Project Management Essentials

Basics of Project Management

1.1  Introduction

›  A farmer taking up crop cultivation

›  A construction company constructing a bridge

›  Indian Railways changing the meter gauge railway track to broad gauge

›  An FMCG company introducing its products into a new virgin market

›  A company hiring fresh graduates

›  A student pursuing MBA

What is common to all these? All these are projects.

A project is not merely establishing an industry or constructing a building. It is just something new, something unique, planned and executed for good.

1.2  Definition of Project

PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) defines project as a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product or service. Temporary means that every project has a definite end, and Unique means that the product or service is different from all similar products or services.

Turner defines projects as an endeavor in which human (or machine), materials, financial and knowledge resources are organized in a novel way, to undertake a unique scope of work of given specification, within constraints of cost and time, so as to deliver quantitative, qualitative, and consumer oriented product and service.

Bridgefield group defines project as a related set of activities and milestones with a preset goal and time frame that is designed as a specific event and not an ongoing process.

Project can also be defined as a single use plan to achieve a certain objective of introducing something unique or a change and ensure that progress is maintained in line with the objective, generally in terms of time, cost, and various technical and quality performance parameters.

e following are the important aspects of a project:

›  Starting date

›  Specific goals and conditions

›  Defined responsibilities

›  Budget

›  Planning

›  Fixed end date

›  Parties involved

Project Management

Project management is a methodical approach to planning and guiding project processes from start to finish. It is the method of planning the plan. It starts from project definitions and ends with goal achievement.

PMBOK defines project management as the application of knowledge, skill, tool and techniques to project activities in order to meet stakeholder’s needs and expectations from a project.

Bridge group defines it as the methods and disciplines used to define goals, plan and monitor tasks and resources, identify and resolve issues, and control costs and budgets for a specific project.

1.3  Project Characteristics

The various characteristics of the project are

›  Fixed set of objectives: The project starts when the objective(s) is finalized. The project comes to an end as soon as the objectives are attained.

›  Tenure: Project is never a continuous activity, it has to come to an end. Its life span is fixed.

›  Team work: It needs a team to accomplish various activities.

›  Unique: All projects are unique in themselves, no two projects are exactly similar.

›  Life cycle: Like all living organisms, project starts slowly (definition phase), then starts building up in size (planning phase), then reaches peak (implementation phase) before finally getting terminated.

›  Made to order: The customer always decides the objective and informs the constraints like time and cost.

›  Single entity: Generally, projects are the responsibilities of a single person/entity but certainly there are many participants in a project, who are helping the single entity in the accomplishment of project objectives.

›  Multi-skilled staff: The staff needed for a project, including the project manager needs to have a wide range of skills including technical skills, human skills, financial skills, negotiation skills, etc.

›  Subcontracting: Subcontracting is practically unavoidable in project management. As specialized knowledge or workforce is needed for a very small duration in a project, it is difficult and costly to employ or retain. Therefore, they are just hired for small duration or specific job from outside agency.

›  Risk and uncertainty: Projects are risky as the activities involved in projects are non-retrievable. Thus, risk is unavoidable. However, risk can be reduced considerably using various forecasting techniques and project management and control tools.

Figure 1.1: A schematic diagram of project life cycle

1.4  Objectives of Project management

There are four major objectives of project management

›  Scope: Scope means what are the expectations from you as a project manager and your team. A civil contractor always has well-defined scope, like all civil works including excavation, foundation, concreting, brickwork, plastering of all walls as per the attached drawings.

›  Performance: A project is always expected to have a well defined performance level. If a project is unable to adhere to the desired performance of a customer, it is certainly an unsuccessful project.

›  Time: A successful project is the one which is completed within the time limits perceived during the planning. As the cost is dependent on time, time management becomes a crucial activity of project management.

›  Cost: It is dependent on all the above objectives. Mathematically it can be written as: Cost = f (P, T, S).

Therefore, cost is a function of performance, time and scope. If any of the above increases, it is surely going to increase the cost of the project.

Another approach in defining the objectives is the SMART approach.

›  Specific: Project should target a specific goal

›  Measurable: It should be quantifiable

›  Attainable: It should be attainable with resources available

›  Realistic: It should be realistic in nature

›  Time Limit: There should be fixed time limits

1.5  Importance of Project Management

What has led to increased usage of the concept of project management in recent times?

›  Rapidly changing technologies: Technologies are changing very fast, so all manufacturing as well as service organizations have to cope up with technological changes, which provide a big scope for project management.

›  High entropy of the system: Changes are very fast. So, energy levels are high. To adapt to the fast changing world, no organization can stick to old things or systems. Any modification or modernization leads to the need of project.

›  Squeezed life cycle of products: Product life cycle is squeezed to a great extent with innovations taking place