Slide 47 of 61
Notes:
Experienced project managers often complain that managing management's expectations of a project is more difficult than managing cost, schedule, people, or quality. In this section we introduce a simple tool that we'll call an expectations management matrix that can help project managers deal with the problem. We first learned about this tool from Dr. Phil Friedlander, a consultant and trainer then with Mc Donnell Douglas in the Improved Systems Technologies business unit. He attributes the matrix to ``folklore'' but also credits Jerry Gordon of Majer LTD and Ron Leflour, a large project management educator/trainer. Dr. Friedlander's paper is listed in the suggested readings for this module. We have slightly adapted the tool for this presentation.
Who is management? In the case of systems development, management is defined as the system owner(s) -- the individual(s) who sponsors and pays for a system to be developed or modified. To achieve true project success, it is extremely important that the project manager and system owner come to an understanding about assumptions and expectations of the project and that they review the implications of changing budgets, schedules, and system requirements on a regular basis. The matrix is a tool for doing just that.
