Trends in Project

Management

Reporter #2: ALIGANGA, CHARMAINE M.

Many new developments and interests in project
management are being driven by quickly changing
global markets, technology, and education.

Global competition is putting pressure on prices,

response times, and product/service innovation.
Achieving Strategic Goals (Chapter 2,
especially Section 2.5).
There has been a greater push to use projects to achieve more strategic goals, and
filtering existing major projects to make sure that their objectives support the
organization’s strategy and mission.
Achieving Routine Goals (Section 1.1).
On the other hand, there has also been a push to use project management to
accomplish routine departmental tasks that would previously have been handled as a
functional effort. This is because lower level management has become aware that
projects accomplish their scope objectives within their budget and deadline, and hope
to employ this new tool to improve management of their functions. As a result, artificial
deadlines and budgets are created to accomplish specific, though routine, tasks within
the functional departments, a process called “projectizing.”
Improving Project Effectiveness (Sections 2.1,
2.7, 5.6, 6.1, 6.5, 11.2, 11.3).
A variety of efforts are being pursued to improve the results of project management, whether
strategic or routine.
One well-known effort is the creation of a formal Project Management Office (PMO, see Section
5.6) in many organizations, which is responsible for the successful initiation and completion of
projects throughout the organization.
Virtual Projects (Sections 5.3, 10.2).
With the rapid increase in globalization, many projects now involve global teams with team members
operating in different countries and different time zones, each bringing a unique set of talents to the project.
These are known as virtual projects because the team members may never physically meet before the team
is disbanded and another team reconstituted.
Dynamic and Quasi-Projects (Section 1.1).
Led by the demands of the information technology/systems departments, project management is now being
extended into areas where the final scope requirements may not be understood, the time deadline unknown,
and/or the budget undetermined.
When any one or all of the three project objectives are ill-defined, we call this a “quasi-project.”
However, new tools for these kinds of quasi-projects are now being developed—prototyping, phase-gating, agile project management, and others—to help these
teams achieve results that satisfy the customer in spite of all the unknowns.
the process of managing organizations has been impacted
by three revolutionary changes.
First, we have seen an accelerating replacement of traditional, hierarchical
management by consensual management.
Second, we are currently witnessing the adoption of the “systems approach” to deal
with organizational or technological problems because it is abundantly clear that when
we act on one part of an organization or system, we are certain to affect other parts.
Third, we have seen organizations establishing projects as the preferred way to
accomplish their goals.
THE DEFINITION OF A “PROJECT”
“A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result”.
➔ In its early days, project management was used mainly for very large,
complex research and development (R & D) projects like the
development of the Atlas Intercontinental Ballistic Missile and similar
military weapon systems. Massive construction programs were also
organized as projects—the construction of dams, ships, refineries, and
freeways, among others.
➔ As the techniques of project management were developed, mostly by
the military, the use of project organization began to spread.
➔ Private construction firms
➔ Automotive companies
➔ Project management has even been used to develop new models of
shoes and ships
➔ More recently, the use of project management by international
organizations, and especially organizations producing services rather
than products, has grown rapidly.
➔ Advertising campaigns, global mergers, and capital acquisitions are often
handled as projects, and the methods have spread to the nonprofit sector.
Weddings, scout-o-ramas, fund drives, election campaigns, parties, and
recitals have all made use of project management.
program to refer to an exceptionally large, long-range
objective that is broken down into a set of projects.
These projects are divided further into tasks, which
are, in turn, split into work packages that are
themselves composed of work units.
In the broadest sense, a project is a specific, finite task
to be accomplished.
 Importance
The most crucial attribute of a project is that it must be important
enough in the eyes of senior management to justify setting up a special
organizational unit outside the routine structure of the organization.
 Scope
A project is usually a one-time activity with a well-defined set of desired end results.
It can be divided into subtasks that must be accomplished in order to achieve the
project goals. The project is complex enough that the subtasks require careful
coordination and control in terms of timing, precedence, cost, and scope.
Life Cycle with a Finite Due Date
Like organic entities, projects have life cycles. From a slow beginning they progress to a buildup of size, then peak, begin
a decline, and finally must be terminated by some due date.
Interdependencies
Projects often interact with other projects being carried out simultaneously by their parent organization.
Although the functional departments of an organization (marketing, finance,manufacturing, and the like) interact with one
another in regular, patterned ways, the patterns of interaction between projects and these departments tend to be
changeable.
Uniqueness
Though the desired end results may have been achieved elsewhere, they are at least unique to this organization. Moreover, every
project has some elements that are unique. No two construction or R & D projects are precisely alike. Though it is clear that
construction projects are usually more routine than R & D projects, some degree of customization is a characteristic of projects.
Resources
Projects have limited budgets, both for personnel as well as other resources. Often the budget is implied rather than detailed, particularly concerning personnel, but it is strictly limited.
 Conflict
More than most managers, the PM lives in a world characterized by conflict. Projects compete with functional departments for resources and
personnel. More serious, with the growing proliferation of projects, is the project-versus-project conflict for resources within multiproject
organizations.
The four parties-at-interest or “stakeholders”(client, parent
organization, project team, and the public) in any project
even define success and failure in different ways.