Syliva Plath

â€Å"Sylvia Plath's poems open up a world of mental anguish for all to see. † Do you agree with this assessment of her poetry? Write a response supporting your points with the aid of suitable reference to the poems you have studied. I agree with this assessment. Before studying Sylvia Plath's poetry I understood mental anguish only as it's definition, â€Å"sustained, dull, painful emotion. † After studying Plath we see mental anguish really applies to her. We see mental anguish appears as anger in â€Å"Poppies in July† and inadequacy in â€Å"Morning Song†.We see Plath being effected by her mental anguish in all of her poems in nearly all of the emotions she shows us so honestly. It's her honesty that attracts us to her and her suffering of her mental anguish. I first came across Plath's mental anguish in â€Å"Poppies in July† which was inspired by the affair her husband had at the time. We see her mental anguish in her anger in this poem. She u ses fiery imagery and places the color red dominantly in our minds. An example of anger in this poem is when Plath says â€Å"Little poppies, little hell flames†. Plath's reference to the â€Å"Little poppies† as â€Å"hell flames† shows her anger by the imagery it gives.The use of â€Å"Little† suggests that Plath is being condescending towards the poppies. Also the reference to the poppies as â€Å"hell flames† says that only Plath sees the seemingly harmless poppies as being what they truly are. Mental anguish is also seen in frustration as well as anger. Frustration is noticed when Plath says â€Å"Little bloody skirts†. In this quote â€Å"little† is used again adding to the condescending feel in the repetition. Plath also says â€Å"bloody† which shows her anger and frustration. The use of â€Å"bloody† also keeps the colour red in our minds reinforcing her sense of anger.After seeing Plath's intense emotions of an ger and frustration she loses these feelings and becomes numb which shows another side of her mental anguish. She feels nothing, just empty, â€Å"dulling and stilling†. As well as the numbness Plath feels hopeless, â€Å"But colorless, colorless. † After feeling her strong emotions the red we felt is gone as she becomes numb and hopeless. From this we can see Plath's mental anguish in her strong emotions and by the way she portrays her words in such an aggressive way in â€Å"Poppies in July†. â€Å"Finisterre† links in to â€Å"Poppies in July† by it's intense atmosphere.Plath shows her mental anguish in her pessimistic outlook of the place which reminded her of a holiday with her ex-husband who we know from â€Å"Poppies in July† had previously an affair. We see her pessimism where she speaks of the deaths of the sailors and their shipwrecks at the cliffs of Finisterre, â€Å"Whitened by the faces of the drowned.. Leftover soldiers from old messy wars†, here Plath speaks darkly of the soldiers who died at the cliffs. We see that she relates to the soldiers and because of her mental anguish she feels like one of them, â€Å"I walk amongst them, they stuff my mouth with cotton. When they free me I am beaded with tears†.Plath also speaks of the mist, â€Å"souls, rolled in the doom-noise of the sea†. The mist represents the souls of the lost sailors who died when their ships struck the cliffs of Finisterre. She says that the sailors live on in the seas mist on the cliffs. As the poem goes on Plath's mental anguish intensifies as the landscape of Finisterre gets darker and becomes quite scary. Plath describes the landscape as the â€Å"sea exploding†, â€Å"messy wars† and â€Å"no bottom†, which creates a disturbing and very threatening image in our minds. The poem becomes less intense but remains dark as the feeling of despair arises.Plath describes the waves of the sea, †Å"They go up without hope like sighs†. At the end Plath's closing line, â€Å"These are our crepes. Eat them before they blow cold†, emphasizes the darkness of the poem by how trivial it is. The last line is so innocent and light it contrasts with the rest of the poem which is dark and intense. From â€Å"Finisterre† we see mental anguish in the intense pessimistic emotions and how Plath relates to the sailors and feels like one of them. We also see mental anguish in the switch of her tone in the last line which suggests deep mental anguish by the instability of the mood.When reading â€Å"Morning Song†, we see it relates to â€Å"Finisterre† by Plath's pessimism. She doubts her ability of being a mother and doesn't feel bonded to her child. We see Plath's mental anguish when she gives birth to her child and doesn't feel the bond they had from pregnancy. We see that she and her husband, Ted Hughes, feel inadequate, â€Å"we stand around blankly as walls†, we see that they are unsure of what to do with the baby and that the baby becomes the main of everyone as Plath and Hughes are as blank â€Å"as walls†.Plath expands more on how she doesn't feel like the baby's mother, â€Å"I am no more your mother than the cloud that distills a mirror†, we see how this really effects Plath from the negativity of the quote which shows us more of her mental anguish. Also the first line of the poem, â€Å"Love set you going like a fat gold watch†, shows how Plath feels towards the child. The word â€Å"fat† which comes across as a harsh strong word, wouldn't usually be associated with ones child which hints how Plath is really being effected by her mental anguish as another person would use â€Å"chubby† or â€Å"cuddly† which is a kinder description rather than â€Å"fat†.From â€Å"Morning Song† we can conclude that Plath's feeling of inadequacy is a result of mental anguish. Her mental anguish forces her to doubt herself and feel pessimistic on a the day of her child's birth which should be one of the happiest days of her life. Again we see pessimism in â€Å"Black Rook in Rainy Weather† like â€Å"Finisterre† and â€Å"Morning Song†. From the title of â€Å"Black Rook in Rainy Weather† a descending mood is already set. In this poem Plath is looking to be inspired to write poetry, but cannot find anything to be inspired by.Her mental anguish keeps her from being inspired and we see her become hopeless. â€Å"I do not expect a miracle†, here we see Plath has given up on hope and her mental anguish grows. We see the mood deteriorate even more as it goes on. She sets the descending mood when she says â€Å"Leaves fall as they fall†, the leaves from this quote represents the falling mood and the image stays with us as we read on. We see Plath become scared and fearful that because of her mental anguish she won't ever b e inspired to write poetry again. In the poem she is â€Å"trekking stubbornly†, hoping to be inspired but cannot.In â€Å"Black Rook in Rainy Weather† mental anguish plays a big role in Plath's life as it keeps her from finding inspiration which affects Plath very much. We can see she her deteriorate as poetry plays a big part in her life but her mental anguish stops her from writing. As well as seeing poetry being affected in â€Å"Black Rook in Rainy Weather† we see Plath's child being affected in â€Å"Child† which is another big part in Plath's life. In â€Å"Child† we see Plath at her absolute worst. We see how her mental anguish truly worsened and took its toll on her.Plath admits to herself that even though she really wants to, she cannot look after her child the way she should. Plath feels hopeless on a larger scale than ever, â€Å"This dark ceiling without a star†, she feels trapped in her mental anguish as if trapped in a dark ro om with no doors, windows or a way out. Plath wants to give her child the best life possible, â€Å"I want to fill it with color and ducks†, but knows that she cannot because of her â€Å"troublous wringing of hands†, and her mental anguish. In Child she realized that she cannot look after her child because of her mental anguish and feels that the child would be better off without her.From these references to Plath's poetry that I have studied we can conclude that Plath did suffer from mental anguish and her poems are evidence of that. We see how mental anguish effected her emotions and her abilities greatly from feeling like an adequate mother in â€Å"Morning Song† and developing writers block in â€Å"Black Rook in Rainy Weather†. We also see in Plath's poems the rollercoaster of emotions she feels due to mental anguish such as in â€Å"Finisterre† where it begins and progresses with a dark and intense atmosphere but ends erruptly in a light and trivial way. This is how Plath's poems open up the world of mental anguish.

Second American Revolution

A revolution is a sudden, drastic change that can occur politically, economically, or socially over a certain period of time. â€Å"Government, at least here in the States, is split into several branches. In order for us to use our arms to overthrow it we would have to experience a situation in which all three branches were in cahoots with one another and refused to keep each other in line† (Erick 1).In the article â€Å"Time for a New American Revolution,† Richard Winchester asserts that the United States may be â€Å"ripe† for a new revolution because of the issues that exists in his article, such as the fact that fifty-six percent of voters viewed the federal government as a threat to individual rights. Although the United States may be ready for a new revolution, since its citizens are afraid to take such a big risk, it will not. â€Å"From slavery to women's rights, from religious life to voting, American attitudes would be forever changed† (U.S. Hist ory. org).All kinds of different religious beliefs are accepted throughout the United States, while in the past (specifically the 18th century) people were prosecuted and banished for not wanting to be a part of the Anglican Church which was originally established in England. Citizens of America have plenty to be grateful for, but instead they refuse to open their eyes to see how far their country has come. In 1789 the first President of the United States was a white man.In 2008, a the first black man and the first white woman ran for office, with victory in the hands of Barack Obama, the black man. [ I want the previous two sentences with the years to be more concise and clean. Figure out how u wanna do that] Before American independence, and even afterwards, blacks would be punished for even glancing at a white woman. In those days, the tension between the races was palpable, blacks and whites They were at the bottom of all the social classes which were very distinct. They were de termined by heredity and quality.â€Å"One observer wrote in 1747 that â€Å"a reasonable man is always happy if he has what is necessary for him according to his condition [his place in the social order], that is to say, if he has the protection of the laws, and can live as his father lived before him: so that one of the essential things to the good of a nation is being governed in one constant and uniform manner†Ã¢â‚¬  (Angelfire. com).Women were also not allowed to own jobs that involved labor or intellectual thinking. They were forced to stay at home and raise children to be the best  human beings they could be. Today’s women are evolved; they are attempting to take up such jobs as being the president. [ can be formed better]. Eventually uprisings began when women began to speak up against it. This was just one of many protests that took place before the revolution. [ need to make it more specific but the information should be short. ] The Boston Massacre was o ne of the well-known events that involved patriots expressing their anger towards British soldiers but resulting in the death of only patriots.In the current form of government, protests are encouraged in the first amendment, known as the freedom of speech. They are privileged with the right to speak their minds. America is not ready for a second revolution. All this freedom would be lost and they are not willing to risk that. [why is America not ready for a revolution, explain it better. Maybe use that citizens sentence to explain it better. Use a sentence to show that with all the progress they have made so far, they shouldn’t be trying to overthrow the government, thereby jeopardizing the great progress they have accumulated over centuries of conflict.]Economically, the United States cannot afford a second American revolution. As the first one, we are still in debt for wars and will continue to be for many many years. Tax rates are likely to rise just as it did in the eigh teenth century. With the same reactions as the citizens in the late 1700s, people get angry. When people get angry, they end up committing foolish actions that result in horrid consequences. â€Å"When the Colonists became upset at such taxation without sufficient representation in Parliament, they began to rebel.In return, the British passed the Declaratory Act and d a series of acts later known as the Intolerable Acts, all designed to punish and reshape the colonial governance system to make it easier for the British to reign in† (dickinson. edu). Maybe in several decades a second revolution will form, but as for now the U. S. is not ready. Americans, lazy, no-good, homo sapiens who depend on others, will never think to plan such a thing even if there was a chance at a revolution.When they are given a once in a lifetime opportunity they throw it out the window after realizing how much work and effort would be needed to make it successful. Pre-revolutionary times were filled with hardworking, diligent crowds. Products were hand made and sold all around the world. In this age everything is made by machinery. This decade will be sluggish; along with the next. As said before, The Unites States of America is not, nor will it probably ever be, ready for a dramatic change like a revolution.Unfortunately, the U. S. does not reside with wise, political leaders from the late 18th century like Thomas Paine to lead and motivate people through a revolution. â€Å"Thomas Paine joined the army as it retreated from New Jersey to Philadelphia. On the way he began to write a series of sixteen pamphlets called The American Crisis that urged Americans to tough it out and keep fighting † (The Crisis). Without the help of Paine, Americans most likely would not have succeeded in the revolution.He became their conscience that taught them right from wrong, inspired them, and helped them realize their future if they did not try to separate and win their independence fro m Britain. â€Å"Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but â€Å"to bind us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER,† and if being bound in that manner, Is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth† (The Crisis). In the current America, you can no longer find someone willing to take responsibility of others and thousands of citizens in need of help.The wealthy people are not struggling; therefore, do not care to have a revolution. The middle class people are unsure about their place in society. Even thought they would like to be a part of the upper class they also do not want to take such a big risk because they are already surviving without a revolution. Thus leaving only the poor class. Some poor people do not have ambition. Without ambition they have no goals set. They are waiting for someone to lead them and convince them what a difference they can make like Thomas Paine told the Whigs.â€Å"The b lood of his children will curse his cowardice, who shrinks back at a time, when a little might save the whole, and made them happy† (The Crisis). Until then, absolutely nothing will happen. Although Americans act like they want a revolution, they just want a sense of secureness. They are terrified of the idea of them losing their rights, freedom and equality. Feeling as if they’re independence is coming to an end, they would do anything drastic to prevent it even though acting now would be considered too late. Looking over Winchester’s article, his polls do not necessarily mean a revolution.â€Å"Before concluding that the U. S. is ripe for revolution, consider the following: First, these polls do not prove the public is ready to overthrow the old regime; they only hint at that. Second, polls are like a snapshot; they freeze public opinion at the time they're conducted; things may change dramatically in short order. Third, change a poll question's wording or con text and the results may be very different. Fourth, successful revolutions almost never occur spontaneously; they require leadership, especially individuals who can mobilize millions by their charisma.Even with a Samuel Adams, a Patrick Henry, or a Martin Luther King, Jr. , a revolutionary movement will not draw majorities to its banner† (Winchester 2). â€Å"How Ripe Are the Seeds of Revolution? | Dave Hodges – The Common Sense Show. † Dave Hodges The Common Sense Show. WordPress, 21 Mar. 2013. Web. 15 Nov. 2013. Meckler, Mark. â€Å"The Second American Revolution Has Begun – Rasmussen Reportsâ„ ¢. † The Second American Revolution Has Begun – Rasmussen Reportsâ„ ¢. Rasmussen Reports, 23 July 2013. Web. 15 Nov. 2013. Tashman, Brian.â€Å"Joyner: ‘Get Ready for a Second American Revolution'† Right Wing Watch. Right Wing Watch, 8 June 2013. Web. 15 Nov. 2013. Walker, Bruce. â€Å"Obama and the Second American Revolution. â⠂¬  Articles:. American Thinker, 4 July 2011. Web. 15 Nov. 2013. Winchester, Richard. â€Å"Time for a New American Revolution? † Articles:. American Thinker, 19 Aug. 2013. Web. 15 Nov. 2013. â€Å"12. Societal Impacts of the American Revolution. † Societal Impacts of the American Revolution [ushistory. org]. Independence Hall Association, 2008-2013. Web. 15 Nov. 2013.

Loneliness in Hamlet

Loneliness in Hamlet The article â€Å"Personal and Social Influences on Loneliness: The Mediating Effect of Social Provisions† defined loneliness by stating, â€Å"First, loneliness is thought to result from perceived deficiencies in one’s social world. Second, loneliness is thought to be a subjective state experienced by the individual, rather than some objective feature in the individual’s social world. Third, this experience frequently is unpleasant and distressing† (Kraus et al. 85). Everyone faces loneliness and despair in their lives.In today’s world people may feel misunderstood or isolated, or they could feel deficient because the lack a family or missing a loved one. In Hamlet, much of the loneliness and suffering he endures is due to the secrets he is forced to keep. There were many instances where Hamlet felt alone and upset, but he could not share his pain with anyone else. We can also find examples of Hamlet’s despair due to bet rayal from his so-called friends. The loneliness and despair in Hamlet are factors that added to his suffering and caused his overall demise.Hamlet is a lonely, isolated character, with few friends and little faith in humanity. His loneliness plays a great role in his downfall, by alienating him from his friends and family and eventually taking control of his actions. He does not share the knowledge of his father's murder with anyone. He can't trust his friends and family, and he hides his true feelings from his only love, Ophelia, adding to her insanity. These events eventually lead to his downfall, and could have been avoided by sharing his dilemma.Throughout the play, Hamlet discovers who is loyal to him and also who his real enemies are. Right away, Hamlet dislikes his uncle. He is already distraught over losing his father, but he has also to deal with the marriage of his beloved mother to his uncle, who killed his father and whom he perceives as being cruel and cold-hearted. Ha mlet refers to his uncle as, â€Å"A little more than kin, and less than kind† (1. 2. 564). This clearly demonstrates the extreme hatred Hamlet has towards his uncle. Hamlet also feels intensely betrayed by his mother.Claude Williamson states that â€Å"[†¦] the shock which he suffered on hearing of the murder and on realizing the full horror of his mother's action made, as it were, a wound in his mind, which hurt whenever he thought of his uncle or of his mother's connection with that uncle† (98). Hamlet trusted his mother and feels as if she has disregarded any love she ever felt towards her former husband. In Hamlet’s eyes, his mother has offended his father, and he blames her for his death. Hamlet says to his mother, â€Å"A bloody deed!Almost as bad, good mother, As kill a king, and marry with his brother† (3. 4. 621). This shows that he is revolted by the idea of the marriage between his uncle and his mother. Hamlet also encounters loneliness a nd despair with Ophelia. Due to his experiences throughout the play, Hamlet distances himself from Ophelia, whom he is actually in love with. He does this by insulting her and convincing her that he is mad and never had any true feelings for her. By pretending to be mad and not telling Ophelia about his true feelings, he is misleading her as well.Ophelia believed his affections were true and she fell in love, only to be crushed by his madness. However, in his madness, Hamlet came to see Ophelia in a disheveled state, â€Å"[†¦ ] with his doublet all unbraced, no hat upon his head, his stockings fouled, ungartered, and down-gyved to his ankle, pale as his shirt, his knees knocking [†¦ ]† and frightened her (2. 1. 585). Her father bid her not to speak to him, and she complied. Poor Hamlet sank deeper into his madness, alone and dejected. Ophelia, also depressed, was ready to take her own life.Hamlet is devastated because he never actually meant to hurt her. Hamlet say s, â€Å"I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my sum† (5. 1. 654). This shows how much Hamlet truly loved Ophelia. The last factor that contributed to Hamlet’s loneliness is that he didn’t share his problems with anyone (except for Horatio). He hid his hatred towards his uncle, the loss he felt with his mother, and the secret of his encounter with his murdered father’s ghost. If he had told more people his secrets, then they could have been more willing to help him.The person who could have helped him the most and spared him the most grief is Ophelia. By telling her about his father’s murder and about his plan to avenge his death, Ophelia would have provided Hamlet with comfort and understanding. His tragic flaw came from the misleading act he put on in order to hide his ambitions, and the crafty schemes he came up with to reach his goals. However, some topics are so complex that Hamlet may face limitations in discussing them with people who are not as deep as he.Hamlet’s loneliness was caused by many incidents, some of which Hamlet brought upon him himself. Had he shared his problems with the few people he could trust, and not hidden the knowledge of his father's murder, he might have avoided the great loss of his family, his friends, and his life. Secrets, deception, and despair plagued Hamlet throughout the play, and ultimately caused his downfall. It is important that we have support from our friends through difficult times. When we alienate people by keeping secrets from them, it is to our disadvantage. We cause our own loneliness.

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Handling Difficult Customers Essay Example for Free

Handling Difficult Customers Essay Listed are some of the easons why customers become difficult when communicating technical problems. 1. Wanting a live operator but ending up in an automated telephone loop. Excessive waiting times to be connected to an operator. 2. Representatives rushing callers or even faking a disconnection. 3. Incompetent Representatives, incapable of processing requests effectively. 4. Representative not actively listening to the complaint. 5. Departments not communicating with one another. 6. Condescending Representative using technical Jargon they dont understand. 7. Representatives who sounds bored and disinterested. 8. I will address the complaints: 1) Wanting a live operator but ending up in an automated telephone loop, 2) Incompetent Representatives, incapable of processing requests. 3) Representative not actively listening to the complaint. The support specialist should follow the customer problem resolution and recovery procedures to address the significance of each of concept and overcome challenges that may arise Consumer emotions The first thing that a customer hears is a message saying, miour call is valuable to us. Please hold the line for the next available Representative. Then. they wait, and ait and wait. Finally after what seems like hours to them, they are connected with you. They are already angry with their situation and are faulting the company, now they are really angry about the wait time to get to speak with a live person. They feel that if they were really a valued customer, the wait time would be minimal. Resist the temptation to label the customer as a problem and cut out the negative thoughts. Start the recovery process with an apology after you let them vent. Smile and speak with sincerity, and dont fall into the trap that youre angry or difficult customer is aiting you with. If you feed into the anger, you will only escalate the problem. Your words, tone, and attitude are should be empathetic. This will deflects and diffuses an angry customer. You want to make sure the customer know you are listening and taking their situation seriously. Now the customer is upset that the Representative couldnt or didnt answer their questions and wasted their time. Their expected all the rep to know the particulars about their product without having to put them on hold or transfer the call to someone else. If you do need to work with other departments, please inform the ustomer that you will personally take the matter into your own hands and will need to investigate on the issues. Reassure the customer that you are coordinating the best possible resolution, and if you need to get the assistance achieve it. A great rep always sounds friendly. Customer doesnt like someone who sounds bored and disinterested at their problem. They want to feel that you are about their issue and are interested in resolving their issue. When you answer a customers call, please smile. Keep a positive attitude and be upbeat, they will be able to hear it in our voice. Ownership When upset or angry about a situation, a two minute wait time can feel like nothing at all, or can feel like forever. A company must learn how to influence the customer feelings about the waiting time. Representative must approach these customers with the mind set of the customer has a right to be angry, even before you know the details. Let them vent their feelings, without passing Judgment, and only interject when they start to becomes directly abusive towards you. If the customer senses that they are communicating with someone who is ncapable, it will create another reason to be frustrated or angry. If you dont have the power to solve the issue or answer the question, tell the customer that you own the problem. Let them know that you will apply your personal effort to find a solution, Sounding bored or disinterest is absolutely preventable! Have your environment arranged in a way so that the telephone conversations are customer oriented, convenient, and efficient. Reduce distractions by tuning out office noise, have paper and pencil handy to take notes when necessary. Be prepared to answer the elephone by having it within easy reach, no more than an arms length away. Customer callers do not hear the first two words of the conversation so when answering the phone use buffer words. You can say something like, Thank you for calling , or Good (morning or afternoon) this is.. Dont Just say hello and then wait for customers to answer. Self-control When you respond with hostility, or lose your self-control, you are contributing to the escalation of the situation. You have a snide response, and then the customer is even more fired up and ups the abuse. Instead calmly interject with some empathy. Say l understand your frustration with the situation; I want us to move past this so we can fix the problem that you are calling abo ut. Please allow me to help you. Sometimes the technical problem is in need of more attention because it may impact other customers. You dont want to seem like you dont know what you are doing, so acknowledge the individual customer emotion first. Then resolve the technical issue that you can handle and address bigger issues as a more multi- department activity. Let your customers know that you are listening and you want to help. Write down notes during the conversation. When the customer is done venting, reiterate the priorities from the customer perspective. Address the emotional and technical aspects of the customer concerns. This will put you in focus on the appropriate issues and reassure the customer that you are concentrating on their priorities. Adaptation Our Country is made up of an increasing number of immigrants and transitional residents. These same immigrants were the founding Fathers of our Country. Maybe the caller is new to the English language and was put on hold for so long, or didnt know to press a certain number for a Representative. Companies can take these complaints and adjust the systems to address the needs and accommodate multiple languages. Some companies have taken customer service to the next level and are hiring multilingual customer service providers. Having these systems set can prevent many of the listed complaints from being uttered again. Mistaken customers customers. Their wait time was less than a minute, but they wanted a live operator to pick up the call. To deal with these types of customers, we must learn coping and problem-solving skills to deal with our own personal feelings. Reiterate your empathy nd continue to acknowledge the customer right to be angry. Takes deep breaths, smile and wait patiently for your turn to speak. Problem customers Problem customers do exist and everyone has to deal with them. They can be high maintenance, scammers, litigious, abusive, criminal or Just plain bizarre. When you have one of these on the phone, the best thing to do is ignore the language and behavior and continue to follow the same procedures as with an angry customer. When they have crossed the boundary set by standards, then it is best to let the customer know that your manager or the law department would be best to handle heir situation. In the end, if there has to be compromise from one side of the conversation; let it be from the company. Great service can make customers more comfortable with a company because they do things better for them. Everyone involved wants a fair and fast solution that can be settled simultaneously. If compromising means that you are able to retain customers, then that equals to: business survival. Reference Swartzlander, A. (2004). Chapter 3, 4, 5 in Pearson Education, Inc (Ed. ), Serving Internal and External Customers (pp. 56-75). Prentice Hall.

Cloud Computing Models Changing The World Information Technology Essay

Cloud Computing Models Changing The World Information Technology Essay The Cloud has become a new vehicle for delivering resources such as computing and storage to customers on demand. Rather than being a new technology in itself, the cloud is a new business model wrapped around new technologies such as server virtualization that take advantage of economies of scale and multi-tenancy to reduce the cost of using information technology resources. This paper discusses the business drivers in the Cloud delivery mechanism and business model, what the requirements are in this space, and how standard interfaces, coordinated between different organizations can meet the emerging needs for interoperability and portability of data between clouds. Hence, Cloud computing is about moving services, computation and/or data-for cost and business advantage-off-site to an internal or external, location-transparent, centralized facility or contractor. By making data available in the cloud, it can be more easily and ubiquitously accessed, often at much lower cost, increasing its value by enabling opportunities for enhanced collaboration, integration, and analysis on a shared common platform. Cloud computing describes both a platform and a type of application. A cloud-computing platform dynamically provides, configures, reconfigures, and deprovisions servers as needed. Cloud applications are applications that are extended to be accessible through the Internet. These cloud applications use large data centers and powerful servers that host Web applications and Web services. Enterprises are increasingly making innovation their highest priority. They realize they need to seek new ideas and unlock new sources of value. Driven by the pressure to cut costs and grow- simultaneously-they realize that its not possible to succeed simply by doing the same things better. They know they have to do new things that produce better results. Cloud computing enables innovation. It alleviates the need of innovators to find resources to develop, test, and make their innovations available to the user community. Innovators are free to focus on the innovation rather than the logistics of finding and managing resources. Enterprises can choose to deploy applications on Public, Private or Hybrid clouds. Cloud Integrators can play a vital part in determining the right cloud path for each organization. Therefore, there are four types of cloud paths they are : Cloud computing provides the facility to access shared resources and common infrastructure, offering services on demand over the network to perform operations that meet changing business needs. The end user does typically not know the location of physical resources and devices being accessed. It also provides facilities for users to develop, deploy and manage their applications on the cloud, which entails virtualization of resources that maintains and manages itself. Cloud Computing, to put it simply, means Internet Computing. The Internet is commonly visualized as clouds; hence the term cloud computing for computation done through the Internet. With Cloud Computing users can access database resources via the Internet from anywhere, for as long as they need, without worrying about any maintenance or management of actual resources. Besides, databases in cloud are very dynamic and scalable. Cloud computing is unlike grid computing, utility computing, or autonomic computing. In fact, it is a very independent platform in terms of computing. The best example of cloud computing is Google Apps, where any application can be accessed using a browser and it can be deployed on thousands of computer through the Internet. Æ’Â ¨WHAT DOES CLOUD COMPUTING MEAN TO US? Cloud computing is set to take over the world, or at least possibly replace Microsoft Outlook. The cloud concept is simple: Its a way to access your data and apps from anywhere, via the Internet (or the cloud). Yet everyone from Gartner Group to Google has a slightly different take on cloud computing: It can be anything from storing and sharing documents on Google Docs to running your entire company operations using a remote, third-party data center. Some envision it as a way to compute without operating systems, or pesky local client programs, and with minimal hardware needs (just a basic client machine). The most important single characteristic of a cloud is abstraction of the hardware from the service, says John Willis, a noted cloud-computing expert and blogger, explaining that the location of the servers is not as important as easy access to the data. However you define it, I think cloud technology will have a footprint in every business that does IT within the next five years. Cloud computing increases capacity and expands computing capabilities without heavy investment in infrastructure, training or software licensing. Most importantly though it democratizes Web 2.0-application development. With the removal of two significant barriers to entry cost and capacity access suddenly even small, lesser-funded entrepreneurs can dream big and bring their grand Web 2.0 applications to market. CLOUD COMPUTING has been changing how most people use the web and how they store their files. Its the structure that runs sites like  Facebook, Amazon and Twitter and the core that allows us to take advantage of services like Google Docs and Gmail. But how does it work Æ’Â ¨HOW DOES CLOUD COMPUTING WORK? Before we dig further into how does cloud computing work, first lets understand what the term CLOUD refers to.   The concept of the cloud has been around for a long time in many different incarnations in the business world. It mostly means a  grid of computers  serving as a service-oriented architecture to deliver software and data. Most websites and server-based applications run on particular computers or servers. What differentiates the cloud from the way those are set up is that the cloud utilizes the resources from the computers as a  collective virtual computer, where the applications can run independently from particular computer or server configurations. They are basically floating around in a cloud of resources, making the hardware less important to how the applications work. With broadband Internet, the need to have the software run on your computer or on a companys site is  becoming less and less essential. A lot of the software that people use nowadays are completely web-based. The cloud takes advantage of that to bring it to the next level. For example, if you are  hosting your website on a local server  or from your PC, you must usually select a particular operating system (Windows/Linux/Mac), to determine what software you can run on that particular server. If your site is being hosted in the cloud, there is no need to do that. You can run Windows and Linux programs side by side. Æ’Â ¨HOW IS THAT DONE? To understand how does cloud computing work, imagine that the cloud consists of layers mostly the  back-end  layers and the  front-end  or user-end layers. The front-end layers are the ones you see and interact with. When you access your email on Gmail for example, you are using software running on the front-end of a cloud. The same is true when you access your Facebook account. The back-end consists of the hardware and the software architecture that fuels the interface you see on the front end. As always seen, the user-end is usually a third party application or a termination for implementing their ideas on a visual end and rest all (hardware and logical) is taken care off at the back-end. Because the computers are set up to work together, the applications can take advantage of all that computing power as if they were running on one particular machine. Cloud computing also allows for a lot of flexibility. Depending on the demand, you can increase how much of the cloud resources you use without the need for assigning specific hardware for the job, or just reduce the amount of resources assigned to you when they are not necessary. The Cloud makes it possible to launch Web 2.0 applications quickly and to scale up applications as much as needed when needed. The platform supports traditional JavaTM and Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP (LAMP) stack-based applications as well as new architectures such as MapReduce and the Google File System, which provide a means to scale applications across thousands of servers instantly. Æ’Â ¨WILL IT CHANGE THE WAY WE USE COMPUTERS? The transition from being very personal hardware dependent to a world where resources are shared among the masses is creeping up on us slowly and unobtrusively. Very many people have already transitioned to using a cloud environment for most of their time in front of the computer without even realizing it. Sure, most of us still use some version of Microsoft Office or Quickbooks that was installed on our computers, but even  those kinds of software are now offering an online version  that can be used instead. The possibility of being able to access your data and software wherever you need it makes this transition very appealing to most people. Are there problems with this concept? Of course there are. If for some reason your internet goes down, your access to your data also disappears. There are security concerns with the data and the risk that companies will use proprietary formats for the files and that require that you pay for a certain service monthly or you may lose access to your own data permanently. So choose wisely when picking a service to use with your important data and make sure it can be downloaded if needed, but also enjoy the flexibility those services provide. The wave of the future is in the cloudsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Dreaming big.   Now thats what its all about. MODELS AND TYPES OF CLOUD COMPUTING Æ’Â ¨ Cloud Computing Models Cloud Providers offer services that can be grouped into three categories, they are: Software as a Service (SaaS): In this model, a complete application is offered to the customer, as a service on demand. A single instance of the service runs on the cloud multiple end users are serviced. On the customersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¸ side, there is no need for upfront investment in servers or software licenses, while for the provider; the costs are lowered, since only a single application needs to be hosted maintained. Today companies such as Google, Salesforce, Microsoft, Zoho, etc offer SaaS. Platform as a Service (Paas): Here, a layer of software, or development environment is encapsulated offered as a service, upon which other higher levels of service can be built. The customer has the freedom to build his own applications, which run on the providerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¸s infrastructure. To meet manageability and scalability requirements of the applications, PaaS providers offer a predefined combination of OS and application servers, such as LAMP platform (Linux, Apache, MySql and PHP), restricted J2EE, Ruby etc. Googleà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¸s App Engine, Force.com, etc are some of the popular PaaS examples. Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas): IaaS provides basic storage and computing capabilities as standardized services over the network. Servers, storage systems, networking equipment, data centre space etc. are pooled and made available to handle workloads. The customer would typically deploy his own software on the infrastructure. Some common examples are Amazon, GoGrid, 3 Tera, etc are some of the popular IaaS examples. Æ’Â ¨ Types Of Cloud Computing Enterprises can choose to deploy applications on Public, Private, Community or Hybrid clouds. Cloud Integrators can play a vital part in determining the right cloud path for each organization. Cloud  Computing  can be classified into 4 types on the  basis of location  where the cloud is hosted: Public Cloud Æ’Â   Public clouds are owned and operated by third parties; they deliver superior economies of scale to customers, as the infrastructure costs are spread among a mix of users, giving each individual client an attractive low-cost, Pay-as-you-go model. All customers share the same infrastructure pool with limited configuration, security protections, and availability variances. These are managed and supported by the cloud provider. One of the advantages of a Public cloud is that they may be larger than an enterprises cloud, thus providing the ability to scale seamlessly, on demand. Æ’Â   Also, the infrastructure is hosted at the vendors premises. The customer has no  visibility  over the location of the cloud computing infrastructure. The computing infrastructure is shared between organizations. Private Cloud Æ’Â   Private clouds are built exclusively for a single enterprise. They aim to address concerns on data security and offer greater control, which is typically lacking in a public cloud. There are two variations to a private cloud: -> On-premise Private Cloud: On-premise private clouds, also known as internal clouds are hosted within ones own data center. This model provides a more standardized process and protection, but is limited in aspects of size and scalability. IT departments would also need to incur the capital and operational costs for the physical resources. This is best suited for applications, which require complete control and configurability of the infrastructure and security. -> Externally hosted Private Cloud: This type of private cloud is hosted externally with a cloud provider, where the provider facilitates an exclusive cloud environment with full guarantee of privacy. This is best suited for enterprises that dont prefer a public cloud due to sharing of physical resources. Æ’Â   All in all, private cloud  architecture is dedicated to the customer and is not shared with other organizations. They are expensive and are considered more secure than Public Clouds. Private clouds may be externally hosted ones as well as in premise-hosted clouds. Hybrid Cloud Æ’Â   Hybrid Clouds combine both public and private cloud models. With a Hybrid Cloud, service providers can utilize 3rd party Cloud Providers in a full or partial manner thus increasing the flexibility of computing. The Hybrid cloud environment is capable of providing on-demand, externally provisioned scale. The ability to augment a private cloud with the resources of a public cloud can be used to manage any unexpected surges in workload. Æ’Â   In technical terms, Organizations host some critical, secure applications in private clouds. The not so critical  applications  are hosted in the public cloud. The combination is known as Hybrid Cloud.  Cloud bursting  is the term used to define a  system  where the organization uses its own infrastructure for normal usage, but cloud is used for peak loads. Community Cloud Æ’Â   The cloud  infrastructure  is shared between the  organizations  of the same community. Æ’Â  For example, all the government agencies in a city can share the same cloud but not the non government agencies. DISTINGUISHING PUBLIC, PRIVATE AND HYRBRID CLOUDS, DIAGRAMMATICALLYà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. Difference Between Cloud Computing And Other Computing Techniques. Æ’Â ¨ Cloud Computing Vs Grid (distributed) Computing Grid computing has been used in environments where users make few but large allocation requests. For example, a lab may have a 1000 node cluster and users make allocations for all 1000, or 500, or 200, etc. So only a few of these allocations can be serviced at a time and others need to be scheduled for when resources are released. This results in sophisticated batch job scheduling algorithms of parallel computations. Vs Cloud computing really, is about lots of small allocation requests. The Amazon EC2 accounts are limited to 20 servers each by default and lots and lots of users allocate up to 20 servers out of the pool of many thousands of servers at Amazon. The allocations are real-time and in fact there is no provision for queuing allocations until someone else releases resources. This is a completely different resource allocation paradigm, a completely different usage pattern, and all this results in completely different method of using compute resources. - In grid computing, a single big task is split into multiple smaller tasks, which are further distributed to different computing machines. Upon completion of these smaller tasks, they are sent back to the primary machine which in return offers a single output. Vs Whereas a cloud computing architecture is intended to enable users to use difference services without the need for investment in the underlying architecture. Though, grid too offers similar facility for computing power, but cloud computing isnt restricted to just that. With a cloud users can avail various services such as website hosting etc. Grid computing is where more than one computer coordinates to solve a problem together. Often used for problems involving a lot of number crunching, which can be easily parallelizable. Vs Cloud computing is where an application doesnt access resources it requires directly, rather it accesses them through something like a  service. So instead of talking to a specific hard drive for storage, and a specific CPU for computation, etc. it talks to some service that provides these resources. The service then maps any requests for resources to its physical resources, in order to provide for the application. Usually the service has access to a large amount of physical resources, and can dynamically allocate them as they are needed. - With grid computing, your company gets power and flexibility. Grid computing, however, occurs when the processing power of an application or service is distributed across multiple systems. This is usually done in order to increase processing capacity or improve system resiliency. Vs Grid Computing Cloud ComputingWith cloud computing, your company gets cost-savings and convenience. This is where you get access to the resources of an independent 3rd party over the internet. In other words, they are remotely hosted applications. Life Before And After Cloud Computing. Æ’Â   Before Cloud Computing Traditional business applications-like those from SAP, Microsoft, and Oracle-have always been too complicated and expensive. They need a data center with office space, power, cooling, bandwidth, networks, servers, and storage. A complicated software stack. And a team of experts to install, configure, and run them. They need development, testing, staging, production, and failover (means for ensuring high availability of some critical resource) environments. When you multiply these headaches across dozens or hundreds of applications, its easy to see why the biggest companies with the best IT departments arent getting the applications they need. Small businesses dont stand a chance. Imagine a world without bridges.   It would be pretty hard to get from point A to point B reliably and without interruption!   The Cloud Computing is the to the Bridge solution that increases interoperability between your on-premise datacenters and off-premise clouds.   This interoperability increases your flexibility, enabling more choice around what applications you can move to the cloud.   Since the Cloud Bridge solution supports multiple virtualization environments, you also have more choice in cloud providers, enabling you to drive down costs.   In short, Cloud Computing is the big bridge to fill the big gap between your datacenter or the application. Æ’Â   After Cloud Computing Cloud computing is a better way to run your business. Instead of running your applications yourself, they run on a shared data center. When you use any application that runs in the cloud, you just log in, customize it, and start using it. Thats the power of cloud computing. Businesses are running all kinds of applications in the cloud these days, like CRM(Customer Relationship Management), HR(Human Resources), accounting, and custom-built applications. Cloud-based applications can be up and running in a few days, which is unheard of with traditional business software. They cost less, because you dont need to need to pay for all the people, products, and facilities to run them. And, it turns out theyre more scalable, more secure, and more reliable than most applications. Plus, upgrades are taken care of for you, so your applications get security and performance enhancements and new features-automatically. The way you pay for cloud-based applications is also different. Forget about buying servers and software. When your apps run in the cloud, you dont buy anything. Its all rolled up into a predictable monthly subscription, so you only pay for what you actually use. Cloud applications dont eat up your valuable IT resources, so your CFO(Chief Financial Officer) will love it. This lets you focus on deploying more applications, new projects, and innovation. The Nature of Cloud Computing Cloud computing builds on established trends for driving the cost out of the delivery of services while increasing the speed and agility with which services are deployed. It shortens the time from designing an application architecture to actual deployment. Cloud computing integrates virtualization, on-demand deployment, Internet delivery of services, and open source software. The on-demand, self-service, pay-by-use model The on-demand nature of cloud computing helps to support the performance and capacity aspects of service-level objectives. The self-service nature of cloud computing allows organizations to create flexible environments that expand and contract based on the workload and target performance parameters. And the pay-by-use nature of cloud computing may take the form of equipment renting that guarantee a minimum level of service from a cloud provider so billing is based on resource consumption: CPU hours used, volumes of data moved, or gigabytes of data stored. Growth and Further scope Of Cloud Computing. Æ’Â ¨ Cloud computing  is being touted as  the future of  the web. Everything from your Word documents to pictures, music has been  moving to  the cloud. In  Google  Apps, the company has a strong competing product to  Microsoft  Office. So, how big is all of this going to be. Here are some statistics from a  Gartner study Value of  Cloud computing services  through the years 2008 : $46.41 billion 2009 : $56.30 billion 2013 : $150.1 billion (projected) Advantages and Disadvantages Of Cloud Computing. Cloud computing is fast evolving from a  futuristic technology  into a commercially viable alternative for companies in search of a cost-effective  storage  and server solution. In fact, Gartner Inc. predicts that by 2012, 80 percent of Fortune 1000 enterprises will pay for some cloud-computing service, while 30 percent of them will pay for cloud-computing infrastructure. While the technology has its fair share of drawbacks (such as privacy and  security  concerns), an undeniable silver lining is currently turning skeptics into enthusiasts. Here some of the advantages of cloud computing: >ADVANTAGES: Scalability:  IT departments that anticipate an enormous uptick in user load need not scramble to secure additional hardware and software with cloud computing. Instead, an organization can add and subtract capacity as its network load dictates. Better yet, because cloud computing follows a utility model in which service costs are based on consumption, companies pay for only what they use. Easy Implementation:  Without the need to purchase hardware, software licenses or implementation services, a company can get its cloud-computing arrangement off the ground in record time and for a fraction of the cost of an on-premise solution. Skilled Practitioners:  When a particular technology becomes popular, its not uncommon for a whole slew of vendors to jump on the bandwagon. In the case of cloud computing, however, vendors have typically been reputable enough to offer customers reliable service and large enough to deliver huge  datacenters  with endless amounts of storage and computing capacity. These vendors include industry stalwarts such as Microsoft, Google, IBM, Yahoo! Inc. and Amazon.com Inc, etc. Frees Up Internal Resources:  By placing storage and server needs in the hands of an outsourcer, a company essentially shifts the burden placed on its in-house IT team to a third-party provider. The result: In-house IT departments can focus on business-critical tasks without having to incur additional costs in manpower and  training. Quality of Service:  Network outages can send an IT department scrambling for answers. But in the case of cloud computing, its up to a companys selected vendor to offer 24/7 customer support and an immediate response to emergency situations. Thats not to suggest that outages dont occur. In February 2008, Amazon.coms S3 cloud-computing service experienced a brief outage that affected a number of companies. Fortunately, service was restored within three hours. Æ’Â   According to  Jonathan Koomey, who is a consulting professor for Stanford University and a project scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, there are four primary reasons why cloud computing (at least philosophically speaking) should be a more power-efficient approach than an in-house data center. This is the order in which Koomey lists them. Workload diversity: Because you will have many different sorts of users making use of the cloud resources different applications, different feature set preferences and different usage volumes this will improve hardware utilization and therefore make better use of power that youre using anyway to keep a server up and running. Economies of economies of scale: There are certain fixed costs associated with setting up any physical data center. According to Koomey, implementing technical and organization changes is cheaper per computation for larger organizations than for IT small shops. And because you will have more people using the infrastructure, again, you can spread those costs more efficiently. Power-management flexibility: Koomey postulates that its easier to manage virtual servers than physical servers from a power perspective. If hardware fails, the load can automatically be deployed elsewhere. Likewise, in theory, you could move all virtual loads to certain servers when loads are light and power-down or idle those that arent being used You can pick the most efficient site possible: So, for example, if you are a business based in a state that uses primarily coal-powered electricity, do you really want to site your data center there? If you have a data center in a place that is all coal-powered, this is a big business risk, Koomey says. In a future where there might actually be a tax on the carbon your company produces, that would certainly be a risk indeed. >DISADVANTAGES: Æ’Â   One of its few major issues is that cloud computing relies totally on network connections. If the network goes down, youre done using the computer until it is back up. If the network gets bogged down, then your computing will be slower. Æ’Â   The other major downfall is that it doesnt use a hard drive. While it is a benefit, it is also a negative. Some applications or hardware might require having a hard drive attached to the computer; these might be hard to get working properly with the hard drive on a remote server. Æ’Â   The last big issue is peripherals. Getting printers to work is hit or miss. The more popular printers will give you little trouble when you try to get them working properly. The little printers that arent as common, such as label printers, can face issues with the mini PC that each user has. Æ’Â   In most big businesses, few people have personal printers; most printers are networked,  so its not a big issue to a majority of users. Things such as scanners use software to work with the PC, however, and if your virtual hard drive doesnt have the software, when you log onto the cloud computer at a desk, you wont be able to use the scanner until you install the software. Some Of The Disadvantages Are Listed Below Security: No control over the business assets (data!). The main assets in every company are its data files with valuable customer information. A proper security model for cloud computing is not yet developed. Security, privacy and compliancy is still difficult for cloud solutions. Especially for public cloud services. Physical location of hardware and software is unknown. Site inspections and audits are hard. Availability. Constant connectivity is required. Failure to compliance. E.g. HIPAA, SOX, PCI, SAS 70 and audits. Risk of data loss due to improper backups or system failures in the virtualized environment. Dependency (Lost On Control): Quality problems with Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP) No influence on maintenance levels and fix frequency when using cloud services from a CSP. No or little insight in CSP contingency procedures. Especially backup, restore and disaster recovery. No easy migration to an other CSP. Measurement of resource usage and end user activities lies in the hands of the CSP. Tied to the financial health of another Company. Cost And Flexibility: Special customization not possible. Possible lower rate of business IT innovation. The technological innovation pace is dictated by CSP. Cost: Hidden cost (e.g. compliancy regulations, backup, restore, disaster recovery and problem solving.) Opaque cost structure due to highly flexible usage of cloud services; Cost advantages is as hard to get when using outsourcing for IT services in a traditional way. Risks of higher future charges are real. Requires a constant Internet connection: Cloud computing is impossible if you cant connect to the Internet. Since you use the Internet to connect to both your applications and documents, if you dont have an Internet connection you cant access anything, even your own documents. A dead Internet connection means no work, period-and, in areas where Internet connections are few or inherently unreliable, this could be a deal-breaker. When youre offline, cloud computing simply doesnt work. Doesnt work well with low-speed connections: Similarly, a low-speed Internet connection, such as that found with dial-up services, makes cloud computing painful at best and often impossible. Web-based apps require a lot of bandwidth to download, as do large documents. If youre laboring with a low-speed dial-up connection, it might take seemingly forever just to change from page to page in a document, let alone to launch a feature-rich cloud service. In other words, cloud computing isnt for the broadband-impaired. Can be slow: Even on a fast connection, web-based applications can sometimes be slower than accessing a similar software program on your desktop PC. Everything about the program, from the interface to the current document, has to be sent back and forth from your computer to the computers in the cloud. If the cloud servers happen to be backed up at that moment, or if the Internet is having a slow day, you wont get the instantaneous access you might expect from desktop apps. Features might be limited: This situation is bound to change, but today many web-based applications simply arent as full-featured as their desktop-based brethren. For example, you can do a lot more with Microsoft PowerPoint than with Google Presentations w

Minimising IT Project Management Failure

Minimising IT Project Management Failure 2.0 REVIEW OF EXISTING KNOWLEDGE The following sections will provide a critical review of the research work that had been undertaken. This information is relevant to the project and most importantly is associated with the project aims and objectives. A variety of sources were analysed in order to achieve a better understanding in some of the areas considered for this research project. 2.1 Project Management The fundamental aspect of this research is project management as it focuses on how IT project management failure can be minimised. There are numerous definitions of project management; one definition given by (The Project Management Institute, 2009) states; â€Å"The application of knowledge, skills, tools and technique to project activities to meet project requirements† According to (Lewis, 1995) however, project management is the planning, scheduling, and controlling of project activities to achieve project objectives. The first definition of project management focuses more on the soft skills of project management. The definition of soft skills given by the (Oxford Dictionary, 2010) is â€Å"Personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and  harmoniously with other people† In comparison to Lewis this is more specific to what actually is required. Although Lewiss description is not invalid, it gives a more generalised approach to project management highlighting the fundamental points. These two definitions contain different characteristics that are important to project management but what both of these definitions have in common is completion of the project requirements or activities. To generalise project management is to apply certain personnel management skills and the application of knowledge, planning and scheduling to achieve a desired objective. 2.2 Project Methodologies and Frameworks Yardley (2002) identifies it is overwhelming why many IT projects fail. Yardley (2002) states that if something was to fail and keep on failing then at some point there would be gradual improvements to why failure occurs so often in the particular area. Gradual improvements should have been made from the lessons learnt from the failure of IT projects over a period of time. However this has not been the case as there have been many failures in IT, with the same problems reoccurring. For example, common reasons for IT failure given by (Computer Weekly, 2010) are; Commencing work too early Ambiguous contracts Inadequate estimation of work Breaking the contract Lack of engagement Al-Ahmed et al (2009) suggests that the IT industry is still young compared to other industries such as manufacturing but still attributes failure to the project management methodologies. Therefore the IT industry is still yet to formulate the needed operational standards and procedures. However as the following sections will clarify, there are â€Å"guidelines, frameworks, rules, methods† in place to counter such argument. These will be identified and critically evaluated in the following. With all these clarification in place it is overwhelming to understand the amount of failure in IT as stated by (Yardley, 2002). 2.2.1 Managing a project Lewis (2007) in his book, Fundamentals of Project Management, gave a generalised approach to what a project contains. At each relevant step, questions are to be asked by a project manager for them to consider. Lewis gives a brief indication on these steps that are considered for managing a project as illustrated below in Fig.1 Figure 1 above illustrates a general approach to project management which consists of six main areas. The illustration identifies how the project is to be started up, planned, controlled and how the project is to close. On this basis of managing a project can seem simple enough however the accomplishment of each area is a different matter, hence the number of failures within IT. Al Neimat (2005) identifies the reason for failure is due to project management processes and the aligning of IT within the organisational structure. This view is also agreed by (Al-Ahmad et al.,2009) as project management discipline in most organisations are minimal they do not have the infrastructure to provide; education, training, or management disciplines in order to allow projects to achieve successful completion. Both these authors views are correct to some extent; this is because the project management processes are not followed exactly. For example, the reasons for failure as previously mentioned by (Computer Weekly, 2010) states project work is commenced too early and highlighting some do not plan the project effectively. Al-Ahmad et al (2009) view is correct to some degree. This is because some companies may not have sufficient resources to provide training and education in project management. However (Archbold, 2008) states that over the past ten years there had been a rise in interest in project management. Archbold (2008) states the reason for the rise in interest is because there are more projects then there were ten years ago. Archbold (2008) goes on to state organisations are becoming more successful and growing very quickly and recognising that staffs are managing projects without having the project manager title. 2.2.2 Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) The PMBOK guide provides the fundamental framework which is an industry standard to managing a project. Saladis and Kerzner (2009) state the real use of the PMBOK guide is to provide companies how to manage project irrespective of the characteristics. It provides the minimum knowledge that is required of a manager in order for the manager to be effective. Stackpole (2010) agrees that the PMBOK is a standard but also goes on to say it defines what is to be best practice on most of the project most of the time. The PMBOK guide is created from individuals who are affiliated with the Project Management Institute (PMI). The members of the PMI meet every few years to update and input their intellectual knowledge into the PMBOK Guide. There have been a number of guides produced over the years with the latest version in 2008. The following sections are a brief description of the two subject areas of PMBOK which are project processes and knowledge areas adapted from (The PMBOK Guide, 2008). This is to provide managers an overview and critical review of these areas; Project Processes There are five main processes to the PMBOK that are used to manage projects. In comparison to the general guideline mentioned in 2.2.1 the PMBOK covers five out of the six areas already identified; Initiating The initiating process is where the project is defined, project sponsor is on board, project manager, the team and the requirements are identified. Planning Times scales are drawn up, scope of the project is defined in detail, risks and resources are also identified. Executing The team executes the work that needs to be done in order to achieve its objectives. The project manager in this process co-ordinate the activities within the project, some of these include managing the resources and contractors. Monitoring and Controlling Monitoring the situation and analysing what stage it should be against the project plan. The controlling of the project is achieved by comparing what the project has achieved against what was outlined in the project plan. If it not according to plan then corrective actions is taken to bring it back to target if not going according to plan. Closing Ensure all objectives are met and stakeholders are happy with a review for lessons learnt for future projects. Knowledge Areas Project managers should also be familiar with the following knowledge areas to be considered as a professional. Each knowledge area contains a set of project management processes (Abdomerovic, 2008). Knowledge Areais aimed at promoting and sharing with some of the best scholarly literature material and available tools in the management, executive education, organizational behaviour and organizational psychology fields (Delegate Management Services, 2010). Project Integration Management Integration ensures that the project is planned properly, executed and controlled. The project manager must co-ordinate and integrates each activity in order to achieve the objectives of the project. Saladis and Kerzner (2009) agree with the definition given by (The PMBOK Guide, 2008) but also add the project manager must have overall vision of the project and must understand the technical as well as the human side of planning. Project Scope Management Schwalbe (2009) definition of project scope is to define in detail the scope or work required for the project, a view also shared by (Phillips, 2007; Nokes and Kelly, 2007). Phillips (2007) states the project manager and the project team must have clear vision of what is expected from the project. This is where one of the key components of project failure arises when people on the project team are not striving for the same goals, which includes the stakeholders of the project. However Phillips agrees with the PMBOK guide but also adds to create a scope, several inputs are required. The PMBOK Guide (2008) defines project scope management to include the processes required to ensure that the project includes all the work required, and only the work required, to complete the project successfully. Scope management as identified, only focuses on the output of the project and what is required to achieve the project deliverables. It does not have any concerns as to the time it takes to achieve the objectives or how much it costs (Phillips, 2007). For example, The National Insurance Recording System (NIRS2) was to be developed to replace the previous system in 1997. However one of the underlying problems was as the project commenced it became clear the system size and project scope was bigger and more complex than originally thought. This eventually led to the delay of the system at a cost of  £38 million (www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk, 2010). PMBOK identifies there to be 5 areas of project scope which are: collecting the requirements, defining the scope, creating a Work break-down structure (WBS), verifying the scope and control or monitoring the scope. WBS is the process of subdividing project deliverables and project work into smaller and more manageable tasks (The PMBOK Guide, 2008). Haugan (2002) gives a detailed explanation of WBS as follows; â€Å"A deliverable-orientated grouping of project elements that organises and defines the total work scope of the project. Each descending level represents an increasingly detailed definition of the project work† WBS allows the project manager to integrate each activity and prioritise certain tasks over others. An example of a WBS is given below in Fig. 2 Project Time Management A schedule is developed to achieve the objectives, estimating the time for each task, determining the critical path and then controlling the work actually does happen. There are a number of project management tools that could be used to manage time. OConchuir (2011) identifies the simplest form of time management would be to use Milestone List which illustrate when each stage is to be completed. OConchuir (2011) also identifies that The Gantt Chart to be a widely used tool to display the milestones in a visual format. Figure 3 illustrates a Gantt Chart. Marmel and Muir (2011) state the Gantt Chart was developed by Henry Gantt in 1910, however (Parviz and Anantatmula,2005; Schwalbe, 2009; www.ganttchartmac.com, 2011) state it was developed in 1917. Chiu (2010) does not specify a specific year, however states that it was developed during the First World War. Therefore it can be assumed it was produced in between the years of 1910 to 1918. The Gantt Chart is easy to understand, modify and is a simple way to depict progress status (Westcott, 2006). However as a planning tool, there are some notable limitations as described by (Springer, 2004). The limitations are that the chart is potentially subjective, interrelationships among the schedule activities are not depicted and no follow-on implications from schedule movement. Project Cost Management Schwalbe (2009) states project cost management includes the processes required to ensure that a project team completes a project within an approved budget. Schwalbe (2009) also states it is the project managers duty to satisfy stakeholders of the project as well as striving to reduce and control costs. It is here the costing of the project is calculated: this involves estimating the resources needed, staff and materials. As the project is conducted, costs are controlled and kept on track to make sure it is kept under or on budget. There have been many projects that have been completed but failed to meet the budget due to the project spiralling out of control. A notable IT project failure was the Wessex Regional Health Authoritys (WRHA) Regional Information Systems Plan (RSIP) in 1984. This project was an initiative to improve the provision of clinical and health services. It was to cost  £25.8 million and be completed in five years. However the project was not even completed and ab andoned with the eventual cost rising to  £43 million. The reason for this high increase was because of overspending, high cost of implementation and lack of funds (Chua, 2009). Project Quality Management Saladis and Kerzner (2009) identifies the main objective of quality management is customer satisfaction. However (Stackpole, 2010) states quality management is applied to the project and product. Although in essence both these authors are correct, as providing quality throughout the project and the products will provide customer satisfaction. Schwalbe (2009) argues project quality management is a difficult knowledge area to define. This is because there are many definitions to quality management and the definitions are still vague. Schwalbe (2009) also identifies some that experts base quality on â€Å"Conformance to requirements† which means project processes and products meeting written specification. In relation to these views of the authors (The PMBOK Guide, 2008) defines project quality management as the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfil requirements. Below Fig. 4 is the PMBOK guides quality management process. The PMBOK Guide (2008) identifies managers have to grasp three aspects of quality management which includes processes and activities as shown in Fig. 4; 1) Plan Quality Schwalbe (2009) states in the planning aspect of quality it involves identifying the standards that are relevant to the projects and how to satisfy these standards. Saladis and Kerzner (2009) agrees and identifies a few standards that can be used; ISO 9000/2000: The International Organisation of Standardisation (IOS) this is to provide a framework around which a quality management system can effectively be implemented www.bsi-emea.com, 2011. Saladis and Kerzner (2009) agree and explain adhering to the processes approved by the IOS will produce a consistent output. Six Sigma: Pyzdek and Keller (2009) define six sigma as a rigorous, focused, highly effective implementation of proven quality principles and techniques. Its aim is to have virtually error-free business performance. Saladis and Kerzner (2009) state the methodology for meeting these performance levels is to follow a procedure referred to as DMAIC: define, measure, analyse, improve, control. Total Quality Management (TQM): a comprehensive and integrated way of managing any organisation to meet the needs of customers consistently and continuous improvement in every aspect of the organisations activities (Evans et al.,1996). It is an approach where everyone is responsible for quality. It is designed to enable an organisation to gain competitive advantage by striving to meet 100% customer satisfaction (Yardley, 2002) 2) Perform Quality Assurance The PMBOK Guide (2008) defines quality assurance as the process of regularly evaluating the overall performance of the project to ensure the project will satisfy quality standards. Francis and Horine (2003) agree and explain quality assurance involves making sure everything is done correctly and fulfils the requirements of the project. 3) Perform Quality Control Monitoring and recording the results to see if they meet the requirements (The PMBOK Guide, 2008). This is to be achieved by statistical process control and Pareto analysis as stated by (Barkley and Saylor, 2001) and identify that this an important factor of quality even though these tools are inspection based. For example in 1992 BAE Automated System was awarded a $175.6 million contract by the city of Denver to build an airport with an integrated baggage handling system for the new Denver International Airport (DIA). This system was supposed to route and deliver luggage in the airport using unmanned carts. However it was a catastrophic failure due to the following reasons as stated by (Chua, 2009); One of the reasons for failure was the sheer expanse of the DIA it was twice the size of Manhattan, New York. Overly ambitious, as it was asked to be built in one year, but was estimated to take four years. No experience of dealing with such a large project, Conflicts with contractors, Poor management of user expectation, Continuous changes. Eventual cost was close to $2 billion over budget and sixteen months behind schedule. This example stipulates the importance of having quality aspects imbedded into the project. The project should have followed some quality guidelines such as TQM where this approach identifies everyone responsible for the quality. Project Human Resource Management Identifying the personnel needed to do the job by giving their roles and responsibilities within the team, managing and motivating that team. Also the identification of key stakeholders within the project is made here. Project Communications Management Communication is vital to any project; (The PMBOK Guide, 2008) acknowledges that the communication knowledge area involves planning and disseminating information relevant to the project. Project Risk Management Kerzner (2009) defines risk management as the act or practise of dealing with risk. This includes planning for risk, identifying potential project risk, analysing and prioritising risk, developing risk response strategies and monitoring and controlling risks to determine how they have changed. Dinsmore et al (2010) agrees and makes a valid point identifying that all projects will have a certain element of risk. This is because no two projects are the same as some are characterized by the following: Uniqueness, Complexity, Change, Assumptions, Constraints, Dependencies and most importantly People. Project Procurement Management Determining which goods and services are necessary for the project and how they are to be acquired. The PMBOK provides a great platform for understand how to manage a project. The PMBOK is a framework that covers proven techniques and practices given by existing project managers. The framework is used in major organisation such as Fujitsu and Boeing Aircraft (Blokdijk, 2008). It is more associated as knowledge based framework as it identifies â€Å"What† the project might require rather than â€Å"How† to manage a project. It does not show in great detail exactly how to go about managing a project which is why it is mentioned also as a framework and more as a guideline. The reason for identifying the method as knowledge based is because every few years PMI meet to update and input their intellectual knowledge. This can be an advantage as members input the knowledge of successful proven practices needed to manage the life-cycle of a project. For each process it outlines which necessary tools and techniques are needed. The PMBOK however has its disadvantages; PMBOK poin ts out human resource management as important but fails to miss out the need to document the processes. The reason why it is a disadvantage is because by not documenting the process, it fails to provide information for anyone else to come into the project at a later date, or when re-evaluating the project at the end why such action was taken or needs to be taken. Another disadvantage is it provides minimal amount of coverage of various project management techniques such as WBS or Gantt Chart. Managers would therefore need to consult specialised texts to grasp the subject further. It is also complex for smaller projects and has to be adapted specifically to the industry area (www.theprojectmanagement.com, 2008). 2.2.3 PRINCE2 Methodology Hedeman et al (2010) identifies PRINCE2 as an acronym for PRoject IN Controlled Environments and is a structured method for managing projects. Hedeman et al (2010) also states that PRINCE2 is a de facto standard that is used by the United Kingdom (UK) Government and is widely recognised in the private sector. Van Bon and Verheijen (2006) also agree the PRINCE2 methodology as a de facto standard in the UK and widely used in the Netherlands and Australia. Lock (2007) identifies that the PRINCE2 methodology was at first intended for use on IT projects, however it has since emerged to be effective in any given project. PRINCE2 is a set of activities to achieve its business product with the organisation structure defining responsibilities to manage the project. PRINCE was established and launched in 1989 and was based on an earlier model called PROMPT; PRINCE took over from PROMT within Government projects. PRINCE2 was published in 1996 and is the trade mark of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) PRINCE2 Process Model In the following section is a brief overview of the process model which has been summarised from the (Managing Successful Project with PRINCE2, Office of Government Commerce, 2002) The PRINCE2 Process model consists of a number of distinctive management processes. Graham (2010) states most people fall into the trap of following this model exactly as a standard approach. It is therefore in the best interest of the project manager not to blindly follow the exact approach stated in the model. Depending on the experience of the project manager and what the project needs elements of the model can be taken and applied to a particular project. Figure 5 shows the different levels of management; Directing a Project (DP) DP is aimed at the Project Board: the board manage and monitor the projects by reports and controls through a number of decision points. Key decision points are initiating the project on the right track, commitment of more resources after checking results and project closure. This process does not cover the day to day activities of the project manager. Starting up a Project (SU) A pre-project process designed to ensure the basic elements are in place. In this process the project team is assembled and a project brief is prepared. This process also brings out the Project Mandate which defines the reason for the project and what the outcome is to be. Initiating a Project (IP) The team decides whether it is feasible for them to proceed with the project and if feasible then a business Case is produced. Other key activities here are setting up project files, encouraging the Project Board to take ownership of the project, assembling the Project Initiation Document (PID), ensuring the investment and time required is considered wisely. Portman (2009) identifies different steps to this process in comparison to (Managing Successful Project with PRINCE2, Office of Government Commerce, 2002). Portman (2009) focuses more on the people aspect as it states that all parties are to be aware of the product that is to be delivered, at what time, and quality aspects. Also management and responsibilities are made clear. Both these texts identify valid points which will enable a project manager to clarify what is to happen at this stage. But raises questions as to why the people aspects are not covered or examples given as it only states a large portion of documentation in the Managing Successful Project with PRINCE2. It gives indication that theory and actual practise is different. Controlling a Stage (CS) The Project Manager monitors and controls the day to day activities and forms the core role of the Project Manager. Other key activities include authorising, gathering progress information, reviewing stages and reporting. Managing Product Delivery (MP) Ensure planned products are created and delivered by the project. The process makes sure that the work is being done, ensuring that products meet quality criterias set. It makes sure that the work on products allocated to the team is effectively authorised and agreed. Other key activities include assessing work progress and forecasts regularly, obtaining approval for the completed products. Managing Stage Boundaries (SB) This process dictates what should be done towards the end of the stage. The objectives for this process are to assure the Project Board that all deliverables have been completed for the current stage plan, provide information for the Project Board to asses on whether to continue with the project or not, provide enough information to approve the current stage and authorise the start of the next stage and record any lessons to be learned for later projects. Closing the Project (CP) Portman (2009) states this process are the activities required to close the project and release the project manager. The project could either be the actual project end or a premature end. Objectives here are to check to see if the PID objectives or aim have been met, confirm acceptance of the product, and make recommendation for future work. Resources are freed up for allocation to other activities and prepare end project report. Planning (PL) Planning is a repeatable process and plays an important role in other processes. A few are mentioned below: Planning for an Initiation Stage Planning for a Project Planning a Stage Producing an Exception Plan As previously stated PRINCE2 is the de facto standard for the UK Government and the reason for this is the attention to detail, documentation, business justification and emphasis on dividing the project into manageable and controllable stages (www.prince2.com, 2011). There are many documentation points which enable everyone to know what has happened and how they can improve for the future. Although this methodology may be unsuitable for smaller projects, elements of this methodology can be taken out such as area of control (Bentley, 2005) and implemented into managing a project. However, the question is that if this is such a widely used methodology and is the de facto standard used by the Government, then why are IT projects still failing? And why do IT projects really fail or is it just a widely used perception of IT always failing? These are some of the questions which are going to be explored as the literature review is conducted. Analysing PRINCE2, it is evident why managers and the UK Government use this methodology. This is because it allows the manager to build on experience and the manager to be proactive and not reactive (Harris, 2010). It ensures the project process is viable to senior management (Yardley, 2002). By identifying early warning signs of potential problems and allowing proactive measures to be taken to help alleviate them. The advantages and disadvantages are identified in Table 2. The key point to consider is some project managers fail to differentiate that this is a methodology and does not need to be followed exactly to each and every point, process or technique. Project managers become too inflexible and fixed on the idea that they have to follow each and every step which can make the project long and with unnecessary processes (Charvat, 2003). Another key point regarding PRINCE2 in comparison to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) is the PRINCE2 misses the importance of th e need of soft skills (Charvat, 2003). PRINCE2 also misses out on areas such as human resources, leadership and management techniques, health and safety. This is different to the PMBOK which focuses on soft skills such as people management. There are numerous benefits for using a structured approach to managing a project. Below are the advantages and disadvantages given by (Office of Government Commerce (OGC), 2002) are; 2.2.4 Waterfall Methodology The waterfall method was developed by Winston W. Royce in the 1970 and is considered to be a traditional approach. This was one of the first formal approaches for information system analysis and design as stated by (Johns, 2002; Carkenord, 2009). The method is a process followed in a sequence where a task is completed before moving on to the next in a sequential manner. Figure 6 shows the waterfall methodology, (Rainardi, 2007) illustrates the approach of the waterfall when one task is completed after another. The advantages and disadvantages to the waterfall methodology according to Charvat (2003) are illustrated in Table 3 Although this is for a software development or information system methodology, the same approach can be applied to a project in completing one section and then moving on to the other. The waterfall however does not always reflect on how a project is undertaken and is rarely done in such a sequential manner. However as (Charvat, 2003) identifies, it does produce a phase by phase checkpoint. This will allow the project to stay on the right track in meeting its objectives. 2.2.5 Structured Systems Analysis and Design Method (SSADM) SSADM is a structured approach into the analysis and design of developing an Minimising IT Project Management Failure Minimising IT Project Management Failure 2.0 REVIEW OF EXISTING KNOWLEDGE The following sections will provide a critical review of the research work that had been undertaken. This information is relevant to the project and most importantly is associated with the project aims and objectives. A variety of sources were analysed in order to achieve a better understanding in some of the areas considered for this research project. 2.1 Project Management The fundamental aspect of this research is project management as it focuses on how IT project management failure can be minimised. There are numerous definitions of project management; one definition given by (The Project Management Institute, 2009) states; â€Å"The application of knowledge, skills, tools and technique to project activities to meet project requirements† According to (Lewis, 1995) however, project management is the planning, scheduling, and controlling of project activities to achieve project objectives. The first definition of project management focuses more on the soft skills of project management. The definition of soft skills given by the (Oxford Dictionary, 2010) is â€Å"Personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and  harmoniously with other people† In comparison to Lewis this is more specific to what actually is required. Although Lewiss description is not invalid, it gives a more generalised approach to project management highlighting the fundamental points. These two definitions contain different characteristics that are important to project management but what both of these definitions have in common is completion of the project requirements or activities. To generalise project management is to apply certain personnel management skills and the application of knowledge, planning and scheduling to achieve a desired objective. 2.2 Project Methodologies and Frameworks Yardley (2002) identifies it is overwhelming why many IT projects fail. Yardley (2002) states that if something was to fail and keep on failing then at some point there would be gradual improvements to why failure occurs so often in the particular area. Gradual improvements should have been made from the lessons learnt from the failure of IT projects over a period of time. However this has not been the case as there have been many failures in IT, with the same problems reoccurring. For example, common reasons for IT failure given by (Computer Weekly, 2010) are; Commencing work too early Ambiguous contracts Inadequate estimation of work Breaking the contract Lack of engagement Al-Ahmed et al (2009) suggests that the IT industry is still young compared to other industries such as manufacturing but still attributes failure to the project management methodologies. Therefore the IT industry is still yet to formulate the needed operational standards and procedures. However as the following sections will clarify, there are â€Å"guidelines, frameworks, rules, methods† in place to counter such argument. These will be identified and critically evaluated in the following. With all these clarification in place it is overwhelming to understand the amount of failure in IT as stated by (Yardley, 2002). 2.2.1 Managing a project Lewis (2007) in his book, Fundamentals of Project Management, gave a generalised approach to what a project contains. At each relevant step, questions are to be asked by a project manager for them to consider. Lewis gives a brief indication on these steps that are considered for managing a project as illustrated below in Fig.1 Figure 1 above illustrates a general approach to project management which consists of six main areas. The illustration identifies how the project is to be started up, planned, controlled and how the project is to close. On this basis of managing a project can seem simple enough however the accomplishment of each area is a different matter, hence the number of failures within IT. Al Neimat (2005) identifies the reason for failure is due to project management processes and the aligning of IT within the organisational structure. This view is also agreed by (Al-Ahmad et al.,2009) as project management discipline in most organisations are minimal they do not have the infrastructure to provide; education, training, or management disciplines in order to allow projects to achieve successful completion. Both these authors views are correct to some extent; this is because the project management processes are not followed exactly. For example, the reasons for failure as previously mentioned by (Computer Weekly, 2010) states project work is commenced too early and highlighting some do not plan the project effectively. Al-Ahmad et al (2009) view is correct to some degree. This is because some companies may not have sufficient resources to provide training and education in project management. However (Archbold, 2008) states that over the past ten years there had been a rise in interest in project management. Archbold (2008) states the reason for the rise in interest is because there are more projects then there were ten years ago. Archbold (2008) goes on to state organisations are becoming more successful and growing very quickly and recognising that staffs are managing projects without having the project manager title. 2.2.2 Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) The PMBOK guide provides the fundamental framework which is an industry standard to managing a project. Saladis and Kerzner (2009) state the real use of the PMBOK guide is to provide companies how to manage project irrespective of the characteristics. It provides the minimum knowledge that is required of a manager in order for the manager to be effective. Stackpole (2010) agrees that the PMBOK is a standard but also goes on to say it defines what is to be best practice on most of the project most of the time. The PMBOK guide is created from individuals who are affiliated with the Project Management Institute (PMI). The members of the PMI meet every few years to update and input their intellectual knowledge into the PMBOK Guide. There have been a number of guides produced over the years with the latest version in 2008. The following sections are a brief description of the two subject areas of PMBOK which are project processes and knowledge areas adapted from (The PMBOK Guide, 2008). This is to provide managers an overview and critical review of these areas; Project Processes There are five main processes to the PMBOK that are used to manage projects. In comparison to the general guideline mentioned in 2.2.1 the PMBOK covers five out of the six areas already identified; Initiating The initiating process is where the project is defined, project sponsor is on board, project manager, the team and the requirements are identified. Planning Times scales are drawn up, scope of the project is defined in detail, risks and resources are also identified. Executing The team executes the work that needs to be done in order to achieve its objectives. The project manager in this process co-ordinate the activities within the project, some of these include managing the resources and contractors. Monitoring and Controlling Monitoring the situation and analysing what stage it should be against the project plan. The controlling of the project is achieved by comparing what the project has achieved against what was outlined in the project plan. If it not according to plan then corrective actions is taken to bring it back to target if not going according to plan. Closing Ensure all objectives are met and stakeholders are happy with a review for lessons learnt for future projects. Knowledge Areas Project managers should also be familiar with the following knowledge areas to be considered as a professional. Each knowledge area contains a set of project management processes (Abdomerovic, 2008). Knowledge Areais aimed at promoting and sharing with some of the best scholarly literature material and available tools in the management, executive education, organizational behaviour and organizational psychology fields (Delegate Management Services, 2010). Project Integration Management Integration ensures that the project is planned properly, executed and controlled. The project manager must co-ordinate and integrates each activity in order to achieve the objectives of the project. Saladis and Kerzner (2009) agree with the definition given by (The PMBOK Guide, 2008) but also add the project manager must have overall vision of the project and must understand the technical as well as the human side of planning. Project Scope Management Schwalbe (2009) definition of project scope is to define in detail the scope or work required for the project, a view also shared by (Phillips, 2007; Nokes and Kelly, 2007). Phillips (2007) states the project manager and the project team must have clear vision of what is expected from the project. This is where one of the key components of project failure arises when people on the project team are not striving for the same goals, which includes the stakeholders of the project. However Phillips agrees with the PMBOK guide but also adds to create a scope, several inputs are required. The PMBOK Guide (2008) defines project scope management to include the processes required to ensure that the project includes all the work required, and only the work required, to complete the project successfully. Scope management as identified, only focuses on the output of the project and what is required to achieve the project deliverables. It does not have any concerns as to the time it takes to achieve the objectives or how much it costs (Phillips, 2007). For example, The National Insurance Recording System (NIRS2) was to be developed to replace the previous system in 1997. However one of the underlying problems was as the project commenced it became clear the system size and project scope was bigger and more complex than originally thought. This eventually led to the delay of the system at a cost of  £38 million (www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk, 2010). PMBOK identifies there to be 5 areas of project scope which are: collecting the requirements, defining the scope, creating a Work break-down structure (WBS), verifying the scope and control or monitoring the scope. WBS is the process of subdividing project deliverables and project work into smaller and more manageable tasks (The PMBOK Guide, 2008). Haugan (2002) gives a detailed explanation of WBS as follows; â€Å"A deliverable-orientated grouping of project elements that organises and defines the total work scope of the project. Each descending level represents an increasingly detailed definition of the project work† WBS allows the project manager to integrate each activity and prioritise certain tasks over others. An example of a WBS is given below in Fig. 2 Project Time Management A schedule is developed to achieve the objectives, estimating the time for each task, determining the critical path and then controlling the work actually does happen. There are a number of project management tools that could be used to manage time. OConchuir (2011) identifies the simplest form of time management would be to use Milestone List which illustrate when each stage is to be completed. OConchuir (2011) also identifies that The Gantt Chart to be a widely used tool to display the milestones in a visual format. Figure 3 illustrates a Gantt Chart. Marmel and Muir (2011) state the Gantt Chart was developed by Henry Gantt in 1910, however (Parviz and Anantatmula,2005; Schwalbe, 2009; www.ganttchartmac.com, 2011) state it was developed in 1917. Chiu (2010) does not specify a specific year, however states that it was developed during the First World War. Therefore it can be assumed it was produced in between the years of 1910 to 1918. The Gantt Chart is easy to understand, modify and is a simple way to depict progress status (Westcott, 2006). However as a planning tool, there are some notable limitations as described by (Springer, 2004). The limitations are that the chart is potentially subjective, interrelationships among the schedule activities are not depicted and no follow-on implications from schedule movement. Project Cost Management Schwalbe (2009) states project cost management includes the processes required to ensure that a project team completes a project within an approved budget. Schwalbe (2009) also states it is the project managers duty to satisfy stakeholders of the project as well as striving to reduce and control costs. It is here the costing of the project is calculated: this involves estimating the resources needed, staff and materials. As the project is conducted, costs are controlled and kept on track to make sure it is kept under or on budget. There have been many projects that have been completed but failed to meet the budget due to the project spiralling out of control. A notable IT project failure was the Wessex Regional Health Authoritys (WRHA) Regional Information Systems Plan (RSIP) in 1984. This project was an initiative to improve the provision of clinical and health services. It was to cost  £25.8 million and be completed in five years. However the project was not even completed and ab andoned with the eventual cost rising to  £43 million. The reason for this high increase was because of overspending, high cost of implementation and lack of funds (Chua, 2009). Project Quality Management Saladis and Kerzner (2009) identifies the main objective of quality management is customer satisfaction. However (Stackpole, 2010) states quality management is applied to the project and product. Although in essence both these authors are correct, as providing quality throughout the project and the products will provide customer satisfaction. Schwalbe (2009) argues project quality management is a difficult knowledge area to define. This is because there are many definitions to quality management and the definitions are still vague. Schwalbe (2009) also identifies some that experts base quality on â€Å"Conformance to requirements† which means project processes and products meeting written specification. In relation to these views of the authors (The PMBOK Guide, 2008) defines project quality management as the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfil requirements. Below Fig. 4 is the PMBOK guides quality management process. The PMBOK Guide (2008) identifies managers have to grasp three aspects of quality management which includes processes and activities as shown in Fig. 4; 1) Plan Quality Schwalbe (2009) states in the planning aspect of quality it involves identifying the standards that are relevant to the projects and how to satisfy these standards. Saladis and Kerzner (2009) agrees and identifies a few standards that can be used; ISO 9000/2000: The International Organisation of Standardisation (IOS) this is to provide a framework around which a quality management system can effectively be implemented www.bsi-emea.com, 2011. Saladis and Kerzner (2009) agree and explain adhering to the processes approved by the IOS will produce a consistent output. Six Sigma: Pyzdek and Keller (2009) define six sigma as a rigorous, focused, highly effective implementation of proven quality principles and techniques. Its aim is to have virtually error-free business performance. Saladis and Kerzner (2009) state the methodology for meeting these performance levels is to follow a procedure referred to as DMAIC: define, measure, analyse, improve, control. Total Quality Management (TQM): a comprehensive and integrated way of managing any organisation to meet the needs of customers consistently and continuous improvement in every aspect of the organisations activities (Evans et al.,1996). It is an approach where everyone is responsible for quality. It is designed to enable an organisation to gain competitive advantage by striving to meet 100% customer satisfaction (Yardley, 2002) 2) Perform Quality Assurance The PMBOK Guide (2008) defines quality assurance as the process of regularly evaluating the overall performance of the project to ensure the project will satisfy quality standards. Francis and Horine (2003) agree and explain quality assurance involves making sure everything is done correctly and fulfils the requirements of the project. 3) Perform Quality Control Monitoring and recording the results to see if they meet the requirements (The PMBOK Guide, 2008). This is to be achieved by statistical process control and Pareto analysis as stated by (Barkley and Saylor, 2001) and identify that this an important factor of quality even though these tools are inspection based. For example in 1992 BAE Automated System was awarded a $175.6 million contract by the city of Denver to build an airport with an integrated baggage handling system for the new Denver International Airport (DIA). This system was supposed to route and deliver luggage in the airport using unmanned carts. However it was a catastrophic failure due to the following reasons as stated by (Chua, 2009); One of the reasons for failure was the sheer expanse of the DIA it was twice the size of Manhattan, New York. Overly ambitious, as it was asked to be built in one year, but was estimated to take four years. No experience of dealing with such a large project, Conflicts with contractors, Poor management of user expectation, Continuous changes. Eventual cost was close to $2 billion over budget and sixteen months behind schedule. This example stipulates the importance of having quality aspects imbedded into the project. The project should have followed some quality guidelines such as TQM where this approach identifies everyone responsible for the quality. Project Human Resource Management Identifying the personnel needed to do the job by giving their roles and responsibilities within the team, managing and motivating that team. Also the identification of key stakeholders within the project is made here. Project Communications Management Communication is vital to any project; (The PMBOK Guide, 2008) acknowledges that the communication knowledge area involves planning and disseminating information relevant to the project. Project Risk Management Kerzner (2009) defines risk management as the act or practise of dealing with risk. This includes planning for risk, identifying potential project risk, analysing and prioritising risk, developing risk response strategies and monitoring and controlling risks to determine how they have changed. Dinsmore et al (2010) agrees and makes a valid point identifying that all projects will have a certain element of risk. This is because no two projects are the same as some are characterized by the following: Uniqueness, Complexity, Change, Assumptions, Constraints, Dependencies and most importantly People. Project Procurement Management Determining which goods and services are necessary for the project and how they are to be acquired. The PMBOK provides a great platform for understand how to manage a project. The PMBOK is a framework that covers proven techniques and practices given by existing project managers. The framework is used in major organisation such as Fujitsu and Boeing Aircraft (Blokdijk, 2008). It is more associated as knowledge based framework as it identifies â€Å"What† the project might require rather than â€Å"How† to manage a project. It does not show in great detail exactly how to go about managing a project which is why it is mentioned also as a framework and more as a guideline. The reason for identifying the method as knowledge based is because every few years PMI meet to update and input their intellectual knowledge. This can be an advantage as members input the knowledge of successful proven practices needed to manage the life-cycle of a project. For each process it outlines which necessary tools and techniques are needed. The PMBOK however has its disadvantages; PMBOK poin ts out human resource management as important but fails to miss out the need to document the processes. The reason why it is a disadvantage is because by not documenting the process, it fails to provide information for anyone else to come into the project at a later date, or when re-evaluating the project at the end why such action was taken or needs to be taken. Another disadvantage is it provides minimal amount of coverage of various project management techniques such as WBS or Gantt Chart. Managers would therefore need to consult specialised texts to grasp the subject further. It is also complex for smaller projects and has to be adapted specifically to the industry area (www.theprojectmanagement.com, 2008). 2.2.3 PRINCE2 Methodology Hedeman et al (2010) identifies PRINCE2 as an acronym for PRoject IN Controlled Environments and is a structured method for managing projects. Hedeman et al (2010) also states that PRINCE2 is a de facto standard that is used by the United Kingdom (UK) Government and is widely recognised in the private sector. Van Bon and Verheijen (2006) also agree the PRINCE2 methodology as a de facto standard in the UK and widely used in the Netherlands and Australia. Lock (2007) identifies that the PRINCE2 methodology was at first intended for use on IT projects, however it has since emerged to be effective in any given project. PRINCE2 is a set of activities to achieve its business product with the organisation structure defining responsibilities to manage the project. PRINCE was established and launched in 1989 and was based on an earlier model called PROMPT; PRINCE took over from PROMT within Government projects. PRINCE2 was published in 1996 and is the trade mark of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) PRINCE2 Process Model In the following section is a brief overview of the process model which has been summarised from the (Managing Successful Project with PRINCE2, Office of Government Commerce, 2002) The PRINCE2 Process model consists of a number of distinctive management processes. Graham (2010) states most people fall into the trap of following this model exactly as a standard approach. It is therefore in the best interest of the project manager not to blindly follow the exact approach stated in the model. Depending on the experience of the project manager and what the project needs elements of the model can be taken and applied to a particular project. Figure 5 shows the different levels of management; Directing a Project (DP) DP is aimed at the Project Board: the board manage and monitor the projects by reports and controls through a number of decision points. Key decision points are initiating the project on the right track, commitment of more resources after checking results and project closure. This process does not cover the day to day activities of the project manager. Starting up a Project (SU) A pre-project process designed to ensure the basic elements are in place. In this process the project team is assembled and a project brief is prepared. This process also brings out the Project Mandate which defines the reason for the project and what the outcome is to be. Initiating a Project (IP) The team decides whether it is feasible for them to proceed with the project and if feasible then a business Case is produced. Other key activities here are setting up project files, encouraging the Project Board to take ownership of the project, assembling the Project Initiation Document (PID), ensuring the investment and time required is considered wisely. Portman (2009) identifies different steps to this process in comparison to (Managing Successful Project with PRINCE2, Office of Government Commerce, 2002). Portman (2009) focuses more on the people aspect as it states that all parties are to be aware of the product that is to be delivered, at what time, and quality aspects. Also management and responsibilities are made clear. Both these texts identify valid points which will enable a project manager to clarify what is to happen at this stage. But raises questions as to why the people aspects are not covered or examples given as it only states a large portion of documentation in the Managing Successful Project with PRINCE2. It gives indication that theory and actual practise is different. Controlling a Stage (CS) The Project Manager monitors and controls the day to day activities and forms the core role of the Project Manager. Other key activities include authorising, gathering progress information, reviewing stages and reporting. Managing Product Delivery (MP) Ensure planned products are created and delivered by the project. The process makes sure that the work is being done, ensuring that products meet quality criterias set. It makes sure that the work on products allocated to the team is effectively authorised and agreed. Other key activities include assessing work progress and forecasts regularly, obtaining approval for the completed products. Managing Stage Boundaries (SB) This process dictates what should be done towards the end of the stage. The objectives for this process are to assure the Project Board that all deliverables have been completed for the current stage plan, provide information for the Project Board to asses on whether to continue with the project or not, provide enough information to approve the current stage and authorise the start of the next stage and record any lessons to be learned for later projects. Closing the Project (CP) Portman (2009) states this process are the activities required to close the project and release the project manager. The project could either be the actual project end or a premature end. Objectives here are to check to see if the PID objectives or aim have been met, confirm acceptance of the product, and make recommendation for future work. Resources are freed up for allocation to other activities and prepare end project report. Planning (PL) Planning is a repeatable process and plays an important role in other processes. A few are mentioned below: Planning for an Initiation Stage Planning for a Project Planning a Stage Producing an Exception Plan As previously stated PRINCE2 is the de facto standard for the UK Government and the reason for this is the attention to detail, documentation, business justification and emphasis on dividing the project into manageable and controllable stages (www.prince2.com, 2011). There are many documentation points which enable everyone to know what has happened and how they can improve for the future. Although this methodology may be unsuitable for smaller projects, elements of this methodology can be taken out such as area of control (Bentley, 2005) and implemented into managing a project. However, the question is that if this is such a widely used methodology and is the de facto standard used by the Government, then why are IT projects still failing? And why do IT projects really fail or is it just a widely used perception of IT always failing? These are some of the questions which are going to be explored as the literature review is conducted. Analysing PRINCE2, it is evident why managers and the UK Government use this methodology. This is because it allows the manager to build on experience and the manager to be proactive and not reactive (Harris, 2010). It ensures the project process is viable to senior management (Yardley, 2002). By identifying early warning signs of potential problems and allowing proactive measures to be taken to help alleviate them. The advantages and disadvantages are identified in Table 2. The key point to consider is some project managers fail to differentiate that this is a methodology and does not need to be followed exactly to each and every point, process or technique. Project managers become too inflexible and fixed on the idea that they have to follow each and every step which can make the project long and with unnecessary processes (Charvat, 2003). Another key point regarding PRINCE2 in comparison to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) is the PRINCE2 misses the importance of th e need of soft skills (Charvat, 2003). PRINCE2 also misses out on areas such as human resources, leadership and management techniques, health and safety. This is different to the PMBOK which focuses on soft skills such as people management. There are numerous benefits for using a structured approach to managing a project. Below are the advantages and disadvantages given by (Office of Government Commerce (OGC), 2002) are; 2.2.4 Waterfall Methodology The waterfall method was developed by Winston W. Royce in the 1970 and is considered to be a traditional approach. This was one of the first formal approaches for information system analysis and design as stated by (Johns, 2002; Carkenord, 2009). The method is a process followed in a sequence where a task is completed before moving on to the next in a sequential manner. Figure 6 shows the waterfall methodology, (Rainardi, 2007) illustrates the approach of the waterfall when one task is completed after another. The advantages and disadvantages to the waterfall methodology according to Charvat (2003) are illustrated in Table 3 Although this is for a software development or information system methodology, the same approach can be applied to a project in completing one section and then moving on to the other. The waterfall however does not always reflect on how a project is undertaken and is rarely done in such a sequential manner. However as (Charvat, 2003) identifies, it does produce a phase by phase checkpoint. This will allow the project to stay on the right track in meeting its objectives. 2.2.5 Structured Systems Analysis and Design Method (SSADM) SSADM is a structured approach into the analysis and design of developing an