Project-01

Project Management: Introduction I. Project: Meaning II. Features of a Project III. Categories of Project IV. Project Charter V. Deliverables in the Project VI. All Projects Involve Agreements VII. Project Baselines VIII. Project and Production IX. Project and Process X. Project and Program

I. Project: Meaning A project is a unique venture with specific start and end dates. This is different from an ongoing task that doesn't have an end date. Projects often involve different parts of an organization. Constraints on project include cost, schedule, resources, and quality. There is a give and take between these items i.e. you can't have it all. Usually projects are divisible into stages or phases each with their own set of priorities and goals. A project is an important and carefully planned piece of work that is intended to build or produce something new, or to deal with a problem. The Project Management Institute, U.S.A. has a good definition for it. According to the Institute, a project is a one-shot, time-limited, goal-directed, major undertaking, requiring the commitment of varied skills and resources. It also describes a project as: a combination of human and non-human resources pooled together in a temporary organization to achieve a fixed set of objectives The aforementioned descriptions emphasize that a project does not mean a material body or form, rather it denotes an operation undertaken temporarily to achieve a goal-directed objective within a limited time. In contrast, the Oxford English Dictionary states that a project is "a plan, scheme or table of something; a tabulated statement; a design or pattern according to which something is made; something projected or proposed for execution; a proposal." It is, therefore correct to interpret conceptually that a project can also be a physical object, that is to say something projected or proposed for execution, such as planned undertaking, large or small, and for profit or otherwise. Example: # Definitely is a Project: Constructing a hotel. # Might be a Project: Painting a bedroom. # Definitely is not a Project: Processing employee time data to produce payroll checks.

II. Features of a Project The unique features of a project are: 1. Objective: A project has a fixed set of objectives. Once the objectives have been achieved, the project ceases to exist. 2. Life span: A project cannot continue endlessly. Projects are temporary set of activities. Once the goal is achieved, the project is disbanded or configured to begin work on a new goal. 3. Single entity: A project is one entity and is normally entrusted to one responsibility center while the participants in the project are many. 4. Team work: A project calls for team work – the team again is constituted of members belonging to different disciplines, organizations and even countries. 5. Life cycle: A project has a life cycle reflected by growth, maturity, and decay. It has, naturally, a learning component. 6. Uniqueness: Every project is unique in that it requires doing something different than was done previously. A project is a one-time activity, never to be exactly repeated again. 7. Successive principle: What is going to happen during the life cycle of a project is not fully known at any stage. The details get finalised successively with the passage of time. 8. Made to order: A project is always made to the order of its customer. 9. Conflict: Projects are characterized by conflict. Projects compete with functional departments for resources and personnel.

III. Categories of Project There are four main categories of projects: 1. Individual Projects: These are short-duration projects normally assigned to a single individual who may be acting as both a project manager and a functional manager. 2. Staff Projects: These are projects that can be accomplished by one organizational unit, say a department. A staff or task force is developed from each section involved. This works best if only one functional unit is involved. 3. Special Projects: Very often special projects occur that require certain primary functions and authority to be assigned temporarily to other individuals or units. This works best for short-duration projects. Long term projects can lead to severe conflicts under this arrangement. 4. Matrix or Aggregate Projects: These projects require inputs from a large number of functional units and usually control vast resources. Each of these categories of projects can require different responsibilities, job descriptions, policies, and procedures.

IV. The Project Charter The project charter is the first document that exists in the project. It causes the project to come into existence. The project charter names the project and briefly describes it. It names the project manager and causes a cost account to be opened to capture the cost of the project. Once these essential things have been done, work on the project can proceed. The project charter should be written by the project manager, but it must be issued under the signature of someone above the project manager who has the authority to make project assignments. Unless a project charter is written, there is no formal creation of the project, and there is no formal recognition that the project manager is the project manager for this project. The early creation of a unique cost account for the project is essential because without it, the cost of the project in the early stages could be lost or misapplied to other projects or functions in the company.

V. Deliverables in the Project All projects accomplish something. The "something" that they accomplish can be either a good or a service and is usually a combination of both. The individual items of goods or services that are accomplished are called the project deliverables. In other words, the items that we call the project accomplishments are generally referred to as the project deliverables. There are internal and external deliverables. # The internal deliverables are those that are delivered to the other operating parts of the project. # The external deliverables are those that are delivered to some stakeholder outside of the project team. # Internal deliverables are the outputs of the project tasks that serve as inputs to other project tasks. # The external deliverables serve as inputs to making the stakeholder's deliverables complete. The external deliverables must be clearly and completely defined to each of the project stakeholders, who must understand that the list of deliverables they agree to comprises the items that will be delivered as a result of the project's completion. They must realize that they will receive all of these deliverables but that they will not receive any other deliverables. Making this clear to the stakeholders will go a long way in controlling changes in the project, especially changes that the stakeholders do not wish to pay for.

VI. All Projects Involve Agreements We know that there is a relationship consisting of a "consuming organization" and a "delivering organization". The consuming entity is receiving something of value from the project and, in return, should be paying for the value. If managers are going to be accountable for performance, they need to be able to judge the costs and benefits of their projects. In fact, we see more and more companies develop project accounting that allow them to evaluate the costs and benefits of projects. This exchange-of-value concept supports an important principle: All projects involve agreements. Good agreements protect both the consumer and the deliverer of project services. Organizations that perform projects consistently will always have some formal agreements in place. These agreements – for all practical purposes – are contracts and encourage accountability by all parties to the agreement. Since all projects involve agreements, we can derive a rule: You should only expect others to provide what they have agreed to provide and at an agreed level of performance. A good agreement is not coercive, and responsible people will consider carefully whether they want to enter into an agreement. Thus, an individual is only obligated to do what he agrees to do.

VII. Project Baselines A project has three baselines that will be used for performance and progress measurement. They are the scope baseline, the time or schedule baseline, and the cost baseline. The scope baseline is the sum of the deliverables of the project. It represents all the work that must be done to complete the project. Any deliverables that are not included in the scope baseline will not be delivered to any of the stakeholders. The time baseline is the schedule of all the work that will be done to produce the scope baseline. Each item of work in the schedule is an item of work that is required to produce an output that either contributes to the delivery of a deliverable or that is an input required by another scheduled task in the project. The cost baseline is the budget of the project. A budget is the time-phased cost of all the work in the project schedule. The cost baseline does not include the contingency budget or the management reserve.

VIII. Project and Production Projects are different from production work because all projects have a beginning and an end. Production work is generally ongoing for long periods of time and does not have a definite starting and stopping point. Since projects provide at least a somewhat unique product or service, they must have a beginning and an end. Production work and project work both consume resources and produce products or services. They both cost money and require planning to be done successfully. IX. Project and Process Processes have three components: inputs, transformations, and outputs. From an organizational standpoint, processes are mostly repetitive and produce common outputs. Projects are different from processes because they have less consistency in inputs, transformations, and outputs. X. Project and Program A program is a collection of projects grouped together to get advantage from their combined management. Programs usually are larger than projects and are collections of projects that come to an end when the sponsoring organization makes a determination to end the program and when the projects that make up the program are completed.