Project Management

Patrick Healey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9781136371264
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: International Business
• Index: Business

First Published in 1998. Project Management presents the basics of one-off project management in an easy to follow format. Topics covered include dealing with outside consultants; dealing with technical specialists; getting the job done on time and in budget; how to own and control a project; when to delegate; differences between general management and project management. Designed for managers who need to get up to speed with project management skills quickly and easily without being overwhelmed by technical detail, Project Management is ideal for anyone who is faced with a one-off project that is not just business as usual.

Part One Overview

Chapter One Project Management and its Social Impact

DOI: 10.4324/9780080943398-2

The following definition is not perfect but allows us to make some progress.

A project is a one-off change to be achieved by a finite, time-ordered and interrelated set of tasks. The one-off change is the project; the time-ordered set of tasks is called the project sequence. Project management is the identification of the one-off change and the management of the project sequence.

This definition is different from that adopted by many, and has been chosen so as to define the word ‘project’ in quite an explicit way. Having done that, project management is then defined in relation to acquiring or achieving the project, going beyond the use of such project management techniques as CPM or WBS. This definition allows you, when you have a project, to practise project management using techniques and methods drawn from both the area of general management and from the area of what is now recognised as project management.

The factor that distinguishes the problems handled by general management from those handled by project management is the one-off nature of projects—one-off means that there is no repetition, once the project is finished, it is not repeated. A one-off event is related to experience—if you have not experienced something before, even though others have, then it is a one-off experience. While a builder sees building a house as a very normal repeating activity, a new home owner will see it as a real one-off experience.

Process versus project

In theory, one can put forward the position that there are two distinctly different types of management situation. In one, activity is repetitive, just keeping the plant turning over producing the same product day after day. In the other, there are one-off management objectives, such as writing a new software program.

For instance, a project is not the management of a chemical production process where the work is mainly directed towards keeping the process going and monitoring progress; however, the installation of new machinery would be a project. Running a rail service where the main objective is to keep the trains on time is not a project, but introducing a new train service is.

Where an activity is repeated, there is the possibility of improving performance the next time round by identifying trends, by improving the process and so on. In quality terms, the activity is amenable to quite well-recognised continuous improvement techniques. However, with the one-off activity, when it’s finished, it’s either worked or it hasn’t. If it hasn’t, it is sometimes but not always possible to repair the damage. It really is important to get it right the first time. Examples that could fall in the one-off category are constructing a building (a well-known activity often leading to lots of undesired repair work!), reorganising a company (mistakes here can be fatal) and building a ship (a bad design could lead to a sinking).

The term ‘process management’ will be used to describe the management of the repetitive activity while the term ‘project management’ will be used for the management of the one-off activity. General management has oversight of the whole business and is an ongoing management activity which, depending on the situation, may adopt process management or project management or both. Typically, one runs one’s life or one’s company in the general management framework and draws on process management or project management as appropriate.

Combining the techniques

In practice, there is no nice clear distinction between one-off and repeating problems; real management problems present as a mixture of both. Issues that are generally managed according to process usually have some aspects of project management mixed in, and vice versa.

General management is, in loose terms, those approaches embodied in typical Master of Business Administration (MBA) courses around the world. Many of these courses have an underlying model of stability or of repetition, hence process management is often covered quite well. In the actual delivery of these courses, change is constantly dealt with (in discussions on investment decisions, for example) but often without making the connection with project management. Thus the delivery of these general management courses ignores a whole range of methodologies, the project management methodologies which concentrate on the management of one-off change.

This book takes the view that project management theory is an extension or a development of the long line of thinking that developed into process management theory. The decision to open a new shopping centre is commonly made by people who see themselves as general managers, not project managers. Developing a new shopping centre is, on the one hand, a one-off venture; it is a new development in a new area, appealing to a new set of customers. On the other hand, it is repetitive in that the developer uses experience gained in earlier ventures, on other shopping centres. When it comes to the building of the shopping centre itself, a recognised project activity, one finds that it actually involves lots of repeating or process activities—one shop type is repeated over and over.

Running a train service, as mentioned earlier, is not a project but a process. However, there are many one-off activities such as upgrading signals, introducing new train timetables and introducing new repair and maintenance systems. However, running a train service has special problems to deal with, such as making contingency plans for crashes. A train crash occurs more than once; in fact, if you run a train service you can expect a crash every now and then. Although one has to accept the fact that a crash will occur, one doesn’t know when or where. This represents a very interesting form of repeating problem containing elements of both process and project management. On the process management side, policies and procedures can be prepared well in advance and modified in the light of experience; on the project management side, skills in dealing with short timeframes and in managing experts outside one’s skill-base will be needed.¹³

Most management situations come with both types of activity embedded in them, and one needs to set up a general management framework to manage both. The author believes that in most cases the problem facing management is of a one-off nature and that every now and then a special case turns up, a repeating problem. Thus a great deal of general management should be project management—this is the opposite to the commonly held view of management.

The project manager needs to be competent in both general and process management, know their techniques and areas of speciality, such as finance, marketing, planning, production, organisational theory, industrial psychology and Pareto methods. These competencies are added to the techniques of project management to form the basis of the discipline of professional project management. Some of these techniques are critical path and other network techniques, work breakdown structure and cost scheduling methods. Project managers should, therefore, have at their disposal the techniques of general and process management, the techniques of project management and their own cognitive processes with which to tackle the challenge of the management of projects.

Identifying the end-point

Many definitions of a project contain the concept of a beginning and an end, but nobody knows when projects start, so the idea that there must be a beginning is somewhat redundant. What is important is that somebody has recognised that the work has an end in sight. It is the author’s view that the moment this is recognised is in fact the beginning of the project sequence and signals the need to apply project management thinking.

One should note that where activity is required in a one-off effort to maintain the status quo, we also have a project and a project sequence. Business managers are often confronted with the need to launch projects to maintain an existing condition, such as market share. Efforts to maintain things as they are, which are one-off and finite, are project sequences leading to the achievement of a project.

Managing a sequence

The word ‘sequence’ rather than ‘process’ is used to allow discussion of process management as separate from sequence management. The use of the word ‘sequence’ is to recognise that a new approach to quality is required. The literature on quality discusses the process of production, usually a repeating activity which allows considerable application of statistical tools. Process is a central and important concept in quality management and very important concepts such as process capability turn up in quality management.¹⁴ These concepts are also crucial in project management, but in order to clearly indicate that the area under discussion is project management, the word ‘sequence’ is used instead of ‘process’. Later, we will find the term ‘sequence capability’.

Project and project sequence

In the public arena, and among project management professionals, the word ‘project’ has two meanings. Initially, any distinction between the two meanings is unimportant but later, particularly when the work is expanding in the design and implementation phases, there is a need to be clear about the meaning.

One meaning of the word is the one-off change such as the software package produced as a result of a lot of work, or the restructured organisation achieved after a lot of work, pain and politics. This meaning, then, refers to the end-product or one off-change as the project, and is the meaning adopted here.

In the other meaning, ‘project’ means the work itself, the work involved in producing the outcome or the one-off change; for example, the actual work involved in producing the software package or the work, pain and politics required to achieve the restructured organization. This book applies this meaning to the term ‘project sequence’. Therefore:

The word ‘project’ means the one-off change that is to be produced; it is the outcome of work, not the activity. The activity is the project sequence; one could say that the project sequence produces the project.¹⁵

This definition deliberately separates the objective to be achieved (the project) from the work to be done (the project sequence), a distinction that will be maintained here. The key part of the definition is that a finite, time-ordered set of tasks is required to achieve the one-off change. In effect, the project cannot be said to exist without a preceding project sequence.

Characteristics of project management

It is not necessary, but it would be attractive to be able to start with a definition and work towards a set of logical implications. The most well-known example is probably Euclid’s Geometry, where he starts with some very basic definitions and develops a whole range of logical implications—properties of triangles, circles and so on. It is not possible, or at most only to a very limited extent, to achieve this in the social and management areas of theory. Some of the features that seem to go with project management are listed below and the reader is invited to think about logical links between these and the definition of project management.¹⁶

1 Continual elaboration

A key issue for project management is the one-off change. The definition of a project does not require that the nature and form of the one-off change be known at the beginning; in fact, it may not be known until the end of the project sequence, or even later. The definition only requires that a one-off change is to be achieved and that this change arises from the finite, time-ordered set of tasks. Exactly what will constitute the project is uncertain. Only right at the end when everything is done, and in some cases even later, is the full nature of the project seen. These issues are clarified as the project sequence proceeds.

Thus project management implies the management of a problem-solving sequence over time, a continual elaboration of the content of the project and of the project sequence.¹⁷

2 Brokering agreement

This continual elaboration and problem-solving will involve people who can contribute to the identification of the criteria that will determine the form of the project. Projects always arise from something to do with people—these people may be visible or may be hidden behind organisational structures.

There is no requirement that people agree on the criteria that define the project; usually they don’t. In the process of continual elaboration, the project manager will be involved in brokering a solution to which everyone agrees. Brokering an agreed definition of the project is a key project management function.

3 Establishing the criteria for completion

In searching for the definition of the one-off change, the project manager searches for the criteria by which the one-off change can be identified. Identification of completion is a key function of the project manager.

The issue of when the project is complete is very important and must be explicitly managed. At least it will allow people to pay final accounts....

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Foreword
• Table Of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Comments on sources of ideas
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part One Overview
• Part Two The Project Life Cycle
• Part Three Keeping It All Together
• Notes
• Further Reading
• Index