Chapter 3

Question 1

What is the most important aspect of an information systems development project?

Answer 1

Project management (PM)

Question 2

Effective PM helps to ensure that systems development projects:

Answer 2

Meet customer expectations

Are completed on time and within budget

Question 3

Pine Valley (PV) was organized into the following
functional areas in 2000:

Answer 3

-Manufacturing (fabrication, assembling, finishing)
– Sales
– Orders
– Accounting
– Purchasing

Question 4

Project manager

Answer 4

systems analyst with a diverse
set of skills—management, leadership, technical, conflict management, and customer relationship— who is responsible for initiating, planning, executing,
and closing down a project.

Question 5

Project

Answer 5

planned undertaking of related activities to reach an objective that has a beginning and an end

Question 6

Deliverable

Answer 6

end product of an SDLC phase

Question 7

System Service Request (SSR)

Answer 7

standard form for requesting or proposing systems development work within an organization

Question 8

Feasibility study

Answer 8

study that determines
whether a requested system makes economic and operational sense for an organization

Question 9

Project Management

Answer 9

controlled process of
initiating, planning, executing, and closing down a project

Question 10

What are the phases of project management?

Answer 10

–Initiating
–Planning
–Executing
–Closing down

Question 11

Project intiation

Answer 11

first phase of the project
management process in which activities are performed to assess the size, scope, and complexity of the project and to establish procedures to support later project activities

Question 12

Project Workbook

Answer 12

an online repository for all
project-related documents that is used for performing project audits, orienting new team members, communicating with management and customers, identifying future projects, and performing post-project review

Question 13

Project Charter

Answer 13

document prepared for the customer during project invitation that describes what the project will deliver
and outlines generally at a high level all work required to complete the project

Question 14

Project planning

Answer 14

second phase of the project
management process that focuses on defining clear, discrete activities and the work needed to complete each
activity within a single project

Question 15

Work breakdown structure

Answer 15

process of dividing the
project into manageable tasks and logically ordering them to ensure a smooth evolution between tasks

Question 16

Gantt chart

Answer 16

graphical representation of a project that shows each task as a horizontal bar whose length is
proportional to its time for completion

Question 17

Constructive cost model (COCOMO)

Answer 17

automated software estimation model that uses
historical project data and current as well as future project characteristics to estimate project costs

Question 18

Network diagram

Answer 18

a diagram that depicts project tasks and their relationships

Question 19

Project execution

Answer 19

third phase of the project
management process, in which the plans created in the prior phase (project initiation and planning)
are put into action

Question 20

Project closedown

Answer 20

final phase of the project
management process, which focuses on bringing a project to an end

Question 21

What does Gantt charts show?

Answer 21

-Show task durations
–Show time overlap
–Show slack time in duration

Question 22

What are network diagrams?

Answer 22

–Show task dependencies
–Do not show time overlap, but show parallelism
–Show slack time in boxes

Question 23

Resources

Answer 23

any person, group of people, piece of equipment or material used in accomplishing an activity

Question 24

Critical path scheduling

Answer 24

scheduling technique whose
order and duration of a sequence of task activities directly
affect the completion date of a project

Question 25

PERT (Program Evaluation Review Technique)

Answer 25

a technique that uses optimistic, pessimistic, and realistic
time estimates to calculate the expected time for a
particular task

Question 26

Critical Path

Answer 26

shortest time in which a project
can be completed

Question 27

Slack time

Answer 27

amount of time that an activity can
be delayed without delaying the project

Question 28

Critical path contains

Answer 28

no activities with the slack time