise, IS function & IS technologies, n.d). These are known as the Key performance indicators. In order to be successful in achieving the goals as an IT Project manager, it is important to identify the KPI’s.

Following are the KPIs to measure the CSFs (Yochum, 2016):

Timeliness KPI: Cycle time, on-time completion percentage, total time spent (man hours), number of adjustments to the schedule.
Budget KPI: Budget variance, budget creation/ revision cycle time, number of budget iterations.
Quality KPI: Customer complaints, customer satisfaction, number of errors in the project.
Effectiveness KPI: Number of project milestones completed on time with sign off, training or research required for the project.

Conclusion

Every profession comes with the challenges that one may encounter but to be successful into any professional role it is important to be determinant and committed towards the goal. Porter’s five forces allow any industry to analyse its environment and take adequate advantage of the competitive forces. Critical success factors and the Key performance indicators assist in channelizing those forces in the right direction and also support professional growth.

References

Galbraith, M. (2013, March). The 5 Forces of Project Management. Retrieved from PMI Bluegrass: https://www.pmibluegrass.org/document-repository/newsletters/2013-newsletters/325-march-2013-bluegrass-baseline/file

Integrating The Enterprise, IS function & IS technologies. (n.d). McGraw Hill.

Project Management Institute (PMI). (n.d). Retrieved from https://www.pmi.org/about/learn-about-pmi/who-are-project-managers

Project Management Skills. (n.d). Retrieved from Project-Management-Skills.com: http://www.project-management-skills.com/what-is-project-management.html

Yochum, C. (2016, June 30). The 15 Most Important Project Management KPIs. Retrieved from Clear Point strategy: https://www.clearpointstrategy.com/15-important-project-management-kpis/