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PROJECT MANAGEMENT - FINAL DISSERTATION |
PART I - INTRODUCTION
Project could be defined as “A complex, non-routine, and one time effort limited by time, budget, recourses and performance specifications designed to meet customer’s need”. Like most of the organizational effort, the major goal of a project is to satisfy a customer’s need. The major characteristics of a project are:
An established objective.
A defined life span with beginning and an end.
Usually, the involvement of several departments and professionals.
Typically, doing something that has not been done before.
Specific time, cost and performance requirements.
The Importance Of Project Management:
Project is no longer a special-need management. It is rapidly becoming a standard way of doing business. An increasing percentage of the typical firm’s effort is being devoted to projects. The future promises an increase in the importance and the role of projects in contributing to the strategic direction of organizations. Following are some of the factors that contribute to the demand of project management in the businesses:
1- Compression of product life Cycle: One of the most significant driving forces behind the demand for project management is the shortening of the product life cycle. Worldwide flows of information reduce the competitive advantages of new products, which are more easily imitated. Computer aided designs (CAD) and manufacturing (CAM) have also forced radical changes in the product life cycle. For example today in the hi-tech industries, the product life cycle is an averaging 1.5 to 3.0 years. Only 30years back life cycles of 10 to 15 years were not uncommon. Due to shorter life cycle, it is imperative that firms keep a constant chain of new products in the pipeline and gets each product to market before their competitors. In a hi-tech world six months project delay results 33% loss in product revenue shares.
2- Global Competition: Open market demands not only cheaper products and services but better products and services. This led to the emergence of the quality movement across the world with ISO 9000 certification a requirement for doing business. Quality management and improvement invariable involve project management. Increase pressure to reduce costs has led many U.S firms to migrate their operations to Mexico and the Far East, which by itself is a project. More and more work is being classified as a project. Project management has a triple focus on cost, time and performance is providing to be efficient, flexible way to get things done.
3- Knowledge Explosion: The growth in new knowledge has increased the complexity of projects because projects encompass the latest advances. Building a road before 30 years was very simple but now each area has increased in its complexity, including materials, specifications, codes, aesthetics, equipments and require specialists. Therefore as product complexity has increase the need to integrate divergent technologies. Project management as a n important discipline for achieving this task.
4- Corporate Downsizing: Downsizing and sticking to core competencies have become necessary for the survival of the firms. Middle management is the skeleton of the past. In today’s World flatter and leaner organizations, where change is constant are replacing their middle mangers with project managers as a way of ensuring that things get done.
5- Increased Customer focus: Increased competition has placed a premium on customer’s satisfaction. Customers no longer simply settle for generic products and services. They want customized products and service that carter to their specific needs. This mandate requires closer working relationship between the provider and the receiver. Project management is critical, both to develop customized product and services and sustain lucrative relations with customers.
6- Rapid Development of Third World and Closed Economies: The collapse of Soviet empire and the gradual opening of Asian communist countries have created an explosion in pent up demand within these societies for all manner of consumer goods and infrastructure development. Western firms are scrambling to introduce their products and services to these new markets and many firms are using project management techniques to establish distribution channels and foreign basis of operation.
7- Small projects Represent Big Risks: The velocity of change required to remain competitive or simply keep up has created an organizational climate in which hundreds of projects are implemented concurrently. This climate has created multi-project environment with many new problems. Frequently, organizational culture does not support small projects and control systems are non-existence. Unfortunately large sum of money are lost each year on small projects in product and service organizations. Many small projects eat up resources of a firm due to hidden cost that are not measured in the accounting system. Organizations with many small projects going on concurrently face the most difficult management problems.
There are variety of environmental forces interacting in today’s business world that contribute to the increased demand for good project management across all industries and sectors. Project management appears to be ideally suited for business environment requiring accountability, flexibility, innovation, speed, and continuous improvement.
Implementing project management in an organization almost always occurs in small incremental phases. Different models exists that attempt to capture this evolution. Following is the three-phase model.
1- Phase One: Ad Hoc Use: This phase typically begins with an individual or a department initiating the use of one or more project management tools in a project. The tools appear to hold potential for improving project success. Top management will have little or no involvement in the use of these tools. In few cases, these attempts end up in failures. The blame may be placed on tools, but other circumstances are found to be the cause of most cases. The cause is usually the complete lack of coordination between project and resources. Sometimes project management tools are abandoned but they are tried again in few years time. Near the end of the phase, conflicts across functional lines often appear as tensions rise over control and direction of projects.
2- Phase Two: Formal Application: Getting through the first phase may take two to five years. In phase two various needs and inadequacies are recognized as barriers to project success. Typical of this phase project management training is needed for every management level in the organization. Top management takes an interest in better management of the projects. Project managers are given more control over projects. More attention is given to project leadership. However, in this phase top management is not active in project selection and prioritizing projects. The relationship between strategic planning and projects is difficult to discern.
3- Phase Three: Project Driven Organization: The top management is now playing significant role in setting strategy, in developing a balanced project portfolio, and setting in project priorities. The prioritized projects relate directly to the strategic plan of the organization. Project management is the part of the organizational culture. Training in all dimensions of project management is ongoing; the goal is excellence in managing projects. Training and policy manuals have been written for each phase of the project management life cycle. Termination of a project includes a project audit and evaluation of time, cost and technical performance and as well as management performance.
Some project managers have used pieces of systems that are useful for managing projects. For example, networks, bar charts, job costing, task forces, partnering, and scheduling all have been used, sometimes very successfully and other times with poor results. Piecemeal systems fail in many aspects of the project management. Today emphasis is on development of a integrated project management process that focuses all project efforts towards strategic plan of the organization and reinforces mastery of both the project management tool / techniques and the interpersonal skills necessary to successful completion of project. Integration in project management has two key areas:
1- Integration of Projects with the Strategic Plan: In some organizations, selection and management of projects fails to support strategic plans of the organizations. Strategic plans are written by one group of managers, project selected by another group, and project implemented by another. These independent decisions by the set of managers create a set of conditions leading to conflict; confusion, and frequently unsatisfied customer, resources of the organization are wasted and non-valued-activities/ projects. An integrated project management is one in which all of the parts are interrelated. A change in any one of the parts will influence the whole. Mission, objectives and organizational strategies are set to meet the needs of the customers. Development of the mission, objectives and organizational strategies depend on internal and external environments.
2- Integration within the process of Managing Actual Projects: There are two dimensions within the project management process. The first dimension is the technical side, which consists of formal, disciplined, pure logic parts of the process. The technical side relies on the formal information system available. This dimension includes planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Clear project scope statements are written to link the projects and customer and to facilitate planning and control. Creation of the deliverables and work breakdown structures facilitate planning and monitoring the progress of the projects.
The second dimension is the socio-cultural side of the project management process. In contrast with the orderly world of project planning, this dimension involves the messier, often contradictory and paradox world of implementation. Project managers must shape a project culture that stimulates teamwork and high levels of personal motivation as well as a capacity to quickly identify and resolve problems that threaten project work. This dimension also involves managing the interface between the projects and the external environment.