The Importance of Projects

Transcription

1 The Importance of Projects A key challenge for organisations in today's world is to succeed in balancing two parallel, competing imperatives: To maintain current business operations - profitability, service quality, customer relationships, brand loyalty, productivity, market confidence etc. What we term 'business as usual'. To transform business operations in order to survive and compete in the future - looking forward and deciding how business change can be introduced to best effect for the organisation. As the pace of change (technology, business, social, regulatory etc.) accelerates, and the penalties of failing to adapt to change become more evident, the focus of management attention is inevitably moving to achieve a balance between business as usual and business change. Projects are the means by which we introduce change. PRINCE2 defines a project as "a temporary organisation that is created for the purpose of delivering one or more business products according to an agreed Business Case". Source: About PRINCE2, APM Group Ltd., A Best Management Practice website managed and published by APMG in conjunction with the Cabinet Office (part of HM Government) and TSO 1

2 PRINCE2 Projects and Business as usual What are the characteristics of a PRINCE2 Project? What exactly defines a project? Or put another way what makes a project different from business as usual? Business as usual is what PRINCE2 describes as what an organization does on a day to day basis. The normal, or the routine operations that they use to run their business. Projects are what organizations use when they want to do something different. This makes projects different from business as usual and PRINCE2 defines certain characteristics that make them different. PRINCE2 Projects are about Change Projects are what organizations use to introduce change. Projects allow organizations to introduce new business products, systems, procedures, business requirements etc. in a controlled manner. Once the project has delivered its outputs they then become the norm the business as usual. PRINCE2 Projects are Temporary They deliver the outputs and then disband. They should have a defined start, middle and END. They should not just run on and on. Ever heard the questions asked of a project such as, whatever happened to that project or is that project finished. Well in PRINCE2 they would not be asked as there would be a formal project closure that would then be communicated to the stakeholders. 2

3 PRINCE2 Projects are Cross-Functional They will involve people who may never have worked with each other before. They come together on the project for the temporary period of time. That could be people from different departments, different organizations or even different countries. This means the project management team structure is different from the organizations normal line management structure. PRINCE2 Projects are Unique Organizations may run many similar projects again and again but there will always be some aspect of the project that will be different from what they have done before. Take my back ground in distribution. One of our biggest projects every year was Christmas. It was a very similar project every year (Christmas is always on the 25th of December!) but every year it would be unique. Different people involved, different budgets, different customer requirements etc. So you can see there will always be some aspect that is different from what we have done previously. PRINCE2 Projects are Uncertain Because of all these other characteristics that then makes projects more uncertain than what we do in business as usual. Projects in their very nature have a higher degree of uncertainty than the normal. We can put a plan in place but we can t be certain we will get to where we want to. So when thinking about our projects we have to make sure we control that uncertainty as this will give us a better chance of reaching our objectives. Source: PRINCE2 Projects and Business as usual, Advantage Learning Ltd., Edinburgh, Scotland 3

4 Management is essentially the act or manner of managing; handling, direction, or control. ---Dictionary.com General Management - Business as Usual (BaU) - Operations/Functional Business as Usual (BaU) deals with "Outcomes" It s the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively. General management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. Resourcing encompasses the deployment and manipulation of human resources, financial resources, technological resources and natural resources. General management methods may include Management by Objectives (MBO), Agile, etc.. Both Agile methods such as Scrum, and MBO depend heavily on the defining and achievement of objectives or goals. MBO is a management philosophy dating from the 50s, 60s, and 70s (Peter Drucker, 1954). Project Management Projects deal with "Outputs" The planning, delegating, monitoring and control of all aspects of a project, and the motivation of those involved, to achieve the project objectives within the expected performance targets for time, cost, quality, scope, benefits and risks. Projects are the means that we introduce change. A project is a temporary organization that is 4

5 created for the purpose of delivering one or more business products according to an agreed Business Case. A project is a temporary endeavor with a defined beginning and end (usually time-constrained, and often constrained by funding or deliverables), undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, typically to bring about beneficial change or added value. Noteworthy (PMI PMBOK Project Management Body of Knowledge & PRINCE2 - PRojects IN Controlled Environments): Methodologies, Techniques, Frameworks, Best-practices, Generally accepted standards, and Principles. Differences The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast with business as usual (or operations), which are repetitive, permanent, or semipermanent functional activities to produce products or services. In practice, the management of these two systems is often quite different, and as such requires the development of distinct technical skills and management. 5