Project Management

Project Benefits
1. Strategtic benefits- Way to gain a competitive advantage
2. Productivity gains- make operations more efficient or remove non value
adding activities from the value chain in order to increase overall
productivity of the bz
3. Management Benefits – Make org more flexible and reactive to its
environment. Give more up-to-date info to managers so that they can make
more agile decisions
4. Operational Benefit- Better management and utilization of resources and
assets
5. Intangible benefits – Improve staff morale or customer satisfaction
6. Functional and support benefits – Other areas of value chain may also see
benefits such as HRM, marketing etc
Scale of benefits
1. Observable – Intangible benefits
2. Measurable – a measure may exist for this benefit, but it may not be
possible to estimate by how much performance will improve. (Increase in
market share)
3.
4. Quantifiable – impact can be estimated before project commences.
(Productivity gains and operational benefits)
5. Financial

Project Plan
- A project plan aims to ensure that the project objectives are achieved
within the constraints of quality, cost and time.
Importance of a PP
 - Communicate what has to be done, when and by whom
- Encourage forward thinking
- Provide the measure of success for the project
- Make clear commitment of time, resources and money reqd for the project
- Determine if targets are achievable
Project Initiation document (PID)
- Contains all the info necessary for the execution of the project
- It will contain the business case document and project plan but is to be
constantly revised and updated throughout the project life to reflect key
changes and project completion phases
- Aimed at ensuring that approved project is successfully completed
- Contents include
1. Purpose statement
2. Project and investment objective
3. Scope statement
4. Project deliverables
5. Cost & time estimates
6. Chain of command
7. Team responsibilities
8. Project gateways, performance measures and results

Project Plan
1. Overview of the Project – Background of the P, Aims and objectives, overall
approach, project outputs (tangible deliverables), project utcomes,
stakeholder analysis, risk analysis, standards, IP rights. (Who will own the IP
created by the project)
2. Project resources- Contain details of the project partners and management
with a brief description of p mgmt. framework – organization, reporting
relationships, decision process, etc
3. Detailed part of the plan – Outlines the project deliverables and reports,
when they are due and the phasing of the work and any dependencies.
4. Evaluation plan – Indicates how to evaluate the quality of the project
outputs and the success of the project.
 5. Dissemination Plan – Explains how the project will share outcomes and
learning with stakeholders.
6. Exit and sustainability plans- Explains what happens to the project outputs
at the end of the project. Focuses on the work needed for project
closedown

Project Sponsor
- Senior member of the management team.
- Job is to direct the project and allow the project manager to manage the
project.
Role of a PS
1. Gatekeeper- Ensure that only projects that support the bz strategy are
started and they are of sufficiently high priority
2. Sponsor and monitor- steering the project by requesting regular meetings
with the project leader and providing advice and guidance
3. Supporter and coach- Providing practical support for the project leader
4. Decision maker - Decisions outside the scope of the project are made by PS
on behalf of the org
5. Problem solver – When the team faces problems that it is unable to solve
or does not have the skills or expertise to solve
6. Resource Negotiator- In cross – functional projects the sponsor may
provide assistance in negotiating resources around the company

Project Manager
- Appointed by the org to lead the team and manage it on a day-to-day basis.
- Job is to deliver the project and to ensure effectiveness and efficiency are
achieved across the entire project
Role
1. Team Leader – Building the team, motivating individuals and ensuring that
the project has a clear purpose and that every core team member
understands that purpose
 2. Planner and coordinator- Ensure that team creates a realistic plan and the
co-ordinate the activities of the team to meet that plan and deal with
changes in a systematic way.
3. Task Manager – Clarify the goals of the project and ensure that every action
is moving the project towards these goals
4. Relationship manager- Take the lead in proactively communicating the
project in an appropriate way to all stakeholders and manage the
relationship with key stakeholders to ensure their needs are being met
5. Problem solver
6. Budget manager- Setting up budget and monitoring its use to ensure the
best use of resources
7. Meeting manager- Managing each project meeting
Problems faced by PM
1. Managing staff who are assigned to the project part-time and have
responsibilities in their home departments
2. Managing relationship with departmental managers who have staff on the
project team
3. Dealing with specialists in areas where manager is not an expert
4. Managing size of the team given variable resource requirements
throughout the project life cycle.

Project Monitoring and Control

PC has 3 elements
1. Setting targets
2. Assessing performance against these targest
3. Taking action if targets are not being met
1. Performance measurements
- Expenditure (COST)- Establishment of budgets and as the project
progresses, decisions regarding procurement, design, development etc will
be assessed with respect to their impacts on expenditure.
- Schedule (TIME) – Schedules will identify all of the project’s stages and
activities assigned to each member, mapping them to a timeline that
measures key milestones that are used to keep track of work progress.
- Functional Quality – Quality of the products or service delivered as a result
of the project
- Technical qlty performance – Technical infrastructure that provides the
foundation for product and service delivery.

Threat Identification of a project

1. Poor management- Many Project leaders will be from technical

backgrounds and they may not have the proper management skills for
controlling large projects. PL should be trained properly so that they have
managerial skills as well as technical skills. ( Regular progress reports and
progress meetings)
2. Poor Planning – Managers have not made use of the various planning
methods available. They have not broken the project down into its various
activities and estimated a time and cost for each.
3. Lack of control mechanisms- Reporting mechanisms and review dates
should be set out in advance. It is essential to be able to monitor the
progress of projects, otherwise it is impossible to decide if they will meet
cost and time budgets. (Ensure progress reporting throughout the project)
4. Unrealistic deadlines- PM should look critically at the deadlines. They
should identify critical activities of the project and ensure that these do
not slip. (Negotiate deadlines w stakeholders)
5. Insufficient Budget – It is important to be objective about what a given
cost budget can produce by way of project outcomes. (Negotiate injection
of resources to complete on time, cost compromises on least critical areas)
6. Moving targets- The project specification keeps changing as the project
progresses. This will add costs and delay to the project.
Key Factors to be considered in reviewing status of the project
1. Time – The progress reports on the project should be reviewed to
determine whether the project is currently on target for completion within
the expected time. An assessment should be made as to whether the
remaining tasks can be completed by the original deadline.
2. Resources- Important to identify the resources that have been allocated to
the project. Assess how sufficient or effective these are for achieving the
project goals
3. Cost – The original budget should be reviewed and compared with actual
costs incurred to date. A sensible estimate of the further costs that will be
incurred in completing the project should then be made.
4. Quality - Review project plan to see if any quality standards were agreed for
the intermediary stages of the project.

PROJECT COMPLETION

PPR (Post project Review)

- It is a one-off exercise at the end of the project with the key objective of
learning lessons and feeding them into org’ project mgmt. processes and
procedures for the benefit of future projects.
- Focuses on the performance of the project
- Typically involves
 Acceptance by client
 Review of output against goals
 Disbanding team and tying up loose ends
 Performance review

PIR (Post Implementation Review)

- Objective is to ensure that maximum benefit is obtained for the org
through the new Project and to make recommendations if the benefits are
not obtained.
- Focuses on the performance of the product of the project.
- Typically involves
 Analysis of Achievement of bz objectives
 Analysis of cost and benefits to fate against forecast
 Areas for further development
 Consistency of project with bz’s overall strategy
 Stakeholder satisfaction