Why don’t more project managers sound an alarm when they’re going to blow past their deadlines? Because most of them have no earthly idea when they’ll finish the job. They don’t even think it’s possible to know. Too many variables. Too much that’s out of their control.That’s the dirty little secret of project management. As the lead developer on one big software project put it: “Everybody knows the schedule is a joke, and we pay no attention to it.
It will be done when it’s done.”It’s funny, though. Big, successful companies that manage huge projects like highways and dams and office parks have to deal with many more variables than a software development team. Yet they usually know how far along they are at any given time, and they keep their customers in the loop. That’s how they get to be big, successful companies.Granted, they have fancy project management software to help them stay on top of the schedule. But a good project management system — one that can tell you exactly where you are in the project, when it’s likely to be done, and by how much you will overshoot or undershoot your budget — doesn’t need expensive software. At Setpoint, which builds roller coasters and factory automation systems, we used to manage multimillion-dollar projects with a whiteboard and a calculator.The fact is, your system can be very simple as long as it helps you do the following:Track key variables. Keep a close eye not just on milestones but also on factors that have an impact on profitability.
The biggest variable to watch? Labor hours compared with budget, which gives you a pretty good idea of your percent complete at any given time. You’ll also want to track materials costs, change orders, and your subcontractors’ progress. Trouble in any of those areas can throw a project out of whack quickly, so it’s important to track them on a weekly basis.Keep your team informed.
We recommend regular weekly meetings, with the key numbers posted on a whiteboard or computer desktops so that everybody can see them. With the numbers up there, potential trouble spots surface quickly.
A few years ago, we learned that one of our project managers started surreptitiously building extra time into the schedule. If we had let that continue, it would have messed up our profit projections for his projects. Team members brought the issue to our attention after the first weekly meeting — they could see that the numbers on the board didn’t square with the agreed-upon timetable.Update your stakeholders and customers.
All customers want their jobs finished on time and on budget — or preferably faster and cheaper. But if they can’t have that, and sometimes they can’t, what they really want is to be kept informed along the way.
(Ditto for senior managers — they don’t like surprises, either.) Share bad news as well as good so they’re never outraged by enormous last-minute changes.Here’s an example: Setpoint was building a small coaster for a major amusement park company. This was just one piece of a major park upgrade with a very aggressive schedule and dozens of contractors in the mix. As we got deep into our project, we ran into several issues — big (and unanticipated) coordination snags on the jobsite, changes in the specs for riders per hour, and others. We knew these issues would delay the final product by six weeks. So we immediately notified the customer and adjusted our delivery dates months ahead of time.By the end of the project, we were behind by those six weeks. But because we had kept the customer in the loop every step of the way, we were on time as far as he was concerned.
We even got an award at the end for on-time performance. The moral we took away from this? If your customer doesn’t think you’re late, then you’re not late. If you need to change the schedule, do it as early as possible and give your customer an immediate heads-up so he can adjust his expectations.We’re not saying project management is easy. But if you have a good system, you can keep track of the difficulties and keep your customer informed and happy — even if you’re six weeks late.This is the first post in the authors’ blog series on project management. The series draws on advice from their book.
.Project management is the practice of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of a to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria at the specified time. The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals within the given constraints. This information is usually described in project documentation, created at the beginning of the development process. The primary constraints are, time,.
The secondary—and more ambitious—challenge is to the of necessary inputs and apply them to meet pre-defined objectives.The object of project management is to produce a complete project which complies with the client's objectives. In many cases the objective of project management is also to shape or reform the client's brief to feasibly address the client's objectives. Once the client's objectives are clearly established they should influence all decisions made by other people involved in the project – for example project managers, designers, contractors and sub-contractors. Ill-defined or too tightly prescribed project management objectives are detrimental to decision making.A is a temporary endeavor designed to produce a unique product, service or result with a defined beginning and end (usually time-constrained, and often constrained by funding or staffing) undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, typically to bring about beneficial change or added value. The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast with, which are repetitive, permanent, or semi-permanent functional activities to produce products or services. In practice, the of such distinct production approaches requires the development of distinct technical skills and management strategies.
(1861–1919), the father of planning and control techniquesAs a discipline, project management developed from several fields of application including civil construction, engineering, and heavy activity. Two forefathers of project management are, called the father of planning and control techniques, who is famous for his use of the as a project management tool (alternatively Harmonogram first proposed by ); and for his creation of the five management functions that form the foundation of the body of knowledge associated with project and program management. Both Gantt and Fayol were students of 's theories of. His work is the forerunner to modern project management tools including (WBS) and.The 1950s marked the beginning of the modern project management era where core engineering fields come together to work as one.
Project management became recognized as a distinct discipline arising from the management discipline with engineering model. In the United States, prior to the 1950s, projects were managed on an ad-hoc basis, using mostly and informal techniques and tools. At that time, two mathematical models were developed. The ' (CPM) was developed as a joint venture between and for managing plant maintenance projects.
The ' (PERT), was developed by the in conjunction with the and as part of the submarine program.PERT and CPM are very similar in their approach but still present some differences. CPM is used for projects that assume deterministic activity times; the times at which each activity will be carried out are known. PERT, on the other hand, allows for stochastic activity times; the times at which each activity will be carried out are uncertain or varied. Because of this core difference, CPM and are used in different contexts. These mathematical techniques quickly spread into many private enterprises.
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For a seven-month project with five milestonesAt the same time, as project-scheduling models were being developed, technology for project cost, cost management and engineering economics was evolving, with pioneering work by Hans Lang and others. In 1956, the American Association of Cost Engineers (now; the Association for the Advancement of ) was formed by early practitioners of project management and the associated specialties of planning and scheduling, cost estimating, and cost/schedule control (project control). AACE continued its pioneering work and in 2006 released the first integrated process for portfolio, program and project management ( framework).In 1969, the (PMI) was formed in the USA.
PMI publishes (PMBOK Guide), which describes project management practices that are common to 'most projects, most of the time.' PMI also offers a range of certifications.Project management types Project management methods can be applied to any project. It is often tailored to a specific type of projects based on project size, nature and industry. For example, the construction industry, which focuses on the delivery of things like buildings, roads, and bridges, has developed its own specialized form of project management that it refers to as construction project management and in which project managers can become trained and certified. The information technology industry has also evolved to develop its own form of project management that is referred to as IT project management and which specializes in the delivery of technical assets and services that are required to pass through various lifecycle phases such as planning, design, development, testing, and deployment. Biotechnology project management focuses on the intricacies of biotechnology research and development.
Localization project management includes many standard project management practices even though many consider this type of management to be a very different discipline. It focuses on three important goals: time, quality and budget. Successful projects are completed on schedule, within budget, and according to previously agreed quality standards.For each type of project management, project managers develop and utilize repeatable templates that are specific to the industry they're dealing with.
Main article:Benefits realization management (BRM) enhances normal project management techniques through a focus on outcomes (benefits) of a project rather than products or outputs, and then measuring the degree to which that is happening to keep a project on track. This can help to reduce the risk of a completed project being a failure by delivering agreed upon requirements/outputs but failing to deliver the benefits of those requirements.In addition, BRM practices aim to ensure the alignment between project outcomes and business strategies.
The effectiveness of these practices is supported by recent research evidencing BRM practices influencing project success from a strategic perspective across different countries and industries.An example of delivering a project to requirements might be agreeing to deliver a computer system that will process staff data and manage payroll, holiday and staff personnel records. Under BRM the agreement might be to achieve a specified reduction in staff hours required to process and maintain staff data.Critical chain project management. Main article:Critical chain project management (CCPM) is an application of the (TOC) to planning and managing projects, and is designed to deal with the uncertainties inherent in managing projects, while taking into consideration limited availability of (physical, human skills, as well as management & support capacity) needed to execute projects.The goal is to increase the flow of projects in an organization. Applying the first three of the of TOC, the system constraint for all projects, as well as the resources, are identified. To exploit the constraint, tasks on the critical chain are given priority over all other activities. Finally, projects are planned and managed to ensure that the resources are ready when the critical chain tasks must start, subordinating all other resources to the critical chain.Earned value management. See also:In critical studies of project management, it has been noted that phased approaches are not well suited for projects which are large-scale and multi-company, with undefined, ambiguous, or fast-changing requirements, or those with high degrees of risk, dependency, and fast-changing technologies.
The explains some of this as the planning made on the initial phase of the project suffers from a high degree of uncertainty. This becomes especially true as software development is often the realization of a new or novel product.These complexities are better handled with a more exploratory or iterative and incremental approach. Several models of iterative and incremental project management have evolved, including, and Innovation Engineering®. Lean project management. Typical development phases of an engineering project.
and. construction. monitoring and controlling.
completion or closing.Many industries use variations of these project stages and it is not uncommon for the stages to be renamed to better suit the organization. For example, when working on a design and construction, projects will typically progress through stages like pre-planning, conceptual design, schematic design, design development, construction drawings (or contract documents), and construction administration.While the phased approach works well for small, well-defined projects, it often results in challenge or failure on larger projects, or those that are more complex or have more ambiguities, issues and risk.
Process-based management. The project development stagesTraditionally (depending on what project management methodology is being used), project management includes a number of elements: four to five project management process groups, and a control system. Regardless of the methodology or terminology used, the same basic project management processes or stages of development will be used. Major process groups generally include:. Initiation. Planning.
Production or execution. Monitoring and controlling.
ClosingIn project environments with a significant exploratory element (e.g., ), these stages may be supplemented with decision points (go/no go decisions) at which the project's continuation is debated and decided. An example is the.Initiating.
Initiating process group processesThe initiating processes determine the nature and scope of the project. If this stage is not performed well, it is unlikely that the project will be successful in meeting the business’ needs. The key project controls needed here are an understanding of the business environment and making sure that all necessary controls are incorporated into the project. Any deficiencies should be reported and a recommendation should be made to fix them.The initiating stage should include a plan that encompasses the following areas. These areas can be recorded in a series of documents called Project Initiation documents.Project Initiation documents are a series of planned documents used to create order for the duration of the project.These tend to include. RACI(Q) chart.
Executing process group processesWhile executing we must know what are the planned terms that need to be executed.The execution/implementation phase ensures that the project management plan's deliverables are executed accordingly. This phase involves proper allocation, co-ordination and management of human resources and any other resources such as material and budgets. The output of this phase is the project deliverables.Project Documentation Documenting everything within a project is key to being successful. To maintain budget, scope, effectiveness and pace a project must have physical documents pertaining to each specific task. With correct documentation, it is easy to see whether or not a project's requirement has been met. To go along with that, documentation provides information regarding what has already been completed for that project.
Documentation throughout a project provides a paper trail for anyone who needs to go back and reference the work in the past.In most cases, documentation is the most successful way to monitor and control the specific phases of a project. With the correct documentation, a project's success can be tracked and observed as the project goes on. If performed correctly documentation can be the backbone to a project's success.Monitoring and controlling.
Monitoring and controlling process group processesMonitoring and controlling consists of those processes performed to observe project execution so that potential problems can be identified in a timely manner and corrective action can be taken, when necessary, to control the execution of the project. Monitoring and controlling cycleIn this stage, should pay attention to how effectively and quickly user problems are resolved.Over the course of any construction project, the work scope may change. Change is a normal and expected part of the construction process.
Changes can be the result of necessary design modifications, differing site conditions, material availability, contractor-requested changes, value engineering and impacts from third parties, to name a few. Beyond executing the change in the field, the change normally needs to be documented to show what was actually constructed. This is referred to as change management. Hence, the owner usually requires a final record to show all changes or, more specifically, any change that modifies the tangible portions of the finished work. The record is made on the contract documents – usually, but not necessarily limited to, the design drawings.
The end product of this effort is what the industry terms as-built drawings, or more simply, 'as built.' The requirement for providing them is a norm in construction contracts. Construction document management is a highly important task undertaken with the aid of an online or desktop software system, or maintained through physical documentation.
The increasing legality pertaining to the construction industry's maintenance of correct documentation has caused the increase in the need for document management systems.When changes are introduced to the project, the viability of the project has to be re-assessed. It is important not to lose sight of the initial goals and targets of the projects. When the changes accumulate, the forecasted result may not justify the original proposed investment in the project.
Successful project management identifies these components, and tracks and monitors progress so as to stay within time and budget frames already outlined at the commencement of the project.Closing. Closing process group processes.Closing includes the formal acceptance of the project and the ending thereof. Administrative activities include the archiving of the files and documenting lessons learned.This phase consists of:.
Contract closure: Complete and settle each contract (including the resolution of any open items) and close each contract applicable to the project or project phase. Project close: Finalize all activities across all of the process groups to formally close the project or a project phaseAlso included in this phase is the Post Implementation Review. This is a vital phase of the project for the project team to learn from experiences and apply to future projects. Normally a Post Implementation Review consists of looking at things that went well and analyzing things that went badly on the project to come up with lessons learned.Project controlling and project control systems Project controlling (also known as )should be established as an independent function in project management. It implements verification and controlling function during the processing of a project to reinforce the defined performance and formal goals. An example of the Risk Register that includes 4 steps: Identify, Analyze, Plan Response, Monitor and Control.The United States Department of Defense states; 'Cost, Schedule, Performance, and Risk' are the four elements through which Department of Defense acquisition professionals make trade-offs and track program status. There are also.
Risk management applies proactive identification (see ) of future problems and understanding of their consequences allowing decisions about projects.Work breakdown structure. Main article:The (WBS) is a that shows a subdivision of the activities required to achieve an objective – for example a program, project, and contract.