Project Management summary
Chapter 1 Introduction: why project management?
▪ Critical component of successful business operations in worldwide organizations.
▪ Due to internationalization, organizations must rapidly pursue commercial opportunities
▪ Fast AND efficient, cost-conscious, and customer-focused.
Process: On going day-to-day activities in which an organization engages while producing goods or
services. They use existing systems, properties and capabilities in a continuous, fairly repetitive
manner.
Project: Takes place outside the normal, process-oriented world of the firm. It is organized work
toward a predefined goal or objective that requires resources and effort, a unique (and therefore
risky) venture having a budget and schedule. They are:
- Goal oriented
- Involve the coordinated undertaking of interrelated activities
- Are of finite duration (beginning and end)
- Activities remain unique and separate from the manner in which more routine, process-
driven work is performed.
- Constantly evolving
- Antithesis of repetition in the workplace
According to PMBoK (Project Management Body of Knowledge): A project is a temporary
endeavour undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.
Various elements of projects, as identified by this set of definitions
➢ Complex, one-time processes (specific start and end dates)
• Cross-organizational
• Multifunctional
➢ Limited by budget, schedule and resources
➢ Developed to resolve a clear goal or set of goals -> The goal must be specific and the project
organized to achieve a stated aim.
➢ Customer-focused -> satisfy customers
• If neglected, a firm runs the risk of doing the wrong thing well.
General project characteristics
❖ Ad hoc endeavours with a clear life cycle -> They occur only ones.
❖ Building blocks in the design and execution of organizational strategies
❖ Responsible for the newest and most improved products, services, and organizational
processes -> the stepping-stones by which we move forward.
❖ Projects provide a philosophy and strategy for the management of change
❖ The outcomes of a project are the satisfaction of customer requirements within the task of
technical, cost, and schedule objectives -> constrained by limitations, which makes it
challenging.
❖ Terminated upon successful completion of performance objects.
Project management
1
© 2019, Lynouk van Hassel. All rights reserved.
, ❖ Project management entails crossing functional and organizational boundaries. The
project manager is the person most responsible for keeping track of the big picture.
Projects are NOT equal to organizational activities. Organizational activities involve repetitive
processes. See page 28 table 1.1
The reasons from pressures while facing a crucial project:
1. Shortened project life cycles ->The life cycle is measured in terms of months or even weeks,
rather than years.
2. Narrow products launch windows -> Time related issue
3. Increasingly complex and technical products
4. Global markets
5. An economic period marked by low inflation
Project life cycle: The stages in a project’s development. They
demonstrate the logic that governs a project.
• Conceptualization: The development of the initial goal and
technical specifications for a project. The scope of the work.
• Planning: The stage in which all detailed specifications,
schematics, schedules, and other plans are developed.
• Execution: The actual work of the project.
• Termination: The project is transferred to the customers.
Five components of a project may change over the course over its life cycle: see fig 1.5 page 35
1. Client interest
2. Project stake
3. Resources
4. Creativity
5. Uncertainty
Determinants of project success, New Quadruple Constraint:
❖ Time
❖ Budget
❖ Performance -> The first three are known as the triple constraint.
❖ Client acceptance -> satisfy customer’s needs.
Four relevant dimensions of success:
1. Project efficiency -> Budget and schedule expectations
2. Impact on customer -> Meeting the specifications, addressing and satisfying customer needs
3. Business success -> Commercial success
4. Preparing for the future -> Opened new markets or new product lines or helped to develop
new technology.
See Atkinson model, table 1.2 page 40.
Project management maturity models: Are used to allow organizations to benchmark the best
practices of successful project management firms.. Provides mechanisms to assess the capabilities of
an organization by measuring the maturity of project management processes.
2
© 2019, Lynouk van Hassel. All rights reserved.
,Benchmarking: systematically manage the process improvements of project delivery by a single
organization over a period of time.
Framework of maturity models: Page 42 fig 1.10 and page 43 table 1.3
1. Initial process
2. Structure, process, and standards
3. Institutionalized project management
4. Managed
5. Optimizing
Models show that maturity is an ongoing process based on continuous
improvement through identifiable incremental steps.
Crucial and critically “employability skills” for new hires: This should be common knowledge
Communication
Critical thinking
Collaboration
Knowledge application and analysis
Business ethics and social responsibility
Information technology application and computing skills
Data literacy
Responsibilities of a project manager See later chapters
1. Selecting a team
2. Developing project objectives and a plan for execution
3. Performing risk management activities
4. Cost estimating and budgeting
5. Scheduling
6. Managing resources
3
© 2019, Lynouk van Hassel. All rights reserved.
, Chapter 2: the organizational context
Successful project management in an organization depends on, Culture, Structure and Strategy.
Strategic management: The science of formulating, implementing, and evaluating cross-functional
decisions that enable an organization to achieve its objectives. Consists out of:
1. Developing vision statements and mission statements
a. Establish a sense of the organizations hopes to accomplish at some point in the
future.
i. Effective vision statements are both inspirational and aspirational
ii. Corporate vision is a focal point for members of the organization who may
find themselves pulled in different directions by competing demands.
2. Formulating, implementing, and evaluating
3. Making cross-functional decisions
4. Achieving objectives -
TOWS matrix The link between projects and organization’s strategic choices.
Threats Opportunities Weaknesses Strengths.. See page 62 table 2.1 and fig 2.2
Stakeholder analysis: A useful tool for demonstrating some of the seemingly
irresolvable conflicts that occur through the planned creation and introduction of
any new projects. It also:
▪ Understands the relationship of project managers and their projects to the rest of the
organization
▪ It compels firms to acknowledge the potentially wide-ranging effects can have on
stakeholder groups.
▪ It is instructive for understanding the impact of major decisions
Project stakeholders: Individuals or groups who have an active stake in the project and can
potentially impact, either positively or negatively, its development. Two types of project
stakeholders
▪ Internal stakeholders: Vital component in any stakeholder analysis, usually their impact is
felts as positive.
o Top management
▪ Mostly control the project managers
▪ They give the “go” decision.
o Accountant
o Other functional managers
o Project team members
▪ External stakeholders: They are quite challenging or even hostile to project development.
o Clients
o Competitors
o Suppliers
o Environmental, pollical, consumers, and other intervener groups
Managing stakeholders The stakeholder management process is really best understood as a cycle.
1. Assess the environment -> Is the project low-key or potentially significant that it will likely
excite a great deal of attention?
2. Identify the goals of the principal actors
4
© 2019, Lynouk van Hassel. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1 Introduction: why project management?
▪ Critical component of successful business operations in worldwide organizations.
▪ Due to internationalization, organizations must rapidly pursue commercial opportunities
▪ Fast AND efficient, cost-conscious, and customer-focused.
Process: On going day-to-day activities in which an organization engages while producing goods or
services. They use existing systems, properties and capabilities in a continuous, fairly repetitive
manner.
Project: Takes place outside the normal, process-oriented world of the firm. It is organized work
toward a predefined goal or objective that requires resources and effort, a unique (and therefore
risky) venture having a budget and schedule. They are:
- Goal oriented
- Involve the coordinated undertaking of interrelated activities
- Are of finite duration (beginning and end)
- Activities remain unique and separate from the manner in which more routine, process-
driven work is performed.
- Constantly evolving
- Antithesis of repetition in the workplace
According to PMBoK (Project Management Body of Knowledge): A project is a temporary
endeavour undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.
Various elements of projects, as identified by this set of definitions
➢ Complex, one-time processes (specific start and end dates)
• Cross-organizational
• Multifunctional
➢ Limited by budget, schedule and resources
➢ Developed to resolve a clear goal or set of goals -> The goal must be specific and the project
organized to achieve a stated aim.
➢ Customer-focused -> satisfy customers
• If neglected, a firm runs the risk of doing the wrong thing well.
General project characteristics
❖ Ad hoc endeavours with a clear life cycle -> They occur only ones.
❖ Building blocks in the design and execution of organizational strategies
❖ Responsible for the newest and most improved products, services, and organizational
processes -> the stepping-stones by which we move forward.
❖ Projects provide a philosophy and strategy for the management of change
❖ The outcomes of a project are the satisfaction of customer requirements within the task of
technical, cost, and schedule objectives -> constrained by limitations, which makes it
challenging.
❖ Terminated upon successful completion of performance objects.
Project management
1
© 2019, Lynouk van Hassel. All rights reserved.
, ❖ Project management entails crossing functional and organizational boundaries. The
project manager is the person most responsible for keeping track of the big picture.
Projects are NOT equal to organizational activities. Organizational activities involve repetitive
processes. See page 28 table 1.1
The reasons from pressures while facing a crucial project:
1. Shortened project life cycles ->The life cycle is measured in terms of months or even weeks,
rather than years.
2. Narrow products launch windows -> Time related issue
3. Increasingly complex and technical products
4. Global markets
5. An economic period marked by low inflation
Project life cycle: The stages in a project’s development. They
demonstrate the logic that governs a project.
• Conceptualization: The development of the initial goal and
technical specifications for a project. The scope of the work.
• Planning: The stage in which all detailed specifications,
schematics, schedules, and other plans are developed.
• Execution: The actual work of the project.
• Termination: The project is transferred to the customers.
Five components of a project may change over the course over its life cycle: see fig 1.5 page 35
1. Client interest
2. Project stake
3. Resources
4. Creativity
5. Uncertainty
Determinants of project success, New Quadruple Constraint:
❖ Time
❖ Budget
❖ Performance -> The first three are known as the triple constraint.
❖ Client acceptance -> satisfy customer’s needs.
Four relevant dimensions of success:
1. Project efficiency -> Budget and schedule expectations
2. Impact on customer -> Meeting the specifications, addressing and satisfying customer needs
3. Business success -> Commercial success
4. Preparing for the future -> Opened new markets or new product lines or helped to develop
new technology.
See Atkinson model, table 1.2 page 40.
Project management maturity models: Are used to allow organizations to benchmark the best
practices of successful project management firms.. Provides mechanisms to assess the capabilities of
an organization by measuring the maturity of project management processes.
2
© 2019, Lynouk van Hassel. All rights reserved.
,Benchmarking: systematically manage the process improvements of project delivery by a single
organization over a period of time.
Framework of maturity models: Page 42 fig 1.10 and page 43 table 1.3
1. Initial process
2. Structure, process, and standards
3. Institutionalized project management
4. Managed
5. Optimizing
Models show that maturity is an ongoing process based on continuous
improvement through identifiable incremental steps.
Crucial and critically “employability skills” for new hires: This should be common knowledge
Communication
Critical thinking
Collaboration
Knowledge application and analysis
Business ethics and social responsibility
Information technology application and computing skills
Data literacy
Responsibilities of a project manager See later chapters
1. Selecting a team
2. Developing project objectives and a plan for execution
3. Performing risk management activities
4. Cost estimating and budgeting
5. Scheduling
6. Managing resources
3
© 2019, Lynouk van Hassel. All rights reserved.
, Chapter 2: the organizational context
Successful project management in an organization depends on, Culture, Structure and Strategy.
Strategic management: The science of formulating, implementing, and evaluating cross-functional
decisions that enable an organization to achieve its objectives. Consists out of:
1. Developing vision statements and mission statements
a. Establish a sense of the organizations hopes to accomplish at some point in the
future.
i. Effective vision statements are both inspirational and aspirational
ii. Corporate vision is a focal point for members of the organization who may
find themselves pulled in different directions by competing demands.
2. Formulating, implementing, and evaluating
3. Making cross-functional decisions
4. Achieving objectives -
TOWS matrix The link between projects and organization’s strategic choices.
Threats Opportunities Weaknesses Strengths.. See page 62 table 2.1 and fig 2.2
Stakeholder analysis: A useful tool for demonstrating some of the seemingly
irresolvable conflicts that occur through the planned creation and introduction of
any new projects. It also:
▪ Understands the relationship of project managers and their projects to the rest of the
organization
▪ It compels firms to acknowledge the potentially wide-ranging effects can have on
stakeholder groups.
▪ It is instructive for understanding the impact of major decisions
Project stakeholders: Individuals or groups who have an active stake in the project and can
potentially impact, either positively or negatively, its development. Two types of project
stakeholders
▪ Internal stakeholders: Vital component in any stakeholder analysis, usually their impact is
felts as positive.
o Top management
▪ Mostly control the project managers
▪ They give the “go” decision.
o Accountant
o Other functional managers
o Project team members
▪ External stakeholders: They are quite challenging or even hostile to project development.
o Clients
o Competitors
o Suppliers
o Environmental, pollical, consumers, and other intervener groups
Managing stakeholders The stakeholder management process is really best understood as a cycle.
1. Assess the environment -> Is the project low-key or potentially significant that it will likely
excite a great deal of attention?
2. Identify the goals of the principal actors
4
© 2019, Lynouk van Hassel. All rights reserved.
