What is a project?
A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result.
Projects are needed when there is:
- A Market Demand (a market demand of rain coats in the rainy season)
- A Customer Request(a customer need a web design ready in two weeks)
- A Technological Advancement(the need for a new type of communication masts for the international airport)
- A Legal Requirement
- Ecological Impacts(build dams to prevent flooding of coastal areas)
- Social need (build pipe borne water supply for a rural community)
- Personal need (getting a loan from a bank for your million dollar idea)
Who is a project manager?
He must identify the requirement needed for the project, handle the resources assigned to the project, strive to balance the triple constrains associated with his project.
Qualities of a project manger
- A project manger must be highly organized
- A project manger must be a good leader: a leader is a person that motivates others to follow and achieve his dreams, while an effective project manager paints a picture of a better tomorrow that inspires confidence in his team’s abilities to realize their vision.
- A project manger must be an effective communicator: a project manager communicates 95% of the time throughout the project life cycle. He must ensure that all stakeholder and project team members understand what is expected of them throughout the project life cycle. He must also distinguish who needs to know what, when they need to know it and how the information is to be distributed.
- A project manager must develop people skills, be efficient at building teams and an expert at conflict resolution.
- A project manger must be a person of consistent integrity. He must always abide by the ethical behavior slated by the institute of project management (PMI)
- A project manger above all must be detail oriented, a critical thinker and a problem solver. He must be able to balance priorities.
What is project management?
Project management is the application of knowledge, tools and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements.
The knowledge is the skills you have acquired as a project manager while the tools and techniques include the Microsoft project software, the Project Management Information System (PMIS) e.t.c
The triple constraint / quadruple constraint
So a project manager has to manage the resources assigned to this project (cost )or human resources, he has to make sure the project his project and project deliverables are ready at the deadline (schedule)and the product the stakeholder requires is delivered(scope) and in the right specifications(quality).
This is called the quadruple constraint.
Senerio1: A project manager delivers the project on time and over budget
Scenario 2: A project manager delivers the project on time, under budget but not the desired quality
Scenario 3: The project manger delivers the project behind schedule, over budget but with right specifications.
This is the dilemma of every project manager. But a good project manager will strive to deliver his project deliverables on time, on budget and with the right specifications.
A project has 5 stages called project process groups
A project has five phases which can be explained with the plan-do-check – act cycle;
Initiation ---starts the cycle
Planning ---plan
Execution ---do
Monitoring and control---check-act
Closing---closes the cycle
INITIATION:
Every project has the beginning which is characterized by developing the project charter.This is a document that signifies that there is a project in progress, this document also names the project manager for a particular project.
In this document stakeholder of the project are named.
Who is a stakeholder? - a stake holder is an individual whose interest maybe positively or negatively affected by the project (project manager, the project sponsors, influencers, the performing organization, the customers, users, project team) e.t.c
PLANNING:
Planning is what makes project management. A project manager has to plan for every task that is to be performed throughout the project life cycle. This plan is recorded in his project management plan. This project management plan in turn becomes an asset (Organizational Process Assets) for projects in the future
The project management plan contain
- Scope management plan (What is the product of the project and the process needed to obtain the product)
- Schedule management plan(how to manage the time resources assigned to the project to ensure availability when needed)
- Cost management plan( contains the budget of the project and how the funds are allocated throughout the project phases)
- Quality management plan( what were the requirements the stakeholders had in mind for the products, step by step action to make such the process doesnt derail from the requirements and ways to correct errors before the product gets to the final phase)
- Risk management plan( how to manage forseen risk and unforeseen risk. Risk response when the risk occur)
- Stakeholder management plan( how to manage interests of stakeholders, even when interests are conflicting).
EXECUTION:
The next step is execution, the project manger now performs the work he has been planning for all along, he manages his communication with stakeholders and fellow project team members, in this stage the project manger acquire human resources needed for his project.
MONITORING AND CONTROL:
The project manger goes through what his team has done to ensure it aligns with the project requirement and stakeholder specification.
CLOSING:
Projects are divided into phases. As each phase ends, you summarize and submit performance reports. At the end of the project, there is also closing either the project deliverable (product of the project) is accepted or not
It is important to note that no stage of the project completely ends before another starts. The various stages/process groups overlap throughout the project life cycle. You consistently plan throughout your project life cycle, and you monitor and control the work done by your project team- to prevent errors , to correct errors or initiate defect repairs.
An illustration of project management in my country
The Federal Government wants to build the second Niger Bridge, so a tender is released in the daily newspapers.
Julius Berger wins the contract(procurement ). The federal government awards to the contract 250 billion US dollars(budget) to build the second Niger bridge(project deliverable) to be ready by January 2020(time/schedule deadline) .Mr. Ezekiel is a project manager at Julius Berger and he was assigned to the project .Mr. Ezekiel needs a team of engineers, architects builders, healthy and safety organizations, statistician, technicians, and others (they are his project team).
The first step is the stakeholders(Federal Government) develops a project charter that signifies that the contract of building the second Niger Bridge was awarded to his organization(initiation) . He takes the first year of the project to plan for every task that is going to be performed till the second Niger Bridge is commissioned.
He plans for the number of builders and bricklayers he needs from the first day till the last. He plans for the number of bags of cement he has to use on the 30th day, 100th day and others. He plans for risk too, what if there is a thunderstorm and destroys part of the bridge(risk management).
He plans what if the head engineer falls sick of a terminal illness. He plans for when the laborers are fighting, how he will resolve it. He plans on how he is going to communicate with the stakeholders of his project and his project sponsors.
Even before the project starts Mr. Ezekiel has a made plans for how everything is going to take place for the next 5 years.
He goes on to execute the project, performing quality assurance as the work progresses. If there is a need to change any part of the project, he plans on how to go about it(integrated change control). At this stage of the project life cycle, cost is most prominent, Mr. Ezekiel has to mange his project team and the human resources working in his project. If there is a part of his project, his team doesn’t possess the skills required. He outsource that part of the project. He also manages his stakeholder expectations here
Mr. Ezekiel is always on site monitoring the work his teams are performing, if the cement is too light, the bridge would collapse. He implements his preventive actions; remember he already planned out everything. He controls costs, control quality, controls risks and controls communications.
When 2020 is finally here, Mr. Ezekiel must make sure he managed his cost(cost constraint) , that the project deliverables (the second Niger Bridge) is delivered on time(time constraint) and the quality of the Niger Bridge is as expected(quality constraint) . Then he releases the workers that worked with him, and ends the contracts of those technical areas he sourced for.
The documentation of his project management plan, lesson learned, and performance report now serve as a historical information for future references (an organizational process assets for Julius Berger industries).
Project sponsor- federal government of Nigeria
Project stakeholder-federal government, Nigerians,
Users –Nigerians
Performing organization-Julius Berger industries
Project manager -Mr. Ezekiel
Advantages of project management skills
- Better control of financial, physical, and human resources
- Improved customer relations
- Shorter development times
- Lower costs
- Higher quality and increased reliability
- Higher profit margins
- Improved productivity
- Better internal coordination
- Higher worker morale (less stress)
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