Fundamentals of Project Management

Chapter 1 An Overview of Project Management

PMI defines a project as . . . a temporary endeavor undertaken to produce a unique product, service, or result. A project is a problem scheduled for solution. Project management is application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to achieve project requirements. Project management is accomplished through the application and integration of the project management processes of initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing. The first rule of project management is that the people who must do the work should help plan it. Leadership is the art of getting others to want to do something that you believe should be done. Vance Packard There is a higher probability that things will accidentally go wrong in a project than that they will accidentally go right. The Steps in Managing a Project

A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to produce a unique product, service or result. A project is also a problem scheduled for solution. Project management is application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to

meet project requirements. Project management is accomplished by applying the processes of initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing.
All projects are constrained by Performance, Time, Cost, and Scope requirements. Only three of

these can have values assigned. The fourth must be determined by the project team.
Projects tend to fail because the team does not take time to ensure that they have developed a

proper definition of the problem being solved.

The major phases of a project include concept, definition, planning, execution and control, and

closeout.

Chapter 2 The Role of the Project Manager

The primary responsibility of the project manager is to ensure that all work is completed on time, within budget and scope, and at the correct performance level. Project managers must understand the mission and vision of the organization first, then they must see how the project they are managing meshes with the organizations mission, and they must steer the project to ensure that the interests of the organization are met. Since you have very little authority anyway, consider the job to ensure that everyone in the project team has what they need to do their job well. So when I am asked what I consider to be the most important attributes for project managers to have, I always say that people skills are number one through three.

Chapter 3 Planning the Project

Control is exercised by comparing where you are to where you are supposed to be so that corrective action can be taken when there is a deviation. No plan, no control! Predicting the future is easy. Its knowing whats going on now thats hard. Fritz R. S. Dressler STAKEHOLDER: Anyone who has a vested interest in the project. These include contributors, customers, managers, and financial people. The project plan should be reviewed and signed off in a meetingnot through interoffice mail! Encourage people to spot problems during the sign-off meeting, not later. Make changes in an orderly way, following a standard change procedure.

Any plan is bad which is not susceptible to change. Bartolommno de San Concordio Rule: The people who must do the work should participate in developing the plan. The first rule of planning is to be prepared to replan! Identify project risks and develop contingencies to deal with them if they occur. Consider the little mouse, how sagacious an animal it is which never entrusts its life to one hole only. Plautus (254184 B.C.)

Project Planning Steps

Define the problem to be solved by the project. Develop a mission statement, followed by statements of major objectives. Develop a project strategy that will meet all project objectives. Write a scope statement to define project boundaries (what will and will not be done). Develop a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). Using the WBS, estimate activity durations, resource requirements, and costs (as

appropriate for your environment). Prepare the project master schedule and budget. Decide on the project organization structurewhether matrix or hierarchical (if you are free to choose). Set up the project notebook. Get the plan signed off by all project stakeholders.

Key Points to Remember

If you have no plan, you have no control. The people who must execute a plan should participate in preparing it. Have the plan signed off in a meeting, not by sending it through the interoffice mail. Keep all project documentation in a project notebook. Use exit criteria to determine when a milestone has actually been achieved. Require that changes to the project plan be approved before making them. Risk management should be part of all project planning. A paradigm is a belief about what the world is like. Planning is answering the who, what, when, and how questions. Logistics refers to supplying people with materials and supplies they need to do their jobs.

Chapter 4 Developing a Mission, Vision, Goals, and Objectives for the Project
A problem is a gap between where you are and where you want to be, with obstacles existing that prevent easy movement to close the gap.

Developing Project Objectives

Goal setting has traditionally been based on past performance. This practice has tended to perpetuate the sins of the past. J. M. Juran

Specific Measurable Attainable Realistic Time-limited

An objective specifies a desired end result to be achieved. A task is an activity performed to achieve that result. An objective is usually a noun, whereas a task is a verb. It is helpful to assess risks of failure of the following:
The schedule The budget Project quality Customer satisfaction

Risk analysis should not lead to analysis paralysis!

Key Points to Remember

The way a problem is defined determines how you will solve it. A problem is a gap between where you are and where you want to be, with obstacles

making it hard to reach the goal. A goal by itself is not a problem. Obstacles must exist for there to be a problem. Vision is what the final result will look like. It defines done. The mission is to achieve the vision. It answers the two questions What are we going to do? and For whom are we going to do it? Objectives should be SMART. You can identify risks by asking, What could go wrong?

Chapter 5 Using the Work Breakdown Structure to Plan a Project

A Work Breakdown Structure does not show the sequence in which work is performed! Such sequencing is determined when a schedule is developed. Stop breaking down work when you reach a low enough level to do an estimate of the desired accuracy. The WBS should always be developed before the schedule is worked out, but without trying to identify the sequence of activities. A WBS does not have to be symmetrical. All paths do not have to go down to the same level. The WBS is a good way to portray the scope of a project.

Estimating Time, Costs, and Resources

An estimate can be made only by starting with the assumption that a certain resource will be assigned. Parkinsons Law: Work expands to fill the time allowed.

We must be careful not to penalize workers who perform better than expected by loading them down with excessive work. One of the primary causes of project failures is that ballpark estimates become targets. Guidelines for documenting estimates:
Show the percent tolerance that is likely to apply. Tell how the estimate was made and what assumptions were used. Specify any factors that might affect the validity of the estimate (such as timewill the

estimate still be valid in six months?).

Key Points to Remember

Do not try to work out sequencing of activities when you develop a WBS. You will do that

when you develop a schedule. A WBS ties the entire project together. It portrays scope graphically, allows resources to be assigned, permits estimates of time and costs to be developed, and thus provides the basis for the schedule and the budget. An estimate is a guess, and an exact estimate is an oxymoron! Be careful that ballpark estimates dont become targets. Consensual estimating is a good way to deal with activities for which no history exists. No learning takes place without feedback. Estimate; then track your actual time if you want to improve your estimating ability.

Chapter 6 Scheduling Project Work

Project management is not just scheduling. Suggestion: Whatever scheduling software you choose, get some professional training on how to use it. CPM: Critical Path Method PERT: Program Evaluation and Review Technique The critical path is the longest path through a project network. Because it has no slack, all activities on the critical path must be completed as scheduled, or the end date will begin to slipone day for each day a critical activity is delayed. One company found that when it stopped having people work on multiple projects, workers productivity doubled! Dont schedule in more detail than you can manage. A good rule ofthumb to follow is that no task should have a duration much greater than four to six weeks. For knowledge work, durations should be in the range of one to three weeks, because knowledge work is harder to track than tangible work.

Schedules should be developed according to what is logically possible, and resource allocation should be done later. This will yield the optimum schedule. Another rule is to keep all times in the same increments. It is hard to tell whether a network is absolutely correct, but it can be said to be wrong if logic is violated.

Key Points to Remember

Project management is not just scheduling. Arrow diagrams allow an easier assessment of the impact of a slip on a project than is

possible with Gantt charts. Schedule at a level of detail that can be managed. No task should be scheduled with a duration much greater than four to six weeks. Subdivide longer tasks to achieve this objective. Software and engineering tasks should be divided even further, to durations not exceeding one to three weeks.

Chapter 7 Producing a Workable Schedule

Failure to consider resource allocation in scheduling almost always leads to a schedule that cannot be achieved. Initial schedule computations are made assuming that unlimited resources are available. This yields the best-case solution. The Earliest Start for a task is the latest Late Finish of preceding tasks. That is, the longest path determines the earliest that a following task can be started. When doing backward- pass calculations, always use the smallest number for the LF (late finish) of previous activities. When an activity has no float, it is called critical, since failure to complete work as scheduled will cause the end date to slip. It is bad practice to schedule a project so that overtime is required to meet the schedule, since if problems are encountered, it may not be possible to work more overtime to solve them. Once you have used up the float on a task, it becomes part of the critical path.

Key Points to Remember

You should ignore resource limitations when you begin developing a schedule. If two tasks

can logically be done in parallel, draw them that way. The critical path is the one that is longest and has no float. Note that you can have a project with a longest path that is not critical because it has float. Nobody is available to do productive work more than 80 percent of a workday. You lose 20 percent to personal time, fatigue, and delays.

Chapter 8 Project Control and Evaluation

There are two kinds of authority: One is power over people, and the other is the ability to make decisions and to act unilaterally. A negative message always takes priority over a positive one. control: to compare progress against plan so that corrective action can be taken when a deviation occurs When people fill out time reports weekly, without writing down what they did daily, they are making up fiction. Such made-up data are almost worse than no data at all. No problem is so big or so complicated that it cant be run away from. Charlie Brown (Charles Schultz, Peanuts) evaluate: to determine or judge the value or worth of The Random House Dictionary Good management of projects can give you a competitive advantage. In order to learn, we must have feedback. Furthermore, we tend to learn more from mistakes than from successes, painful though that may be to admit. Process reviews conducted as witch-hunts will produce witches.

Key Points to Remember

The meaning of control that is important to project managers is the one implying the use of

information; comparing progress to plan so that action can be taken to correct for deviations from plan. The only way a project is really in control is if all team members are in control of their own work. The effort used to control a project should be worthwhile. You dont want to spend $100 to purchase a $3 battery, for example. If you take no action in response to a deviation, you have a monitoring system, not a control system. Project working times must be recorded daily. If people wait a week to capture what they have done, they rely on memory and end up writing down estimates of what they did. Such data are no good for future estimating. Project evaluation is done to determine whether a project should continue or be canceled. Process reviews also should help the team learn in order to improve performance.

Chapter 9 Project Control Using Earned

Another day, another zero. Alfalfa (Carl Switzer) Our Gang comedy series The difficulty of measuring progress does not justify the conclusion that it shouldnt be done. You cannot have control unless you measure progress. Work quality is most likely to be sacrificed when deadlines are tight. Constant attention is required to avoid this tendency.

Key Points to Remember

Control is exercised by analyzing from the plan. Well-defined projects can achieve tighter control over variations than poorly defined ones. There is a tendency to sacrifice quality when deadlines are difficult to meet. It is not enough to recognize a variance. Its cause must be determined so that corrective

action can be taken. Acceptable variances can be determined only through experience. Every system has a capability. Your team may have the ability to maintain better tolerances on their work than another team.

Chapter 10 Managing the Project Tea m

Teams dont just happenthey must be built!

Getting Organized
Here are the four major steps in organizing a project team: 1. Decide what must be done, using work breakdown structures, problem definitions, and other planning tools. 2. Determine staffing requirements to accomplish the tasks identified in the first step. 3. Recruit members for the project team. 4. Complete your project plan through participation of team members. If possible, the entire team should participate in developing the teams mission statement. This is a tremendous team-building activity in itself! A manager should try to satisfy the needs of the organization, while simultaneously helping individuals satisfy their own needs through participation in the project. Every team must deal with: goals roles & responsibilities procedures relationships

There is no such thing as a stupid questionexcept perhaps the one you were afraid to ask. So-called personality conflicts are often simply the result of peoples lack of good interpersonal skills. This lack can be resolved through training. The most popular terms for the stages of team development are: forming storming norming performing

A directive style of leadership is called for when a team is in the forming stage. A selling or influence style of leadership is appropriate at the storming stage. In the norming stage, the leader should adopt a participative style of leadership. Delegative leadership is the proper style in the performing stage of a teams development. Note that delegative does not mean abdication!

RULES FOR DEVELOPING COMMITMENT TO A PROJECT TEAM

1. Have team members interact frequently so that they gain a sense of being a team. 2. Be sure that individual needs are being met through participation in the team. 3. Let all members know why the project is important. People dont like working on a loser. 4. Make sure all members share the goals of the team. One bad apple can spoil the barrel. 5. Keep competition within the team to a minimum. Competition and cooperation are opposites. Let members compete with people outside the team, not within it. Watch the movie Stand and Deliver for an excellent example of true leadership.

Key Points to Remember

Teams dont just happenthey must be built! Having the entire team participate in planning is one way to start the team-building

process. Deal with goals, roles and responsibilities, procedures, and relationships, in that order. So-called personality conflicts are often caused by team members poor interpersonal skills. For teams to function well, all members should receive training in this area. The style of leadership appropriate for a team depends on its stage of development. In the forming stage, it is directive. In storming, it is influencing. At the norming stage, switch to a participative style. Finally, when the team reaches the performing stage, you can be delegative.

Chapter 11 How to Make Project Management Chapter 12 Project Management for Everyone