Project Management

Project management is the process and activity of planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling

resources to achieve specific goals. A project is a temporary endeavor designed to produce a unique

product, service or result with a defined beginning and end (usually time-constrained, and often

constrained by funding or deliverables) undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, typically to bring

about beneficial change or added value. The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast

with business as usual (or operations), which are repetitive, permanent, or semi-permanent functional

activities to produce products or services. In practice, the management of these two systems is often

quite different, and as such requires the development of distinct technical skills and management

strategies.

The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals and objectives while

honoring the preconceived constraints. The primary constraints are scope, time, quality and budget The

secondary —and more ambitious— challenge is to optimize the allocation of necessary inputs and

integrate them to meet pre-defined objectives.

Some of the approaches towards project management we have to follow these to concur result in project.

There are a number of approaches to managing project activities including lean, iterative, incremental, and phased approaches. Regardless of the methodology employed, careful consideration must be given to the overall project objectives, timeline, and cost, as well as the roles and responsibilities of all participants and stakeholders.

The traditional approachA traditional phased approach identifies a sequence of steps to be completed. In the "traditional approach", five developmental components of a project can be distinguished (four stages plus control):

1. Initiation

2. Planning and design

3. Execution and construction

4. Monitoring and controlling systems

5. Completion

Not all projects will have every stage, as projects can be terminated before they reach completion. Some

projects do not follow a structured planning and/or monitoring process. And some projects will go through

steps 2, 3 and 4 multiple times.

Critical chain project management:

Critical chain project management (CCPM) is a method of planning and managing project execution

designed to deal with uncertainties inherent in managing projects, while taking into consideration limited

availability of resources (physical, human skills, as well as management & support capacity) needed to

execute projects.

CCPM is an application of the theory of constraints (TOC) to projects. The goal is to increase the flow of

projects in an organization (throughput). Applying the first three of the five focusing steps of TOC, the

system constraint for all projects is identified as are the resources. To exploit the constraint, tasks on the

critical chain are given priority over all other activities. Finally, projects are planned and managed to

ensure that the resources are ready when the critical chain tasks must start, subordinating all other

resources to the critical chain.

Event chain methodology

Event chain methodology is another method that complements critical path method and critical

chain project management methodologies.

Event chain methodology is an uncertainty modeling and schedule network analysis technique that is

focused on identifying and managing events and event chains that affect project schedules. Event chain

methodology helps to mitigate the negative impact of psychological heuristics and biases, as well as to

allow for easy modeling of uncertainties in the project schedules. Event chain methodology is based on

the following principles.

Probabilistic moment of risk: An activity (task) in most real-life processes is not a continuous

uniform process. Tasks are affected by external events, which can occur at some point in the middle

of the task.

Event chains: Events can cause other events, which will create event chains. These event chains

can significantly affect the course of the project. Quantitative analysis is used to determine a

cumulative effect of these event chains on the project schedule.

Critical events or event chains: The single events or the event chains that have the most potential

to affect the projects are the “critical events” or “critical chains of events.” They can be determined by

the analysis.

Project tracking with events: Even if a project is partially completed and data about the project

duration, cost, and events occurred is available, it is still possible to refine information about future

potential events and helps to forecast future project performance.

Event chain visualization: Events and event chains can be visualized using event chain

diagrams on a Gantt chart.

Process:

Traditionally, project management includes a number of elements: four to five process groups, and a

control system. Regardless of the methodology or terminology used, the same basic project management

processes will be used. Major process groups generally include:

Initiation

Planning or design

Production or execution

Monitoring and controlling

Closing

In project environments with a significant exploratory element (e.g., research and development), these

stages may be supplemented with decision points (go/no go decisions) at which the project's continuation

is debated and decided. An example is the Phase–gate model.

Project controlling and project control systems

Project controlling should be established as an independent function in project management. It

implements verification and controlling function during the processing of a project in order to reinforce the

defined performance and formal goals. The tasks of project controlling are also:

the creation of infrastructure for the supply of the right information and its update

the establishment of a way to communicate disparities of project parameters

the development of project information technology based on an intranet or the determination of a

project key performance index system (KPI)

divergence analyses and generation of proposals for potential project regulations

the establishment of methods to accomplish an appropriate project structure, project workflow

organization, project control and governance

creation of transparency among the project parameters

Businesses sometimes use formal systems development processes. These help assure that systems are

developed successfully. A formal process is more effective in creating strong controls, and auditors

should review this process to confirm that it is well designed and is followed in practice. A good formal

systems development plan outlines:

A strategy to align development with the organization’s broader objectives

Standards for new systems

Project management policies for timing and budgeting

Procedures describing the process

Evaluation of quality of change

Risk Analysis in Project Management

The first challenge in understanding risk analysis in project management is to nail the definition of risk analysis. International standards like ISO 31000 notwithstanding, there are various definitions in circulation. We’ll stick here with the definition of risk analysis as the identification of the most probable threats, and the analysis of the related vulnerabilities of a project to these threats. Risk assessment as the evaluation of project security and controls, and their adequacy vis-à-vis the threats.

Trends in Project Risk Analysis

The field is still developing with at least two project risk analysis (PRA) approaches. The first has its roots in safety and process hazards analysis. You ‘walk’ through the steps of the process to identify any unwanted events that could arise. This can also be considered the decision tree version. The second is an evolution of systems analysis that uses a mathematical model to forecasts outcomes of important project performance criteria. In this approach, risks are ranked according to their degree of influence on the end result. When larger numbers of factors are involved, the model rapidly has to become a simulation in order to handle the complexity. So here we have a stochastic model with sensitivity analysis

The Ability to Prioritize Risk

While risk factor identification and modeling for a project are both important, so is the ability to prioritize. The long lists of potential risks that some tools or methods generate are not always the best basis for modeling the most important or most likely consequences. Competent project managers know that a risk should only be labeled ‘Critical’ or ‘High” if this is a realistic scenario (significant loss is occurring or will occur). Otherwise an ‘over-enthusiastic’ model can lead to an organization burning out resources uselessly.

Risk Registers

Risk registers are simply records of risks that could significantly impact the performance of a project or that could simply prevent a project from being completed. A document like a project plan can list and describe such risks; so can an influence diagram in Analytical, which also allows the risks to then be connected to a model to show possible outcomes for project performance criteria such as quality, cost or timeliness. Certain organizations hold national risk registers for project managers who want to know if they’ve missed anything in their planning. Read the second part of this post to learn more. If you’d like to know how Analytical, the modeling software from Lumina, can help you analyze risk in different types of project, then try a thirty day free evaluation of Analytical to see what it can do for you.

Project stakeholders 

Project stakeholders are entities that have an interest in a given project. These stakeholders may be

inside or outside an organization which:

1. sponsor a project, or

2. have an interest or a gain upon a successful completion of a project;

3. May have a positive or negative influence in the project completion.

Examples of project stakeholders include the customer, the user group, the project manager, the

development team, the testers, etc.

Project stakeholders are individuals and organizations that are actively involved in the project, or whose

interests may be affected as a result of project execution or project completion. They may also exert

influence over the project’s objectives and outcomes. The project management team must identify the

stakeholders, determine their requirements and expectations, and, to the extent possible, manage their

influence in relation to the requirements to ensure a successful project.

The following are examples of project stakeholders:

Project leader

Project team members

Upper management

Project customer

Resource Managers

Line Managers

Product user group

Project testers

There are narrower views of the term stakeholder, focusing on the influencers and decision makers of a

business or technological change. In this context, stakeholders are managers who have the

organizational authority to allocate resources (people, money, services) and set priorities for their own

organizations in support of a change. They are the people who have the power make or break a change.

The rationale for this emphasis on decision maker is reinforced by the views of John Kotter, a professor at

the Harvard Business School and the author of numerous books on corporate culture, change

and leadership. In an interview published in CIO Insight magazine, Kotter said, "I've seen too many

technology projects get dumped on project teams and task forces that simply don't have enough clout,

enough credibility, connections, you name it, to be able to do a difficult job, and so, surprise, surprise,

they start getting frustrated and the powerful people in the company just ignore them or do what they want

to do anyway. Also, on a lot of the IT projects, if you go up to the typical line manager and say to him,

‘You've got this big thing going on here. What's the vision? Paint a picture for me. How's the company

going to be different in 18 months when this is all done?’ They can't even see it. So of course they haven't

bought into it. And if they haven't bought into it, are they going to cooperate?"

Rather than focusing on one sub-set of stakeholders, Dr. Lynda Bourne [1] advocates prioritizing all

stakeholders and focusing your attention on the ‘most important’ at this point in time. Her view of

importance encompasses an assessment of the power, proximity and urgency associated with each

stakeholder. The Stakeholder Circle methodology is described in her Doctoral thesis: Project

Relationship Management and the Stakeholder Circle.