The Old-fashioned View of Managing Projects Emphasized Which of the Following

Main Body

2. Project Management Overview

The starting signal in discussing how projects should be properly managed is to first understand what a projection is and, simply as chiefly, what it is non.

People have been undertaking projects since the earliest days of organized human activity. The hunting parties of our prehistoric ancestors were projects, for case; they were temporary undertakings directed at the goal of obtaining meat for the community. Large complex projects have as well been with us for a long fourth dimension. The pyramids and the Great Wall of China were in their day of roughly the same dimensions as the Apollo project to send men to the moon. Nosotros use the term "project" frequently in our daily conversations. A husband, 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 operations. Projects are temporary in nature. They are not an everyday concern process and have definitive start dates and end dates. This characteristic is important because a large part of the project endeavor is dedicated to ensuring that the project is completed at the appointed time. To practice this, schedules are created showing when tasks should begin and end. Projects can terminal minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years.

Projects exist to bring nearly a production or service that hasn't existed before. In this sense, a project is unique. Unique means that this is new; this has never been done earlier. Maybe it's been done in a very similar fashion before merely never exactly in this manner. 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 dissimilar purpose and clientele than a luxury car. The pattern and marketing of these two models are unique projects. However, the actual assembly of the cars is considered an functioning (i.east., a repetitive process that is followed for well-nigh makes and models).

In contrast with projects, operations are ongoing and repetitive. They involve piece of work that is continuous without an ending date and with the same processes repeated to produce the aforementioned results. The purpose of operations is to keep the arrangement functioning while the purpose of a project is to meet 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 it is adamant 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 projection. All of them contain the cardinal elements described higher up. For those looking for a formal definition of a project, the Project Management Institute (PMI) defines a project as a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. The temporary nature of projects indicates a definite beginning and finish. The end is reached when the project'southward objectives have been achieved or when the project is terminated because its objectives volition not or cannot be met, or when the need for the project no longer exists.

Project Characteristics

When considering whether or non you take a project on your hands, there are some things to proceed in heed. First, is it a projection or an ongoing operation? Second, if information technology is a project, who are the stakeholders? And tertiary, what characteristics distinguish this endeavor as a project?

Projects accept several characteristics:

• Projects are unique.
• Projects are temporary in nature and have a definite beginning and ending engagement.
• Projects are completed when the project goals are accomplished or it'south adamant the projection is no longer viable.

A successful project is 1 that meets or exceeds the expectations of the stakeholders.

Consider the post-obit scenario: The vice-president (VP) of marketing approaches you with a fabulous idea. (Apparently it must be "fabulous" because he thought of it.) He wants to set up kiosks in local grocery stores as mini-offices. These offices volition offer customers the ability to sign up for car and dwelling insurance services besides as make their bill payments. He believes that the exposure in grocery stores will increase sensation of the company'southward offerings. He told you that senior direction has already cleared the project, and he'll dedicate as many resources to this as he can. He wants the new kiosks in place in 12 selected stores in a major metropolis by the stop of the yr. Finally, he has assigned you lot to head upwards this projection.

Your first question should be, "Is it a project?" This may seem unproblematic, but confusing projects with ongoing operations happens oftentimes. Projects are temporary in nature, have definite outset and end dates, result in the creation of a unique production or service, and are completed when their goals and objectives have been met and signed off by the stakeholders.

Using these criteria, let's examine the consignment from the VP of marketing to determine if it is a project:

• Is it unique? Yep, because the kiosks don't be in the local grocery stores. This is a new fashion of offer the visitor's services to its customer base. While the service the company is offering isn't new, the style it is presenting its services is.
• Does the product have a limited timeframe? Yes, the kickoff appointment of this project is today, and the end engagement is the end of next yr. It is a temporary attempt.
• Is at that place a fashion to determine when the project is completed? Aye, the kiosks volition be installed and the services will be offered from them. One time all the kiosks are installed and operating, the project will come to a close.
• Is there a style to determine stakeholder satisfaction? Yep, the expectations of the stakeholders volition exist 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 so we have a project.

The Process of Project Management

You lot've adamant that you have a projection. What now? The notes you scribbled downward on the back of the napkin at lunch are a start, just not exactly practiced projection management practice. Also often, organizations follow Nike's advice when it comes to managing projects when they "simply do it." An consignment is made, and the project team members jump directly into the development of the product or service requested. In the finish, the delivered product doesn't meet the expectations of the client. Unfortunately, many projects follow this poorly constructed path, and that is a primary contributor to a large pct of projects not meeting their original objectives, as divers by performance, schedule, and budget.

In the United states of america, more than $250 billion is spent each year on information 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 CHAOS Report that tracks project failure rates across a broad range of companies and industries (Effigy 2.one).

Figure 2.i: Summary of 2009 Standish Group CHAOS written report.

Jim Johnson, chairman of the Standish Group, has stated that "this year's results show 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 belatedly, over upkeep, 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 stop wasting billions of dollars on failed projects? The vast majority of this waste material is completely avoidable: simply get the correct business concern needs (requirements) understood early in the process and ensure that projection management techniques are applied and followed, and the project activities are monitored.

Applying proficient project management discipline is the fashion to aid reduce the risks. Having good projection management skills does not completely eliminate problems, risks, or surprises. The value of practiced project management is that you take standard processes in identify to bargain with all contingencies.

Project management is the awarding of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques applied to project activities in order to meet the project requirements. Project direction is a process that includes planning, putting the projection plan into action, and measuring progress and functioning.

Managing a project includes identifying your projection's requirements and writing downwards what everyone needs from the project. What are the objectives for your project? When everyone understands the goal, it's much easier to keep them all on the correct path. Make sure you gear up goals that everyone agrees on to avert team conflicts later. Understanding and addressing the needs of everyone affected past the project ways the finish result of your project is far more likely to satisfy your stakeholders. Last but not least, equally project director, you will too exist balancing the many competing project constraints.

On whatever project, you volition have a number of project constraints that are competing for your attention. They are price, scope, quality, hazard, resources, and time.

• Toll is the upkeep approved for the projection including all necessary expenses needed to deliver the projection. Within organizations, project managers have to rest between not running out of money and not underspending considering many projects receive funds or grants that accept contract clauses with a "use it or lose it" approach to project funds. Poorly executed budget plans can event in a last-minute blitz to spend the allocated funds. For virtually all projects, price is ultimately a limiting constraint; few projects can go over budget without eventually requiring a corrective action.
• Telescopic 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 production must perform to provide the functionality expected, solve the identified problem, and evangelize the benefit and value expected. It must also meet other functioning requirements, or service levels, such as availability, reliability, and maintainability, and have acceptable finish and polish. 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 projection volition satisfy the relevant quality standards.
• Risk is defined by potential external events that will have a negative impact on your project if they occur. Gamble refers to the combination of the probability the consequence will occur and the impact on the project if the issue occurs. If the combination of the probability of the occurrence and the impact on the project is too high, y'all should identify the potential event equally a risk and put a proactive plan in place to manage the risk.
• Resources are required to carry out the projection tasks. They tin can exist people, equipment, facilities, funding, or anything else capable of definition (ordinarily other than labour) required for the completion of a projection activity.
• Time is defined every bit the fourth dimension to complete the projection. Fourth dimension is often 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 done, and how people and other resources are to be allocated. Any schedule should take into account vacations and holidays.

You may have heard of the term "triple constraint," which traditionally consisted of only fourth dimension, toll, and scope. These are the primary competing projection constraints that y'all have to exist about aware of. The triple constraint is illustrated in the form of a triangle to visualize the project work and see the relationship between the scope/quality, schedule/time, and price/resource (Figure 2.2). In this triangle, each side represents ane of the constraints (or related constraints) wherein any changes to whatsoever one side cause a change in the other sides. The best projects have a perfectly balanced triangle. Maintaining this balance is difficult because projects are prone to change. For case, if telescopic increases, toll and time may increase disproportionately. Alternatively, if the amount of coin you take for your projection decreases, you may be able to do as much, but your time may increase.

Effigy ii.2: A schematic of the triple constraint triangle.

Your project may have boosted constraints that you must face, and equally the project managing director, you accept to remainder the needs of these constraints against the needs of the stakeholders and your project goals. For example, if your sponsor wants to add functionality to the original scope, you lot will very likely need more than money to finish the project, or if they cut the budget, you will have to reduce the quality of your scope, and if you don't get the appropriate resources to work on your projection tasks, you volition have to extend your schedule because the resources y'all have take much longer to terminate the piece of work.

You get the idea; the constraints are all dependent on each other. Think of all of these constraints equally the archetype funfair game of Whac-a-mole (Figure 2.three). Each time you try to push one mole back in the pigsty, another one pops out. The best advice is to rely on your projection team to proceed these moles in identify.

Figure two.3: Whac-a-mole.

Here is an example of a projection that cut quality considering the project costs were fixed. The P-36 oil platform (Figure 2.four) was the largest basis production platform in the world capable of processing 180,000 barrels of oil per twenty-four hours and 5.two one thousand thousand cubic metres of gas per mean solar day. Located in the Roncador Field, Campos Basin, Brazil, the P-36 was operated by Petrobras.

Figure ii.4.: The Petrobras P-36 oil platform sinking.

In March 2001, the P-36 was producing around 84,000 barrels of oil and 1.three million cubic metres of gas per day when it became destabilized by two explosions and afterward sank in three,900 feet of h2o with one,650 short tons of rough oil remaining on board, killing 11 people. The sinking is attributed to a complete failure in quality assurance, and pressure for increased product led to corners being cutting on prophylactic procedures. Information technology is listed as one of the most expensive accidents with a price tag of $515,000,000.

The post-obit quotes are from a Petrobras executive, citing the benefits of cut quality balls and inspection costs on the project.

"Petrobras has established new global benchmarks for the generation of infrequent share­holder wealth through an aggressive and innovative program of toll cutting on its P36 product facility."

"Conventional constraints have been successfully challenged and replaced with new paradigms appropriate to the globalized corporate market place."

"Elimination of these unnecessary straitjackets has empowered the project's suppliers and contractors to propose highly economic solutions, with the win-win bonus of enhanced profitability margins for themselves."

"The P36 platform shows the shape of things to come in the unregulated global marketplace economy of the 21st century."

The dynamic trade-offs between the project constraint values have been humorously and accurately described in Effigy 2.5.

Figure 2.v: Adept, Quick, Cheap: Choose two. A sign seen at an automotive repair store. [Image Clarification]

Project Management Expertise

In order for yous, equally the project manager, to manage the competing project constraints and the project as a whole, there 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. It should be noted that industry expertise is not in a certain field merely the expertise to run the project. So while knowledge of the type of industry is of import, you will accept a project team supporting you in this endeavor. For instance, if you are managing a project that is building an oil platform, you would non be expected to have a detailed understanding of the engineering science since your squad will take mechanical and civil engineers who will provide the appropriate expertise; notwithstanding, it would definitely help if yous understood this type of work.

Allow'due south have a wait at each of these areas in more detail.

Awarding knowledge

Past standards, we mean guidelines or preferred approaches that are not necessarily mandatory. In dissimilarity, when referring to regulations we mean mandatory rules that must be followed, such as government-imposed requirements through laws. Information technology should go without maxim that equally a professional, you're required to follow all applicable laws and rules that apply to your industry, arrangement, or projection. Every industry has standards and regulations. Knowing which ones affect your project before y'all begin work volition not only help the project to unfold smoothly, simply will likewise permit for effective risk assay.

Figure 2.6: Areas of expertise that a project manager should bring to the projection team.

Some projects require specific skills in certain application areas. Application areas are made up of categories of projects that have mutual elements. They can be defined past industry group (pharmaceutical, financial, etc.), department (bookkeeping, marketing, legal, etc.), technology (software development, engineering, etc), or direction specialties (procurement, research and evolution, etc.). These application areas are usually concerned with disciplines, regulations, and the specific needs of the project, the customer, or the industry. For instance, nigh government agencies have specific procurement rules that use to their projects that wouldn't be applicable in the structure industry. The pharmaceutical manufacture is interested in regulations gear up forth by authorities regulators, whereas the automotive manufacture has footling or no concern for either of these types of regulations. You need to stay upwards-to-date regarding your industry so that you tin employ your knowledge finer. Today's fast-paced advances can leave you behind fairly quickly if y'all don't stay abreast of current trends.

Having some level of experience in the application surface area you're working in will give you an advantage when information technology comes to projection management. While y'all can phone call in experts who have the awarding surface area knowledge, it doesn't hurt for you to understand the specific aspects of the application areas of your project.

Understanding the Project Surround

There are many factors that demand to be understood within your project environment (Figure two.7). At one level, you demand to call up in terms of the cultural and social environments (i.due east., people, demographics, and teaching). The international and political environment is where you need to understand nigh different countries' cultural influences. And then nosotros motility to the concrete environment; hither we call up virtually fourth dimension zones. Think well-nigh different countries and how differently your project volition be executed whether it is only in your country or if it involves an international project squad that is distributed throughout the world in five different countries.

Figure 2.7: The important factors to consider within the projection surround.

Of all the factors, the physical ones are the easiest to understand, and it is the cultural and international factors that are oftentimes misunderstood or ignored. How we deal with clients, customers, or project members from other countries tin can be critical to the success of the projection. For example, the culture of the United States values accomplishments and individualism. Americans tend to be informal and phone call each other past first names, fifty-fifty if having but met. Europeans tend to be more formal, using surnames instead of first names in a concern setting, even if they know each other well. In addition, their communication style is more formal than in the U.s., and while they tend to value individualism, they likewise value history, hierarchy, and loyalty. The Japanese, on the other hand, tend to communicate indirectly and consider themselves part of a grouping, non equally individuals. The Japanese value difficult work and success, as most of united states do.

How a product is received tin 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 way in Asia as they did in Europe and the The states. But the protocol of conversation was dissimilar. Call-waiting, a pop characteristic in the West, is considered impolite in some parts of Asia. This cultural corrigendum could take been avoided had the team captured the project environs requirements and involved the client.

It is often the simplest things that tin can cause trouble since, unsurprisingly, in different countries, people do things differently. One of the virtually notorious examples of this is besides one of the most uncomplicated: date formats. What 24-hour interval and month is two/viii/2009? Of course information technology depends where you lot come from; in North America it is February 8th while in Europe (and much of the rest of the globe) it is 2nd August. Clearly, when schedules and deadlines are being divers it is important that everyone is clear on the format used.

The diverseness of practices and cultures and its touch on on products in general and on software in particular goes well beyond the date issue. You may be managing a project to create a new website for a company that sells products worldwide. There are language and presentation manner issues to have into consideration; converting the site into different languages isn't enough. It is obvious that you need to ensure the translation is correct; even so, the presentation layer will have its own set up of requirements for different cultures. The left side of a website may be the first focus of attention for a Canadian; the right side would be the initial focus for anyone from the Middle East, as both Standard arabic and Hebrew are written from correct to left. Colors also have unlike meanings in different cultures. White, which is a sign of purity in N America (e.g., a bride's wedding wearing apparel), and thus would be a favoured groundwork colour in North America, signifies death in Japan (e.g., a burial shroud). Table 2.1 summarizes different meanings of common colours.

Table 2.1: The significant of colours in various cultures.

Colour	United States	China	Nippon	Egypt	French republic
Red	Danger, stop	Happiness	Anger, danger	Decease	Aristocracy
Blue	Sadness, melancholy	Heavens, clouds	Villainy	Virtue, faith, truth	Freedom, peace
Light-green	Novice, apprentice	Ming dynasty, heavens	Future, youth, energy	Fertility, strength	Criminality
Yellow	Cowardice	Nativity, wealth	Grace, nobility	Happiness, prosperity	Temporary
White	Purity	Expiry, purity	Death	Joy	Naturality

Project managers in multicultural projects must capeesh the civilisation dimensions and try to acquire relevant customs, courtesies, and business concern protocols before taking responsibility for managing an international project. A project manager must take into consideration these various cultural influences and how they may affect the project's completion, schedule, scope, and cost.

Management Knowledge and Skills

Every bit the project managing director, you take to rely on your project management noesis and your general manage­ment skills. Here, we are thinking of items similar your power to programme the project, execute it properly, and of form control information technology and bring it to a successful conclusion, along with your ability to guide the project team to reach project objectives and balance project constraints.

There is more to project management than just getting the work done. Inherent in the procedure of projection direction are the general direction skills that permit the projection manager to complete the project with some level of efficiency and command. In some respects, managing a projection is similar to running a business: there are run a risk and rewards, finance and bookkeeping activities, human resources issues, time direction, stress direction, and a purpose for the projection to be. General direction skills are needed in every project.

Interpersonal Skills

Concluding but non least yous likewise accept to bring the power into the project to manage personal relationships and bargain with personnel issues as they ascend. Hither were talking about your interpersonal skills as shown in Figure two.8.

Communication

Project managers spend 90% of their time communicating. Therefore they must exist skillful communicators, promoting articulate, unambiguous substitution of data. Equally a projection manager, it is your job to keep a number of people well informed. Information technology is essential that your project staff know what is expected of them: what they have to do, when they have to do it, and what budget and time constraints and quality specifications they are working toward. If project staff members exercise non know what their tasks are, or how to accomplish them, and then the entire project will grind to a halt. If yous practice non know what the project staff is (or often is not) doing, and so you lot will be unable to monitor project progress. Finally, if you are uncertain of what the client expects of you, then the project will not even get off the footing. Project communication can thus exist summed up equally knowing "who needs what data and when" and making sure they have information technology.

Figure 2.8: Interpersonal skills required of a project manager.

All projects require sound communication plans, but not all projects will have the aforementioned types of commu­nication or the aforementioned methods for distributing the information. For example, will information exist distributed via mail or e-mail, is in that location a shared website, or are face-to-face meetings required? The advice management plan documents how the communication needs of the stakeholders volition exist met, including the types of data that volition be communicated, who will communicate them, and who will receive them; the methods used to communicate; the timing and frequency of communication; the method for updating the plan every bit the project progresses, including the escalation process; and a glossary of mutual terms.

Influence

Project management is near getting things washed. Every organization is dissimilar in its policies, modes of operations, and underlying culture. There are political alliances, differing motivations, conflicting interests, and ability struggles. A project manager must understand all of the unspoken influences at work within an arrangement.

Leadership

Leadership is the ability to motivate and inspire individuals to work toward expected results. Leaders inspire vision and rally people effectually mutual goals. A good project manager can motivate and inspire the projection team to see the vision and value of the projection. The project manager equally a leader can inspire the project team to find a solution to overcome perceived obstacles to go the piece of work done.

Motivation

Motivation helps people work more efficiently and produce better results. Motivation is a constant process that the project manager must guide to assistance the team motion toward completion with passion and a profound reason to complete the work. Motivating the team is achieved by using a diversity of squad-building techniques and exercises. Team building is only getting a diverse group of people to work together in the most efficient and constructive manner possible. This may involve direction events too as individual actions designed to improve team functioning.

Recognition and rewards are an important role of team motivations. They are formal ways of recognizing and promoting desirable behaviour and are most effective when carried out by the management team and the projection 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 good of the project. In whatsoever project, the project manager, the project sponsor, and the projection squad will accept to negotiate with stakeholders, vendors, and customers to achieve a level of understanding acceptable to all parties involved in the negotiation procedure.

Trouble Solving

Problem solving is the ability to understand the middle of a problem, look for a feasible solution, and and then make a decision to implement that solution. The starting bespeak for problem solving is trouble definition. Problem definition is the ability to sympathise the cause and result of the problem; this centres on root-crusade analysis. If a project managing director treats only the symptoms of a trouble rather than its cause, the symptoms volition perpetuate and continue through the projection life. Fifty-fifty worse, treating a symptom may effect in a greater trouble. For case, increasing the ampere rating of a fuse in your car because the old one keeps blowing does non solve the trouble of an electrical brusk that could result in a fire. Root-cause assay looks beyond the immediate symptoms to the crusade of the symptoms, which then affords opportunities for solutions. Once the root of a trouble has been identified, a determination must be made to effectively address the problem.

Solutions can be presented from vendors, the project team, the project managing director, or various stakeholders. A viable solution focuses on more than than just the problem; it looks at the cause and consequence of the solution itself. In add-on, a timely decision is needed or the window of opportunity may pass and then a new decision will exist needed to address the problem. As in most cases, the worst affair y'all tin do is nothing.

All of these interpersonal skills will be used in all areas of project direction. First practicing now considering information technology'south guaranteed that you'll need these skills on your adjacent project.

Image Descriptions

Effigy two.five image description: The sign says, "We can do skilful, quick, and inexpensive piece of work. You lot can have any ii but not all iii. 1. Practiced, quick work won't be cheap. ii. Good, inexpensive work won't be quick. 3. Quick, inexpensive work won't be good." [Render to Figure 2.5]

Text Attributions

• This chapter of Project Management is a derivative of Project Management past Merrie Barron and Andrew Barron. © CC Past (Attribution).
• Table ii.ane: 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: Projection Management for Scientists and Engineers past Merrie Barron; Andrew R. Barron

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