Project Management

Systems approach
 Systems Approach
• Systems approach is a management perspective which advocates that any business
problem should be seen as system as a whole which is made up of an hierarchy of
sub-systems.

• So rather than seeing the problem in parts it should be seen as whole.

• Systems approach can be applied to all the business domains like administration,
insurance, banking, hospitality etc.

• Though it defines system as a whole but it keeps focus on the subsystems and
components as well on their role in the entire system.
Systems and System Environment
Systems concepts
and principles
System structure
• Elements and subsystems are linked together by relationships.
• The form taken by the relationships is referred to as the structure of the system.
• The functioning and effectiveness of a system is largely determined by the
“appropriateness” of the structure to the system’s objective or purpose.
• Most complex systems have hierarchical structures consisting of organized levels.
System structure

Inputs, process, outputs, interfaces

System structure
• Constraints and conflicts
• All systems have constraints or limitations that inhibit their ability to reach goals and
objectives.
• Often the constraints are imposed by the environment. Time and money are two
universal constraints in projects.
• The weather and economy are two environmental constraints.

• System integration
• For a system to achieve its goal, all of its elements, the “assemblage of parts,” must work
in unison.
• Designing, implementing, and operating a system that achieves its objectives and
requirements through the coordinated (so-called “seamless”) functioning of its elements
and subsystems is called system integration.
Component of a System
Defining A Project Management System
• The Facilitative Organizational Subsystem or the organizational arrangement that is
used to superimpose the project teams on the functional structure.
• The resulting “matrix” organization portrays the formal authority and responsibility
patterns and the personal reporting relationships aimed at providing an organizational
focal point for starting and completing specific projects.
• Two complementary organizational units tend to emerge in such an organizational
context: The project team and the functional units.

• The Project Planning Subsystem which deals with the selection of projects, identification
of project objectives and goals, and the formulation of the strategy by which these
objectives and goals will be accomplished.
• Project plans prescribe both the ends and the means for successful project accomplishment.
The project plan deals with how resources will be allocated to support the project drawing
upon organizational resources wherever located.
• The Project Management Information Subsystem contains the intelligence essential to the
effective control of the projects.
• This subsystem may be informal in nature — consisting of periodic meetings with the project
participants who report information on the status of their project work — or a formal information
retrieval system that provides frequent “printouts” of what is going on.
• This subsystem provides the intelligence to enable the project team members to make and
implement decisions in the management of the project.

• The Project Control Subsystem provides for the selection of performance standards for
the project schedule, budget, and technical performance.
• This subsystem deals with information feedback to compare actual progress with planned
progress and the initiation of corrective action as required.
• The rationale for a control subsystem arises out of the need for monitoring the various
organizational units that are performing work on the project in order to deliver results on
time and within budget.
• Techniques and Methodology is not really a subsystem in the sense that the term
subsystem is used here.
• Techniques and methodology such as: PERT, CPM, PERT-Cost related scheduling
techniques, modeling, simulation, linear programming, regression analysis, and such
management science techniques which help to evaluate the risk and uncertainty factors
in making project decisions.

• The Cultural * Ambience Subsystem in which project management is practiced in the

organization.
• Much of the nature of the cultural ambience can be described in how the people — the
social groups — feel about the way in which project management is being carried out in
the organization.
• This ambience influences how people act and react, how they think, feel, and what they
say in the organization, all of which ultimately determines what is taken for socially
acceptable behavior in the organization.
Project management: a systems approach

• Project management is a systems approach to management: its

focus is on achieving the overall mission and objectives of the
project, it emphasizes decisions that optimize the overall project
rather than the elements of the project, and it recognizes
interaction and synergy among working elements of the project.
 A SYSTEM/SYSTEMS APPROACH

A dictionary definition of a system as an ‘organization or complex whole;

an assemblage or combination of things or parts forming a complex
or unitary whole’, provides a good point of departure to relate the meaning
of a system to project management.

The INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook defines a system as: …an

integrated set of elements, subsystems, or assemblies that
accomplish a defined objective.
 A SYSTEM/SYSTEMS APPROACH

Effectiveness of the PMS depends on the effectiveness of the constituent

elements individually, as well as on how these elements are synergized
into the PMS, since it operates as an entity. It is the way in which PMS
works in its environment that ultimately determines its success or failure.

Systems produce outcomes as a function of not only the contribution by

individual elements, but also the result of all interactions between all elements.
Requirement: SYSTEMS APPROACH
Requirement: SYSTEMS APPROACH
SYSTEMS APPROACH: SUB-SYSTEMS IN Project
Management System
SYSTEMS APPROACH: SUB-SYSTEMS IN Project
Management System
SYSTEMS APPROACH: SUB-SYSTEMS IN Project
Management System
SYSTEMS APPROACH: SUB-SYSTEMS IN Project
Management System
Further reading

• Defining a project management system - Systems Approach (pmi.org)

• Project Management- Pure, Functional, And Matrix Project; Statement Of Work & Work Breakdown Structure | Business talk
(wordpress.com)
• Basic forms of project organisation | IAPM