Project Management Notes 2
Module 1 Introduction
1. What is a Project?
2. What is Project Management?
3. Characteristics of Project Management
4. Potential Benefits and Challenges of Project Management
5. The History of Project Management
6. Project Management Today
Module 2 Individual and Team Issues
1. Introduction
2. The Project Manager
3. The Project Team
4. Project Team Staffing Profile and Operation
5. Project Team Evolution
6. Project Team Motivation
7.Project Team Communications
8. Project Team Stress
9. Conflict Identification and Resolution
Module 3 Project Risk Management
1. Introduction
2. Background to Risk
3. Risk Handling
4. Types of Risk
5. Risk Conditions and Decision making
6. The Concept of Risk Management
7. Risk, Contracts and Procurement
Module 4 Project Management Organisational Structures and Standards
1. Introduction
2. Organisational Theory and Structures
3. Examples of Organisational Structures
4. Project Management Standards
Module 5 Project Time Planning and Control
1. The Concept of Project Time Planning and Control
2. The Process of Project Time Planning
3. Project Replanning
4. Trade-off Analysis
5. Resource Scheduling
6. Project Planning Software
Module 6 Project Cost Planning and Control
1. Introduction
2. Project Cost Planning and Control Systems
3. The Project Cost Control System
Module 7 Project Quality Management
1. Introduction
2. Quality Management as a Concept
3. The Quality Gurus
4. The Quality Management ‘Six Pack’
5. Total Quality Management
6. Configuration Management
7. Concurrent Engineering and Time-Based Competition
Module 8 Case Study
1. Aims and Objectives of the Case Study
2. Introduction (Module 1)
3. Individual and Team Issues (Module 2)
4. Risk Management (Module 3)
5.Case Study First Supplement
6. Organisational Structures (Module 4)
7. Case Study Second Supplement
8. Time Planning and Control (Module 5)
9. Cost Planning and Control (Module 6)
10. Quality Management (Module 7)
Module 1 - Introduction
1 What Is a Project?
Project – one-off process with single definable end-result or product.
Three key variables: Time, Cost, Quality.
Production system takes resource inputs, passes through transformation, changes into desired outputs.
Projects and Other Production Systems
Mass production – largenumber of repetitive items, maximum efficiency, capital intensive, mechanistic, little management
Batch production – non-continuous demand, modifications at intervals, less mechanistic, more management, functional groupings
Project production – one-off, non-repetitive, no learning curve, complex management planning and control
A programme is a set of identifiable projects aimed at achieving some goal or objective. Some no specified end date until decision taken to stop or replace them.
Characteristics of Projects
- Single definable purpose, product or result
- Defined constraints, targets
- Skills & talents from multiple professions/ organisations
- Unique, unfamiliar
- Temporary
- Interlinked process; directed at achieving goal
- Secondary importance to organisation
- Complex
Project management
- Plans, coordinates, controls complex & diverse activities in projects
- Is in essence the General management of an organisation
- Requires skills
-Financial awareness
-Marketing appreciation
-Technical knowledge
-Planning skills
-Strategic awareness
-Quality management
Project types
- External (revenue source)
- Internal (improve operations)
- Hardware (tangible physical result)
- Software (end result is system or process)
Definition of Project Management
- Achieving time, cost, quality targets
- Within context of overall strategic and tactical client requirements
- By using project resources
- Planning and controlling from inception to completion (life cycle)
- Decide on success criteria (time, cost, quality)
- Running the project as single entity
- Driving the team to success
The Basic Project Management Structures
Internal (non-executive) Project Management
- Project members also part of functional structure
- Single designated responsible (the project manager)
- Acts independently (outside functional structure)
- Equal authority to functional managers
- Single leader coordinates resources to achieve objectives
- Multidisciplinary group to integrate
- Negotiates with functional managers shared resources
- Two lines of authority for members
- Decision-making, accountability, rewards shared
- Temporary structure
- Can originate from any organisational level (pdt dev from Mkg,IT systems upgrade…)
- Require assistance from support structures (FI, HR, IT)
External Project Management
- Agent on behalf of client
- More flexible than internal system
- Instructions/communications cross organisational boundary
- Lower team allegiance
- PM has direct control
- Functional structure not relevant
- Requirement for risk transfer and contractual control
- No built-in knowledge of firm
Characteristics of Project Management
Differences to traditional management
- Uses both international standards and
- industry-specific benchmarks
- Advise on the full life-cycle
Multiple Objectives
Ensure project-success criteria are met within changing constraints of time-cost-quality continuum.
International Co-operation and Standards
IPMAInternational Project Management Association
National agencies allow for cultural and economic differences:
-APM Association for Project Management (UK)
-PMI Project Management Institute (US)
Multi-Industry/Multidisciplinary Practitioners
Largest membership groups in APM:
-Information Technology (IT)
-Process engineering
-Construction
Generic Benchmarks
BS6079 – current UK standard for PM practice
ISO10006 – European code of practice
PRINCE2 – controlled environment industries and UK government
Cny-specific responses: British Telecom and Construction Industry Council codes of practice
Specific Provisions
Professional project manager – specialist manager, trained in PM with relevant industry experience in PM
Project Life Cycle
- Inception – assemble basic proposal
- Feasibility – validate the proposal (financial, time-dependent, technological, political perspectives)
- Prototype
- Full design development
- Tendering and contractual arrangements
- Manufacturing
- Commissioning (switching system on)
- Operation (may be longest part but not always, e.g. moon rockets)
- Decommissioning (switching system off)
- Removal and recycling (legislative and environmental concerns)
Potential Benefits and Challenges of PM
Potential Benefits of PM- Focus on objectives
- Efficient use of resources
- Accountability
- Competition with functionalunits
- Reduced disruption
- Visibility
- Life-cycle costs
- Release speed
- Communications
- Control multiple objectives
- Security of projectinformation
- Team spirit/cohesion
- Innovation
- Skill development
Potential Challenges to PM
- Impact on functional performance
- Detrimental effect to compete for resources
- Conflicting orders
- Functional manager deprives resources
- Additional level of authority
- Contingency on flexible approach/attitude
- Readjustment to functional working after project
The History of Project Management
Pyramids, Great Wall, Roman roads/aqueducts
Industrial Revolution: traditional management practices – worked well for batch/mass production
1900s– Gantt chart
1940s – Los Alamos/ Manhattan Project – first complex, high-tech project
1950 – Network diagrams for industrial processes
1957 – DuPont – CPM Critical Path Method
1958 – US Navy – PERT Program Evaluation and Review Technique
Late 1960s– Project Management Institute (PMI) & Association for Project Management (APM)
1988 – APM Body of Knowledge (BoK)
1996 – BS6079
1997 – ISO10006
Module 2 - Individual and Team Issues
No urgent need for developing tools further. People make projects succeed or fail.
The term “project manager” means different things to different people
Wide variation in roles and duties
Selecting the Project Manager
- Charged with organising and managing a project team to meet objectives
- Sole responsibility for outcome
- Responsible to project sponsor
- Temporary role without traditional hierarchical power
- Authority to make decisions about priorities
- No authority to issue direct orders
- Sources of influence:
Competency
Professionalism
Project ReputationFunctional
Manager SkillManagers
Interpersonal skills
Alliances
- May manage across functional, departmental, organisational and geographic boundaries
- Central position High volume of communications
- Intellect to devise strategy and diligence to ensure execution
- Primary requirements
-Planning
-Organising team
-Interfacing
-Negotiating
-Managing resources
-Monitoring/controlling status
-Identifying issues
-Finding solutions
-Resolving conflicts
- Interface management – with a balance between managerial and technical functions
To control project creep or creeping scope i.e. any changes. Only changes agreed are authorized or contracted for.
- Soft management skills
-Parallel focus
-Initiative
-Persuasiveness
-Communications
-Organization
-Generalist rather than specialist
-Planning & Implementing
-Problem identification
-Time management
-Negotiation / influence / diplomacy /
- Hard skills
-Complex time/ cost plans
-Contracts, procurement, purchasing, personnel
-Training / Development
-Technology
-Business strategy – translate into objectives
- Selection
-Internal (best) good functional manager with PM skills – should not retain functional role!
-External consultant is alternative– Learning curve – Disparity of interest (no allegiance)
Some Essential Project Manager Requirements
Functions
- Project planning
- Authorizing
- Team organizing
- Controlling
- Directing
- Team building
- Leadership
- Life-cycle leadership
Constraints/ success-failure criteria:
Time – Cost – Quality –Risk level – Environmental impact – Health and safety
1. Project Planning
- Time, cost, quality
- Define authority linkages with Task Responsibility Matrix (TRM)
-Milestones
-Important activities
-GeneralSpecific responsibilities
-responsibilities
-Dates
2. Authorising
- Accumulate sufficient authorityto get the job done
- Delegate to others
- Authority is the ability to control and direct (Power is given)
3. Team organising
- Classical/ traditional theory
-People are merely components of a production process (e.g. automotive)
-Emphasis on the produced goods or services
- Empirical theory
-Essential similarities between systems and processes
-Observation and interpretation
-Correct process will materialise from sample and data set
-e.g. trains
- Behavioural theory
-Human relations school
- Interpersonal relationship between people and work/ organization (Intrinsic links)
- Profit sharing
- Expectancy theory
-Social system school
- Social characteristics of organisations and individuals
- Evolution as people leave/join
- External influences
- e.g. smoking ban, health and safety regulations
- Decision theory
-Mathematical: management science - operations research
- Systems management theory
-Organisation characterised by throughput of resources
-Input – processing – output
Functional managers favour Classical, Empirical, Behavioural theory.
Project managers favour Decision and Systems management theory.
Organising throughout the life-cycle but greatest organisational development at beginning.
Clarify at first meeting:
-Individual responsibilities
-Organisational Breakdown Structure OBS
-Task Responsibility Matrix TRM
-Communication links
-Authority links
-Configuration Management SystemCMS
-Project programme
4. Controlling
- Targeting
-Aligned with success and failure criteria
-Cost, output, quality
- Measuring
-Formal (objective eg EVA), informal (subjective)
- Evaluating
-Identification/isolation of problem
-Alternative options
-Corrective action
-Variance analysis in conjunction with forecasting
- Correcting
-Identify source of problem
-Correct it
-Monitor actual and planned correction performance (2nd level variance analysis)
5. Directing
- Setting up project team
- Training and development
- Supervision
-Individual targets, evaluation, discipline, definition of objectives and responsibilities
- Motivation (team and individual)
-Rewards, evaluation, feedback, reconciliation of individual/organisational goals
- Co-ordination
-Prioritisation of work; monitoring resources
6. Team building
Early stages most critical (initial culture often continues)
- Team/Individual commitment
-Common objectives, reward system, motivation drivers
- Team spirit (not same as commitment)
- Obtaining necessary resources
-Number of people, mix of skills
- Clear team/individual goals and success criteria
- Formalisation of visible management support (attendance at key meetings)
- Effective programme leadership
-Accuracy of planning, efficiency of monitoring/control. Ownership of large problems
- Open formal/informal communications
- Rewards and retribution systems (good performers rewarded, poor performers reprimanded)
- Identification /management of conflict
-High pressure is common source
-Sudden change in energy levels can be a sign
- Heterogeneity and cohesiveness
7. Leadership
- Decision-making ability
- Problem-solving ability
- Integration of new members (flexibility, provision of sufficient learning time)
- Interpersonal skills (comradeship and trust)
- Identify and manage conflict (when objectives/limitations are changed)
- Communication skills (most important tool)
- Interface management (upward, downward, horizontal)
- Factor-balancing skills
8. Life-cycle leadership
-Project teams last relatively short period of time
-Project team changes to meet needs/challenges
Phase / Characteristic / Task / People / Effect1 / Inception / High / Low / Telling
2 / Development / High / High / Persuading
3 / Stabilisation / Low / High / Participating
4 / Maturity / Low / Low / Delegating
The Project Team
Project Teams within Functional Organisations
- Allocated to most appropriate department
- Using resources from one function or across several
- Contrast with Pure project organisation for relatively large one-off projects (e.g. Millennium Dome)
- Advantages of projects within functional organisation
-Flexibility and full use of employees
-Employees gain new experience/skills
-Cross-functional working attitude
-Experts create new synergies outside rigid functional structure
-Follow primary career path within function or new career path through project
-Less costly than external consultants
- Disadvantages
-Function is depleted of resources
-Functional managers offload less efficient people
-Difficulty in adapting to thedemands of project environment
-Prioritisation of simultaneous projects
-Communication barriers (compared established channels of functional units)
-Motivation (unless senior management support)
Team Multi-disciplinary Heterogeneity Issues
- Sentience: tendency to identify with own profession/background rather than with project and organisation
- Interdependency:tendency for teams to depend on input from more than one individual
-Pooled interdependency (sections/divisions make contributions)
-Sequential interdependency (input from multiple individuals required to move to next phase)
-Reciprocal interdependency
- Integration: process of defining responsibilities and control, ensuring everyone adheres to same definition
- Differentiation (specialism) contributes to sentience
- Multidisciplinary nature tends to increase sentience and interdependency
- Greater range of backgrounds reduces overall bias (but more discussion and conflict)
Group and Team Processes
- Group: collection of individuals with common objective
- Team: group working under direction of team leader
- Organisation contains many formal and informal groups.
Informal tend to form quickly and voluntarily for social reasons. - Groups better at problem solving than individuals. Groups tend to:
-Brainstorm
-Consider wider range of factors
-Enhanced logic flow
-Generate more original ideas
-More potential solutions
-Solve problems more accurately and quickly
Project Team Performance
- Most important factors contributing to performance:
-Heterogeneity – in qualifications, experience, outlook…
-Cohesiveness – alignment of personal and team goals; commitment and morale of members
Project Team Staffing Profile and Operation
Project Team Staffing
- Balance of skills:
-Technical
-Management
-Administrative
-Interpersonal
- Other considerations:
-Immediate and long-term availability
-Ability
-Continuity requirements
-Teamworking skills
-Special skills
- Trade-off between continuity and ability
- Mix of internal and external staff
- Guidelines:
-Voluntary staffing
-Staffed to add value to project
-Operated less formally than functional teams
-PMgr Lead by example
-Flexible and responsive
-Interface across organisational boundaries
-Teams innovate and evolve
-Functional managers receive recognition and credit for provided resources
-Conflict should be promoted during staffing (the sooner the better)
Project Team Profile
- Widest interpretation of project team:
-Contractor’s personnel
-Subcontractors
-Clients
-In-house staff
-Other interested bodies (inspectors, government, lobby groups…)
- In almost everyone’s interests to meet objectives in timely and cost-effective manner
- Project office: focal point, physical hub of project
- Three specials project-management positions:
-Project planner (“operations director”)
-Project controller (“financial director”) /
Project Team Operation
- Establish measurable objectives
-Identify and acknowledge stakeholders
-Establish dimensions of success
-Agree on criteria for success
- Stakeholder management
-“Invisible team” can provide great source of support
-Protect image of team
-Develop network of useful contacts
-Exploit network for quality project resources
- Establish/plan measurable targets
-Understandable and practicable
-Multi-level
-Plan for unknown (contingencies)
-Realistic milestones
- Plan and establish processes
-Firm ground rules
-Create open environment to be creative and take responsibility
-Develop relationships
-Flexible environment when needed
- Leadership
-Clear direction, stimulate high performance
-Reward good performance
- Membership and identity
-Members must trust PM
-Active followership more valuable than passive
-Temporary drafts must be seen in positive light
-Clear understanding of roles
-Members recognise their own value
- Communication systems
-Formal/informal meetings to confirm identity, provide opportunities, reinforce rules, celebrate success
-Accept and address conflict
-Efficient communication with external bodies
-Meetings result in actions, documented with time scales and responsibilities
- Team separation
-Members can rely on fellow team members
-Commitment and momentum maintained even when physically separated
-Regular contact enables clear communications
- Information technology
Advantages
-Reduced need for specific facilities (video…)
-Reduced direct interaction – fewer personality clashes
-Record keeping, simplified accountability and audit
-Less direct supervision
-Less control bureaucracy / Disadvantages
-Expensive remote support
-Loneliness
-Loss of managerial control
-Time difference – coordination
-IT can go wrong
-Cohesion severely restricted
- Teams in general (optimal when)
-Regular face-to-face meetings
-Performance measures and criteria are clear
-Members have responsibility and accountability
-Clear time commitments established
Project Team Evolution
Project Life Cycles
- Conception and feasibility
- Outline proposals and definition
- Tooling up
- Operation and production
- Decommissioning
Project Change Control and Management
Historically little attempt to standardise life-cycle phases
BS6079 proposes Strategic Project Plan (SPP)defining standard planning & control system
Project Team Evolution
- Forming
-TRM Task Responsibility Matrix
-OBS Organisational Breakdown Structure
-Project staff register
-Baseline set of team and project objectives
- Storming
-Establish cohesiveness
-Increasing tendency of conflict
-Attempts to depose leader
- Norming
-Formal/informal
-Behaviour
-Performance
- Performing
-Team members satisfied that team is balanced
-New conflicts dealt with by team
Groupthink
Groupthink is the tendency for teams to delude themselves over the quality and reliability of the product. Most often encountered in long-term teams where there has been initial success.
Typical symptoms:
- Absolute commitment to the project
- Lack of respect for competitors
- Intolerance of dissenters
- Fear (of authority or majority)
- Self-delusion (invincibility) – common in successful teams with high cohesion and commitment
- Selective reporting
Project Team Motivation