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Fundamentals of Project Management

What is Project?
According to IS-15883 (Part 1): 2009

A project is a non-recurring task having a definable beginning and end, with a definite mission and
has a set objectives and achievements.
According to PMI A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide)

A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result.

There are two key words in above definition.

(i) Temporary : every project has a definite beginning and a definite end.
(ii) Unique :- any project can never be exactly repeated again.

Types of Projects

Personal Project

Preparing for Gate/Engineering Service Exam

Writing a Report/Book.

Business/Organisational Project

Construction of Dam, bridge, Highway, building etc. Setup refinery.

Making a Music Album/Movie.

National Projects
Swatch Bharat Abhiyan
E-Governance/Digital India

Global Projects

Prevention of Global warming

Elimination of Polio

Based on Completion Time

Long duration projects (over 5 years)

Medium duration projects (3 to 5 years)

Short duration projects (1 to 3 years)

Special short-term projects (less than 1 year)

Based on Value of Project

Mega value projects (>1000 crores)
Large value projects (100-1000 crores)

Medium value projects (1-100 Crores)

 Small value projects (< 1 Crore)

Characteristics of Projects
1. Change
2. Fixed set of objectives
5. Temporary
6. Cross-functional/Teamwork
7. Unique
8. Life cycle
9. Made to order

8. Single entity
9. Multi-skilled staff
10. Subcontracting
11. Risk and uncertainty

Operations
Operations are ongoing execution of activities that produce same output or provide a repetitive
service.

Similarities between Operations and Projects.

Both are executed by individuals.

Both are subjected to constraints like resources, schedule, risk and etc.

Both are planned, executed and controlled.

Both are executed to meet strategic and organisational objectives.

Difference between operations and projects are:

Stakeholders
Stakeholder is a person, group of individuals or organisations, who is positively or
negatively impacted by the project and/or anyone who can exert influence over the
projects objectives and results.
Generally in any project stakeholders are as below.
(a) Project Manager
(b) Sponsor
(c) User/Customer
(d) Sellers or Business Partners
(e) Project Team
 (f) Departmental Managers
(g) Board of Directors
(h) Project Management Office

Project Constraints
Constraints are limiting factors or holding back elements that decide upon the boundaries of
project.
(i) Scope
(ii) Quality
(iii) Schedule
(iv) Budget
(v) Resources
(vi) Risk

What is Project Management?

According to PMBOK Project Management is application of knowledge, skill, tools and
techniques to project activities to meet project requirements.

Objectives of Project Management

(i) Scope (S)
(ii) Performance (P)
(iii) Time (T)
(iv) Cost = f (P, T, S).

Project Management Office

Project Management Office is a group or organizational body, which is assigned various
responsibilities related to the centralized and coordinated management of projects.
Types of Project Management Office
Project Management office could be of following nature
(a) Supportive Project Management Office :These kind of PMOs have low degree of
control on projects.
(b) Controlling Project Management :These kind of PMOs have moderate degree of control
on projects.
(c) Directive Project Management Office : These kind of PMOs have high degree of control
on project

Functions of Project Management

According to IS-Code following are the functions of Project Management.
Define work or scope of the project
Decide how the activities of project are to be executed.
Develop a suitable organisational structure.
Develop Implementation plan, procedure, standards and metrics.
 Involve all the participants and ensure all the project components (or elements) are inter-
related, integrated and Co-ordinated.
Finalize contracting plan and policy, prepare contract document and decide contractors
responsibility.
Prepare time schedules, cost (or budgets) and identify Milestones.
Develop monitoring and control, information and reporting system, and ensure their desired
operation.
Establish healthy communication and Co-ordination among projects.
Provide consultation, training and oversight about projects.

Creating organisational assets in terms of documentation and templates of Project

management policies, procedure and standards.
Program and PortfolioProgram
According to PMI, Program is a group of related projects managed in a Co-ordinated way to
obtain benefits and control, which is not available from managing them individually.
This means that a program will have multiple projects which are inter-related to each other.Benefits
of Program

Good communication and Co-ordination between projects. Reduce conflict between projects
Better resource utilization

Resource constraints are minimized

Organisation performance is improved

Portfolio

Portfolio is a group of related or non-related projects or programs.

Note that in program management only related projects were managed whereas in portfolio
related and non-related projects are managed.

Benefits of Portfolio

Better allocation and utilization of resources between projects and programs. Extending
constant support to projects or programs.

Reduction in conflicts or better communication between projects or programs. Improvised Co-

ordination among projects or programs.

Project Manager
A project manager is an individual with authority, accountability and responsibility for managing a
project to achieve specific objectives.
Characteristics of Good Project Manager
1. Good technical skills
2. Leadership skills
3. Resource management
4. Human Resource Management
5. Communication skill
6. Negotiation and Influencing skill
7. Conflict Management skill
8. Marketing, Contracting, customer relationship skill
9. Budgeting & Costing skill
10. Scheduling and time management skill
11. Team building
12. Motivation skills
13. Decision making skills
14. Political and Cultural awareness
15. Trust building.

Organisational Structure
Organisational structure is the hierarchy of people and its function.
An organizational structure defines how activities such as task allocation, coordination and
supervision are directed towards the achievement of Organisational aim.
It enables the co-ordination and implementation of project activities by creating an environment
which felicitates interactions among the team members with a minimum amount of conflict and
friction.

Basic characteristic of an Organizational structure should be innovative approached to

overcome difficulties.

Sound and Experience based judgment.

Prompt management of changes and changing Situations.
Good monitoring and control of preferred and performance.

Types of Organisational Structural

1. Functional Organisational Structure

In this type of Organisational structure an organisation is divided into a specialised functional
departments, undertaking corresponding specialised task of each project.
A department may have more than one projects at a time.
Any project is not identified by one special person or department.
In this kind of system functional manager has all the authority i.e. budget allocation, resource
allocation, decision making etc.

Generally position of project manager does not exist, whereas if there is a project manager their
role will be limited and requires approvals from functional managers.
Sometimes Project manager may have title of Project Co-Coordinator

Advantages
Employers are very skilled and efficient because they are experienced in same work.
 There is no duplication of work as roles and responsibility of each employee is fixed.
Clear cut hierarchy i.e. each employee reports to his functional manager, which results in better
communication and co-operation.

Disadvantages
Employees might feel bored due to the monotonous, repeated type of work and may become
lazy.
Cost of high skilled employee is higher.
Departments develop a self-centered mentality i.e. functional manager only pays attention to
his department and dont care about other departments.
Each department will start behaving like a small company with its own culture and management
style.
Project manager has little or no authority.
Carrier path is not clearly defined for project manager, sometime they may be on part time pay
roles.
II. Projectised Organisation
In projectised organization structure, project manager has full authority to assign persons
assigned to the project.
Here either there will be no functional manager, or if exists, he will have very limited role and
authority.
Projectised organisation are only interested in project work which they get from external clients.
Generally they have some small departments such as Admin, Accounting, and Human
Resource to support the project Management activities.

Advantages
As all the team members directly report to only one project manager, there is a clear line of
authority. This reduces conflict and enables decision making faster and flexible.
Team members become versatile and flexible due to experience in different Kinds of project.
Single reporting system creates a strong and effective communication within the project team.

Disadvantages
As project manager has full authority and power over his team, he can become arrogant and
dominating.
If any organisation has multiple projects, then there can be poor communications among them,
which can result in duplication of resources.
Employees are less loyal to the organization because there is a sense of insecurity among
them i.e. once the project is complete; they feel that they may lose their jobs.

III. Matrix Organisation

Matrix organisation structure is a combination of the functional organisation structure and
projectised organisation structure.
In matrix organisation, a project manager is identified and project team consists of various staff
 drawn from functional departments.
Project manager contracts with the functional managers for completion of specific task and co-
ordinates project efforts across the functional units.
Functional managers assign work to employees and co-ordinate work with in their areas.

Advantages
Highly skilled resources can be shared between functional units and departments.
Matrix structure is more dynamic than functional structure because it allows employees to
communicate more readily across their functional departments.
It creates a good working and co-operative environment which helps in integrating the
organisation.
Employees can learn and widen their skills and knowledge by participating in different kind of
projects.
As there is a sense of job security, employees tend to be loyal to the organisation and perform
well, and therefore efficiency increases.

Disadvantages

Employees have to report to two bosses, which may create confusion and conflict.

A conflict might arise between the project manager and the functional manager for the share of
authority and power.
If priorities are not clearly defined, employees may have confusion between their role and
responsibility, especially when they are assigned a task which is different from what they were
doing.
For a rare resource their might be a competition to use it, which may cause chaos within the
work place and may affect the operation.

Project Life Cycle

Project manager or organizations can divide projects into phases to provide better management
control over the projects.

It also helps in identifying deviations and thus helps in decision making with regard to continuation
or termination of the project.

Collectively these phases are called as Project Life Cycle.

Generally, there are four stages or phases of project life cycle which are
(i) Project initiation (Concept) Phase
(ii) Project Planning Phase
(iii) Project Execution (Implementation) Phase
(iv) Closing Phase
Phase to Phase Relationship
1. Sequential Relationship
In sequential relationship next phase can start if and only if previous phase is complete.
Traditionally construction projects generally use sequential relationship.
Step by step nature of this approach reduces uncertainty but also eliminates options for
shortening the schedule.
II. Overlapping Relationship
In overlapping phase relationship next phase can begin before the completion of previous
phase.
This technique allows schedule compression called fast tracking.
This technique can lead to increase in risk and may result in rework if a subsequent phase
progress before accurate information is available from previous phase.

Types of Projects Life Cycles

Predictive Life Cycle

This life cycle is also known as plan driven life cycle or Water fall life cycle.
In a predictive life cycle, the three major constraints of the project i.e. scope, time and cost,
are defined in complete details early in the project life cycle as practically.

Then project is split up into phases which can be either sequential or overlapping.
Requirements are defined early and not expected to change.

Iterative and Incremental life Cycle

This life cycle is also known as Incremental life cycle and Rolling wave planning (also
known as progressive elaboration).
In Iterative life cycle, the project is split up into phases (or iterations) which can be either
sequential or overlapping, same as predictive life cycle.
In Iterative life cycle, scope is not defined ahead of time at a detailed level, but only for the first
iteration or phase of the project. Once a phase is completed, the detailed scope for next phase
is worked out, and so on.
End result is delivered at the end of each phase or iteration.
This life cycle is used for projects where change in the scope is need to be managed.

Adaptive life Cycle

This life cycle is also known as Change-Driven life cycle or Agile life cycle.
In Adaptive life cycle is also, sequential or overlapping, same as predictive.
At the end of each iteration, work for the product is reviewed by the customer, and feedback from
the customer is used to define the detailed scope for next iteration
This life cycle is used for projects where rapid changes are expected and it is not possible to define
scope in the start.
Adaptive life cycle is generally used in IT industry.