Project Life Cycle - Coursework Example

Project Management Contents Sl No Description Page No 1.0 Introduction …………….……………..….……………………………………… 3 2.0 Project Management ………………………………………………………….... 4 3.0 Conclusion …………………………….….…………….……………………….. 12 4.0 References ………..….…………….…………..……………………………….. 13 Section-1.0 Introduction A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result (Project Management Institute, 2004). Though the duration can be long or short, every project has a specific beginning and an end, and exists for a finite time period. Each project is also unique and has a different characteristic. Projects are also characterized by progressive elaboration; the project information and specifications gradually develop over a period of time during the life of the project providing more and more clarity. Project management involves planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing of project. It is a skill and an art required to balance the triple constraints of a project, viz., scope, time, and cost. Project quality is achieved by balancing these three factors. The project risk and uncertainty needs to be managed to ensure that none of project objectives are compromised. This report outlines the overall process of project management in a concise manner. Section-2.0 Project Management Project management involves effective use of project management tools and processes; it requires understanding and use of knowledge and skills from five areas of expertise as given below. The Project Management Body of Knowledge; Application area knowledge, standards, and regulations; Understanding the project environment; General management knowledge and skills; and Interpersonal skills. Project Management Body of Knowledge: This consists of knowledge specific to project management and common to other areas of management. As per PMBOK, this knowledge consists of – Project life cycle definition; Five Project Management Process Groups, and Nine Knowledge Areas. Project Life Cycle: A project goes through three major life cycle phases, viz., initial phase, intermediate phase, and the final phase. These phases are chronologically sequential. During the initial phase of the project, the level of uncertainty and the risk of failure are the highest. The uncertainty and the risk gradually reduce in the final phase of the project. The ability of the stakeholders to influence the final characteristics of the project is the highest during the initial phase, while the cost of change is the lowest. It is always more costly to accommodate a project change later in the life cycle of the project. This is graphically depicted in Fig 2-1. The initial phase of the project involves conceptualization of the project, developing the project charter, and scope. The project management team is also developed during this phase. The intermediate phase involves the actual project execution – planning, developing baseline schedule and cost, tracking project progress with respect to the baseline. The final phase of the project involves final testing and handing over the system/ product to its final users after obtaining due acceptance from them in line with the scope defined at the beginning. The project management organization depends on the nature of the project and the company which manages the project. The organization structure could vary from highly projectized organization where the project manager has almost total authority to functional organizations where the project manager has little control with the functional departments managing the project budget. There could also exist a matrixed organization where the role of the project manager and functional managers are somewhere in between the two extremes. Project Management Process Groups: PMBOK recommends five distinct project management process groups that should be used for managing projects. These are – Initiating Process Group Planning Process Group Executing Process Group Monitoring and Controlling Process Group Closing Process Group The Initiating Process Group involves the definition and authorization of the project or a project phase. This process involves feasibility study and selection of the optimum project from a portfolio of several possible projects. It also involves defining the project charter and preliminary scope of work in line with the organization’s policies, procedures, standards, and guidelines, and the external environment of the organization. The Planning Processes capture the complexities of a project, and help develop the project management plan. The Project Management Plan defines the project, its objectives, and lays down how the project will be planned, executed, monitored and closed. This process group involves development of scope management plan, definition of scope statement, and creating a work breakdown structure (WBS). WBS breaks down the project deliverables in a hierarchical structure which aids in monitoring and controlling them. The activities that need to be performed to achieve these project deliverables are then identified. Many of these activities are interdependent, and a logical sequence amongst them needs to be developed. Duration and resources required for completing these interlinked activities are then put in place to develop the master project schedule, which is used to monitor the project. The other major component of planning process group is to develop the cost estimate and the budget on the basis of the WBS developed earlier. The budget is used to monitor and control the project cost. The Planning Process Group also involves Quality Planning, Human Resource Planning, Communications Planning, and Risk Management Planning. Risk Management involves Risk Identification, Qualitative and Quantitative Risk Analysis, and Risk Response Planning. The process also involves Purchase and Acquisition Planning, and Contracting Planning. The Project Execution Process involves coordinating peoples and processes to achieve the project deliverables in line with the project management plan. Planned, systematic quality processes are employed to perform Quality Assurance. This process group also involves acquisition and development of project team, information distribution to stakeholders as per communication plan, inviting bids from sellers and selection of sellers. Monitoring and Controlling Process Group comprises of processes that monitors ongoing project activities against project management plan and the project performance baseline. This group of processes also ensures proper change management and updates the project management plan in line with the approved changes. This is achieved by scope verification, scope control, schedule control, cost control, and quality control. The human aspect of this process group involves managing project team, performance reporting, and managing stakeholders of the project. A stakeholder is anyone who has an influence over the project, or who is influenced by it (Churchouse & Churchouse, 1999). The other processes which are part of this process group are Risk Monitoring and Control, and Contract Administration. Finally, the Closing Process Group includes processes required for closing out a project or a particular project phase. This process involves completing and settling all pending contracts applicable to the project. This also includes maintenance planning, fixing all pending problems, final validation, post-project review, and documentation (Orr, 2004). These process groups are distinct from project phases and interact with each other. A pictorial representation of such interaction is shown in Fig 2-2 below. Project Life Cycle: PMBOK identifies the project management processes described above in nine Knowledge Areas. These are - Project Integration Management Project Scope Management Project Time Management Project Cost Management Project Quality Management Project Human Resource Management Project Communication Management Project Risk Management Project Procurement Management Project Integration Management deals with integration and coordination of various processes and project management activities to achieve the project objectives. This involves developing project charter, preliminary project scope statement, and project management plan. It involves directing and managing project execution, monitoring and control of project work, integrated change control, and project closure. Project Scope Management includes that the project includes only the work required to complete the project successfully. It is primarily concerned with what should be and should not be included in the project. It involves scope planning, scope definition, creating WBS, scope verification, and scope control. Project Time Management deals with the processes required to complete the project within a given time schedule. This includes activity definition, activity sequencing, activity resource estimating, activity duration estimating, schedule development, and schedule control. Project Cost Management deals with the processes required to plan, estimate, budget, and control the project cost. This involves cost estimating, cost budgeting, and cost control. Project Quality Management processes include all activities that determine quality policies, objectives, and responsibilities to satisfy the project objectives. This involves quality planning, quality assurance, and quality control. Project Human Resources Management involves organizing and managing the project team. This includes human resources planning, acquisition of project team, developing project team, and managing project team. Project Communications Management deals with processes that are required to ensure timely and appropriate generation, collection, distribution, storage, retrieval, and ultimate disposition of project information. This involves communications planning, information distribution, performance reporting, and managing stakeholders. Project Risk Management involves identification, and analysis of risks to develop risk management plan to define responses should a particular risk occur. This includes risk management planning, risk identification, quantitative and qualitative risk analysis, risk response planning, and risk monitoring and control. Finally, the Project Procurement Management deals with activities related to sourcing of products and services from outside the project group. This involves planning purchases and acquisitions, planning contracting, requesting seller responses, selection of sellers, contract administration, and contract closure. Application Area Knowledge, Standards, and Regulations: The term application area is used to describe a category of projects that have a number of significant components in common (Application Area, u.d.). However, it is not necessary that these application areas be a part of all projects. Application areas can be defined in terms of customers, products, or industry sectors. Each application area has its own set of rules and standards. Understanding Project Environment: All projects needs to be managed within its typical physical, social, economic, and political environment. These environmental factors impact the project; they need to be managed effectively to harness the positive impacts while mitigating the effect of the negative ones. Cultural and Social Environment: The project team needs to understand the interaction between the project and the people. This involves understanding the economic, demographic, educational, ethical, religious, ethnic and other people related issues. International and Political Environment: The project team members need to be accustomed to international, regional, and local laws and customs. They also need to understand the possible effect of the political scenario prevailing at the time of execution of the project. Physical Environment: The physical environment and its challenges should be understood before commencement of project execution. Often the physical environment could be hostile and availability of resources could be scarce. The project team members should be familiar with the local ecology and geography which has the potential to affect the project. General Management Knowledge and Skills: General management skills knowledge lay the foundation for project management knowledge and skills; several of the general management skills are required during project management. This involves planning, staffing, organizing, executing, and controlling an organization. It includes skill areas like finance, purchasing, sales and marketing, manufacturing, contracts and law, logistics and supply chain, strategic planning, health and safety, information technology, etc. Interpersonal Skills: Managing interpersonal relationships is perhaps the most important function of a project manager. This involves the following. Effective Communication: A project manager spends most of his/ her time communicating with the project stakeholders. The exchange of timely relevant information is vital to project management. Influencing the organization: The project manager needs ability to influence the stakeholders to ensure that the project objectives are met. Marshall (2006) sees power as an important factor in project management. Leadership: The project manager needs to have a vision and strategy, and should demonstrate leadership capabilities by galvanizing the project team to achieve the project objectives. Motivation: The project manager needs to energize the project team by motivating them, and achieve high levels of performance. Negotiation and Conflict Management: There are different stakeholders in a project, and often conflicts arise between them; the project manager should be able to resolve these conflicts to reach an agreement to ensure that the progress of the project is not stalled. Stakeholders should be managed according to their influencing ability and interest level. Problem Solving: Problems are encountered during the execution of any project. The project manager should be able to solve the problems by defining problems, identifying and evaluating alternatives, and decision making. Section-3.0 Conclusion Project management is a science and an art. Project management involves defining the project objectives clearly, elaborating the scope of work, and developing the project management plan. It should be ensured that scope “creep” does not occur in a project, and all scope changes should be carefully controlled. The scope of work is further expanded in a WBS, which is used to develop a project schedule keeping in mind the resource constraints, and logical sequence and duration of the activities. Such schedule can be developed using PERT/ CPM, and can be represented in the form of bar charts or milestone charts. This, together with the WBS-based project cost estimate, defines the project baseline. The schedule and cost are henceforth monitored with respect to this baseline. The risks to the project are identified and risk management plan is developed accordingly, which is updated from time to time. Finally, the project needs to be closed out by handing over the project to the user group after due testing, and completing all necessary documentation. Apart from the tools and techniques involved in project management, there are several “soft” factors, which need to be managed during project execution. This involves stakeholder management, getting things done within the organization, and cognizing the external environment and responding to it positively. The project manager needs to demonstrate leadership skills and motivational abilities to successfully manage the project. Section-4.0 References Application Area. (n.d.) In Project Management Knowledge. Retrieved May 27, 2009, from http://www.project-management-knowledge.com/definitions/a/application-area/ Churchouse, C., & Churchouse, J., (1999). Managing Projects. Hampshire: Gower Publishing Limited. Marshall, N., (2006). Understanding power in project settings. In D. Hodgson & S. Cicmil (Eds.), Making Projects Critical (pp.207-228). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Orr, A.D., (2004). Advanced Project Management: A complete guide to the key processes, models and techniques. London: British Library. Project Management Institute. (2004). A Guide to the Project Management Book of Knowledge (3rd ed). Pennsylvania: Project Management Institute. Read More