INTRODUCTION TO PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Why all the Fuss?

BYENGR. OFOGU AZUKA,MNSE,MNIEEE,MIEEE

QUESTION 1

WHAT IS A PROJECT?

According to the PMBOK, A Project is any temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, or Service ,or Result.

QUESTION 2

WHO IS A PROJECT MANAGER/ENGINEER ?

Managing a Project is difficult under the best circumstances. The project manager must balance competing stakeholder interests against the Constraints of limited Resources and Time, ever-changing Technologies and challenging demands from high-pressure people. Project management is a juggling act, with too many balls in the air at once. The unfortunate thing is that many new Project managers receive little or no Training in how to do the job and are set up for failure. Anyone can learn to draw a Gantt chart, but effective project managers also rely on the savvy that comes from experience.

TIP: Learn survival tips from people who’ve already done their tours of duty in the project management trenches to save you from learning such lessons the hard way.

• PROJECT MANAGEMENT LIFE-CYCLE

• PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROCESSES

• FIVE CATEGORICAL PARTS OF A PROJECT

• FACTORS FOR PROJECT SUCCESS

LAY THE FOUNDATION

PLAN THE PROJECT

ESTIMATE THE WORK

TRACK YOUR PROGRESS

LEARN FOR THE FUTURE

NOTE!

• To succeed you must:• Build the stated, corresponding Activities into your thinking and plans. • Recognize, that none of these Practices or Activities will be a “silver

bullet” for your project management problems.• Also, remember that even “best” practices are Situational. They need

to be selectively and thoughtfully applied only where they will add value to the project.

LAYING THE FOUNDATION

(i)Define Project Success Criteria At the beginning of the project, make sure the stakeholders share a common understanding of the Criteria to use to determine or define whether this project is successful or not. Begin by identifying your Stakeholders and their Interests and Expectations. Next, define some clear and measurable Business goals .Example:• Saving money by retiring a high-maintenance legacy system • delivering committed functionality that satisfies acceptance tests • Increasing Market share by a certain amount by a particular date

• Achieving certain customer satisfaction measures

NB: It doesn’t matter if you deliver to the specification on schedule and Budget if those Factors don’t clearly align with Business success .

Other Criteria to consider are:(ii)Identify Project drivers, Constraints and Degrees of freedom.

(ii)Define Product Release Criteria.

(iii)Negotiate achievable commitments.

PLANNING THE PROJECT

• Write a plan.• Decompose tasks to inch-pebble granularity. • Develop planning worksheets for common large tasks. • Plan to do rework after a quality control activity. • Manage Project Risks- If you don’t identify and control Project Risks,

they’ll control you ., etc.

ESTIMATING THE WORK

• Estimate based on effort, not calendar time. • Don’t over-schedule multitasking people- Diminished effectiveness• Build training time into the schedule. • Record estimates and how you derived them. • Use estimation tools – which are readily available in the Market• Plan contingency buffers.

TRACKING YOUR PROGRESS

• Record Actuals and Estimates.

• Count Tasks as complete only when they’re 100 percent complete.

• Track Project status openly and honestly.

LEARNING FOR THE FUTURE

• Conduct project retrospectives- postmortems and post-project reviews

This is to provide an opportunity for the Team to reflect on how the last Project or Phase went and to capture lessons learned that will help enhance future performance.

QUESTION 3

WHATS ALL THE FUSS ABOUT PM ?

• Project Management is the new thing in the Industry’s quest to achieve Stronger Project Performance and successes.

• Successful Projects not only deliver on Time and on Budget, but contribute substantially to the Business bottom line.

• Implication is that the Success of most businesses rests on the Shoulders of the Project manager and his team and as such the Project manager adds great value to the Business. The business owner recognizes this fact and places a substantially high premium on the PM = Good renumeration

THANK YOU

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