Project management and evaluation

By Sunesh Hettiarachchi
B.Sc, MBA, MACS, MBCS, IDPM

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What is a Project?
What is a project?
Planned set of interrelated tasks to be executed over a

fixed period and within certain cost and defined specification to

produce a product or a service.
Major Characteristics of a Project
Has an established objective.
Has a defined life span with a beginning and an end.
Has specific time, cost, and performance requirements (scope).

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The Triple Constraint

Cost

how much?

Time

how fast?

Quality/Scope

how good?

The Three Ps
Program- operates over the long-term, and is

designed to use the organizations resources to

impact a specific subject area that is part of an
organizations mission.
Project- has a beginning and end, defined resources,

and creates a unique product or service.

Process- part of the ongoing operations of the

organization; may be introduced or changed over

time, but once established, an organizational process
operates on a continuous basis without a specified
end.
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Example - Program and Project

Program name : Champions of Change : Rebuilding

Americas Infrastructure
Estimated budget : 48 billion dollars
Number of projects : 15000 projects
Capacity : 65000 people
Duration : 3 years

Purpose : To rebuild United State of America

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqTzjLTL_Ug&feature=relmfu
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Project failure
Examples for project failures

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IBM 7030
In 1956, a group of computer scientists at IBM set out to

build the world's fastest supercomputer. Five years later,

they produced the IBM 7030 , the world fastest computer.
But the 7030 was considered a failure.
IBM's original bid to Los Alamos was to develop a

computer 100 times faster than the system it was meant

to replace, and the 7030 came in only 30 to 40 times
faster.

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IBM 7030
Because it failed to meet its goal, IBM had to drop IBM

7030 's price to $7.8 million from the planned $13.5

million, which meant the system was priced below cost.
The company stopped offering the 7030 for sale, and only
nine were ever built.
This project has been recorded as one of the biggest

project failed in the history.

No proper technical competency hired for the project

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SAP project failure

Shane Company SAP ERP project failure overview

(2008)
The initial project cost was budgeted or planned for $10 million but

ended up costing approximately $36 million and was planned for 1

year but ended up taking approximately 3 years.
Reasons: An improper budget and implementation plan.
Scope and cost were not properly managed.
Poor or undefined processes along with poor or untested system
functionality.

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What is Project Management?

Project management is a set of principles, practices, and

techniques applied to lead project teams and control

project schedule, cost, and performance risks to result in
delighted customers.

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Project Management in Your Organization

What are the current methods of project management in your

organization?
What project management issues is your organization facing?

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Practical issues of project management

Accomplish with shared resources often only available on

part-time basis
Require cross-functional team work
Involve uncertainty and are subject to change during
execution
Subject to specific deadlines and time and resource
constraints
Project manager often lacks functional authority over
team members

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Proven Benefits of Project Management

Provides clear roles, responsibilities, activities and

schedules for team efforts

Includes a method for considering the consequences of

decreasing or increasing funds, resources, time, or quality

Specifies a detailed plan of how to achieve our objectives
Assists in the realistic assignments of tasks and

responsibilities to team members according to the skills

and resources available

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Proven Benefits of Project Management (contd..)

Gives structure to communicating the progress of projects
Allows teams to identify potential problems and take

preventive action early

Keeps management officers and project stakeholders

well-informed and supportive

Helps manage pressure for expanding the scope of

projects without proper decision criteria and analysis of

changes

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Lets practice

Activity 1

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Diverse Skills Needed for Project Management

Planning skillsthe ability to plan the use or

organizational resources of time, personnel, budget,

facilities, equipment, and supplies to achieve
organizational objectives
Technical skillsthe specific professional technical

skills needed for a project.

People skillsthe ability to manage and motivate people

who will implement the project activities, communicate

effectively with stakeholders, and resolve conflicts and
interpersonal problems.

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What skills make the best project managers so

good?
Communication: listening, persuading, negotiating
Organizational: planning, goal-setting, analyzing

Team building: empathy, motivation, team spirit

Leadership: sets example, energetic, vision,

delegates, positive attitude

Coping: flexibility, creativity, patience, persistence
Technical: experience, project knowledge

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Knowledge areas required for a project

manager
Scope Management
Time Management
Cost Management
Risk Management
Quality Management
Human Resource Management
Communications Management
Procurement Management
Integrated Management

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Step 1: Select project

Define project scope: Selecting Priority Projects
Project selection can be a difficult process, especially

when there are a large number of potential projects

competing for scarce dollars.
Some selection methods are highly intuitive; some very
political.
Others try to add rigor through more scientific selection
processes.

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Selection Criteria Matrix: Un-weighted Criteria

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Project Agreement
What: A written description that clearly communicates what the

project is (and is not)

When: Ideally, at the beginning of a project. Also useful to develop

one for a project already started. Update it as needed.

Why:
Establish agreement between project team members and

stakeholders about what the project is (and is not)

Build team member commitment team should write the charter
together
Foundation for project planning
Helps in managing expectations
Communicate project to others

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Project Stakeholders
Within the team
Project manager

Team members

Within the organization

Internal customers
Project sponsor
Senior managers
Functional managers

Outside the organization

External customers
Collaborating organizations
Affected organizations
Vendors

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Project Agreement Development Meeting

Allow 2 hours to half day, depending on complexity or

project
Recognize that the process and team involvement is as
important as document
Ensure participation by all team members
Use group techniques such as brainstorming and
consensus
Do not let the project manager dominate the meeting

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Managing the Triple Constraint: Set Priorities

Need to discuss with customer and sponsor near startup

and agree on priority order.

Example : Priority matrix
1 - Critical
Time
Cost
Scope

2 - Major

3 Minor

X
X
X

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Step 2: Define project activities

Work Breakdown Structure
Prepare based on project scope, objectives, and/or deliverables
Organizes and defines work to be done
Divides work into logical, manageable segments
Objective is to identify all project tasks that must be completed with

action verbs

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Lets practice

Activity 2
Activity 3