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ing skilled personnel may make the difference be-
tween the success and failure of the PM. All of these
factors may affect SMEs if they do not possess the
necessary tools to realize a project in an adequate
fashion. Finally, SMEs limited access to the market
means that they lack elements that allow would al-
low them to compete for the acquisition of contract
for project elaboration. Those SMEs which special-
ize in the SS development must focus on elements
that set them apart from other companies in the mar-
ket (Datanalisis, 2003). In Venezuela there are more
than 500 SS companies; 90% of them are Venezue-
lan-owned. SMEs mainly focus on the development
of tailored projects and /or commercial applications.
In 2003 the SS industry in Venezuela generated
profits of more than $200,000 million (Datanalisis,
2003). In order to be competitive SMEs may apply
a set of strategies including a methodology of SS
development that falls within the scope of the
aforementioned limitations, and which allows them
to generate quality products that can be recognized
on the market, helping them to captivate a niche in
such a competitive market.
2.2 Development Methodologies
System development methodologies standardize the
process of development defining a set of activities,
methods, better practices and automated tools, which
system developers and project managers must use to
continually develop and improve SS (Whitten,
2004). This definition is similar to the one proposed
by (Laudon and Laudon, 2004) which establishes
that a development methodology is a collection of
one or more methods for each activity during each
one of the phases of development of a project. We
can establish a relation between PM and SCM and
the principles of the development methodologies, so
that one can visualize the importance of both Man-
agement concepts when it comes to optimizing com-
petitiveness for the SMEs. Table 1 shows the catego-
ries of the principles indicated by (Whitten, 2004) in
relation to PM or SCM respectively, and their im-
portance within the development methodologies
context. The SS development methodologies widely
known like RUP, UP, and, agile methodologies as
SCRUM and XP, among others, normally require a
great amount of resources to be implemented. This is
the reason for which is not so simple to implant
them in the SMEs. Taking into account this reality,
in the future work section will settle down a draft of
the steps to follow to propose methodological as-
pects to the PM and SCM disciplines, to facilitate
their adoption by SMEs.
Table 1: Classification of methodology principles accord-
ing to their relationship to PM and SCM.
PM SCM
Involve owners and users
• Use problem resolution focus
• Establish phases and activities
• Document during the whole devel-
opment process
• Establish standards
• Manage processes and projects
• Justify systems as capital invest-
ment
• Monitor Project scope
• Apply divide and conquer philoso-
phy
• Document the
whole develop-
ment
• Establish stan-
dards
• Manage processes
and projects
• Apply the divide
and conquer phi-
losophy
• Design System
that grow and
change
2.3 PM
Project managers must not only attempt to find the
adequate scope, timeframe, cost and quality; they
must also meet the needs and expectations of the
people involved or affected by the project’s devel-
opment. In order to do this, project managers must
develop a set of skills and competencies that are
outlined in the (PMBOK, 2004) as the areas of
knowledge of project management. There are a total
of 9, and are listed next: (1) project integration
management (2) project scope management, (3)
project time management, (4) project cost man-
agement, (5) project quality management, (6) of
project human resource management, (7) project
communications management, (8) project risks
management and, (9) project supplies management.
The most relevant areas for the SMEs are high-
lighted in bold font above. SMEs must be especially
careful with those disciplines that relate with re-
sources of any kind, be it, human, time, or financial.
This is due to the SMEs limitations regarding access
to these resources. In the case of SMEs specialized
in the SS development (our interest), one may say
that they are able to undertake any of the diverse
kinds of SS development. However, some cases they
may not have access to the necessary resources in
order to finalize big and complex projects. SCM also
plays in important role in SS development as tools to
manage and control the life cycle of the systems’
development. It is closely linked to the process of SS
quality assurance. SCM is essential in the develop-
ment of IT projects. These kinds of projects often
deviate from their original planning, mainly by the
increasing complexity of the SS, the increasing de-
mand of them, and the changing nature of SS devel-
opment projects. These deviations may occur for
different reasons, including variations in the original
requirements. Users may need the product sooner
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