Chapter one

Introduction to Project Management

Prepared by:
Dr. Aburaki Osman Ahmed
Adapted from
Dennis Lock, Project Management,
Version 7.
 Chapter Contents
• What is the project?
• Definition of Project Management.
• Common Characteristics of the Project.
• Purposes of Project Management.
• Different types of Projects.
• Project Life Cycle.
 What is a project
• A project is something that has:
• a definite start
• objectives
• a budget
• resources
• a definite finish.
Definition of Project Management
• Project management has evolved to plan,
coordinate and control the complex and
diverse activities of modern industrial,
commercial and management change and IT
projects.
 Common Characteristics of the Project
1. Novelty:
- A project is likely different from any thing done before.
- No two projects are ever exactly alike: even a repeated
project will differ from its predecessor in one or more
commercial, administrative or physical aspects.
2. Risk and uncertainty:
The ever-present element of risk and uncertainty means
that the events and tasks leading to completion can
never be foretold with absolute accuracy.
 Purpose of Project Management
• The purpose of project management is to foresee or
predict as many of the dangers and problems as possible
and to plan, organize and control activities so that projects
are completed successfully in spite of all the risks.
• This process should start well before any resource is
committed, and must continue until all work is finished.
• The primary aim of the project manager is for the result to
satisfy the project sponsor or purchaser and all the other
principal stakeholders, within the promised timescale and
without using more money and other resources than
those that were originally set aside or budgeted.
Different types of Projects
 Project Life Cycle
• Definition of project life cycle: The period between the beginning and end
of a project is usually referred to as the project life cycle.
• We call it as life cycle because:
• begins with a customer
• passes to a contractor, and
• when finished is handed back to the customer.
• There are 3 key Players in the project life cycle:
1. The customer (in some projects known as the client) is the person or organization
that wants to buy the project and put the end product to use in its own business or
sell (or lease) it on to a third party.
2. The contractor is the organization principally responsible to the
customer for carrying out the project work.
3. The project manager is a person employed by the contractor (or
occasionally by the customer) to plan and manage all the project activities
so that the project is finished on time, within budget and within its
specification.
 Project Life Cycle
A) Simple life cycle view:
• The project begins with the authorization of
work on the project (or signing of a customer-
contractor contract)up to the handover of the
desired product to the customer.
• Advantages: Good for simple, small projects.
• disadvantages: too simplistic because it ignores
everything that happens before the start of
actual work, and also takes no account of what
happens to the project after its delivery to the
customer.
Simple view of Project Life Cycle
 Project life cycle
B) Comprehensive view of Project life cycle: Project
life history (we call it life history because it involve
early concept of the project pass through
contractor implementation, handover to client and
till the disposal of the product that created.)
In the big capital projects specially the projects that
involve many stake holders and public sectors’
projects the six phases of simple life cycle can be
grown into 15 identifiable phases as follows:
Project life history
• Gantt chart is a graphical presentation of
activitities, and the time taken by each
activity, and the total time of the whole
activities of the project