Project management

Project management: Project definition, Methodologies, Success, Risk, Quality and Lifecycle

Introduction

This section explains the fundamentals of project management which is considered both a science and an art.  You will discover everything you need to know about project management including some definitions, its history, project management frameworks and the project lifecycle with each of the key phases from initiation to closing.  It will give you a good understanding of how to successfully implement any type of projects.

Topics

1. What is a project?
2. What is project management?
3. What are project management goals?
4. What is project success?
5. What is project management history?
6. What are project management methodologies?
7. What is a project lifecycle?
8. What is risk management?
9. What is team management?
10. What is resource management?
11. What is expectations management?
12. What is managing dependencies?
13. What is quality assurance?
14. What is project closing?
15. What is project documentation?
16. What is a project best-practices?
17. What are the project industries?
18. What is programme management?

What is a project?

A project is a temporary endeavour which has a defined beginning and end, usually constrained by date, budget and specific deliverables.  It is undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, usually to bring about beneficial change or added value.

The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast to business as usual (also called operations), which are repetitive, permanent or semi-permanent functional work to produce products or services. In practice, the management of these two systems is often found to be quite different, and as such requires the development of distinct technical skills and the adoption of separate management.

A project has the following characteristic:

1. It is a temporary endeavour: it has a defined beginning and end
2. It is undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives: beneficial change or added value

What is project management?

Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, securing and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives. 

As define by the Project Management Institute, project management is “the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements”.  It is all about producing results on a specific project by respecting the time frame, cost and quality.

What are project management goals?

The primary goal of project management is to successfully deliver a project within the scope, time, budget (also known as the project management triangle) and to the highest possible standards.  

The secondary goal is to optimize the allocation and integration of inputs (resources, time, technology…) necessary to meet pre-defined objectives.

What is project success?

By definition a project success is based on the delivery of the initial requirement within the scope, time and budget.  It is also important to consider project success from an investment perspective where value to the business adding with a substantial return on investment.

Some of the questions worth considering at the beginning of a project includes:

1. What is project success? (from a client, sponsor, PM, team, ressource manager perspective?)
2. What are the project success criteria’s? (acceptance criteria)
3. Why do project fail? (communication, resources, sponsor..) 
4. How to reduce the probability of failure? (risk management, industry knowledge..)

What is Project management history?

Project management history: CPM, PERT, Henry Gantt, Henri Fayol, IPMA, PMI

Discover the history of Project management from its early beginning in the 1950s to the latest agile methodologies.

Project management history, CPM, PERT, Henry Gantt, Henri Fayol, IPMA, PMI

The history of Project management can be traced back to the 1950s when it became recognized as a distinct discipline combining management discipline with engineering model.  Two mathematical project-scheduling models were developed in those time including the “Critical Path Method” (CPM) and PERT. 

Soon after a variety of organizations started to systematically apply project management tools and techniques including Henry Gantt, best known as the father of a planning technique known as the Gantt chart and Henri Fayol, creator of the five management functions that form the foundation of the project management body of knowledge

In the later 60’s the International Project Management Association (IPMA) was founded in Europe and was soon followed by the Project Management Institute (PMI) in the USA. with both organisations  offering a variety of certifications.

What are project management methodologies?

Project management Methodologies: Waterfall, iterative, incremental, phased approaches

Discover the most popular Project management Methodologies including iterative such as agile, incremental or phased approaches such as Waterfall.

Project management Methodologies, Methodology, Waterfall, iterative, incremental, phased approaches

They are a variety of Project management Methodologies and some of the most important include Waterfall the more traditional approach, PRINCE2 with its structured framework and Agile/Scrum being more iterative and enabling faster changes to the project.

The various approaches to manage project activities include:

1. Waterfall (traditional)
2. PRINCE2 (structured)
3. Critical chain project management (CCPM)
4. Process-based management
5. Agile project management
6. Lean project management
7. Extreme project management
8. Benefits realization project management

What is a project Lifecycle?

Project Lifecycle: initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and completion

Learn about the full Project Lifecycle including Project initiation, Project planning and design, Project implementation, Project monitoring and controlling and Project completion.

Project Lifecycle, Lifecycle, initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and completion, Project

The Project Lifecycle is the different processes taken by a team to deliver a project from initiation to completion. The project is usually constrained by date, budget and specific deliverables and is undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, that should add value or is a beneficial change to the business.  

A traditional project lifecycle has the following key stages normally completed in sequence:

1. Project initiation phase should determine the nature and scope of the project (the why of any project).  
2. Project planning and design is the act of defining the blueprint of the why, when and who of a project
3. Project implementation consists of the processes used to complete the work defined in the project plan to accomplish the project’s requirements
4. Project monitoring and controlling consists of those processes performed to observe project execution
5. Project completion is the formal acceptance of the end of project or version

In an Agile/SRUM methodology the planning, execution and monitor phase will be done in an incremental fashion every week/sprint.

Lear more about a project lifecycle and its phases. 

What is prototyping?

Project prototyping: simulates only a few aspects of the final product

Discover the benefits of Software prototyping, where only a few aspects of the final product is implemented  in order to get user feedback as soon as possible and to gauge the accuracy of initial project estimates and whether the deadlines and milestones proposed can be successfully met.

Prototyping, which derives from the Greek word meaning primitive form, is a method to deliver an early sample of a product to test a concept or validate an assumptions.  It often serves to provide specifications for a real, working system.

Discover the benefits of Software prototyping, where only a few aspects of the final product is implemented  in order to get user feedback as soon as possible and to gauge the accuracy of initial project estimates and whether the deadlines and milestones proposed can be successfully met.

What is project budgeting?

The project budgeting is the act of precisely estimate  all the costs required to complete all the project tasks. It is usually based on a top level budget created at the scoping phase.  The typical budget usually sums up the costs for the direct resources required (staff, equipment, services…) but also other related cost such as training, travel and operating costs.

What is risk management?

To make sure that you have all the various project risks are in control it is good practice to assign a risk officer.  Someone who’s role is to track the various issues and resolutions, but who isn’t closely involved in the project as he needs to see the big picture.  Although he should be in charge of risk monitoring, all the team members should not hesitate to report concerns or challenges. All those issues should be precisely entered into a risk database as to make sure they are easily retrieved.

Successful Risk Management consists of those main steps including:

1. Identification of the potential risks and issues
2. Produce an action plan in case the risk happens
3. Finally it is import to control and monitor to make sure that the right action plan is executed

What is team management?

Team management refers to techniques, processes and tools for organizing and coordinating a group of individuals working towards a common goal or task.  Those could vary depending on the team and methodology used, but would include meetings, stand-ups and various communication and project management tools such as Wrike, Skype, Gmail or Google Docs.

Some of the essential characteristic for successful team management include communicating clearly at all level (technical, management, investors…), running effective meetings and brainstorming sessions, facilitate the flow of information and ideas, listen actively and understand development needs.

What is resource management?

Resource management is the efficient and effective deployment of a projects resources when they are needed, including financial resources, inventory, human skills, production resources, or information technology (IT).

What is expectations management?

Expectations management is the art and science of using communications, techniques, documentation and deliverables to keep the stakeholders (usually the client/sponsor) satisfied with the progress/deliveries of the project.  It is often one of the crucial factor of the project success as few projects completely fail (in the sense of delivering out of scope, out of budget and out of schedule) but too many failures comes from no meeting the users’ expectations.

Some tips to successfully manage expectations include:

1. Being honest and realists
2. Under promise and over deliver (instead of over promising and under delivering)
3. Constant communication (keeping everyone in the loop)
4. Concise and systematic reporting
5. Anticipation (new needs and requirements)

What is managing dependencies?

Managing dependencies refers to the way one would prioritize various logical relationships between two activities in order to deliver in the most effective way.  Although this is very project specific some example would be to have the UX process before starting the Design phase, or have the backend completed before starting front end development.

What is Quality Assurance?

Quality Assurance (QA) is a way of preventing mistakes or defects in manufactured products and avoiding problems when delivering solutions or services to customers. QA is applied to physical products in pre-production to verify what will be made meets specifications and requirements, and during manufacturing production runs by validating lot samples meet specified quality controls. QA is also applied to software to verify that features and functionality meet business objectives, and that code is relatively bug free prior to shipping or releasing new software products and versions.

What is project documentation?

Project documentation is the process accomplished by the project team to define in a structure and simple way the various components of a project. 

What is s project best-practices?

A project best-practices are a set of rules and guidance to be used in order to minimize potential risks and increase the project success.   Those best-practices are usually a combination of suggestion from Project Management framework such as PRINCE2 or SCRUM, and the organisation’s experience and values.

Some of the project management best practices include:

1. Clearly Define and Plan project with key stakeholders
2. Identifying risks up front and continue throughout the lifecycle 
3. Effectively Manage scope and stakeholders (to avoid scope creep)
4. Be proactive not reactive (look for warning signs )
5. Carefully monitor progress against original plan

What are the project management industries?

Project management can be applied to almost any industries but the most popular includes:

1. Construction project management: including the fields of architecture and civil engineering (infrastructure)
2. Software project management: including Agile software development (rapidly iterative way), Capability Maturity Model (CMM), Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM) , Unified Process and Rational Unified Process (RUP).

The various types of projects include:

1. Mega project: is an extremely large-scale investment project.
2. Expansion projects: expansion of current operations or undertakings.
3. Strategic projects: allowing an organisation to meet specific business goals
4. R&D projects: allowing an organisation to create/test a concept
5. Customer projects: fulfilling the need and requirement of a paying client

What is programme management?

Programme management is the process of managing several related projects, often with the intention of improving an organization’s performance.  If project management answer the why of a project, programme management should be answer the why, taking each one of the projects as an investment.