SCOPE GAME - A MULTIPLE PROJECTS MANAGEMENT TOOL

Posters

Authors

Rozalija Krstanoska-Zulumovska , Adrijan Bozinovski and Veno Pachovski

Abstract

Scope Game is an innovative project management tool, providing а top-down interface to all projects data for project lines and project packets. Scope Game intends to help organizations and project managers solve the scoping problems, allowing all the project members to propose their solutions, by playing the roles of scope gamers. The winner of the game is the person whose solution is the best for the group of projects. The winning solution is helping the project managers during the project execution when changing the deadlines and reallocation of the resources is possible, or after the implementation, when reviewing all proposed solutions and analyzing the issues encountered. Scope Gaming is intended to manage the development of any software product, including the most complex Genetics software. Since genetics as a science is relatively young, the variety of solutions is huge and each genetics company has different, sometimes even contradictory, requirements when ordering the supporting software. Managers of such software development processes deal with multiple project paths in order to fulfil requirements of different genetic companies. Thus, multiple options of scoping projects are possible and can be proposed by multiple "gamers", used for brainstorming sessions, where the best solution is selected. Task scheduling, resource reallocation, deadlines changing etc. in medium to large-scale development projects are extremely complex activities, and they are some of the principal challenges of every project. It is common knowledge that the managers must do the planning, but plans are good if they can be easily changed. As projects evolve, any solution, either optimal or near optimal, must be continuously monitored in order to adjust to the changing conditions. In the traditional project management cycles, only the project managers are responsible for generating the project plan, organizing and scheduling all the activities and resources related, and changing the deadlines as well. Most of the existing Project Management tools and techniques provide only passive project tracking, followed by status reporting based on a given project state. Project managers analyze the project solely for critical paths and make decisions based on the static data. Playing the “predictive” role in the project management game, the team players can participate in the game, performing the following moves: moving gaps and issues between projects and backlogs, reallocating resources and changing the deadlines. Performing these moves leads to automatically adjusted project plans. The proposed project solutions will be the subject of reviewing and approving by the authorized managers responsible for the project. In other words, saved project plans can be used during the project lifecycles to change a previously approved project plan, or will be used in the post-implementation period, as a subject of comparative analysis, in order to improve the future plans. Nowadays, there are a lot of PM software tools, but for all of them, resource allocation is one of the main concerns. Some of them, like EasyProjects or Genious Project, are offering the upfront “what if” resource allocation, which allows for predicting the project success or failure. Others, like Project Inside, provide efficient resource allocation, allowing resource managers or project managers to see the total workload each resource has per date range, and also allows them to drill down on all of the projects and tasks that are causing the over-allocation in the selected view. Still, such tools provide just a different graphical view of the current project plan and its resource allocation. On the other hand, Scope Game offers a unique way of saving the proposed allocations for the near future, as a base of deeper analysis for the next projects. The theory covered with this package is known as creative thinking. As defined, creative thinking is a way of looking at problems or situations from a fresh perspective that suggests unorthodox solutions (which may look unsettling at first). Creative thinking can be stimulated both by an unstructured process such as brainstorming, and by a structured process such as lateral thinking. Following this rule, Scope Game gives a chance to any team member to express his/her opinion about how he/she looks at the Project Plan and its realization. This contributes to better project planning for future projects.

Keywords

projects, gaming, gaps, issues, solutions, change requests, workflow, business process