Project Management Defined

Project management defined
To understand what project management is, we’ll start by clarifying what a

project is.
A project is: a set of interrelated activities, usually involving a group of people

who are working together toward a common goal over a period of time.
For example, individuals from different business units in your company

collaborate on the design, building, testing, and modification of a new product.
Once the new product goes into production, the project ends for the design
group. But the project continues, with responsibility for producing, marketing,
selling, and servicing the product moving to relevant business units as
needed.
Projects can be highly diverse:
 They can be undertaken at the lowest hierarchical levels in an organization—or the

highest.
 They may require the efforts of a single person—or many thousands of people.
 They might last a week—or several years.
 They can involve a single unit in an organization—or many units.
With the definition of project in mind, consider what’s meant by project management.
Project management is: planning, scheduling, and orchestrating of project activities to achieve
objectives within a specified period of time.
Project management requires skills in organizing, budgeting, staffing, monitoring, and

communicating.
Benefits
When you manage projects effectively, you generate immense benefits for
your organization:
 You help your organization reach its strategic goals.

 You ensure that things get done on time and on budget. This adds
predictability to your organization's work.
 You minimize costs by finding ways to deliver on objectives within
reasonable time periods.
A four-phase process
To manage a project, you typically progress through four phases:

Implementatio
Planning Buildup Phaseout
n
 Determine
the real  Bring
 Assembl  Monitor
problem project
e project and
 Identify to
team control
stakeholder closure
 Develop process
s  Identif
overall  Report
 Define y next
plan progress
project steps
objectives
Essential activities carried out during the project management process include:
 Defining the project scope and objectives
 Developing a schedule
 Creating a budget
 Assembling a project team
 Monitoring the project’s progress
 Communicating with stakeholders
 Managing risks to the project
Overlapping activities
The major activities associated with each project management phase often
overlap. In addition, they’re iterative—you may have to return to some of
these activities several times over the course of the project. In fact, the more
complex your project, the more iterations it may go through.
Returning to the activities of an earlier phase doesn’t mean you're moving backward or losing
ground. It simply means you’re incorporating new knowledge and information into the overall
project plan.
It also reflects an “adaptive” approach to project management—by which you approach project
activities as small, iterative learning experiences. You use the information gathered from each
project activity to manage subsequent activities.
A more linear, or traditional, project management approach works well with projects that are
familiar to your organization and that aim to address relatively simple problems. Such projects
have a well-defined, stable scope; a well-understood technology infrastructure; low risks; and
experienced project teams.
Linear vs. Adaptive Project Management

But in today’s complex and fast-changing business world, many projects don’t fall into this
category. Instead:
 The problems they seek to address are critical and don’t have known solutions
 Project teams lack experience
 Available technologies are unfamiliar
Regardless of the challenges, your organization may be in danger of missing out on an important
business opportunity. It must find a way to take advantage of the opportunity by developing a
new product or service offering.
Here are some ideas for how you can manage projects adaptively:
 Perform experiments iteratively and quickly. With your project team

members, engage in small, quick experiments with the project work. Evaluate
the outcomes and make adjustments moving forward. The quick turnaround
time will help you all learn fast and apply your new knowledge to the
remaining project work.
 Strive for early delivery of value. Work with your team to provide
deliverables earlier and in smaller pieces. This encourages feedback and helps
team members apply their learning to subsequent activities.
 Staff the project with people who have a talent for learning and adapting.
Some people are faster learners and more amenable to change than others. Seek
such individuals when putting together a project team.
 Avoid overrelying on metrics that assume predictability. Metrics such as
return on investment, net present value, and internal rate of return are useful
when you can reasonably predict a project’s future cash flows. Avoid them
when a project has a high degree of uncertainty and you can’t predict future
cash flows.
Establish Project
Scope
A successful project begins with clearly defined objectives. Be sure you know which
problems your project aims to solve—and which problems it’s not meant to address.
Define the problem
To define the problem your project needs to solve, ask questions that uncover
the practical and business issues the project will tackle. Once you've defined
the problem, don’t grab for the most obvious solutions; brainstorm alternative
solutions.
Avoid rushing into solutions

The problem that your project is supposed to solve may not be obvious. To correctly define the
problem, resist any temptation to leap at a definition too quickly. For instance, suppose you're an
IT manager and several people in your department have asked for a new database and data-entry
system. You informally ask them: "Why do we need a new system?" The answers you receive
include: "We can't get the data out fast enough" and "I have to sift through four different reports
to update my clients' recent activity."
These responses describe symptoms—not underlying problems. Ask more probing questions,
such as "What type of data do you need?" "How are you using the data now?" and "How quickly
do you need to retrieve the data?"
If you don’t know the answers to such questions, you could waste time and money designing a
system that doesn’t address your group’s fundamental concerns.
Your team in an electronics company is designing a mid-priced television. The deadline
is inflexible: The TV is slated to be unveiled at a major consumer electronics trade
show; a marketing brochure that highlights its features already went out; and portions of
the budget are committed by contract. But the project is showing signs of running late.
Which of the following strategies is more likely to help you meet your deadline with the least
negative impact on quality or cost?
- Get the project out the door faster by encouraging the team to work paid overtime
- Hire specialists to work on the product on a temporary basis
Correct choice! For this project, hiring specialists on a temporary basis is a better
solution than encouraging the team to work overtime. The specialists can apply
their wealth of experience to increase the quality of the product.
You hired specialists and it looks like you’ll meet your deadline. But paying the
specialists has added to your costs, and you need to free up some project money.
Which of the following strategies is more likely to help you free up project money with the least
negative impact on quality?
- Make cuts to the product’s proposed feature set
- Save money by using generic rather than high-end circuitry in the set's design
Correct choice! Using generic parts can have a minimal negative effect on quality
and may be the only practical way to save money while getting the product out on
time with the agreed-upon features.

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Project management defined

To understand what project management is, we’ll start by clarifying what a

A project is: a set of interrelated activities, usually involving a group of people

For example, individuals from different business units in your company

Projects can be highly diverse:

 They can be undertaken at the lowest hierarchical levels in an organization—or the

Project management requires skills in organizing, budgeting, staffing, monitoring, and

 You help your organization reach its strategic goals.

To manage a project, you typically progress through four phases:

 Defining the project scope and objectives

 Assembling a project team

 Monitoring the project’s progress

 Communicating with stakeholders

 Managing risks to the project

Linear vs. Adaptive Project Management

 Project teams lack experience

 Available technologies are unfamiliar

 Perform experiments iteratively and quickly. With your project team

Define the problem

Avoid rushing into solutions

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