PROJECT MANAGEMENT

INTRODUCTION
What is a project???
 A temporary endeavour undertaken to produce a unique product, service, or result.(1)
 A project is a temporary organization, established by its base organization to carry out an assignment on its behalf.(2)
 A project is a planned set of interrelated tasks to be executed over a fixed period of time within certain costs and other
limitations.
 It is also defined as a problem scheduled for solution.
 This specific nature of projects makes it easy to stay isolated from its environment focusing solely on the delivery of
activities
 A project is an activity that :
-is temporary having a start and end date
-is unique
-brings about change
-has unknown elements, which therefore create risk
 Generally projects are formed to solve a problem or take advantage of an opportunity
 It is the uniqueness of the activity that is the deciding factor – do we do this every year? If so, then it is not truly a project
– although you can use project methods to get it done.

1. PMBOK® Guide, Project Management Institute, 2008, p.5

2. Andersen, E.S. (2008). Rethinking Project Management— An Organisational Perspective. Prentice Hall, Harlow, England.
Characteristics of a project
 Specific
The project must be specific. Being specific includes detailing out the project’s structure, goals, benefits, milestones and costs. All these requires careful planning and inputs from the
project team members involved and if necessary the external consultants or experts. Detailed reporting and planning including command structure, personnel list, communication
avenues, gantt chart and the project’s costing should be drawn up to detail out the project’s responsibilities, timeline, costs and work to be performed by the respective parties.
Periodic project meetings should also be scheduled to discuss relevant matters pertaining to the project and any issues arising therefrom.
 Measurable
A clearly defined project must be measurable in terms of its benefits and achievements. This should not only be in terms of monetary benefits but also other tangible and intangible
benefits derived from the project’s execution. A clear and precise plan devised during the project’s planning stage will enable objective measurements be executed to analyse the
project’s achievements and if any shortcomings.
 Achievable
A project will only be meaningful if it is achievable. Being too ambitious in planning for the project will not be helpful and may result in the project being unachievable. This may
also lead to the project team morale being affected. All these unhealthy things may lead to the project’s costs being overrun and timing of the deliverables being significantly affected.
 Relevant
The project needs to bring relevant benefits to the entity concerned. This may be in the form of reducing its overall production costs, increasing its operational efficiency or other
specific purposes relevant to the entity. If it fails to address this, the project will not be beneficial to the entity and will ultimately result in a waste of resources to the entity and its
stakeholders.
 Time bound
The final ingredient to ensure that becomes clearly defined is that it should be time bound. It means that the project should come with a time frame for its completion including its
planning, development, execution, fine tuning before its full run instead of taking forever to be completed. Any adjustments to this time table should be clearly justified by the parties
involved bearing in mind the costs involved in the project’s execution, opportunity costs and finance costs related to the project.
 Continuous Improvement Projects provide opportunities for continuous improvement and learning, which can be applied to future projects to make them more efficient and
effective.
 A project has a customer.
State examples of projects???
So why do projects fail???
…
Process Project
 Routine process that focuses on a series  Focusses on a desired solution for a
of activities in a variety of locations and specific location
is event driven  Process ends with the project
 Stable team that repeats the process  Temporary team that lasts for one
indefinitely
process cycle
 Repeated work  New, original work
 Annual planning applied to continuous  Time, costs, and scope constraints per
process cycles
process
 Budget fixed with no time boundaries  Difficult to estimate time and budget
Project Management
 Project management is the application of time tested processes, methods, knowledge, skills and
experience to achieve the project’s objective.
 Project management is application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities
to achieve project requirements. Project management is accomplished through the application and
integration of the project management processes of initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and
controlling, and closing.
 Project management helps to answer :
- What are you trying to achieve?
- What resources are available to you?
- How should you plan and organise your work?
- How will you know if you have succeeded?
 The term, project management first appeared in 1953 in the US defence-aerospace sector.(3)
 Today, project management can be seen as a professional discipline with its own body of
knowledge and skills
3. Johnson, S.B. (2013) The Secret of Apollo: Systems Management in American and European Space
…
The Project Manager
 Project management is organizing and directing other people to achieve a planned result within a predetermined schedule and
budget.
 The primary responsibility of the project manager is to ensure that all work is completed on time, within budget and scope, and
at the correct performance level.
 they must understand the mission and vision of the organization; then they must see how the project they are managing meshes
with the organization’s mission; then they must steer the project to ensure that the interests of the organization are met
 Project managers must be effective internally (managing people and resources) and externally (conducting public relations).
 This list identifies a few of these internal responsibilities:
-Developing the project schedule
-Recruiting and training team members
-Assigning work to teams and team members
-Assessing project risks
-Monitoring and controlling project deliverables and milestones
 Major external responsibilities include:
-Reporting the project’s status and progress
-Working directly with the client (the project’s sponsor) and other stakeholders
-Identifying resource needs and obtaining resources
Managing the project team
 The tools and techniques of project management are a necessary but not a sufficient
condition for project success
 There is s the need to turn a project group into a team. Team building
 A primary rule of planning is that those individuals who must implement the plan should
participate in preparing it
 If members are not clear on the team’s mission, they will take the team where they think it
is supposed to go, and that may not be the direction intended by the organization.
 A manager should try to help individual members achieve their personal goals, while
achieving team goals as well,
 A team must deal with four general issues; goals, roles and responsibilities and procedures
and relationships.
 0
…
 To be effective at managing complex situations, project managers need to take a holistic
view of the project and understand how it is situated within the larger environment.
 By taking this holistic view of projects, project managers are better prepared to understand
the external factors that will impact the project.
 the PMBOK® Guide identifies nine knowledge areas that project managers should be
familiar with in order to be considered professionals.
1. Project Integration Management
 Project integration management ensures that the project is properly planned, executed, and
controlled, including the exercise of formal project change control.
 Every activity must be coordinated or integrated with every other one in order to achieve
the desired project outcomes.
…
2. Project Scope Management
 Changes to project scope are often the factors that kill a project.
 Project scope management includes authorizing the job, developing a scope statement that
will define the boundaries of the project, subdividing the work into manageable
components with deliverables, verifying that the amount of work planned has been
achieved, and specifying scope change control procedures.
3. Project Time Management
 Project time management specifically refers to developing a schedule that can be met, then
controlling work to ensure that this happens
 Because everyone refers to this as scheduling, it should really be called schedule
management.
…
4. Project Cost Management
 Project cost management involves estimating the cost of resources, including people,
equipment, materials, and such things as travel and other support details.
 After this is done, costs are budgeted and tracked to keep the project within that budget.
5. Project Quality Management
 One cause of project failure is that quality is overlooked or sacrificed so that a tight
deadline can be met.
 It is not very helpful to complete a project on time, only to discover that the thing
delivered won’t work properly! Project quality management includes both quality
assurance (planning to meet quality requirements) and quality control (steps taken to
monitor results to see if they conform to requirements).
…
6. Project Human Resources Management
 Often overlooked in projects, involves identifying the people needed to do the job;
defining their roles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships; acquiring those people;
and then managing them as the project is executed.
 Note that this topic does not refer to the actual day-to-day managing of people.
7. Project Communications Management
 Involves planning, executing, and controlling the acquisition and dissemination of all
information relevant to the needs of all project stakeholders.
 This information might include project status, accomplishments, and events that may affect
other stakeholders or projects.
 Again, this topic does not deal with the actual process of communicating with someone
…
8. Project Risk Management
 Project risk management is the systematic process of identifying, quantifying, analysing,
and responding to project risk.
 It includes maximizing the probability and consequences of positive events and
minimizing the probability and consequences of adverse events to project objectives.
9. Project Procurement Management
 Procurement of necessary goods and services for the project is the logistics aspect of
managing a job.
 Project procurement management involves deciding what must be procured, issuing
requests for bids or quotations, selecting vendors, administering contracts, and closing
them when the job is finished
PM Models
 Several project management models exist.
 A simple project management model created by Mike Bell includes five key elements:
scope, inputs, project, risks and outputs.(4)
 The scope sets the boundaries for the project implementation.
 Inputs should be made based on the needs.
 The project is broken into five phases: initiation, planning, approval, delivery and closure.
 The outputs focus on what will be delivered and are split into outputs and outcomes
ASSIGNMENT 1
It is people who deliver projects, not processes or systems. Discuss. (15)

4. Bell, M. (2013) Effective and Efficient Project Management – A simple approach to structuring, runni
ng