Project Management Concepts and Applications

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Project Management Concepts and Applications

• Vilas Nitivattananon, PhD
• Urban Environmental Management
• School of Environment, Resources and Development
• Asian Institute of Technology
• vilasn_at_ait.ac.th

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Topics

• General concepts
• Organization
• Planning process and tools
• Control
• Examples
• Questions and discussions

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Project Life Cycle VS Environmental Assessment
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General Concepts

• A project can be thought of as an organization
  which exists to develop a system to respond to a
  problem
• Projects can be divided into logical phases or
  stages to indicate the types of tasks or
  activities conducted within a period of time
• Conceptual
• Definition
• Acquisition
• Operation

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Project Management

• Project management
• A set of principles, methods, tools, and
  techniques for effective management of objectives
  oriented work (projects) in the context of a
  specific and unique organization environment
• Why?
• Purpose
• Complexity
• Uniqueness
• Unfamiliarity
• Impermanence
• Life cycle

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Measures and Constraints

• Measures
• Time
• Cost
• Performance
• Constraints
• Labor
• Facilities
• Capital
• Schedules
• Knowledge
• Technology

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Characteristics

• Well defined goals
• Predetermined period of performance
• Ceiling on expenditures (budget)
• Limit on human resources and capital assets
• Limit on available tools / technology

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Objectives must be

• Clearly defined
• Achievable
• Measurable
• Agreed upon

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Source of Change

• Internally driven (specification review)
• Client driven
• Regulatory driven
• Externally driven (market conditions)

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Standard Tools

• Product oriented work breakdown structure
• Estimating techniques
• Task dependencies (PERT Charts)
• Graphic scheduling (GANTT Charts)
• Critical path analysis
• Resource leveling techniques
• Management reporting
• Project management information system

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Project Managers Role

• Responsibility
• Authority
• Accountability
• Dealing with the organization structure
• Coordinating
• Motivating
• Negotiating
• Managing (vs. Doing)
• Interpersonal skills (vs. hands-on / technical)

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Planning, Organizing, Control

• Planning
• Establish objectives
• Develop the plan
• Get plan approval
• Organizing
• Determine skill needs
• Identify people
• Compute the schedule
• Get staff / schedule approval
• Control
• Collect progress data
• Analyze data
• Report on project status
• Take corrective action

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Planning Steps

• Concentrate on identifying the work
• Employs such tools and techniques as
• Methodology
• WBS
• PERT
• Estimating techniques

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Organizing Steps

• Concentrates on identifying people and timings
• Employs such tools and techniques as
• Skills analysis
• GANTT
• Critical path analysis

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Control Steps

• Concentrates on identifying and resolving
  problems
• Employs such tools and techniques as
• Monitoring tracking
• Plan analysis
• Management reporting
• Change control

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Project Management Responsibilities

• Meet technical specifications
• Insure that costs do not exceed amount budgeted
  by management
• Insure objectives are met within specified time
  frame
• Comply with organizational constraints
• Address changes with minimum risk to all of the
  above

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Nature of Organization

• Hierarchical
• Matrix
• Task force

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Steps in Planning Process

• Assess adequacy of technical objectives (PM)
• Initiate top-down WBS development (PM)
• Negotiate functional participation (PM FMs)
• Complete top-down WBS development (PM Team)
• Determine interfaces network (PM team)
• Develop task estimates (PM team)

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Steps in Planning Process (contd.)

• Develop draft of project plan (PM)
• Compare draft of plan to project objectives (PM)
• Negotiate plan revisions (PM Team)
• Negotiate objectives revisions (PM client)
• Decide on proceeding with project (PM Client)
• Prepare detailed schedule and resource plans (PM)

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Steps in Planning Process (contd.)

• Identify key deliverables and milestones (PM)
• Determine detailed estimates for people, costs,
  equipment (PM)
• Obtain commitments from managers (PM FMs)
• Obtain plan approval from client and sr.
  management (PM, client, and SM)
• Distribute project plans and commence work (PM
  Team)

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Managing Changes to the Objectives

• Change may occur as soon as planning commences
• Control procedures must include
• Maintenance of change log
• Defining impact of change
• Appropriate communications
• Proper decisions / approvals
• Changes and change investigation will have an
  effect on
• Schedule
• Cost
• Resource utilization
• Risk

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Work Breakdown Structure

• Identifies specific work elements (tasks)
• Communicates objectives and strategy to
  participants
• Provide structure for effective management
  reporting
• Promotes standardization across projects

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WBS Functions

• Identify prime objectives and supporting
  objectives
• Establish major steps or phases of the project
• Determine the products or deliverables for each
  phase
• Identify the tasks needed to produce each
  deliverables

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WBS Categories

• Components of a product or service
• Functions
• Time phases
• Organizational units
• Persons
• Geographical areas
• Cost accounts

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WBS Examples

• Feasibility phase
• Deliverable A
• Task 1
• Task 2
• Deliverable B
• Task 1
• Task 2
• Analysis phase
• Deliverable A
• Task 1
• Design phase
• Deliverable
• Task 1

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PERT and Critical Path Method (CPM)

• Program evaluation review technique
• Network based
• Event diagram
• Precedence diagram
• Arrow diagram
• Used for estimating expected time
• (O P 4ML)/6

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Rules for Estimating

• Be realistic / honest
• Involve those doing the work
• Start at the appropriate level of WBS
• Preliminary estimates may assume
• Average performance
• Dedicated work effort (no interruptions)
• Sufficient resources available

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GANTT Chart Attributes

• Results of dependencies and resources assignments
• More user friendly than PERT
• Identifies schedule (not dependencies)
• Can show planned VS actual
• Can show resource utilization

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Product of Planning and Organizing

• Statement of technical objectives
• Work breakdown structure
• Task lists
• Task dependencies
• Network diagram
• Schedule and resource utilization plan (GANTT)
• Critical path calculation

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Control

• Project management standards
• Defined control sequence
• Defined control responsibilities
• Schedule for reporting
• Agreed upon report formats

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Project Control Steps

• Measure
• Planned condition
• Actual condition
• Deviation between planned and actual
• Analyze
• Impact of the deviation
• Nature of the problem
• Cause of the problem (accountability)

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Project Control Steps (contd.)

• Communicate
• Determine who needs to know
• Inform appropriate parties
• Decide if necessary to elevate the problem
• Take corrective action
• Develop alternative solutions
• Recommend and obtain approval
• Implement solution
• Determine future preventive action
• Follow up on effectiveness of solution

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What to Track / Monitor

• Completed tasks
• Tasks in progress
• Beware of the 90 complete trap
• Need to know how much work remains
• Future tasks
• Changes
• Delays
• Major deliverables / milestones
• Work effort utilization
• Quality
• if it is done vs. how well it is done
• Standards help!

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How to Track / Monitor

• Who collects the data?
• Delegate where possible
• Plan time for this
• When to collect the data?
• Weekly, bi-weekly
• Consistency is key
• How to collect the data?
• Accurately, completely
• Proper format
• Level of detail
• Summary requirements
• Who receives the data?

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Taking Corrective Action

• Responsibility of PM
• Identify impact
• Report impact
• Do not make changes in a vacuum!!
• Involves negotiation
• With the client
• With management
• With the project team
• Obtaining support and commitment depends on
• Demonstrating effective control
• Maintaining effective communication (reporting)

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Project Management Information System (PMIS)

• A framework or methodology, a system, for
  collecting, organizing, storing, processing, and
  disseminating the information needed to manage
  projects
• Manual or automated (computerized) system

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Components of Project Management Standards

• Prescribed project phases and major deliverables
• Prescribed tools techniques
• Classification of projects
• Forms used
• Task lists
• Change control
• Status reports
• Prescribed schedules for time collection and
  reporting
• Specified automated tools

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Benefits of Automated Information Tools

• Creating plan models
• Incorporates standard methodology
• Insures completeness
• Creating what if scenarios
• Facilitates negotiations
• Communicating
• Task or to do lists
• Graphics (network /Gantt)
• Management reports
• Project change
• Re-calculating critical path
• Re-scheduling

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Suggested Discussions

• Specific characteristics of your project(s) and
  their implications in terms of project management
• Relationship between objectives, tasks and
  outputs
• Appropriate tool(s) to be used in planning your
  projects
• Time and cost estimation how and accuracy
• Difficulties in attempting project control
• Process of collecting data about cost, schedule
  and work accomplished
• Project termination and extension reasons and
  management