Project Management - Overview

[Priyansh Solanki]

Project Management - Overview

 

Common misconceptions about Project Management

Here are some questions we hear frequently that demonstrate a misunderstanding of project management:

• What does the project manager do?
• Why doesn't the project manager do some of the work?
• Why don't we make our top specialist the project manager?
• Why does the project manager need a support team?
• Isn't this all an unnecessary overhead for the project?

Project management is a specialist discipline. In a well run project, there is a constant array of management issues to deal with, as well as a challenging routine of project management processes.

 

360^o Responsibility of the Project Manager

The Project Manager is responsible for everything that is required to make the project a success - whether directly or indirectly. It is not like a typical hierarchical line management role. The Project Manager is at the centre of everything relating to the project. Controlling the contributions of seniors and peers is just as important as managing the work of the team.

• The Project Manager needs to manage upwards - ensuring that the inverted hierarchy comprising the organisation's leadership and the project sponsors are doing all that is required to guarantee the success of the project.
• The Project Manager is also the main focal point for liaison with other departments, projects and initiatives within the organisation, taking into account the needs and contributions of other internal groups.
• The Project Manager is equally the main point of contact for aspects requiring co-operation and co-ordination with external parties such as the project's suppliers and contractors, customers, suppliers, regulatory bodies, and other third parties - making sure everything is in place to guarantee success.
• The Project Manager has direct responsibility for the activities of all project participants, all project tasks and all deliverables.

Bear in mind that the Project Manager needs to achieve this without direct control over the participants. The Project Manager will not have power over the leadership, nor the internal and external contributors. Even in the project team there may be loaned staff, part-timers and sub-contractors who will have their prime loyalties elsewhere.

 

The Project Management process

Project management is a complex undertaking, with many stages and processes. It should follow the full business lifecycle, from definition and justification of the project, through to delivering demonstrable benefits for the business.

The project manager's skills are essential from the beginning. The defined approach and its business case will rely on a good understanding of the project process along with reliable estimating and carefully considered planning.

As well as the project manager's prime objective to deliver the results, there are many supporting disciplines and processes. These should ensure that the project will deliver a valuable result without surprises. The foremost need is to monitor the anticipated level of benefits and make adjustments to deliver optimum results. The leadership team should also actively identify and manage risks, issues, changed requirements, quality standards, plus a host of other side issues.

Not all these processes follow the traditional development lifecycle. In particular, it is wrong to consider the project has finished when the new system goes live. That way you will never know whether it delivered the planned benefits and you will probably not achieve them! Management attention must be retained to deliver the benefits - through to the Post-Implementation Review (PIR) and beyond. Some of the project management processes will migrate into continuing line management processes to be used throughout the life of the solution.

 

Here is a summary of the processes:

• The concept, objectives, approach and justification of the project are properly defined, agreed and communicated.
• Management-level planning maps out an overall management plan from which resources, acquisitions and sub-contracts can be identified, costed and put in place. The business case will be re-assessed to ensure the original assumptions and justification hold true. At this stage, many of the detailed management processes will be defined and instigated.
• A project will pass through several stages or phases, each with a different objective and deliverable. Typically the phases will require different skills, structures and resource levels. It is normal to plan, estimate andresource each phase separately (albeit overlapping the preliminary work to avoid stoppages).
• Planned benefits will be assessed and monitored throughout the project - optimising benefit should be the prime goal of the project manager.
• Quality requirements and approaches will be defined and agreed during the project start-up. Typically there will be rules that apply to the routine work of the team plus specified quality audits at the end of the phases.
• Risks will be assessed at the start of the project. Contingency plans and avoiding action will be defined as appropriate. The risk management process will pro-actively monitor risks throughout the project. Risk assessments and plans will be modified as appropriate.
• All participants will be encouraged to communicate potential issues for resolution. The issues management process will ensure they are considered and addressed.
• The scope of the project and specific changes to the solution will be controlled through a management process with appropriate balances and controls - focused on achieving optimum overall benefit.
• Versions of all deliverables will be controlled (whether temporary working papers or permanent outputs) through a configuration management process.
• A documentation management process will ensure all information is available to all those who require it, and is subject to careful control over authorship, reviews and updates.
• An effective team will be nurtured through appropriate initiation, training, communications, and social events.
• Organisational change issues will be assessed early in the project, leading to a course of communications, events and other activities to ensure all parties affected by the change are ready and willing to change.
• The needs to communicate outside the team with other parts of the organisation, customers, suppliers, and other parties will be assessed. A course of communications will be defined and actioned.
• Large projects inevitable require a process to handle expenditure on subcontractors, equipment, software, and facilities. Project accounting will monitor and control expenditure - both as a routine management activity and as part of the overall focus on delivering optimum benefits.
• Where sub-contractors are involved, there will be a management process to agree and monitor contracts.
• At the end of the project, there will be several activities to transition work, processes and deliverables to line operation. The team also need to ensure filing and documentation is in good order, leaving behind sufficient detail for the operation of the system, audits concerning the project, and as a baseline for future maintenance and development. People, equipment and facilities need to be demobilised.
• After the live solution has settled down, it is normal to organise a Post Implementation Review to measure the success of the project, to see what further improvements can be made, and to learn lessons for the future.

  

The Project Office

In a well-run project there is a lot going on. The routine project management processes require a combination of special skills and administrative resource. Rarely is it enough just to appoint a project manager. To do the job properly requires time and resources.

It is common to put in place a small project office team to deal with the administrative tasks of the project, freeing up the project leadership and project resources to get on with their jobs. A project office team might comprise roles such as project manager, project planner, progress tracker, financial controller, process administrator (change control, risks, issues, configuration, documentation management), quality controller, communications manager, organisational change manager, and administrative support.

It may be beneficial to use an integrated set of support tools. Project information can be shared among the team members from a single data source. Modern tools enable effective communication of project information through existing user interfaces such as web browsers and eMail. Typical uses would be to:

• make the detailed calculations concerning scheduling, costs and progress etc,
• publish progress information,
• publish individuals' task details,
• manage the workflow for submitting and handling changes, risks, and issues,
• enforce controls, for example in the "checking in" and "checking out" of documentation.

 

Put in place the project management people, processes and technology

Few organisations get the most out of their programmes and projects. Intelligently adapting a company's current approach to adopt the features of best-practice management approaches can lead to considerable benefits. It will ensure your objectives are realistic and will produce optimum benefit. It will seek to deliver the goals with no surprise. It will ensure everything is done to optimise the overall benefit to the organisation, despite changes to the business, changes in the economy and the inevitable snags along the way. In these uncertain times you need to be able to answer the following questions with assurance.

• Do I have confidence in the timescales, costs and net benefits?
• Do I understand all the risks to achieving that?
• Am I certain this is the best investment we can make with our limited resources?

Each project should have a proper definition, for example: objectives, budget, performance measures, accountabilities and timescale. It should follow well-defined project management processes, designed to ensure it stays on track to deliver optimum benefit. To have any degree of confidence in the outcome of a project you need to put in place the right people with the right combination of skills. They should work with the best practice processes and tools to make sure the project is properly defined and run. This needs to be in place before the work starts.

To have any degree of confidence in the outcome of a project you need to put in place the right people with the right combination of skills. They should work with the best practice processes and tools to make sure the project is properly defined and run. This needs to be in place before the work starts.

 

Copyright ©  Simon Wallace, 1999-2007

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Priyansh K. Solanki

Librarian

R K University: School of Management

Rajkot

Mob. 0 99097 92095