The Essentials of Project Management

Dennis Lock

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351890564
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

In recent years organizations of all kinds have learned that project working, once considered significant only for engineering and construction companies, can help to ensure that the intended benefits of business change will be realized in full and on time. This development means that more people than ever before need to understand the basic process, language and purpose of project working. That awareness is important not only for those actually engaged in project work, in all sectors of industry and commerce, but also for senior managers, project sponsors and the other stakeholders. The fourth edition of Essentials of Project Management is the junior complement to Dennis Lock's comprehensive, successful and encyclopaedic textbook, Project Management (now in its Tenth Edition). Essentials provides a concise, straightforward account of the principles and techniques of project management, designed to meet the needs of the business manager or student. Using examples and illustrations, the author introduces the key project management procedures and explains clearly how and when to use them. The Essentials of Project Management remains the ideal first text for anyone new to project working or students studying project management as part of a wider business qualification or degree.

1	Introduction to Projects and their Management

Human-led projects are hardly new, as wonders of the ancient world testify. But their progress was usually managed by the engineers and architects who designed them. It is only in relatively recent years that project management has become recognized as a specialized branch of management, with its own professional associations, qualifications and a comprehensive and expanding methodology. Anyone interested in the development of project management should consult Morris (1997).

PROJECT FUNDAMENTALS

The purpose of project management is to plan, organize and control all activities so that the project is completed as successfully as possible in spite of all the difficulties and risks. The buzzwords here are deliverables (the expected project benefits) and stakeholders (organizations and people with any significant interest in the project and its deliverables). Francis Hartman believed that a successful project is one that makes all its stakeholders happy (Hartman, 2000). Well, maybe that’s not always possible but he makes a good point.

Every significant project should begin with a definition and business case that defines the project and forecasts the investment required and the expected benefits. That business case (sometimes called a business plan) should be approved before any money and other resources are committed to the project. For a large project preparation of the business case itself can need considerable money and other resources.

Project definition is considered in greater detail in Chapter 2. Every business case requires an estimate of project costs and an assessment of the possible risks, and those topics are discussed in Chapters 3 and 4, respectively.

PROJECT CHARACTERISTICS

The principal characteristic of any project is its novelty. It is a step into the unknown, fraught with risk and uncertainty. No two projects are ever exactly alike. Even a repeated project will differ in one or more commercial, administrative, or physical aspects from its predecessor.

Four Main Project Types

Projects can loosely be classified under four main headings (these definitions are my own).

Civil engineering, construction, petrochemical, mining and quarrying projects

These generally involve work on a site which is exposed to the elements and remote from the contractor’s head office. Such projects incur special risks and problems of organization and communication. They often require massive capital investment, and they deserve (but do not always get) rigorous management of progress, finance and quality. The amount of finance and other resources may be too great for one contractor, in which case the organization and communications are further complicated by the participation of several contractors, working together in some kind of joint venture.

Manufacturing projects

These are projects for new product research and development or to produce a piece of equipment or machinery, ship, aircraft, land vehicle, or some other item of specially designed hardware. Manufacturing projects are often conducted in factories or other home-based environments, where it should be possible to exercise on-the-spot management and provide an optimum working environment.

Management and business change projects

These projects prove the point that every company, whatever its size, can expect to need project management expertise at least once in its lifetime. These are the projects that happen when companies relocate, develop and introduce new IT or communications systems, prepare for a trade exhibition, set up a training programme, restructure the organization, plan a spectacular celebration and so on. There is no tangible product.

Scientific research projects

Here I mean projects for pure scientific research (not the more predictable research and development projects intended to result in a new product). Pure research projects can consume vast sums of money, last for many years, and either result in a dramatically profitable discovery or prove to have been a complete waste of time and money. Sometimes the intended outcomes are not realized but an unexpected benefit results. Thus pure research projects carry extremely high risk. They aim to extend the boundaries of current human knowledge and their end objectives are usually difficult or impossible to define. However, some form of control (project management) must be applied to prevent the waste of potentially vast sums of money. Clearly budgets have to be set in line with available funding. A process called stage-gating is one answer to this problem. This requires that the project sponsors review progress at regular intervals or stages (say, every six months). If a review shows that the research continues to show promise, funds can be released for the next six months of research. However, if funds run short, or if the research appears to be going nowhere useful, funds can be withdrawn and the project stopped – a process commonly known as ‘pulling the plug’.

This book is generally concerned with projects that can be defined, as explained in the first three categories listed above.

PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS

Customer and Contractor

Many projects are carried out by a contractor for an external organization (the customer). The customer and contractor agree terms and prices in a contract. However, this arrangement is clouded for some management change projects, where much of the work is conducted by employees of the organization itself. Then the organization is both contractor and its own customer. For simplicity, I shall use the term contractor throughout this book to describe whoever carries out the project work and customer to describe the owner of the project, regardless of whether the customer and contractor reside in the same organization.

The Project Manager

A project manager is usually imagined as a person, but it can be a company or other organization that acts as a managing contractor on behalf of a project customer. Whatever the case, there will usually be one individual who can be identified as carrying responsibility for the success of the project. And, usually, that person will be called the project manager.

Today’s project manager has ready access to an increasing range of cost-effective tools for planning and controlling a project. The most successful manager will be capable of choosing and using those techniques which best suit the particular project. But there is clearly far more to managing a project than the application of techniques and procedures. Project management embodies a whole framework of logical planning and decisions, perceptiveness, the liberal application of common sense, appropriate organization, effective commercial and financial management, painstaking attention to documentation, and above all the ability to lead and motivate people.

PROJECT LIFE CYCLES AND LIFE HISTORIES

Most authorities and writers, when they talk about the life cycle of a project, refer to the period that begins with the authorization of project work and ends with the handover of the desired product to the customer. Although that view can be too simplistic, it is the part of projects that is of most concern to project managers (and which is covered in this book). Figure 1.1 shows that the activities which take place during this period form a true cycle, because they begin and end with the customer.

1.1 The active part of a project life cycle

Travelling clockwise round the cycle reveals a number of steps or phases. In practice, these phases usually overlap, so that the boundaries between them are blurred. For example, some project purchasing and other work can usually start before the design phase is complete.

The view of a project life cycle shown in Figure 1.1 is too simplistic for most projects because it ignores everything that happens before the start of actual work and takes no account of what happens to the project after its delivery to the customer. For a more complete picture we have to consider not only the project life cycle as seen by the project manager, but also the entire life history of the project from its initial conception to final death and disposal. Figure 1.2 shows this more complete view of a project life history.

1.2 Typical life cycle (life history) of a large project

Many writers limit their account of the project life cycle or life history to phases 6 to 13, because these are the phases that usually come under the control of the project manager. They constitute the most active period of the project life history (sometimes called the fulfilment period). This period corresponds in most respects to the life cycle in Figure 1.1. The chapters in this book are arranged as far as possible in this life cycle sequence.

FACTORS RELEVANT TO SUCCESS OR FAILURE

The success of the contractor and the project manager will usually be judged according to how well they achieve the three primary objectives, which are usually acknowledged as:

1. Project completion within the approved cost budget;

2. The project finished on time;

3. Good performance, which requires that the project satisfies its specification and delivers the intended benefits.

Factors for achieving these three objectives include the following:

• Good project definition and a sound business case at the outset;

• Appropriate choice of project strategy;

• Strong support for the project and its manager from higher management;

• Availability of sufficient funds and other resources;

• Firm control of changes to the authorized project;

• Technical competence;

• A sound quality culture throughout the organization;

• A suitable organization structure;

• Appropriate regard for the health and safety of everyone connected with the project;

• Good project communications;

• Well-motivated staff;

• Quick and fair resolution of conflict.

These issues are all important for good project management. Some projects fail to satisfy all their objectives yet can be considered, in retrospect, to have been successful. For example, the Eurotunnel was seriously overspent yet those of us who use it would consider it a great success.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE THREE PRIMARY OBJECTIVES

It is occasionally necessary to identify one of the three primary objectives as being of special importance. This emphasis can affe...