Starting Out in Project Management 3rd edition

Association for Project Management (APM)

• Publisher: Association for Project Management (APM)
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781903494738
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Project Management
• Index: Business

Starting Out in Project Management is your essential guide to the basics of project management.Written for anyone new to projects or wishing to progress their career as a project professional Starting Out charts the journey of the APM project life cycle, from concept through to delivery and handover.Along the way readers will learn about the fundamental features of project management, including ownership of the business case, engaging with stakeholders and realising the all-important benefits of the project, plus much, much more.With over 50 diagrams to help illustrate, case study examples for each chapter and a full glossary of commonly-used terminology, Starting Out is the perfect companion for any aspiring project manager keen to make their mark on this exciting and rewarding profession.

1

Project management

Projects and project management

Projects and project management have been around for a very long time. Some of the iconic buildings and structures we all know were created over 5,000 years ago and it is clear that they could not have been constructed without a great deal of planning and organisation. However, the discipline of project management as we know it today has been around not nearly so long. Many argue that it is less than 50 years old (from the time of the North Sea oil boom and the first major nuclear power stations), while others suggest that it is more like 100 years. Henry Gantt of ‘Gantt chart’ fame published his book Organizing for Work in 1919. It doesn’t really matter when it all started. What is important is that in today’s fast-moving world the successful delivery of projects has never been more important.

What is a project?

At its simplest level the word project is used to describe activities that are done to meet specific objectives for change. Changes that are managed as projects can be amendments to things that already exist, or the introduction of new things. It can involve new products, new services, or improvement to existing products or services. Whatever the cause of the change and the nature of the project, the principles of project management always apply.

Even though project work involves doing new things, it still needs to be controlled, so that the specific objectives are met and the organisation actually gains the desired benefits. One way that this control is achieved is by setting targets or constraints for time, cost and quality. Some people and some organisations prefer to use the term performance rather than quality. For a ‘starting out’ book we can use the terms quality and performance interchangeably, both meaning that the project needs to meet defined stakeholder requirements. When we talk about stakeholders in project management, we mean the organisations or people who have an interest or role in the work, or are impacted by it.

Project work is rarely ever done within a single part of an organisation, e.g. contained within one department or using a single specialist group. Project work cuts across traditional boundaries and requires people to come together temporarily to focus on achieving the specific project objectives. As a result, effective teamwork is central to projects.

Doing new things means that the project’s outputs, outcomes and/or benefits can never be predicted with certainty. Uncertain situations are all around us, but the nature of project work means that there tends to be lots of uncertainty that might affect the project. For example, it is not possible to know with any degree of certainty how long it will take to create a new design; or to build something that uses new technology. Likewise, it is not possible to know if a team who have not worked together before will be effective, or whether a new product, e.g. a Formula One racing car, will perform until it is actually tested, or whether a new smart phone will sell in the numbers expected. The fact that projects are uncertain means that project managers need to clearly understand the underpinning assumptions being made by stakeholders, and actively manage risk throughout the life of the project.

All of the points made so far help define project work as distinct from other sorts of work. Most organisations will be able to separate those tasks that are done to maintain the business-as-usual or operational activities from those things that are done to introduce change, i.e. projects (and programmes).

Projects and business-as-usual

The main way in which projects are different from the routine business of work is associated with the uniqueness of projects. While routine work involves the repetition of processes in a way that gives consistency and reliability, project work involves doing new things, or modifying existing methods and practices. This means that project work, unlike business-as-usual, will always have a defined start and an end point, and a particular and unique scope of work to do between those points.

Taking all these considerations together, projects can be said to have the following features:

■unique endeavour with defined start and finish points

■undertaken to achieve specific objectives for change

■carried out within defined time, cost and quality constraints

Figure 1.2 Projects and business-as-usual

■requires team-working across traditional departmental boundaries

■delivers outputs that enable outcomes to the business that are beneficial

■necessarily involves risk that needs to be managed.

Business-as-usual does not meet these criteria.

Project Children’s Hospice (PCH)

You have been approached by a friend to be part of an initiative to raise funds for your local children’s hospice. You work in the headquarters building of a company along with 500 other people. Your friend would like you to organise a fund-raising event to take place during normal working hours in exactly 10 weeks’ time. This coincides with a number of other fundraising initiatives that will be happening for the same cause on the same day. Your initial objectives are to involve as many people as possible and to raise at least £10,000 for the charity.

Project management

If projects are used to introduce change, it follows that project management is primarily about organising and controlling the introduction of the desired change.

The words or phrases that tend to be used to describe project management include:

■understanding the needs and requirements of all the stakeholders

■planning what work needs to be done, when, by whom and to what standards

■building and motivating the team to achieve the planned work

■coordinating the work of a range of different people

■monitoring that the work is being done to plan (time, cost and quality/performance)

■taking action to keep the planned work on track, or to change the plan in a controlled way if that is the best way to achieve the change objectives

■delivering successful results (outputs, outcomes and/or benefits).

Project management should be a service to the organisation that is requesting the change, and is the process by which control is exerted over the project in order to achieve a desired end point.

Some projects have a dedicated project manager who takes responsibility for delivering the project objectives to time, cost and quality. Where this is the case it will be easy to see that the work the project manager does is focused ...