PROJECT MANAGEMENT

An overview

Course objectives:

Establishing projects area of interest

Identifying project’s key dimensions

Projects life cycle

Defining ”project” concept

Key words:

project, key dimensions, characteristics,

life cycle, project management

PROJECTS

comun or unusual activities?

big or small?

tangible or intangible results?

work related or personal?

(lat. “projicere” = to anticipate)

Common characteristics for projects

1. Any project implies people

2. Any project is, in a way, unique

3. Every project exist for a limited, well established

period of time

4. Every project has something to do with change

5. Every project has to have well established aims

6. It takes a variety of resources to complete a

project

Please think of a task you have recently completed. Write down, in a phrase, what complies having that

task done. Answer with “YES” or “NO” to the following questions

related with that task.

◦ Has a starting date defined? ◦ Has an ending date defined? ◦ Does involve your collaboration with other people? ◦ Does involve a change, of any nature? ◦ Does the task have a clear aim? ◦ Was an unusual aim? ◦ If YES, was unusual because:

it wasn’t achieved before? you have never achieved before? was unique by the way of achieving it?

◦ Does the task get together people with different abilities / skills?

If you get 7 or more ”YES” answers, that means you were

dealing with a project.

If you get 5 or 6 ”YES” answers, it means that, either the task

wasn’t well established, or it was a very unusual routine

task.

If you get 4 or less ”YES” answers, it certainly was a routine

task.

A project is a sequence of connected activities , undertaken for a limited time, in order to generate an unique but well

defined result.

We may need a project to:

√ reorganize the company or one of its compartments;

√ improve business performance;

√ introduce a new way of doing things;

√ abandon an old way of doing things;

√ influence the way people think or feel about something.

Project’s key dimensions

the nature of the results or the performance

the necessary time to reach that

performance

the cost of all the resources needed

the project result quality (“the match of

what we’ve achieved with what we wanted to

achieve”)

The triple constraint

THE PERFOMANCE

THE TIME THE COST

Project’s life cycle

Conception

Initiation and development

Maturity

Closure / Transfer

Conception Initiation and

development

Maturity Closure

1. Performance 1. Time 1. Performance 1. Performance

1. Cost 2. Performance 2. Time 1. Cost

1. Time 3. Cost 2. Cost 1. Time

1. Quality

3. Quality 2. Quality 1. Quality

The importance of key dimensions across project

phases:

The project management process can be regarded

like a conversion, in which the desired result is obtained

from a variety of inputs:

information: related with time, cost, performance, quality, client;

people: with abilities, skills and needs;

resources: material, time and financial resources.

The main role of the project manager is to settle a

balance between conflicting needs of the client, the

project itself and the project team.

Questions

Refreshing questions: What is a project ? Which are the project characteristics ? Which are the key dimensions of a project? Which are the life cycle phases ?