CONTACT

dr.ir. Jan Devos, MBA

Electronics and IT Lab
University College West-Flanders
Ghent University Association
Graaf Karel De Goedelaan 5
BE-8500 KORTRIJK - BELGIUM
T: +32 56 24 12 72
F: +32 56 24 12 24
e-mail: jan.devos@howest.be
e-mail: jgdvos.devos@ugent.be
linkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jangdevos
website: http://ela.howest.be/jdevos
Twitter: @jangdevos
Project Management

There are three rules for conducting a project.

Unfortunately, nobody knows what they are…

© Jan Devos - 2
What is a project ?
What is a project?
The tunnel boring machines were
specially designed for excavating
the chalk marl rock which geological
surveys had shown to lie beneath the
seabed along the proposed tunnel
route. However, several factors
combined to make this a unique
challenge for the machines:
•The length of the tunnel to be
excavated undersea ( in excess
of 20 km ).
•The high rate of advance
required to meet the
construction programme
requirements.
•The possibility of unexpected
ground conditions - such as an
unsurveyed borehole.

At completion, it was estimated that the whole project

cost around £10 billion.

Work stated on both sides in 1987, and the fixed link was opened in 1994 -
nearly 2 years late, and way over budget.
What is a project?

Program Apollo was a series of human spaceflight

missions undertaken by the United States of America
using the Apollo spacecraft and Saturn launch
vehicle, conducted during the years 1961–1972.
It was devoted to the goal of landing a man
on the Moon and returning him safely to
Earth within the decade of the 1960s.
This goal was achieved with the Apollo 11 mission in
July 1969. The program continued into the early 1970s
to carry out the initial hands-on scientific exploration of
the Moon, with a total of six successful landings
Apollo Program insigne

The cost of the entire Apollo program: USD $25.4 billion -1969 Dollars ($135-
billion in 2005 Dollars).
What is a project?

a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique

product, service or result. (Project Management Institute)

a temporary organization that is created for the purpose

of delivering one or more business products according to
a specified Business Case (Prince2)

• Temporary organization
• Limited in time
• Goal centric
• Impact on the existing organization
Temporary organization

Examples:

• Building a house
• Building / installing a machine
• Developing a new product
• Launching a new product, concept, …
• Masterthesis
• PhD…
• …

© Jan Devos - 7
Temporary organization

A project team: temporary organization

(Hackman, 2009, Harvard University)

© Jan Devos - 8
Temporary organization - a project team

Project Management Team

• Project Board (Steering Committee)
Executives (bestuurders)

• Project Manager: day-to-day basis

• Different „roles‟: Team Members

Project Assurance
Project Quality
Reviewers / Testers

© Jan Devos - 9
Limited in time

Clear starting point

• Clear finishing point

• Milestones and milestone products (deliverables)

• Wanted, Planned and Realized (Earned Value Analysis)
• Baseline, Stages, Critical path
A Project is goal centric

• Business Case (Why are we doing this?)

• Feasibility Study
• Requirements (user needs)
• Deliverables
• Acceptance Criteria
• Outcome

Beware of:
• Scope (creep)
• Runaway projecten

© Jan Devos - 11
Why working with projects?
Project centric

Improvising Task centric

Project centric

Assurance of the outcome

Project centric

Improvising Project Centric Task Centric

Flexibility Goal oriented Efficient

No procedures Processes Procedures

Creative/ Innovative Planning / Analyzing Control

No structure Change management Hierarchy
Which model is the best ?

Depends on the situation

• What results do we need ?

• Control in time and budget

• Bringing disciplines together
• Type of organization
• Type of product/service
What is project management?
Project Management

The planning, monitoring and control of all aspects of

a project and the motivation of all those involved in it
to achieve the project objectives on time and to the
specified cost, quality and performance. (Prince2)

PM-triangle

© Jan Devos - 17
Project Management

(Tom Cross, HBR)

© Jan Devos - 18
Project Management

PM Philosophy

PM is not easy

most projects do not succeed…

Control ?
Project Management Philosophy

PLANNING

MONITORING

ORGANIZING
Project Management Philosophy

Inception

PLC

Design & Dev.

Project Management Philosophy

Wild
enthusiasm

“P”PLC

Search for the

guilty
Project Management Failures
Project Management

• Clear roles and responsibilities

• Management capabilities and

techniques
Project Management

What is succes in project management?

Answer: do not fail !

But failure is the outcome of a human process
All failures are “expectation failures” = the
failure to meet the expectations of the
stakeholders
What are the successfactors?
Project Management Practices

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

• Break your assignment down in manageable tasks
• Assign a deliverable to each task
• Define each task with clear objectives
• Assign a execution time to each task
• Assign a cost to each task
• Assign resources to each task
• Tasks who are not in the WBS are out-of-scope

Do a stepwise refinement of some tasks in the WBS

Project Management Practices

Define the goals according to the SMART principle

S Specific / Significant / Simple

M Measurable / Manageable
A Achievable / Appropriate / Attainable
R Realistic / Relevant
T Timely / Trackable
Project Management Practices

Presentation of WBS
PERT planning

GANTT chart
Project Management Practices

Presentation of WBS
PERT planning

GANTT chart
GANTT diagram
GANTT diagram

H.L. Gantt (1861-1919) – assistant of F. Taylor

• WBS = set of all tasks

• Presentation of all tasks on a time line
• Beginning and Ending time
• Linking of tasks (concurrent tasks are possible)
PERT planning
 PERT diagram

PERT - Program Evaluation and Review Technique

•Origin: US DoD (1958)

•WBS
•Extra: TOTAL time needed to finished the project

•Critical path = the longest path of planned tasks to the

end of the project, and the earliest and latest that each
task can start and finish without making the project
longer
Project Management

Some the PM processes:

• Project Scope Management

• Project Time Management
• Project Cost Management
• Project Quality Management
• Project HR Management
• Project Risk Management
• Project Communication Management
• Project Procurement Management
• …

© Jan Devos - 35
Project Management

Scope
Poor scope definition is the
major contributing factor to
cost overruns in the
engineering and construction
industry.
The effect of “creeping scope” is
a major cause of cost overruns
PRINCE2, Projects IN Controlled Environments,

Project management method covering the organisation, management and

control of projects.

Process Based & Product Based

Improved responsibility, authority and accountability reducing confusion

Divide the project into manageable stages for more accurate planning
PMBOK® Guide

Project Management Body of Knowledge

Links

www.pmi.org Project Management Institute

Non-profit organization
PMBOK®

www.ogc.gov.uk/prince2/ PRINCE2-website
Office of Government Commerce

www.prince2.com PRINCE2-website
Free downloads
Project Management: critics
Project Management: critics

• Research consistently shows that teams

underperform, despite extra resources
(Hackman, 2009, Harvard University)

Reasons:
- Problems with coordination and motivation
- Fuzziness of team boundaries
- Putting people in a team for purely political reasons

© Jan Devos - 42
Alternative approaches to PM

• PM does not guaranteed success nor eliminates failures

(example: IS success models)
• PM too much focused on „how-to-do‟

• Management of meaning iso management of control ?

• Critical perspective on projects: focus on values (technology is not
neutral), ethics and morality equally important than efficiency &
effectiveness ?
• Research on SMEs: Trust vs Control ? (Devos, 2009)

• “Political” PLC

2003, The chimpanzees’ tea party: a new metaphor for project manager
(Drummond & Hodgson)
2006, New Possibilities for Project Management Theory: A Critical Engagement
(Cicmil & Hodgson)

© Jan Devos - 1
HRO concept

• High Reliability Organizations

© Jan Devos - 1
HRO concept

• Organizing for High Reliability: Processes of

Collective Mindfulness (Weick, 1999)

• Preoccupation with failure (“Failure is not an option”)

• Reluctance to simplify interpretation
(beware of „frameworks‟, „models‟, „mindsets‟, …)
• Sensitivity to operations (“situational awareness”)
• Commitment to resilience (“continuous management
of fluctuations”)

© Jan Devos - 1
Exercise MASTERTHESIS
Assumption: the research question is defined

WBS:
• Literature analysis
▫ Annotated literature overviews
▫ Writing Literature Analysis chapter
• Technology
▫ Overview of the technology
▫ Writing Technology chapter
• Proof of Concept
▫ Building the test case
▫ Testing
▫ Measuring (1, 2 , or more runs)
▫ Reporting: writing the Results chapter
• Discussions
▫ Review each component of the previous stage
▫ Writing the Discussion chapter
• Conclusion: write the Conclusion chapter
• Combining: bring all chapters in one scription
• Miscellaneous
▫ Reserve time and place in the lab
▫ Order goods and materials for the PoC
▫ Write the abstract of the masterproof (NL)
▫ Write the abstract of the masterproof (EN)
▫ Review the text of the masterproof

© Jan Devos - 46
Exercise IP / MD PROJECT

Assumption: the business case is defined

WBS:
-?
-

© Jan Devos - 47
Excercise

• Free download: OpenProj (Open Software)

• http://sourceforge.net/projects/openproj/

• OpenProj Setup (msi)

• Install

© Jan Devos - 48