Visualization Is the Process of Picturing the Other Team Making Mistakes So You Can Win.
Main Body
2. Project Management Overview
The starting indicate in discussing how projects should be properly managed is to outset understand what a project is and, just equally importantly, what it is not.
People take been undertaking projects since the earliest days of organized human activity. The hunting parties of our prehistoric ancestors were projects, for example; they were temporary undertakings directed at the goal of obtaining meat for the customs. Big circuitous projects take besides been with us for a long time. The pyramids and the Smashing Wall of Communist china were in their day of roughly the aforementioned dimensions as the Apollo projection to send men to the moon. Nosotros use the term "project" frequently in our daily conversations. A married man, for example may tell his wife, "My main project for this weekend is to straighten out the garage." Going hunting, building pyramids, and fixing faucets all share certain features that make them projects.
Project Attributes
A project has distinctive attributes that distinguish it from ongoing work or business organisation operations. Projects are temporary in nature. They are non an everyday business process and have definitive get-go dates and stop dates. This characteristic is important because a large part of the project attempt is dedicated to ensuring that the project is completed at the appointed time. To do this, schedules are created showing when tasks should brainstorm and end. Projects can last minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years.
Projects be to bring about a product or service that hasn't existed before. In this sense, a projection is unique. Unique means that this is new; this has never been done earlier. Maybe it'southward been done in a very like way earlier but never exactly in this way. For example, Ford Motor Company is in the business organisation of designing and assembling cars. Each model that Ford designs and produces can exist considered a project. The models differ from each other in their features and are marketed to people with various needs. An SUV serves a different purpose and clientele than a luxury car. The blueprint and marketing of these two models are unique projects. Nevertheless, the actual assembly of the cars is considered an operation (i.e., a repetitive procedure that is followed for most makes and models).
In contrast with projects, operations are ongoing and repetitive. They involve work that is continuous without an ending engagement and with the same processes repeated to produce the same results. The purpose of operations is to keep the organization functioning while the purpose of a project is to see its goals and conclude. Therefore, operations are ongoing while projects are unique and temporary.
A project is completed when its goals and objectives are achieved. It is these goals that drive the project, and all the planning and implementation efforts undertaken to achieve them. Sometimes projects end when information technology is determined that the goals and objectives cannot be accomplished or when the product or service of the project is no longer needed and the project is cancelled.
Definition of a Project
There are many written definitions of a project. All of them contain the key elements described above. For those looking for a formal definition of a projection, the Project Direction Establish (PMI) defines a project as a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique production, service, or upshot. The temporary nature of projects indicates a definite beginning and end. The terminate is reached when the project's objectives have been achieved or when the project is terminated because its objectives will not or cannot be met, or when the need for the project no longer exists.
Project Characteristics
When because whether or not you have a projection on your hands, there are some things to go on in mind. Get-go, is it a project or an ongoing performance? Second, if information technology is a project, who are the stakeholders? And third, what characteristics distinguish this endeavor as a project?
Projects have several characteristics:
- Projects are unique.
- Projects are temporary in nature and accept a definite beginning and ending appointment.
- Projects are completed when the project goals are accomplished or information technology's determined the projection is no longer feasible.
A successful project is one that meets or exceeds the expectations of the stakeholders.
Consider the following scenario: The vice-president (VP) of marketing approaches you with a fabulous idea. (Obviously it must be "fabulous" considering he thought of it.) He wants to set up kiosks in local grocery stores as mini-offices. These offices will offer customers the ability to sign up for car and home insurance services as well as make their bill payments. He believes that the exposure in grocery stores will increase awareness of the company's offerings. He told you that senior management has already cleared the project, and he'll dedicate equally many resources to this as he tin can. He wants the new kiosks in place in 12 selected stores in a major metropolis by the terminate of the twelvemonth. Finally, he has assigned y'all to caput up this projection.
Your first question should exist, "Is it a projection?" This may seem elementary, but disruptive projects with ongoing operations happens often. Projects are temporary in nature, have definite offset and finish dates, result in the cosmos of a unique production or service, and are completed when their goals and objectives have been met and signed off past the stakeholders.
Using these criteria, permit's examine the assignment from the VP of marketing to determine if it is a project:
- Is it unique? Yes, because the kiosks don't exist in the local grocery stores. This is a new way of offering the company's services to its customer base. While the service the visitor is offering isn't new, the fashion information technology is presenting its services is.
- Does the product have a express timeframe? Yeah, the starting time date of this projection is today, and the end date is the end of next twelvemonth. It is a temporary effort.
- Is there a style to determine when the project is completed? Yep, the kiosks will be installed and the services will be offered from them. In one case all the kiosks are installed and operating, the project volition come to a close.
- Is there a way to determine stakeholder satisfaction? Yes, the expectations of the stakeholders volition be documented in the form of requirements during the planning processes. These requirements will be compared to the finished product to determine if it meets the expectations of the stakeholder.
If the answer is yeah to all these questions, and then we take a project.
The Process of Project Management
You've determined that you take a project. What now? The notes you scribbled down on the back of the napkin at tiffin are a start, but not exactly good project direction practice. Too frequently, organizations follow Nike'due south advice when it comes to managing projects when they "just do it." An assignment is made, and the project team members bound straight into the development of the product or service requested. In the cease, the delivered product doesn't meet the expectations of the customer. Unfortunately, many projects follow this poorly constructed path, and that is a primary contributor to a large pct of projects non meeting their original objectives, as defined by performance, schedule, and budget.
In the U.s., more than $250 billion is spent each yr on data technology (Information technology) application evolution in approximately 175,000 projects. The Standish Group (a Boston-based leader in project and value performance research) released the summary version of their 2009 Anarchy Report that tracks project failure rates across a wide range of companies and industries (Figure 2.1).
Jim Johnson, chairman of the Standish Group, has stated that "this twelvemonth's results testify a marked decrease in project success rates, with 32% of all projects succeeding which are delivered on fourth dimension, on budget, with required features and functions, 44% were challenged-which are late, over budget, and/or with less than the required features and functions and 24% failed which are cancelled prior to completion or delivered and never used."
When are companies going to end wasting billions of dollars on failed projects? The vast majority of this waste is completely avoidable: simply become the right business organisation needs (requirements) understood early in the process and ensure that project management techniques are applied and followed, and the project activities are monitored.
Applying good project management subject area is the style to aid reduce the risks. Having adept project management skills does not completely eliminate bug, risks, or surprises. The value of skillful project management is that you have standard processes in place to deal with all contingencies.
Project direction is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques applied to project activities in society to meet the projection requirements. Project management is a process that includes planning, putting the project plan into action, and measuring progress and performance.
Managing a projection includes identifying your projection's requirements and writing downward what everyone needs from the project. What are the objectives for your project? When everyone understands the goal, it'due south much easier to continue them all on the right path. Make sure yous set up goals that everyone agrees on to avoid team conflicts afterward. Understanding and addressing the needs of everyone affected by the project means the end consequence of your project is far more likely to satisfy your stakeholders. Concluding merely not least, as project manager, you lot volition also be balancing the many competing project constraints.
On whatsoever project, you will have a number of project constraints that are competing for your attention. They are cost, scope, quality, run a risk, resources, and fourth dimension.
- Cost is the budget approved for the project including all necessary expenses needed to evangelize the project. Inside organizations, project managers accept to residual between non running out of money and not underspending considering many projects receive funds or grants that take contract clauses with a "utilise it or lose information technology" approach to project funds. Poorly executed budget plans can result in a last-infinitesimal blitz to spend the allocated funds. For virtually all projects, cost is ultimately a limiting constraint; few projects can go over budget without eventually requiring a cosmetic action.
- Scope is what the projection is trying to achieve. It entails all the work involved in delivering the project outcomes and the processes used to produce them. It is the reason and the purpose of the projection.
- Quality is a combination of the standards and criteria to which the project's products must be delivered for them to perform effectively. The product must perform to provide the functionality expected, solve the identified problem, and deliver the benefit and value expected. Information technology must also run across other operation requirements, or service levels, such as availability, reliability, and maintainability, and have acceptable stop and shine. Quality on a project is controlled through quality assurance (QA), which is the process of evaluating overall project performance on a regular basis to provide confidence that the project will satisfy the relevant quality standards.
- Take chances is defined by potential external events that will have a negative impact on your project if they occur. Take a chance refers to the combination of the probability the event will occur and the impact on the project if the event occurs. If the combination of the probability of the occurrence and the impact on the project is too loftier, yous should identify the potential event every bit a adventure and put a proactive programme in place to manage the chance.
- Resources are required to conduct out the project tasks. They can exist people, equipment, facilities, funding, or annihilation else capable of definition (unremarkably other than labour) required for the completion of a project activity.
- Time is defined as the fourth dimension to complete the project. Time is frequently the most frequent project oversight in developing projects. This is reflected in missed deadlines and incomplete deliverables. Proper control of the schedule requires the conscientious identification of tasks to be performed and accurate estimations of their durations, the sequence in which they are going to be washed, and how people and other resource are to exist allocated. Any schedule should take into business relationship vacations and holidays.
You may have heard of the term "triple constraint," which traditionally consisted of but time, cost, and scope. These are the master competing project constraints that you have to be most aware of. The triple constraint is illustrated in the form of a triangle to visualize the project work and see the relationship between the telescopic/quality, schedule/time, and cost/resource (Figure 2.2). In this triangle, each side represents ane of the constraints (or related constraints) wherein any changes to any one side cause a alter in the other sides. The best projects accept a perfectly counterbalanced triangle. Maintaining this residual is difficult considering projects are prone to change. For case, if scope increases, cost and time may increase disproportionately. Alternatively, if the amount of money you have for your projection decreases, you may exist able to practise as much, just your time may increase.
Your project may have additional constraints that you must confront, and as the project manager, you have to balance the needs of these constraints against the needs of the stakeholders and your project goals. For instance, if your sponsor wants to add functionality to the original telescopic, you will very likely need more than money to finish the project, or if they cut the upkeep, you will have to reduce the quality of your scope, and if you lot don't become the advisable resources to work on your projection tasks, y'all will take to extend your schedule because the resources you have take much longer to finish the piece of work.
Y'all get the thought; the constraints are all dependent on each other. Call back of all of these constraints every bit the classic carnival game of Whac-a-mole (Effigy 2.3). Each time you effort to push i mole dorsum in the pigsty, another 1 pops out. The all-time advice is to rely on your project team to proceed these moles in identify.
Here is an example of a projection that cut quality considering the project costs were fixed. The P-36 oil platform (Figure ii.4) was the largest footing production platform in the world capable of processing 180,000 barrels of oil per day and 5.two million cubic metres of gas per day. Located in the Roncador Field, Campos Basin, Brazil, the P-36 was operated by Petrobras.
In March 2001, the P-36 was producing around 84,000 barrels of oil and 1.3 meg cubic metres of gas per day when it became destabilized by two explosions and subsequently sank in 3,900 feet of water with 1,650 brusque tons of crude oil remaining on board, killing xi people. The sinking is attributed to a complete failure in quality assurance, and force per unit area for increased production led to corners beingness cut on safety procedures. It is listed as i of the most expensive accidents with a price tag of $515,000,000.
The following quotes are from a Petrobras executive, citing the benefits of cutting quality assurance and inspection costs on the projection.
"Petrobras has established new global benchmarks for the generation of exceptional shareholder wealth through an aggressive and innovative plan of price cutting on its P36 product facility."
"Conventional constraints accept been successfully challenged and replaced with new paradigms appropriate to the globalized corporate market identify."
"Elimination of these unnecessary straitjackets has empowered the project'south suppliers and contractors to advise highly economical solutions, with the win-win bonus of enhanced profitability margins for themselves."
"The P36 platform shows the shape of things to come up in the unregulated global market economy of the 21st century."
The dynamic merchandise-offs between the project constraint values have been humorously and accurately described in Figure ii.5.
Project Direction Expertise
In order for you, every bit the project manager, to manage the competing projection constraints and the projection as a whole, in that location are some areas of expertise you should bring to the project team (Figure 2.11). They are knowledge of the application area and the standards and regulations in your industry, understanding of the project environment, general management knowledge and skills, and interpersonal skills. Information technology should be noted that industry expertise is not in a certain field just the expertise to run the projection. And so while knowledge of the type of industry is important, you will accept a project squad supporting you in this endeavor. For example, if y'all are managing a project that is building an oil platform, yous would not be expected to have a detailed understanding of the engineering since your team will accept mechanical and ceremonious engineers who will provide the appropriate expertise; nevertheless, information technology would definitely help if you understood this type of work.
Let's take a look at each of these areas in more detail.
Application knowledge
By standards, we hateful guidelines or preferred approaches that are not necessarily mandatory. In contrast, when referring to regulations nosotros mean mandatory rules that must be followed, such as authorities-imposed requirements through laws. It should go without proverb that as a professional, you're required to follow all applicable laws and rules that use to your manufacture, organization, or project. Every industry has standards and regulations. Knowing which ones impact your projection before you begin work will not just assistance the project to unfold smoothly, but will as well allow for effective risk analysis.
Some projects require specific skills in certain application areas. Application areas are made upwards of categories of projects that accept mutual elements. They tin be divers by manufacture group (pharmaceutical, fiscal, etc.), section (bookkeeping, marketing, legal, etc.), technology (software development, engineering science, etc), or direction specialties (procurement, research and development, etc.). These application areas are usually concerned with disciplines, regulations, and the specific needs of the projection, the customer, or the industry. For example, virtually authorities agencies have specific procurement rules that apply to their projects that wouldn't be applicable in the structure manufacture. The pharmaceutical industry is interested in regulations gear up forth past government regulators, whereas the automotive industry has picayune or no concern for either of these types of regulations. You demand to stay up-to-appointment regarding your manufacture so that you can utilize your knowledge effectively. Today's fast-paced advances can leave you behind fairly quickly if you don't stay abreast of current trends.
Having some level of feel in the application expanse you're working in volition give y'all an advantage when it comes to projection management. While you can call in experts who take the application expanse knowledge, it doesn't hurt for you lot to understand the specific aspects of the application areas of your projection.
Understanding the Project Environment
At that place are many factors that demand to be understood within your project environment (Effigy 2.vii). At one level, you demand to think in terms of the cultural and social environments (i.e., people, demographics, and education). The international and political environment is where you need to sympathize near different countries' cultural influences. Then we motility to the physical environs; hither we think most time zones. Think about different countries and how differently your project volition be executed whether it is just in your country or if it involves an international project team that is distributed throughout the world in five different countries.
Of all the factors, the physical ones are the easiest to understand, and it is the cultural and international factors that are often misunderstood or ignored. How we deal with clients, customers, or project members from other countries can exist disquisitional to the success of the projection. For example, the civilisation of the Us values accomplishments and individualism. Americans tend to be informal and call each other past first names, even if having just met. Europeans tend to exist more formal, using surnames instead of outset names in a business setting, even if they know each other well. In addition, their communication style is more formal than in the Usa, and while they tend to value individualism, they also value history, hierarchy, and loyalty. The Japanese, on the other hand, tend to communicate indirectly and consider themselves part of a group, non as individuals. The Japanese value hard work and success, equally most of us do.
How a product is received can be very dependent on the international cultural differences. For example, in the 1990s, when many large American and European telecommunication companies were cultivating new markets in Asia, their customer's cultural differences often produced unexpected situations. Western companies planned their phone systems to work the same style in Asia every bit they did in Europe and the The states. Merely the protocol of conversation was different. Call-waiting, a popular feature in the West, is considered impolite in some parts of Asia. This cultural corrigendum could have been avoided had the squad captured the project environment requirements and involved the customer.
It is often the simplest things that can crusade trouble since, unsurprisingly, in different countries, people do things differently. One of the nigh notorious examples of this is too 1 of the most elementary: date formats. What day and month is 2/8/2009? Of class information technology depends where you come from; in North America it is Feb 8th while in Europe (and much of the rest of the world) information technology is 2d August. Conspicuously, when schedules and deadlines are being divers it is important that anybody is clear on the format used.
The diverseness of practices and cultures and its impact on products in full general and on software in particular goes well beyond the appointment issue. Yous may exist managing a project to create a new website for a company that sells products worldwide. At that place are language and presentation style issues to take into consideration; converting the site into dissimilar languages isn't enough. It is obvious that yous need to ensure the translation is right; however, the presentation layer will have its own set of requirements for different cultures. The left side of a website may be the starting time focus of attending for a Canadian; the correct side would exist the initial focus for anyone from the Middle East, as both Arabic and Hebrew are written from right to left. Colors too have different meanings in different cultures. White, which is a sign of purity in North America (e.chiliad., a bride's wedding dress), and thus would exist a favoured background color in Northward America, signifies death in Japan (e.g., a burial shroud). Table 2.1 summarizes unlike meanings of common colours.
| Colour | United States | China | Japan | Arab republic of egypt | French republic |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Red | Danger, stop | Happiness | Anger, danger | Death | Aristocracy |
| Blue | Sadness, melancholy | Heavens, clouds | Villainy | Virtue, faith, truth | Freedom, peace |
| Green | Novice, apprentice | Ming dynasty, heavens | Time to come, youth, energy | Fertility, strength | Criminality |
| Yellow | Cowardice | Birth, wealth | Grace, nobility | Happiness, prosperity | Temporary |
| White | Purity | Death, purity | Death | Joy | Naturality |
Projection managers in multicultural projects must capeesh the culture dimensions and endeavour to learn relevant customs, courtesies, and business protocols before taking responsibility for managing an international project. A project manager must accept into consideration these various cultural influences and how they may affect the project'south completion, schedule, scope, and cost.
Direction Knowledge and Skills
As the project manager, you have to rely on your project direction knowledge and your general management skills. Here, nosotros are thinking of items like your ability to plan the projection, execute it properly, and of class control it and bring it to a successful conclusion, along with your ability to guide the projection team to achieve project objectives and residue project constraints.
At that place is more than to project management than simply getting the work done. Inherent in the process of project direction are the general management skills that let the project manager to consummate the projection with some level of efficiency and control. In some respects, managing a projection is similar to running a business: at that place are take chances and rewards, finance and accounting activities, human resources issues, time management, stress direction, and a purpose for the project to exist. General management skills are needed in every project.
Interpersonal Skills
Terminal but not least you lot as well have to bring the ability into the projection to manage personal relationships and deal with personnel issues as they arise. Here were talking almost your interpersonal skills as shown in Effigy 2.8.
Communication
Project managers spend 90% of their time communicating. Therefore they must be good communicators, promoting clear, unambiguous exchange of information. As a projection manager, it is your chore to keep a number of people well informed. It is essential that your projection staff know what is expected of them: what they take to practice, when they have to do it, and what budget and time constraints and quality specifications they are working toward. If projection staff members do non know what their tasks are, or how to accomplish them, then the unabridged project will grind to a halt. If you do non know what the project staff is (or often is not) doing, so you will be unable to monitor project progress. Finally, if you are uncertain of what the client expects of you, and then the project will not even go off the ground. Projection advice tin thus be summed up as knowing "who needs what information and when" and making sure they take it.
All projects require sound communication plans, simply not all projects will have the same types of communication or the same methods for distributing the information. For example, volition information be distributed via mail or email, is there a shared website, or are contiguous meetings required? The advice management plan documents how the communication needs of the stakeholders will be met, including the types of data that will exist communicated, who will communicate them, and who will receive them; the methods used to communicate; the timing and frequency of advice; the method for updating the plan every bit the projection progresses, including the escalation procedure; and a glossary of mutual terms.
Influence
Project management is about getting things done. Every system is unlike in its policies, modes of operations, and underlying culture. At that place are political alliances, differing motivations, conflicting interests, and power struggles. A project director must understand all of the unspoken influences at work within an organization.
Leadership
Leadership is the ability to motivate and inspire individuals to piece of work toward expected results. Leaders inspire vision and rally people around common goals. A good project manager tin can motivate and inspire the project squad to see the vision and value of the project. The project managing director every bit a leader tin can inspire the projection team to find a solution to overcome perceived obstacles to get the piece of work done.
Motivation
Motivation helps people piece of work more efficiently and produce better results. Motivation is a abiding process that the project manager must guide to assist the team move toward completion with passion and a profound reason to consummate the piece of work. Motivating the team is accomplished by using a variety of team-building techniques and exercises. Team building is simply getting a diverse group of people to piece of work together in the virtually efficient and constructive manner possible. This may involve management events too equally individual actions designed to improve squad performance.
Recognition and rewards are an important part of squad motivations. They are formal ways of recognizing and promoting desirable behaviour and are virtually effective when carried out by the management team and the project manager. Consider individual preferences and cultural differences when using rewards and recognition. Some people don't like to be recognized in front of a group; others thrive on it.
Negotiation
Project managers must negotiate for the skillful of the project. In any project, the project manager, the project sponsor, and the projection team will take to negotiate with stakeholders, vendors, and customers to reach a level of understanding acceptable to all parties involved in the negotiation process.
Problem Solving
Problem solving is the ability to understand the centre of a problem, look for a viable solution, and then make a conclusion to implement that solution. The starting bespeak for problem solving is trouble definition. Problem definition is the ability to sympathize the cause and effect of the trouble; this centres on root-cause analysis. If a project manager treats only the symptoms of a problem rather than its cause, the symptoms will perpetuate and continue through the project life. Even worse, treating a symptom may result in a greater trouble. For example, increasing the ampere rating of a fuse in your car because the old 1 keeps bravado does non solve the problem of an electrical short that could outcome in a fire. Root-crusade analysis looks across the immediate symptoms to the cause of the symptoms, which then affords opportunities for solutions. Once the root of a trouble has been identified, a decision must exist made to effectively accost the trouble.
Solutions can be presented from vendors, the projection team, the project manager, or various stakeholders. A viable solution focuses on more than just the problem; it looks at the cause and effect of the solution itself. In addition, a timely decision is needed or the window of opportunity may pass and then a new conclusion will be needed to address the problem. Equally in about cases, the worst thing you can practice is nothing.
All of these interpersonal skills will be used in all areas of project management. Starting time practicing now considering it's guaranteed that you'll need these skills on your next project.
Image Descriptions
Figure 2.5 prototype description: The sign says, "We can benefit, quick, and inexpensive work. You lot can have whatever two just not all three. 1. Good, quick piece of work won't be cheap. two. Good, cheap work won't be quick. iii. Quick, cheap work won't be good." [Return to Figure ii.5]
Text Attributions
- This chapter of Project Management is a derivative of Project Management past Merrie Barron and Andrew Barron. © CC BY (Attribution).
- Table 2.1: Adapted from P. Russo and S. Boor, How Fluent is Your Interface? Designing for International Users, Proceedings of the Interact '93 and CHI '93, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. (1993). Table from Barron & Barron Project Management for Scientists and Engineers, Source: Project Direction for Scientists and Engineers past Merrie Barron; Andrew R. Barron
Source: https://opentextbc.ca/projectmanagement/chapter/chapter-2-what-is-a-project-project-management/
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