Lecture 24 - Project Management

Figure 1: Project Management

No matter how good the team or how efficient the methodology, if we’re not solving the right problem, the project fails  

Project management is the way of managing change. Everything from the Olympics to organizing a wedding can be considered a project where it has a beginning and an end. It describes the activities that meet specific objectives and can be used to introduce or improve new or existing products and services.

Learning from class:

Lecturer started off the lecture by stating what is a project. According to his definition basically a project is a work that done by stick in to a particular time frame, budget to heading towards to achieve a particular goal. The highlighted words sated in the above statement known to be characteristics in a project.

Then lecturer discussed different stages in a project, They are

• Initiation - Define the type and the theme of the project. Examples: Propose the budget required, Date and Venue
• Planning - Breakdown the project into smaller tasks. As an example in a party scenario identify sponsors, print tickets, sell tickets, Decorations, Find a place and booking the location, Assign people for certain responsibilities and divide the budget.
• Controlling - Manage the work been done and make sure the work been carry on according to plan, budget and time frame. Make sure there is no deviation in the plan. Enable to accommodate new actions to be performed by managing the tasks in the plan.
• Complete - Check whether the expected outcome has been achieved within the time as well aligning to the budget

Then lecturer stated biggest reason to failure of projects is because of improper identification of client requirements that happens preliminary stage of the project process and most of the time when new requirements come it unable to accommodate within the time frame which results in not satisfying customer needs. To eliminate above artifacts negotiation helps to create win-win situation for both parties. Strategies like BATNA can be applicable for those scenarios.

After that lecturer stated that it needs provide client expected requirements and the budget need to be alter in favorable way.

Then lecturer stated that project management is basically the way how a particular person manage the project based on the four pillars (principles) in project management. They are,

• Planing
• Organizing
• Leading
• Controlling

                 in order to make sure that the project is completed within the timeline and within the budget.

Then lecturer moved the topic in to project scope and feasibility.

Scope: Defines what a particular person going to do in the project. When new requirements coming to the project the scope should be expanded. The scope also gives an indication of what the person trying to achieve from the project basically the deliverable of the project along with boundaries.

Feasibility: Check whether the project is worthwhile to persuade. There are four feasibility dimensions. They are,

• Technical Feasibility - Available resources and expertise knowledge

• Operational Feasibility - Will the project solve the business problem and how it impacts to the organization

• Economic Feasibility - Study of cost and benefits. Identify return get. Cost can be classified as Tangible cost and Intangible cost and check whether there is a ROI (Return on Investment). Different ways of doing cost benefit analysis are payback analysis, ROI (Return on Investment), NVP (Net Percent Value), IRR, Benefits cost Ratio and ARR.       

• Schedule Feasibility - To check whether the project can be completed within the given time.

Bedside above feasibility methods in certain projects mostly in government related projects they check for,

Social Feasibility which defines whether the people accept the project and use it.

Then lecture stated how to Defines Aims/Objectives

What ever the objectives were identified should align to SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely)

After stating above fact lecturer stated what is a Methodology is and why need to use such Methodology.

According to him,

Methodology - People can conduct a project without using methodologies but if there is a methodology in place it helps to achieve the goals been specified and to address the problem more effectively by eliminating potential problem since the methodologies were design address problems.

Then lecturer focused more deeply on project management and stated project management is discipline of planing, organizing, managing and controlling that defines the four pillars of management and controlling resources to achieve the project goal within the time specified period as well as align to budget.

Lecturer also stated that Aims referred to complete the project on time, within budget, with required functionality and quality.

According to above statement quality identity how far particular persons tried to achieve clients expectations by balancing out time and cost.

As for the last section for today's lecture, lecturer stated How to Manage the Project. Specified by lecturer,

• Work to series of check points - Milestones to check for the quality of the work by showing to a supervisor. Basically Quality Assurance the project in certain intervals.
• Control the project by utilizing software -  Can use Case tools (Computer added software engineering tools such as Microsoft Project, Visio and Rational rose)
• Ensures projects scheduled at earliest possible date, with least drain on resources - Make sure the project finish on time and human resources should use in it maximum potential as well as make sure human resources are not over utilize or under utilize.
• Delays identified and increase resources- Identify the risk and their types. Identify the consequences to take if their is a risk. Identify Mitigation strategies (What are the action take place after the problem occurs).
• Adopt a methodology - To face and overcome problems occurs

Reality of the Lecture:

From this lecture I understood that project management enables me to properly coordinate the project task and to gain positive outcomes by overcoming negative consequences. So far for my individual and group projects I didn't use a proper timeline because of that I experienced huge workload to be done on certain days during the work process and I think most of my past projects were successful because content were reviewed by a third party almost all the time that result me to change errors been made during the project work. After learning Project Management consequences I understood that there are other various aspects to be consider on projects specially on industrial level projects to successfully complete according to the given time frame and budget along with customer expected requirements. To facilitate all the above needs I need to come with a better customized foundation for each project that need to be executed and monitor during the time of project's start to end.