What is a project? Projects are efforts to achieve objectives Projects have a start, a middle and an end making them different from operational activities which are performed regularly over time e.g. payroll operation. However, there can be some overlap between project management and operational management in that development of operational effectiveness can often involve a change management project and projects themselves may evolve into ongoing flow activity. An example might be a prototype vehicle which initially starts as a development project and then develops into a flow production line if the project is successful. There are core skills involved in project management including identifying and agreeing on project objectives, scheduling and estimating In addition other issues such as managing risk, communication and dealing with other people are key areas of importance. Study questions: In what sort of projects are you involved? Can you identify three different types of project in which you may become involved? What are the core skills you believe a project manager and leader should possess? There are many definitions of a project and one of the most useful is that by Turner who states that a project can be defined as....and endeavour in which human (or machine), material and financial resources are organised in a novel way, to undertake a unique scope of work, or given specification, within constraints of cost and time, so as to deliver beneficial change by quantitative and qualitative objectives In his writing Turner proposes five functions of project based management: Organisation, scope, time, quality and cost. These are an enhanced version of the traditional quality, cost and time model adding the organisational context and the scope of the project. His book The handbook of project-based management: Improving the Process for Achieving Strategic Objectives is well worth consulting. Study assignment: Download the article Turner s five-functions of project-based management and situation leadership in IT services projects published in the International Journal of Project Management 21 (2003) 583-591 available on the internet from www.elsevier.com/locate/ijproman. A Google search using the article title will enable you to download a PDF of the article for free. In this module we are going to consider a number of specific aspects of project management A recent change has been the shift away from a preoccupation with planning towards a wider appreciation of the full range of project types and the human issue involved in creating a project team 1
We will be considering project leadership as well as project management, creating the project team and promoting organisational team working as these are all part of the human issues referred to above The processes of monitoring and evaluating the success of the project will be considered and the process of handing over the completed project. In particular risk assessment and critical success factors are increasingly becoming part of effective project working. Study questions: What would you describe as the differences between project management and project leadership? What approaches do you use to monitor the progress and ongoing success for the projects in which you are engaged? The modern approach to project management may be traced back to the middle of the 20th Century when the US Navy s special Projects Office was formed in 1957 to support the nuclear submarine project. A Google search on PERT will produce a number of useful references to this starting point. The PERT method (program evaluation and review technique) was established to analyse the tasks involved in completing a complex project A key feature of PERT is the identification of the critical path, that minimum amount of time that the project will consume given the various activities involved and how they relate to each other. In the next slide we see a simple but typical approach to the PERT approach Study question: Can you think of a simple time bounded project such as making a cup of tea which you could represent as a set of activities such as fill the kettle, turn it on, assemble cups, tea or tea bags etc? Please list those activities so that you have identified every action that needs to be taken and those activities that may be carried out in parallel. In this slide we see how one relatively simple project can be represented in a two dimensional graphical form. There are five milestones or states which must be reached. Milestone 1 is the starting point where resources have been assembled. Two activities then take place in parallel: activity A which is estimated to take 3 months leading to milestone 2 and activity B which is estimated to take 4 months leading to milestone 3. Milestone 2 is then followed by two activities D taking 1 month and E taking 2 months. D leads to milestone 4 which is then followed by activity F duration 3 months which leads to milestone 5. Milestone 3 is followed by activity C which leads directly to milestone 5. All activities are estimates in terms of duration and it can be seen that there is slack in activity E the start of which could be delayed by up to 2 months while D and F are underway and activity A which could be delayed by a month. This is an important point in terms of project planning for the use of resources and is an issue to which we will refer later. Study questions: Can you now represent the process of making the cup of tea with the activities you identified in the previous slide as a PERT chart along the lines of that shown in this slide? Are there any resource and timing issues you can identify from your diagram? 2
Project working has traditionally been associated with large scale construction projects, office relocation, new product development and so forth. However, today many types of project exist many of which are not technical or engineering in nature and it is the application of project planning, PERT type techniques and other project methods such as Gantt Charts to this wide variety of project types which concerns us with this module. Whatever the type of project three issues invariably arise. Firstly there is the issue of the quality standard to which the project is being worked. Is a quick and dirty solution being sought or is the emphasis on high quality standards which is required? To what extent is cost involved? Is the project aiming to produce a Rolls Royce solution or would a Skoda solution be fit for purpose? Thirdly what is the time pressure situation in terms of when the project has to be completed? When these three issues are combined they produce the quality, cost, time triangle. In addition the project takes place within a context. We will see these two aspects of project working in the next slide Study questions: Where was the emphasis in a project in which you have been involved? Was it on minimising cost, working to the shortest timescale or working to the highest quality? If the balance had shifted between these variables what would have been the impact on the project? We can see in this slide how the three core issues of quality, cost and time fit together. This enables the focus to be determined in terms of maximising quality at the possible expense of increased cost and/or taking longer to complete the project, or minimising cost at the with the result of a possible reduction in quality and taking longer over the work or completing the project in minimum time incurring possible extra cost and reduction in quality. At the same time the context of the project is shown taking into account organisational politics, personal objectives of those involved, business pressures, external pressures such as carbon footprint issues and stakeholder perceptions. Study questions: Which of the three core issues of quality, cost and time tend to dominate in your organisation? What factors exist in your organisation which tend to make project working more difficult than perhaps it should be? For some people it is tempting to think of project leadership as being team or front line level in nature However leadership operates at a wide range of levels and it is convenient to consider three levels in particular all of which are relevant to project working Firstly there is strategic leadership which is creating the grand plan, focusing on the big picture and understanding the strategic fit of the project Secondly there is operational leadership which is about putting the grand plan into practice and developing the day to day activity on the project 3
Thirdly it is true that there is a team level of leadership with specific outcomes required, time issues and specific boundaries These three levels of leadership all take place within the culture of the organisation and its project organisation and both the project teams and the organisation as a whole needs to stay in touch with its environment, the business context in order to stay current in its thinking We can see how these three levels of leadership, the culture and the context or environment relate in the next slide Study questions: At which level of leadership activity do you spend most of your time strategic, operational or front line? Can you outline how the project on which you are currently working fits into the grand plan of your organisation? Here we see the strategic level which takes into account the strategic fit of the project, the operational level which relates to the day to day working of the project activity and the front line level which is about achieving the task building a team and working with individuals to unlock their personal contributions. The extent to which these processes are encouraged or inhibited is determined largely by the culture of the organisation on an ongoing basis and the climate in terms of short term atmosphere. Finally the project leader needs to take account of the context in which the project is taking place both within the organisation and in the business environment outside the organisation. Study questions: Does the way you are working with your project reflect what is happening in the business context or business environment in which your organisation is currently working? Is your effort at all three levels of strategic, operational and front line levels balanced or does one level tend to be where you place most of your energy? We have already suggested that project leaders and managers need to be strategic as well as operating effectively on a day to day basis and creating specific outcomes from the project working in a timely manner. Strategy is about the big picture, the overall system, thinking on main beam to use a driving analogy and being aware of the long term results of various actions. Most writers on leadership would argue that leaders need to have a vision of how things will be when they have achieved their aims and objectives and the same is true for project leaders. A vision is a picture of the future as we would wish it to be and we can develop our visioning skills by imagining that the project is now completed, thinking about what that will mean to us in terms of day to day activity and working. It is useful to pretend that the project is complete and to imagine what we would see, hear and feel as a result of the completion of the project work. In this way we can influence our unconscious minds to work towards its completion in an effective way. Under pressure we tend to focus in on our particular work and to develop tunnel vision. Thinking outside the box and examining the wider issues is important for the project manager in order to keep 4
his or her creative processes working effectively. This approach to seeing the project in context and how its successful completion will affect the organisation is very important. We all face uncertainty both in our organisational and personal lives. A key skill in modern strategic thinking is that of scenario analysis. In this process various elements of uncertainty are considered and clustered to form a map which may be of two or more dimensions. The easiest way to develop an ability in scenario analysis is to cluster the uncertainties on two scales thus creating a 2 X 2 matrix which displays four possible future scenarios. This type of thinking can be very useful in adjusting or modifying project aims and objectives. The bibliography at the end of this session gives references to enable you to explore scenario planning in more depth. Study questions: To what extent do you engage in strategic thinking as compared to operational or front line thinking? Do you have a vision for what life will be like when you have completed the project? What uncertainties can you identify as regards your project which could be clustered to create a 2 X 2 matrix resulting in four possible scenarios of the future for the project? We will consider project evaluation in some depth in a later session. At this stage it important to realise each project has detailed success criteria and sets of specifications which the project has to meet. Success factors do vary and at one end of the spectrum they may be specific quantitative issues. At the other end such as in a feasibility study success may be identifed as defining the questions to ask, the issues to study or defining a suitable output. Hard criteria includes meeting deadlines, meeting performance specifications, adhering to quality standards and meeting cost, budget and resource issues. Soft criteria may include the co-operation within the project team, morale level, a positive image for the project, total quality issues, commitment level within the team, effective risk and reputation management and ethical issues. We will explore this in a later session. Study questions: What would define success in terms of any projects in which you are currently engaged? What would be the hard success criteria? What would be the soft success criteria? Project managers need to develop effective relationships with their major stakeholders as well as with their visible and invisible teams. Building a background knowledge base of a project s major stakeholders is important. Who are they? How did they get to their current position? What is their status? What issues are important to them? What sort of people are they? How do they like to be kept up to date? 5
Do they have any negative feelings or assumptions about the project and its team? Do they want to keep their distance from the project or are they keen to develop close working relationships? Study questions? What are the important issues you can identify about the background of three main stakeholders with the project in which you are currently engaged? What sort of people are they and how easy is it to talk and do business with them? What actions can you take to promote effective working relationships with your stakeholders? Project Leadership by Briner, Geddes and Hastings is a useful overview of modern project management focusing on the leadership aspects as much as the planning and control aspects. An internet search using Google or another search engine will reveal a rich source of material on project management. A key figure in project management is Turner whose books and articles based on the five factor model are extremely useful. Finally a definitive text on Scenario Planning is that produced by Gill Ringland. This is a comprehensive treatment of the subject and provides a very useful insight into the process. 6