Dr. NICHOLAS WATSON

disaster, the expansion of sales into a new geographic market — all are projects. And all must be expertly managed to deliver the on-time, on-budget results, learning and integration that organizations need. 

 

The Attributes of a Project....

 

• –  has a unique purpose

• –  is temporary

• –Is developed using progressive elaboration

• –Requires resources, often from various areas

• –It involves uncertainty

 

Project management, then, is the application of knowledge, skills and techniques to execute projects effectively and efficiently. It’s a strategic competency for organizations, enabling them to tie project results to business goals — and thus, better compete in their markets.

 

Project management in the modern sense began in the early 1950s, although it has its roots further back in the latter years of the 19th century. The driver for project management was businesses realising the benefits of organising work around projects and the critical need to communicate and co-ordinate work across departments and professions.

Many organisations don't employ full-time project managers and it is common to pull together a project team to meet a specific need. While many people may not have formal skills in a project methodology, taking a role in a project team is an excellent learning opportunity and can improve a person's career profile.

 

Here is the main definition of what project management is:

 

• Project management is no small task.

• Project management has a definite beginning and end. It is not a continuous process.

• Project management uses various tools to measure accomplishments and track project tasks. These include Work Breakdown Structures, Gantt charts and PERT charts.

• Projects frequently need resources on an ad-hoc basis as opposed to organisations that have only dedicated full-time positions.

• Project management reduces risk and increases the chance of success.

 

Project management is often summarised in a triangle (see Figure 1). The three most important factors are time, cost and scope, commonly called the triple constraint. These form the vertices with quality as a central theme.

 

 

 

Figure 1: The triple constraint

• Projects must be within cost.

• Projects must be delivered on time.

• Projects must be within scope.

• Projects must meet customer quality requirements.

 

More recently, this has given way to a project management diamond, with cost, time, scope and quality the four vertices and customer expectations as a central theme (see Figure 2). No two customer expectations are the same so you must ask what their expectations are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 2: The project management diamond

 

A project goes through six phases during its life:

• Project Definition: Defining the goals, objectives and critical success factors for the project.

• Project Initiation: Everything that is needed to set-up the project before work can start.

• Project Planning: Detailed plans of how the work will be carried out including time, cost and resource estimates.

• Project Execution: Doing the work to deliver the product, service or desired outcome.

• Project Monitoring & Control: Ensuring that a project stays on track and taking corrective action to ensure it does.

• Project Closure: Formal acceptance of the deliverables and disbanding of all the elements that were required to run the project.

 

The role of the project manager is one of great responsibility. It is the project manager's job to direct, supervise and control the project from beginning to end. Project managers should not carry out project work, managing the project is enough. Here are some of the activities that must be undertaken:

 

• The project manager must define the project, reduce it to a set of manageable tasks, obtain appropriate resources and build a team to perform the work.

• The project manager must set the final goal for the project and motivate his or her team to complete the project on time.

• The project manager must inform all stakeholders of progress on a regular basis.

• The project manager must assess and monitor risks to the project and mitigate them.

• No project ever goes exactly as planned, so project managers must learn to adapt to and manage change.

 

A project manager must have a range of skills including:

 

• Leadership;

• People management (customers, suppliers, functional managers and project team);

• Effective communication (verbal and written);

• Influencing;

• Negotiation;

• Conflict management;

• Planning;

• Contract management;

• Estimating;

• Problem solving;

• Creative thinking; and

• Time management.

 

"Project managers bear ultimate responsibility for making things happen. Traditionally, they have carried out this role as mere implementers. To do their jobs they needed to have basic administrative and technical competencies. Today they play a far broader role. In addition to the traditional skills, they need to have business skills, customer relations skills, and political skills. Psychologically, they must be results-oriented self-starters with a high tolerance for ambiguity, because little is clear-cut in today's tumultuous business environment. Shortcomings in any of these areas can lead to project failure." - J. Davidson Frame

Many things can go wrong in project management. These things are often called barriers. Here are some possible barriers:

 

• Poor communication;

• Disagreement;

• Misunderstandings;

• Bad weather;

• Union strikes;

• Personality conflicts;

• Poor management; and

• Poorly defined goals and objectives.

 

A good project management discipline will not eliminate all risks, issues and surprises, but will provide standard processes and procedures to deal with them and help prevent the following:

 

• Projects finishing late, exceeding budget or not meeting customer expectations.

• Inconsistency between the processes and procedures used by projects managers, leading to some being favoured more than others.

• Successful projects, despite a lack of planning, achieved through high stress levels, goodwill and significant amounts of overtime.

• Project management seen as not adding value and as a waste of time and money.

• Unforeseen internal and/or external events impacting the project.

 

Project management is about creating an environment and conditions in which a defined goal or objective can be achieved in a controlled manner by a team of people

 

THE HISTORY OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT

 

 

As a discipline, Project Management developed from different fields of application including construction, engineering and defense. In the United States, the forefather of project management is Henry Gantt, called the father of planning and control techniques, who is famously known for his use of the Gantt chart as a project management tool.

 

His work is the forerunner to many modern project management tools including the work breakdown structure (WBS) and resource allocation.

 

The 1950s marked the beginning of the modern Project Management era. Again, in the United States, prior to the 1950s, projects were managed on an ad hoc basis using mostly Gantt Charts, and informal techniques and tools.

 

 At that time, two mathematical project scheduling models were developed: (1) the "Program Evaluation and Review Technique" or PERT, developed by Booz-Allen & Hamilton as part of the United States Navy's (in conjunction with the Lockheed Corporation) Polaris missile submarine program[2]; and (2) the "Critical Path Method" (CPM) developed in a joint venture by both DuPont Corporation and Remington Rand Corporation for managing plant maintenance projects. These mathematical techniques quickly spread into many private enterprises.

 

At the same time, technology for project cost estimating, cost management, and engineering economics was evolving.  In 1956, the American Association of Cost Engineers (now AACE International; the Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering) was formed by early practitioners of project management.  AACE has continued its pioneering work and in 2006 released the first ever integrated process for portfolio, program and project management (Total Cost Management Framework).

 

In 1969, the Project Management Institute (PMI) was formed to serve the interests of the project management industry. The premise of PMI is that the tools and techniques of project management are common even among the widespread application of projects from the software industry to the construction industry. In 1981, the PMI Board of Directors authorized the development of what has become A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide), containing the standards and guidelines of practice that are widely used throughout the profession.

 

GLOBAL TRENDS IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT

 

1. Agile as a way of project thinking

2. Change Management to improve outcomes into the business

3. Restorative development

 

Click each link below for extended reading.

 

 

Trends highlight need for project leadership and note the difficulty in finding top PM talent

 

Top 10 Project Management Trends for 2014

 

Five new trends in project management that enterprises simply can't ignore
 

PM-Partners’ Top 6 Project Management Trends For 2014

 

RESTORATIVE DEVELOPMENT by Storm Cunningham