SHORTENING THE PROJECT LIFE CYCLE IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND TELECOMUNICATION PROJECTS

Abstract

The motivation for this thesis is based on the fact that telecommunications projects have increased their complexity; nowadays, customers claim for the implementation of large solutions including multiple vendors, software and hardware with highly customizable features and short deadlines that continuously challenge project managers and telecommunications practitioners to create value for their customers.This thesis focuses on the description of current practices in the telecommunications industry and how these practices can be improved in order to achieve a time reduction in a project?s lifecycle.This research is based on a case study of a company from the telecommunications sector in Colombia. The company is called level (3) and they deliver and operate services using frameworks widely used in this sector. I use a qualitative approach based on the collection of data from semi-structured interviews. For the data analysis, I use the triangulation technique to find relationships between theory, standard practices and practices in real life.The theoretical conclusions reveal the relationship between ITIL and PMBOK, ITIL recognizes that the service transition stage should be executed under project management. PMBOK links projects with their product lifecycle by explaining that a phase in a product?s life cycle can be carried out as one project or as multiple projects.Practical conclusions reveal that the three most important measures that the company must implement to shorten the project life cycle are: first, improving the workflow; second, managing project communication and service assets; and third, configuration management.