Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Explain
the life-cycle of a project.
A.1
• Identifying requirements
• Establishing clear and achievable objectives
• Balancing the competing demands for performance, scope, time and cost.
Project management is both an art and a science. The "Art" aspect of project
management relates to the fact that projects are really about getting things done by
people. Hence it requires a keen knowledge of human behavior and the ability to skillfully
apply appropriate interpersonal skills.
The "Science" aspect comprises a set of principles, methods and techniques that people
use to effectively plan and control project work. These principles and techniques help the
project manager and the project team to complete projects on schedule within budgeted
cost and in full accordance with project specifications. At the same time, they help
achieve the other goals of the organization, such as productivity, quality and cost
effectiveness. Hence the objective of project management is to optimize project cost,
time and performance (includes quality).
Today large and small organizations recognize that project management, with its
structured approach to planning and controlling of projects, is a necessary core
competency for success. Like general management, project management also involves
all aspects of planning, organizing, implementing and controlling .However, it has its own
techniques like work breakdown structure, critical path analysis, PERT (Program
evaluation & review technique), which will be discussed in later units.
In many strategic projects the function of project management will involve disciplines like:
• Finance
Preparation of financial statements which will form part of the project proposal, as
well as the basis for managing the costs of the project.
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• Personnel
Identification of skill requirements of personnel who will form the project team,
selecting the personnel, and maintaining a good working environment.
• Operations
Managing the activities /operations that are repetitive in nature.
• R&D
New product development & quality assurance.
• Marketing
Marketing the project idea to sponsor (sponsor can be internal or external to the
company).
Definition of Resources:
We discussed earlier that the most important step to arrive at the relationship between
the four constraints is to make an accurate assessment of the resources required, and
the costs thereof. At this stage, we shall broadly classify the resources required under
four categories.
• Manpower
• Materials
• Tools and Plants
• Infrastructure
• Manpower
Manpower refers to all the man hours required from various personnel working
directly or indirectly on the project
• Materials
Materials refer to all materials that become part of the project. In the case of a
building this will include cement, steel, aggregates, doors & windows, mechanical
electrical/instrumentation equipment and materials, finishing materials like tiles
water proofing, ironmongery, consumables utilized in the construction etc etc. – in
summary all materials that become part of the building structure.
• Infrastructure
Infrastructure refers to temporary arrangements that need to be provided for
project implementation and dismantled at the end of the project. Examples are
labor camps, electric power and water supply systems built for the construction of
the project, dedicated telecommunication facilities during construction at project
sites etc.
Each one of the above mentioned resources has a cost associated with it and the sum
total of these costs will form a part of the project cost.
Defination of Process
PMBoK organizes Project management processes into five groups, defined as the
Project Management Process Groups, each group comprising one or more processes.
This grouping helps in understanding the relevance and significance of the sequence of,
and interaction between the various processes in project management. However, a
process group is not a totally discrete phase occurring in isolation from another process
group, and the processes have inherent interactions between themselves throughout the
implementation of a project. We will briefly define these process groups as under, while a
more detailed explanation of each process group follows subsequently.
• Initiating process group – defines and authorizes the project or a project phase.
• Planning process group – defines and redefines objectives and plans the course
of action required to attain the objectives and scope that the project was
undertaken to address.
• Executing process group – integrates people and other resources to carry out the
project management plan for the project.
• Controlling process group – regularly measures and monitors progress to identify
variances from the project management plan so that corrective action can be
taken when necessary to meet project objectives
• Closing process group – formalizes acceptance of the product, service or result
and brings the project or a project phase to an orderly end.
Broadly, the process groups tend to be deployed in the sequence listed as the project
progresses. In the event that a project goes off-course, re-planning comes into play, and
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if a project is found to be in serious trouble, it may have to go all the way back to the
initiating process to be restarted.
To summarize, the result or output of one process group often becomes an input to
another. In the central process groups planning, executing and control), all the links are
looped i.e. the links of these central process groups are iterated – planning provides
execution with a documented plan early on, and then provides documented updates to
the plan, as the project progresses.
Product cycle
Seven stage process through which practically every major project goes through:
1. Identification: stage where one project-idea out of several alternatives is chosen
and defined.
2. Preparation: defined idea is carefully developed to the appraisal stage.
3. Appraisal: every aspect of the project idea is subjected to systematic and
comprehensive evaluation, and a project plan is prepared.
4. Presentation: detailed plan is submitted for approval and financing to the
appropriate entities.
5. Implementation: with necessary approvals and financing in place, the project plan
is implemented.
6. Monitoring: at every stage the progress of the project is assessed against the
plan.
7. Evaluation: upon completion the project is reassessed in terms of its efficiency
and performance. Also called project life cycle.
Project Life cycle
Collectively, the project phases are known as the project life cycle. Thus the project life
cycle serves to define the beginning and end of the project. For example, when an
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organization identifies an opportunity, it will conduct or authorize a feasibility study to
decide if it should undertake the project. The project life cycle definition will determine
whether the feasibility report is treated as the first project phase, or as a separate
standalone project. The phase sequence defined by most project life cycles generally
involves transfer of deliverables (or technology) such as:
• Requirements to design
• Design to production or construction
• Production to distribution
• Construction to operation
Deliverables from preceding phase are usually approved before work starts on the next
phase. The requirement of speedy completion of the total project will often necessitate
overlapping of phases i.e. a subsequent phase is begun prior to approval of the previous
phase deliverables, when the risks involved are deemed acceptable. This overlapping is
termed fast tracking.
A.2
• Scope Management - This includes planning, defining and managing the scope
of the project.
• Quality Management - This involves taking care of the quality of the process in
question such that it meets or even exceeds various quality parameters set
earlier.
• Human Resource Management - A manager needs to take care of his team,
encourage and motivate them and make sure the team moves in the right
direction.
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• Communication Management - The manager needs to prepare a
communication plan and make sure that there is a healthy communication, both
horizontally and vertically.
A project manager is usually responsible for the success or the failure of the project.
They first need to define the project and then build its work plan. If the scope of the
project is not very clear, or the project is executing poorly, the manager is held
accountable. However, this does not mean that the manager does all the work by himself
(which is practically impossible). There is an entire team under the project manager,
which helps to achieve all the objectives of the project. However, if something goes
wrong, the project manager is ultimately accountable.
Apart from this, depending on the size and the complexity of the project, they may need
to take on multiple roles. The project manager may need to assist with gathering
business requirements, help to design a database management system or may prepare
project documentation. They may work full time on a large project, or may work part-time
on various projects of a smaller nature; or may alternatively handle various projects as
well as handle other responsibilities like business analysis and business development.
At times, they may have accountability but not authority. For example, he or she may be
using certain resources but might not have direct control over those resources. At such
times, the manager might find certain limitations over task execution, which might not
take place as they might have liked. Not having direct control over the state of finances
and finance allocation might cause ambiguity.
In order to be successful, the project manager must be given support and authority by
senior management.
Process Responsibilities
Once the project starts, the project manager must successfully manage and control the
work, including:
• Identifying, tracking managing and resolving project issues
• Proactively disseminating project information to all stakeholders
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• Identifying, managing and mitigating project risk
• Ensuring that the solution is of acceptable quality
• Proactively managing scope to ensure that only what was agreed to is delivered,
unless changes are approved through scope management
• Defining and collecting metrics to give a sense for how the project is progressing
and whether the deliverables produced are acceptable
• Managing the overall schedule to ensure work is assigned and completed on time
and within budget
Again, this does not mean that the project manager physically does all of this, but they
must make sure it happens. If the project has problems, or scope creep, or faces risks,
or is not setting expectations correctly, then the project manager is the person held
accountable.
To manage the project management processes, a person should be well organized,
have great follow-up skills, be process oriented, be able to multi-task, have a logical
thought process, be able to determine root causes, have good analytical ability, be a
good estimator and budget manager, and have good self-discipline.
People Responsibilities
In addition to process skills, a project manager must have good people management
skills. This includes:
• Having the discipline and general management skills to make sure that people
follow the standard processes and procedures
• Establishing leadership skills to get the team to willingly follow your direction.
Leadership is about communicating a vision and getting the team to accept it and
strive to get there with you.
• Setting reasonable, challenging and clear expectations for people, and holding
them accountable for meeting the expectations. This includes providing good
performance feedback to team members
• Team building skills so that the people work together well, and feel motivated to
work hard for the sake of the project and their other team members. The larger
your team and the longer the project, the more important it is to have good team-
building skills.
• Proactive verbal and written communicator skills, including good, active listening
skills.
Again, you are responsible for the success of the project. If the team has poor morale
and is missing deadlines, you need to try to resolve it. If team members don't understand
exactly what they need to do and when it is due, then you are responsible.
Q.3 Explain the various steps in the identification process of a project. What are
the tools used in project planning?
A.3
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Steps in the Identification Process of a Project
The identification process – The main steps in the identification process of any
project are :
• Identify initial requirements.
• Identify the criteria for assessing the success of both the final project product and
the process used to create it. Ex: quality objectives, quantitative requirements for
the project.
• Prepare a template of the frame work of solution to illustrate the project feasibility.
• Prepare relevant charts to demonstrate the techniques of executing the project and
its different stages.
• Make a list of the training program necessary for the personnel working on the
project.
• Identify the training needs of the individuals working in various functions responsible
in the project.
• Assess the capabilities and skills of all those identified as part of the project
organization
Planning Tools : The tools which may be necessary for coordinating a project
successfully are the following :
• Project organization
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Process Skills and activities
• Prepare an outline project justification, plan and project
budget
Initiation • Selection and briefing of the project team, assigning roles
and organization
• Feasibility study- risk and key success factors
• Project definition and project plan
Planning
• Communicate to the team
• Allocating and monitoring the work and cost
Execution • Ensuring work and team cohesion
• Reporting progress
• Monitoring progress and managing changes
Control
• Helping the team to solve project problems
• Satisfactory delivery
Close
• Compiling lessons from project experience
• Project structure
Development plan, project tracking and oversight
• Project Key personnel – Identify those business areas that are within the scope
or directly interface with the scope boundary and list them in the “Business area”
column of the project assignment worksheet
Identify the key personnel for each area and list them in the “Person” column of
the project assignment worksheet.
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• Project Management Team
It is a senior management team, which will be accountable for the project.
• Identify project sponsor, client representative and technical representative.
• Stage managers- who will plan and manage the project on a day-to-day
basis for this stage
• Project coordinators- client coordinator and technical coordinator
• Clearly define these coordination, control activities and identify the brief
suitable personnel to carry them out
• Key stakeholders
Identify management level personnel who are critical to the success of the project.
Document the responsibilities of stakeholders
• Stage teams
Identify appropriate personnel required for the stage, define the team structure
and appoint team leaders
Document the time commitment and responsibilities to be performed by the team
members.
• Key resources
Individuals assigned to a key resource role may work towards gathering “Business
key resources” and “Technical key resources”. They are project coordinators and
team invitees.
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Q.4 What is Risk Management? How can risks be prioritized?
A.4
Risk Management Risks are those events or conditions that may occur and whose
occurrence has a harmful or negative impact on a project. Risk management aims to
identify the risks and then take actions to minimize their effect on the project. Risk
management entails additional cost. Hence risk management can be considered cost
effective only if the cost of risk management is considerably less than the cost incurred if
the risk materializes.
Risk prioritization – Risk prioritization focus on the highest risk. Prioritization requires
analyzing the possible effects of the risk event in case it actually occurs. This approach
requires a quantitative assessment of the risk probability and the risk consequences. For
each risk rate the probability of its happening as low, medium or high. If necessary,
assign probability values in the ranges given for each rating. For each risk, assess its
impact on the project as low, medium, high or very high. Rank the risk based on the
probability. Select the top few risk items for mitigation and tracking.
Refer to a list of commonly used risk mitigation steps for various risks from the previous
risk logs maintained by the PM and select a suitable risk mitigation step. The risk
mitigation step must be properly executed by incorporating them into the project
schedule. In addition to monitoring the progress of the planned risk mitigation steps
periodically revisit the risk perception for the entire project. The results of this review are
reported in each milestone analysis report. To prepare this report, make fresh risk
analysis to determine whether the priorities have changed.
A.5
It is expected that various processes will overlap with others during the phases of a
project, the processes may also need to interact. Processes have certain common
features:
• they have an Input, including plans and designs,
• they include Tools and Techniques, applied to the abovementioned inputs,
• and they include Outputs. These outputs include the goal of the project, such as
the product, or documentation.
The concept of the PMBOK’s Project Management Knowledge Areas suggests that there
are only five process groups. These include:
• Initiating – deciding to perform the project,
• Planning – deciding how to run the project,
• Executing – doing the acts that comprise the project,
• Controlling and Monitoring – deciding further details about the project and
measuring how the acts that comprise the project compare with the planning, and
• Closing – finishing the project, delivering and paying.
In order to create an effective Project Managment system, each of these nine knowledge
areas are used, each of which may include processes from each of the five process
groups.
Each process can be defined as related to one knowledge area and one process group.
This term is defined in the 3rd and the 4th edition of the PMBOK.
3. Assists the managers in doing what if analyses about project staffing, proposed
staffing changes and total allocation of resources.
A good PMIS is possible to be developed from the team members and not from the
systems administrators of the company. Organizations tend to allocate such
responsibility by rotation among members with a well designed and structured data entry
and analytical format.
Q.6 List out the macro issues in project management and explain each.
A.6
Macro issues
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In order to provide complete stability to fulfillment of goals, one needs to
constantly evaluate from time to time , the consideration of what will constitute the
success of completing a project and assessing its success before completion. The
KSF should be evolved based on a basic consensus document (BCD). KSF will
also provide an input to effective exit strategy (EES). Exit here does not mean exit
from the project but from any of the drilled down elemental activities which may
prove to be hurdles rather than contributors. Broad level of KSF should be
available at the conceptual stage and should be firmed up and detailed out during
the planning stage. The easiest way would be for the team to evaluate each step
for chances of success on a scale of ten. KSF should be available to the
management duly approved by the project manager before execution and control
stages. KSF rides above normal consideration of time and cost – at the levels
encompassing client expectation and management perception – time and cost
come into play as subservient to these major goals.
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This step is most difficult since junior members have to respond and resist to
being pushed through sheer innovation and performance – this is how future
leaders would emerge. The PDM process is made scientific through:
i) Earned value management system (EVMS)
ii) Budgeted cost of work scheduled (BCWS)
iii) Budgeted cost of work performed (BCWP)
iv) Actual cost of work performed(ACWP)
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