Project Management in Our Contemporary Society

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Project Management in Our Contemporary Society

• Chapter One

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The definition of a Project

• A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a
  unique product or service.
• It is sometimes useful to make distinction
  between terms as project , program, tasks, and
  work packages.
• program? projects ? tasks? work packages? work
  units.
• The project is characterized through its
  attributes.

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Attributes of a project

• Importance
• The most crucial attributes of a project is that
  it must be important enough in the eyes of a
  senior management to justify setting up a special
  organizational unit outside the routine structure
  of the organization.
• If the rest of the organization senses, or even
  suspects, that it is not really important, the
  project is generally doomed to fail.

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Attributes of a project

• Performance
• A project is usually a one-time activity with a
  well-defined set of desired end results.
• It can be divided into subtasks that must be
  accomplished in order to achieve the project
  goals.
• The project is complex enough that the subtasks
  require careful coordination and control in terms
  of timing, precedence, cost and performance.

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Attributes of a project

• Life cycle with finite due date
• Like organic entities , projects have life
  cycles.
• From a slow beginning they progress to a buildup
  of size, then peak, begin to decline and finally
  must be terminated by some due date.( also like
  organic entities, they resist termination)

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Attributes of a project

• Interdependencies
• Projects often interact with other projects being
  carried out simultaneously by their parent
  organization.
• Typically these interactions take the form of
  competition for scarce resources between
  projects.
• Although the functional departments of an
  organization interact with one another in
  regular, patterned ways, the patterns of
  interaction between projects and these
  departments tends to be changeable.
• PM must keep all these interactions clear and
  maintain the appropriate interrelationships with
  all the external groups.

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Attributes of a project

• Uniqueness
• Though the desired end may have been achieved
  elsewhere, they are at least unique to the
  organizations.
• Moreover, every project has some elements that
  are unique to that organization. no 2
  construction or RD projects are precisely
  similar.
• The degree of customization, and the presence of
  risk can alter characteristics in similar
  projects.
• Projects by their nature cannot be completely
  reduced to routine
• The PMs is emphasized because , as a devotee of
  management by exception, the pm will find there
  are a great exceptions to manage by.

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Attributes of a project

• Resources
• Projects have limited budgets, both for personal
  as well as other resources.
• Often the budget is implied rather than detailed,
  particularly concerning personnel, but it is
  strictly limited.

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Attributes of a project

• Conflicts
• More than the mangers, the PM lives in a world of
  characterized by conflicts. Projects compete with
  functional departments for resources and
  personnel.
• More serious, with the growing proliferation of
  projects, is the project-versus-projects
  conflicts for resources within multi project
  organizations.
• The 4 partiesat-interest or stakeholders
  (clients, parents organization, projects team and
  the public) in any project even define success
  and failure in different ways.

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Non projects and Quasi-projects

• The use of manufacturing line to produce a flow
  of standard products is a non project.
• They are all routine
• Quasi projects are those which have a
  Resembling or having a likeness to projects but
  the terms as performance, scheduling and budgets
  are implied in different manner.

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The Project Life Cycle

• Most projects go through similar stages on the
  path from origin to completion.
• There are following for phases in a project,
  collectively called Project life cycle.
• In the initial phase one that is the start-up
  phase or formation ( conception)
• The second stage is the build-up stage or the
  selection stage
• The third is the main program stage or the
  implementation phase which includes all the
  planning, scheduling, monitoring and control
• The final stage is the phase-out stage or the
  termination phase.

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(Figure 1)

• The pattern for the slow-rapid-slow progress
  towards the project goal is common.
• It is the result of the changing levels of
  resources used during the successive stages of
  the life cycle.
• Minimal efforts is required at the beginning ,
  when the project concept is being developed and
  subjected to project selection process.
• Activity increases as planning is completed and
  the real works of the projects gets underway.
• This rises to the peak and then begins to taper
  off as the project nears completion, finally
  ceasing when evaluation is complete and the
  project is terminated

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Figure 2

• While the rise and fall of efforts always occurs,
  there is no particular pattern that seems to
  typify all projects, nor any reason for the
  slowdown at the end of the project to resemble
  the buildup at its beginning.
• Some projects end without being dragged out. That
  is it gradually slows down until one is almost
  surprised to discover that project activity has
  ceased.
• In some cases the effort may never fall to zero
  because the project team may be maintained for a
  next project that comes along.
• The new project will then rise, phoenix- like,
  from the ashes of the old.

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Time-cost Performance in PLC

• The ever-present goals of meeting performance,
  time and cost are the major considerations
  throughout the PLC
• It was generally thought that performance took
  precedence at early phase where planners focus on
  finding the specific methods required to meet the
  projects performance goals.
• At times team members are so consumed with
  improving performance that result in delayed
  schedules and ultimately higher costs.
• At the same time technology of project is
  defined, the project schedule is designed and
  project costs are estimated.
• It is assumed that project cost are of prime
  importance in the high activity stages and
  schedule becomes paramount in the final stages,
  when the client demands delivery
• But recent researches indicate that the above
  assumptions are untrue.
• Performance and scheduling are more important
  than cost during all stages.

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Figure 3

• A particularly important alternative life cycle
  shape can be captured by the analogy of baking a
  cake
• A number of such actual projects prevail in
  computer software projects and chemical
  industries.

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Risk during the life cycle

• It would be a great source of comfort if one
  could predict with certainty, at the start of the
  project, how performance ,cost and scheduling
  would be met.
• Figure 4 as we see the uncertainty can be seen
  at the beginning of the project
• Figure 5 this diagram shows how uncertainty
  decreases as the project moves towards completion
• From the project start point t o, the band of
  uncertainty grows until it is quiet wide by the
  estimated end of the project. As the project
  actually develops, the degree of uncertainty
  about the final outcome is reduced. t1 .
• A later forecast made at t2 , reduces the
  uncertainty further.
• It is common to make new forecasts about project
  performance, time and cost either at fixed
  intervals in the life of the project or when
  specific milestones are reached.