Week 11 Chapter 11: Project Management

Explain the triple constraint and its importance in project management.
The triple constraint refer to the making and assessment time, cost and scope of project changes. Project management is essentially the art of making and assessing the time, cost and scope of project changes, so hence why the triple constraint is so important to project management. However each one of these factors needs to be equally balanced in order for project management to run effectively and efficiently, because if one of these factors changes or move then the others follow.

Figure 1: This is a diagram of triple constraint.

Describe the two primary diagrams most frequently used in project planning.

In a project plan each job is written down, resources are allocated and it works o3ut what tasks can be done at the same time.
The two primary diagrams most frequently used in project planning are PERT charts and Gantt charts.

PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) charts: "are a graphical network model that depicts a project's tasks and the relationships between those tasks." The red lines/boxes denote the critical path.

Figure 2: An example of a PERT chart.

Gantt chart: "Is a simple bar chart that depicts project tasks against a calendar. Tasks are listed vertically and the projects time frame is listed horizontally."

Figure 3: An example of a Gantt chart.

Identify the three primary areas a project manager must focus on managing to ensure success.

To ensure success a project manager must focus on the following three primary areas:
-Managing people
-Managing communications
- Managing change

Outline 2 reasons why projects fail and two reasons why projects succeed.

Figure 4: A comparison table I compiled outlining why project fail and succeed

References:

Baltzan, Phillips, Lynch, Blakey, Business Driven Information Systems, 1st Australian/New Zealand Edition, Mc Graw Hill, 2010.

TOMTSONGAS, 2011, Program Success Project & Program Management Success Factors, Scope, Time and Cost – Managing the Triple Constraint,  http://programsuccess.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/scope-time-and-cost-managing-the-triple-constraint/, Visited 6/6/2011

Week 10 Chapter 9: Customer Relationship Management and Business Intelligence

What is your understanding of CRM?

Customer relationship management (CRM) are systems that enable and manage the relationship between the business and the customer.They also allow for the business to individualise the services with their customers, in order to provide the best customer service.CRM's are used by sales and marketing.

Compare operational and analytical customer relationship management. 

Figure 1: This is a table I created outlining the difference between Operational and Analytical CRM

Describe and differentiate the CRM technologies used by marketing departments and sales departments.

The marketing department uses a list generator, a campaign management system and cross-selling and up-selling technologies in order to sell many products to just one customer.
-List generators gather customer information from a range of sources and then divide the information for different marketing campaigns.
-Campaign management systems guide users through marketing campaigns.
-Cross-selling involves selling additional products or services.
-Up-selling involves increasing the value of the sale.

The sales department uses the three primary operational CRM technologies of sales management, contact management and opportunity management to increase customer satisfaction.
-Sales management automates each phase of the sales process, which helps individual sale representatives to coordinate and organise all of their accounts.
-Contact management allows for customer contact information to be maintained, as well as identifying prospective customers for future sales.
-Opportunity management targets sale opportunities by finding new customers for companies for future sales.

How could a sales department use operational CRM technologies? 

A sales department could use operation CRM technologies to;
-Identify prospective customers
-Identify types of customers
-Create individualises marketing campaigns to target a particular  group of prospective customers
-Understand and gain knowledge about customers buying behaviours
-Communicate with customers on an individual basis, allowing for the business to know exactly what each customer wants and needs

Describe business intelligence and its value to businesses.

Business Intelligence refers to applications and technologies that are used to gather, provide access to and analyse data and information support decision-making efforts, in order to find strategic and competitive advantages.

Nowadays businesses are discovering that they must meet and identify the constantly changing wants and needs of different customer groups, in order for them to still be a competitive positions in today's consumer-centric market. Business intelligence allows for companies to;
-Determine who are the best and worst customers thereby gaining insight into where it needs to concentrate more for its future sales
-Identify exceptional sales people
-Determine whether or not campaigns have been successful
-Determine in which activity they are making or loosing money

Explain the problem associated with business intelligence. Describe the solution to this business problem. 

The problem associated with business intelligence is to do with the notion of "Data Rich, Information Poor".
Every single year the amount of data being generated is doubled and many think that it will begin to double every month. From here they are able to gain information, but first all the data must be analysed, however some of this data may be unable to be used. Hence the business having a lot of data ("Data Rich") and there being not as much information ("Information Poor").

The solution to this notion of "Data Rich, Information Poor", is for business executives to properly equip their employees with business intelligence tools and systems. These will enable for the not only the business to run effectively and efficiently, but will also allow for employees to make better, and more informed decisions.

What are two possible outcomes a company could get from using data mining?

Data mining is the process of analysing data to extract information not offered by the raw data alone.

Two possible outcomes of data mining are cluster analysis and statistical analysis,
Cluster Analysis-"is a technique used to divide a set of information into mutually exclusive groups, such that the members of each group are as close together as possible to one another and the different groups are as far apart as possible. ... It is also constantly used to divide customer information for customer relationship management systems to help organisations identify customers with similar behavioural traits. ... Cluster analysis has the ability to uncover naturally occurring patterns in information"

Figure 2: This is an example of cluster analysis

Statistical Analysis-"performs such functions as information correlations, distributions, calculations and variance analysis. Data mining tools give workers a wide range of powerful statistical capabilities so they can quickly build a variety of statistical models, examine the models' assumptions and validity, and compare and contrast the various models to determine which one is best suited for a particular issues within a business."

References:

Baltzan, Phillips, Lynch, Blakey, Business Driven Information Systems, 1st Australian/New Zealand Edition, Mc Graw Hill, 2010.