Clearly Defining the Project Mov Project Scope and Timely Project Reviews Can Reduce the Risk of a
Main Body
2. Project Management Overview
The starting point in discussing how projects should be properly managed is to first empathise what a project is and, only as importantly, what information technology is not.
People have been undertaking projects since the earliest days of organized human activity. The hunting parties of our prehistoric ancestors were projects, for case; they were temporary undertakings directed at the goal of obtaining meat for the community. Large circuitous projects accept as well been with u.s. for a long time. The pyramids and the Great Wall of China were in their day of roughly the same dimensions as the Apollo project to transport men to the moon. We use the term "projection" ofttimes in our daily conversations. A hubby, for instance may tell his wife, "My primary projection for this weekend is to straighten out the garage." Going hunting, building pyramids, and fixing faucets all share certain features that make them projects.
Project Attributes
A projection has distinctive attributes that distinguish information technology from ongoing work or business operations. Projects are temporary in nature. They are not an everyday business organization procedure and have definitive showtime dates and end dates. This feature is important considering a large part of the project try is dedicated to ensuring that the project is completed at the appointed time. To do this, schedules are created showing when tasks should begin and end. Projects can last minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years.
Projects be to bring about a product or service that hasn't existed before. In this sense, a project is unique. Unique means that this is new; this has never been done before. Possibly it'due south been done in a very similar fashion earlier but never exactly in this way. For example, Ford Motor Company is in the business of designing and assembling cars. Each model that Ford designs and produces can exist considered a project. The models differ from each other in their features and are marketed to people with diverse needs. An SUV serves a unlike purpose and clientele than a luxury motorcar. The design and marketing of these two models are unique projects. Withal, the actual assembly of the cars is considered an operation (i.e., a repetitive procedure that is followed for most makes and models).
In contrast with projects, operations are ongoing and repetitive. They involve work that is continuous without an ending date and with the aforementioned processes repeated to produce the same results. The purpose of operations is to go on the organisation functioning while the purpose of a project is to meet its goals and conclude. Therefore, operations are ongoing while projects are unique and temporary.
A project is completed when its goals and objectives are accomplished. It is these goals that drive the project, and all the planning and implementation efforts undertaken to attain them. Sometimes projects terminate when it is adamant that the goals and objectives cannot be accomplished or when the product or service of the project is no longer needed and the project is cancelled.
Definition of a Project
At that place are many written definitions of a project. All of them contain the central elements described higher up. For those looking for a formal definition of a project, the Project Management Institute (PMI) defines a project as a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. The temporary nature of projects indicates a definite beginning and stop. The stop is reached when the projection's objectives have been achieved or when the project is terminated because its objectives will not or cannot be met, or when the need for the projection no longer exists.
Project Characteristics
When considering whether or not you lot have a projection on your hands, in that location are some things to go along in mind. First, is it a project or an ongoing performance? Second, if it is a project, who are the stakeholders? And third, what characteristics distinguish this endeavor as a project?
Projects have several characteristics:
- Projects are unique.
- Projects are temporary in nature and have a definite offset and ending date.
- Projects are completed when the project goals are accomplished or it's determined the projection is no longer viable.
A successful project is one that meets or exceeds the expectations of the stakeholders.
Consider the following scenario: The vice-president (VP) of marketing approaches yous with a fabulous thought. (Patently it must exist "fabulous" considering he idea of it.) He wants to fix kiosks in local grocery stores as mini-offices. These offices will offer customers the ability to sign up for car and home insurance services as well as make their bill payments. He believes that the exposure in grocery stores volition increment awareness of the company'southward offerings. He told yous that senior direction has already cleared the project, and he'll dedicate every bit many resource to this as he tin can. He wants the new kiosks in place in 12 selected stores in a major city by the finish of the year. Finally, he has assigned you to head up this project.
Your first question should be, "Is it a project?" This may seem unproblematic, merely confusing projects with ongoing operations happens often. Projects are temporary in nature, accept definite start and finish dates, result in the creation of a unique product or service, and are completed when their goals and objectives accept been met and signed off by the stakeholders.
Using these criteria, allow'south examine the consignment from the VP of marketing to determine if information technology is a project:
- Is information technology unique? Yes, because the kiosks don't be in the local grocery stores. This is a new way of offer the company's services to its client base. While the service the visitor is offering isn't new, the mode information technology is presenting its services is.
- Does the product take a limited timeframe? Aye, the showtime date of this project is today, and the end date is the end of next year. It is a temporary endeavor.
- Is there a way to determine when the project is completed? Yes, the kiosks will exist installed and the services will be offered from them. In one case all the kiosks are installed and operating, the projection will come up to a close.
- Is at that place a fashion to determine stakeholder satisfaction? Yes, the expectations of the stakeholders will be documented in the form of requirements during the planning processes. These requirements will be compared to the finished product to determine if it meets the expectations of the stakeholder.
If the respond is aye to all these questions, so we have a project.
The Process of Project Direction
You've adamant that you have a project. What now? The notes you scribbled downward on the back of the napkin at dejeuner are a start, simply not exactly good projection management exercise. Likewise oftentimes, organizations follow Nike'due south advice when information technology comes to managing projects when they "just exercise it." An assignment is made, and the projection team members leap directly into the development of the product or service requested. In the terminate, the delivered product doesn't meet the expectations of the customer. Unfortunately, many projects follow this poorly constructed path, and that is a primary contributor to a large percentage of projects not meeting their original objectives, equally divers past performance, schedule, and budget.
In the United States, more $250 billion is spent each year on information technology (IT) application development in approximately 175,000 projects. The Standish Group (a Boston-based leader in project and value operation research) released the summary version of their 2009 CHAOS Report that tracks project failure rates across a wide range of companies and industries (Effigy 2.i).
Jim Johnson, chairman of the Standish Group, has stated that "this year'due south results prove a marked decrease in project success rates, with 32% of all projects succeeding which are delivered on fourth dimension, on budget, with required features and functions, 44% were challenged-which are belatedly, over upkeep, and/or with less than the required features and functions and 24% failed which are cancelled prior to completion or delivered and never used."
When are companies going to stop wasting billions of dollars on failed projects? The vast majority of this waste is completely avoidable: simply get the correct business needs (requirements) understood early in the process and ensure that project direction techniques are applied and followed, and the project activities are monitored.
Applying skilful project direction discipline is the style to assist reduce the risks. Having practiced project management skills does not completely eliminate issues, risks, or surprises. The value of good project management is that you lot accept standard processes in identify to deal with all contingencies.
Projection management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques applied to project activities in gild to meet the projection requirements. Project management is a process that includes planning, putting the project plan into action, and measuring progress and performance.
Managing a projection includes identifying your projection'southward requirements and writing down what everyone needs from the project. What are the objectives for your projection? When everyone understands the goal, it's much easier to keep them all on the right path. Make sure yous gear up goals that anybody agrees on to avoid squad conflicts afterward. Understanding and addressing the needs of anybody affected past the project means the terminate upshot of your projection is far more likely to satisfy your stakeholders. Last but non least, equally project manager, you volition besides be balancing the many competing project constraints.
On any projection, you will take a number of project constraints that are competing for your attention. They are cost, telescopic, quality, risk, resource, and fourth dimension.
- Cost is the upkeep canonical for the project including all necessary expenses needed to deliver the projection. Within organizations, project managers have to rest betwixt not running out of money and not underspending because many projects receive funds or grants that have contract clauses with a "use information technology or lose information technology" approach to project funds. Poorly executed budget plans can result in a last-minute rush to spend the allocated funds. For virtually all projects, cost is ultimately a limiting constraint; few projects can go over budget without eventually requiring a corrective action.
- Scope is what the project is trying to achieve. It entails all the work involved in delivering the project outcomes and the processes used to produce them. It is the reason and the purpose of the project.
- Quality is a combination of the standards and criteria to which the project's products must be delivered for them to perform effectively. The product must perform to provide the functionality expected, solve the identified problem, and evangelize the benefit and value expected. It must likewise run into other performance requirements, or service levels, such as availability, reliability, and maintainability, and have adequate cease and polish. Quality on a project is controlled through quality balls (QA), which is the process of evaluating overall project functioning on a regular ground to provide conviction that the projection volition satisfy the relevant quality standards.
- Gamble is divers past potential external events that will have a negative impact on your project if they occur. Chance refers to the combination of the probability the effect volition occur and the touch on the projection if the event occurs. If the combination of the probability of the occurrence and the impact on the project is too high, yous should identify the potential outcome as a risk and put a proactive plan in place to manage the chance.
- Resource are required to carry out the project tasks. They tin be people, equipment, facilities, funding, or annihilation else capable of definition (unremarkably other than labour) required for the completion of a project activity.
- Time is defined every bit the time to consummate the project. Time is often the most frequent projection oversight in developing projects. This is reflected in missed deadlines and incomplete deliverables. Proper control of the schedule requires the conscientious identification of tasks to be performed and accurate estimations of their durations, the sequence in which they are going to exist done, and how people and other resources are to be allocated. Whatever schedule should take into account vacations and holidays.
You lot may have heard of the term "triple constraint," which traditionally consisted of only time, cost, and telescopic. These are the primary competing projection constraints that you have to be about aware of. The triple constraint is illustrated in the form of a triangle to visualize the project work and run across the relationship betwixt the scope/quality, schedule/fourth dimension, and toll/resource (Figure 2.2). In this triangle, each side represents 1 of the constraints (or related constraints) wherein any changes to any one side cause a alter in the other sides. The best projects have a perfectly balanced triangle. Maintaining this residual is difficult because projects are decumbent to change. For case, if scope increases, cost and fourth dimension may increase disproportionately. Alternatively, if the amount of money yous have for your project decreases, yous may exist able to do as much, only your time may increase.
Your project may have additional constraints that you must face up, and equally the project manager, you have to balance the needs of these constraints against the needs of the stakeholders and your project goals. For instance, if your sponsor wants to add functionality to the original scope, you will very likely need more money to finish the projection, or if they cut the budget, you will have to reduce the quality of your scope, and if you don't go the appropriate resources to work on your projection tasks, y'all will accept to extend your schedule considering the resources y'all have take much longer to finish the work.
Yous get the idea; the constraints are all dependent on each other. Retrieve of all of these constraints every bit the classic carnival game of Whac-a-mole (Figure 2.3). Each time you try to push button one mole back in the hole, another 1 pops out. The all-time advice is to rely on your projection team to continue these moles in identify.
Hither is an case of a projection that cut quality because the project costs were fixed. The P-36 oil platform (Figure 2.4) was the largest footing production platform in the world capable of processing 180,000 barrels of oil per 24-hour interval and 5.ii meg cubic metres of gas per 24-hour interval. Located in the Roncador Field, Campos Basin, Brazil, the P-36 was operated past Petrobras.
In March 2001, the P-36 was producing around 84,000 barrels of oil and 1.3 million cubic metres of gas per twenty-four hours when it became destabilized past two explosions and subsequently sank in 3,900 feet of water with 1,650 short tons of crude oil remaining on board, killing 11 people. The sinking is attributed to a consummate failure in quality assurance, and pressure level for increased product led to corners beingness cutting on safety procedures. Information technology is listed as one of the most expensive accidents with a price tag of $515,000,000.
The following quotes are from a Petrobras executive, citing the benefits of cut quality assurance and inspection costs on the project.
"Petrobras has established new global benchmarks for the generation of infrequent shareholder wealth through an aggressive and innovative program of cost cutting on its P36 product facility."
"Conventional constraints have been successfully challenged and replaced with new paradigms appropriate to the globalized corporate market place place."
"Elimination of these unnecessary straitjackets has empowered the projection's suppliers and contractors to propose highly economical solutions, with the win-win bonus of enhanced profitability margins for themselves."
"The P36 platform shows the shape of things to come in the unregulated global market economic system of the 21st century."
The dynamic merchandise-offs between the project constraint values have been humorously and accurately described in Figure 2.5.
Project Direction Expertise
In society for y'all, every bit the project manager, to manage the competing project constraints and the project as a whole, in that location are some areas of expertise you should bring to the project team (Figure 2.11). They are noesis of the awarding expanse and the standards and regulations in your industry, understanding of the project environment, general management noesis and skills, and interpersonal skills. It should be noted that industry expertise is not in a certain field but the expertise to run the projection. So while knowledge of the type of manufacture is important, you volition have a projection squad supporting y'all in this endeavor. For example, if y'all are managing a project that is building an oil platform, you would not be expected to have a detailed understanding of the engineering science since your squad will have mechanical and civil engineers who will provide the appropriate expertise; still, it would definitely help if you understood this blazon of work.
Let'southward take a await at each of these areas in more detail.
Awarding knowledge
By standards, we mean guidelines or preferred approaches that are non necessarily mandatory. In contrast, when referring to regulations nosotros mean mandatory rules that must be followed, such as government-imposed requirements through laws. Information technology should go without maxim that as a professional, you're required to follow all applicative laws and rules that utilize to your industry, organization, or project. Every industry has standards and regulations. Knowing which ones bear on your project before y'all begin piece of work volition non only assist the project to unfold smoothly, but will also permit for constructive chance analysis.
Some projects require specific skills in certain application areas. Application areas are made upwards of categories of projects that have common elements. They tin be defined by industry group (pharmaceutical, financial, etc.), department (accounting, marketing, legal, etc.), technology (software evolution, engineering, etc), or management specialties (procurement, inquiry and development, etc.). These application areas are usually concerned with disciplines, regulations, and the specific needs of the projection, the client, or the industry. For example, most government agencies have specific procurement rules that apply to their projects that wouldn't be applicable in the construction industry. The pharmaceutical manufacture is interested in regulations set up forth by government regulators, whereas the automotive industry has little or no business organization for either of these types of regulations. You demand to stay upward-to-date regarding your manufacture so that you can utilise your noesis finer. Today'southward fast-paced advances tin leave you backside adequately apace if you lot don't stay abreast of current trends.
Having some level of experience in the application area you're working in will give you an advantage when it comes to project management. While you can phone call in experts who have the awarding area knowledge, information technology doesn't hurt for you to understand the specific aspects of the application areas of your project.
Understanding the Project Environment
There are many factors that demand to be understood within your project surround (Figure 2.7). At i level, you need to think in terms of the cultural and social environments (i.due east., people, demographics, and education). The international and political environment is where yous need to empathise about different countries' cultural influences. Then we move to the physical environment; here we think about fourth dimension zones. Think about dissimilar countries and how differently your project volition be executed whether information technology is just in your country or if it involves an international project team that is distributed throughout the world in five different countries.
Of all the factors, the physical ones are the easiest to understand, and it is the cultural and international factors that are oftentimes misunderstood or ignored. How nosotros deal with clients, customers, or project members from other countries can be critical to the success of the project. For example, the culture of the Us values accomplishments and individualism. Americans tend to be informal and call each other past first names, even if having but met. Europeans tend to be more formal, using surnames instead of outset names in a business setting, even if they know each other well. In addition, their communication way is more formal than in the U.s.a., and while they tend to value individualism, they also value history, bureaucracy, and loyalty. The Japanese, on the other hand, tend to communicate indirectly and consider themselves office of a grouping, not as individuals. The Japanese value hard work and success, as nearly of us exercise.
How a product is received can be very dependent on the international cultural differences. For example, in the 1990s, when many large American and European telecommunications companies were cultivating new markets in Asia, their customer's cultural differences ofttimes produced unexpected situations. Western companies planned their telephone systems to work the same style in Asia every bit they did in Europe and the United States. But the protocol of conversation was different. Call-waiting, a popular characteristic in the Due west, is considered impolite in some parts of Asia. This cultural blunder could have been avoided had the squad captured the project surroundings requirements and involved the customer.
It is often the simplest things that tin cause trouble since, unsurprisingly, in different countries, people do things differently. One of the nigh notorious examples of this is as well 1 of the most simple: date formats. What day and month is 2/8/2009? Of course information technology depends where you come from; in North America it is Feb 8th while in Europe (and much of the rest of the world) it is second August. Clearly, when schedules and deadlines are being defined it is of import that everyone is articulate on the format used.
The diverseness of practices and cultures and its touch on products in general and on software in particular goes well beyond the date consequence. You may be managing a project to create a new website for a company that sells products worldwide. There are language and presentation way problems to take into consideration; converting the site into different languages isn't enough. It is obvious that y'all need to ensure the translation is correct; however, the presentation layer will have its own set of requirements for dissimilar cultures. The left side of a website may be the get-go focus of attending for a Canadian; the right side would be the initial focus for anyone from the Middle East, as both Arabic and Hebrew are written from right to left. Colors also accept dissimilar meanings in unlike cultures. White, which is a sign of purity in Due north America (east.g., a bride's hymeneals dress), and thus would be a favoured background colour in North America, signifies death in Japan (eastward.g., a burial shroud). Tabular array 2.one summarizes different meanings of common colours.
| Colour | United States | China | Nippon | Egypt | France |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crimson | Danger, stop | Happiness | Acrimony, danger | Death | Aristocracy |
| Blue | Sadness, melancholy | Heavens, clouds | Villainy | Virtue, faith, truth | Freedom, peace |
| Green | Novice, apprentice | Ming dynasty, heavens | Future, youth, energy | Fertility, strength | Misdeed |
| Yellowish | Cowardice | Birth, wealth | Grace, nobility | Happiness, prosperity | Temporary |
| White | Purity | Death, purity | Expiry | Joy | Naturality |
Project managers in multicultural projects must appreciate the culture dimensions and try to acquire relevant customs, courtesies, and business protocols before taking responsibility for managing an international project. A project manager must take into consideration these various cultural influences and how they may affect the project's completion, schedule, scope, and cost.
Management Cognition and Skills
As the project manager, you have to rely on your project direction knowledge and your general management skills. Here, nosotros are thinking of items like your ability to plan the project, execute information technology properly, and of course control it and bring it to a successful determination, forth with your ability to guide the project team to achieve projection objectives and balance projection constraints.
There is more to project management than simply getting the work done. Inherent in the process of project management are the general direction skills that allow the project director to complete the project with some level of efficiency and control. In some respects, managing a project is similar to running a business organization: there are risk and rewards, finance and accounting activities, homo resources problems, time management, stress management, and a purpose for the project to exist. General management skills are needed in every projection.
Interpersonal Skills
Last only not least yous also have to bring the power into the projection to manage personal relationships and deal with personnel issues as they ascend. Hither were talking about your interpersonal skills every bit shown in Effigy ii.viii.
Communication
Projection managers spend 90% of their fourth dimension communicating. Therefore they must be good communicators, promoting clear, unambiguous exchange of information. As a project managing director, it is your job to go along a number of people well informed. It is essential that your project staff know what is expected of them: what they have to do, when they have to do information technology, and what budget and time constraints and quality specifications they are working toward. If project staff members do not know what their tasks are, or how to accomplish them, then the entire project will grind to a halt. If y'all do non know what the project staff is (or often is not) doing, then you will exist unable to monitor project progress. Finally, if yous are uncertain of what the client expects of you, then the project volition not even go off the ground. Projection communication tin thus be summed upward as knowing "who needs what information and when" and making sure they have it.
All projects crave sound communication plans, just non all projects will take the same types of communication or the same methods for distributing the information. For example, will information exist distributed via post or email, is there a shared website, or are face-to-face meetings required? The advice management plan documents how the communication needs of the stakeholders will be met, including the types of information that volition exist communicated, who will communicate them, and who will receive them; the methods used to communicate; the timing and frequency of communication; the method for updating the plan equally the project progresses, including the escalation process; and a glossary of mutual terms.
Influence
Projection management is about getting things done. Every organization is different in its policies, modes of operations, and underlying culture. There are political alliances, differing motivations, conflicting interests, and power struggles. A project director must understand all of the unspoken influences at work within an system.
Leadership
Leadership is the ability to motivate and inspire individuals to work toward expected results. Leaders inspire vision and rally people around mutual goals. A expert project manager can motivate and inspire the project team to see the vision and value of the project. The project manager as a leader can inspire the projection team to discover a solution to overcome perceived obstacles to become the work done.
Motivation
Motivation helps people work more efficiently and produce better results. Motivation is a abiding process that the projection manager must guide to help the squad move toward completion with passion and a profound reason to complete the piece of work. Motivating the team is accomplished by using a variety of team-building techniques and exercises. Team building is but getting a various group of people to piece of work together in the nigh efficient and effective manner possible. This may involve management events as well equally private actions designed to improve team functioning.
Recognition and rewards are an important part of team motivations. They are formal means of recognizing and promoting desirable behaviour and are most constructive when carried out by the management squad and the project director. Consider individual preferences and cultural differences when using rewards and recognition. Some people don't like to exist recognized in front of a group; others thrive on it.
Negotiation
Project managers must negotiate for the good of the project. In any projection, the projection manager, the project sponsor, and the projection squad will accept to negotiate with stakeholders, vendors, and customers to reach a level of agreement acceptable to all parties involved in the negotiation procedure.
Problem Solving
Problem solving is the power to sympathize the heart of a problem, look for a viable solution, and then make a decision to implement that solution. The starting bespeak for trouble solving is problem definition. Problem definition is the ability to sympathize the cause and effect of the problem; this centres on root-cause analysis. If a project manager treats only the symptoms of a problem rather than its cause, the symptoms will perpetuate and proceed through the project life. Even worse, treating a symptom may outcome in a greater trouble. For example, increasing the ampere rating of a fuse in your machine considering the old one keeps blowing does not solve the trouble of an electrical short that could result in a fire. Root-cause assay looks beyond the immediate symptoms to the cause of the symptoms, which and then affords opportunities for solutions. Once the root of a problem has been identified, a determination must be made to effectively accost the problem.
Solutions can exist presented from vendors, the project squad, the project managing director, or various stakeholders. A feasible solution focuses on more than simply the trouble; information technology looks at the crusade and upshot of the solution itself. In addition, a timely determination is needed or the window of opportunity may pass and then a new determination will exist needed to address the problem. Equally in most cases, the worst thing you lot can do is cypher.
All of these interpersonal skills will be used in all areas of projection management. Showtime practicing at present because it's guaranteed that you lot'll need these skills on your next projection.
Paradigm Descriptions
Figure ii.5 image description: The sign says, "We can exercise good, quick, and cheap work. You lot tin can have whatever 2 but not all three. one. Good, quick work won't be inexpensive. ii. Good, cheap work won't be quick. 3. Quick, cheap work won't be practiced." [Return to Effigy 2.five]
Text Attributions
- This chapter of Project Management is a derivative of Project Management by Merrie Barron and Andrew Barron. © CC Past (Attribution).
- Table ii.1: Adapted from P. Russo and Southward. Churl, How Fluent is Your Interface? Designing for International Users, Proceedings of the INTERACT '93 and CHI '93, Association for Calculating Machinery, Inc. (1993). Table from Barron & Barron Project Management for Scientists and Engineers, Source: Project Management for Scientists and Engineers by Merrie Barron; Andrew R. Barron
Source: https://opentextbc.ca/projectmanagement/chapter/chapter-2-what-is-a-project-project-management/
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