Project Management Theory and Practice!

Hasan Yahya, Ph.D

In this part we explain Project Management. As a more productive model of management in theory and practice than other leadership models. We are familiar with the saying: “Situation control needs effective measures”. Without measures no one can control anything. Measures, however needs mental skills , depends on logical reasoning and critical thinking to map out goals or objectives for the measures to help achieving goals. To deal with continuous feedbacks to change management styles. Such control may be applied to Program Management (PM) which I believe is more applicable these days than any other theory. Because it uses technology as well as management expertise.

Project Management (PM) is the discipline of planning, organizing and managing resources [human professional skills and natural] to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives. Certain elements are needed to have for the PM team to abide with three elements: Time, space, and technology. (more…)

Regular status meetings are boring: everyone goes around the table and rehashes what they did in the last week or month. No one really cares. If the project dates are slipping, the team wants the meeting to be over with so they can get back to doing something useful.

But status meetings can be fun!

Yes, I know, it’s a strange concept. But I’ve seen it happen. I was doing documentation on a software development team. The team was implementing agile development practices, and they were planning to do a release every month. This meant a big meeting with marketing, sales, the whole development team. (more…)

With each project producing unique products or services, you may find it impossible to identify every unique task’s delays before they impact a deadline. Skilled project managers often fail to deliver on time while some are able to stay on top of every moving task. The successful managers invest significant effort into creating, monitoring, and maintaining an accurate schedule. Holding deliverables to an accurate schedule will reveal slippage before it’s too late. It will also provide you with the comfort of knowing which tasks require your attention and when.

The acquisition of National City Bank of Ohio and its total assets of approximately 150 billion USD by PNC Bank of Pennsylvania triggered a cascade of events. The acquisition resulted in one of the nation’s top five banks with 60,000 employees and 279 billion USD assets. You can only imagine the enormity of decommissioning millions of lines of code and moving billions of records over a 23 month integration. This required many simultaneous projects all dependant on each other to be completed on time. To prevent one task on a critical path of any project impacting all projects, billions of investments, and thousands of customers, we used detailed scheduling techniques to plan and manage these projects and their critical paths. (more…)

Risk is the probability of occurrence of an event or activity that might have an adverse effect on the project, including on cost, schedule, safety, scope, or quality. It is therefore important to plan for risk management.

Risk management involves identifying risks, analyzing the impact of risks, and subsequently devising a risk response plan. Quantitative risk analysis involves assigning numeric ratings to the identified risks to demarcate high and low value risks. (more…)

Before embarking on a project, it is clearly necessary to show that there will be a benefit either in terms of money or service or both. The document which sets out the main advantages and parameters of the project is called the Business Case and is (or should be) produced by either the client or the sponsor of the project who in effect becomes the owner of the document.

A business case in effect outlines the ‘why’ and ‘what’ of the project as well as making the financial case by including the investment appraisal. (more…)

To manage a project, a company or authority has to set up a project organization, which can supply the resources for the project and service it during its life cycle.

There are three main types of project organizations:

1. Functional;
2. Matrix;
3. Project or task force. (more…)

PRINCE2® is a structured method for project management developed and owned by UK government body The Office of Government Commerce (OGC). It is widely used in the UK and around the world as a framework for project management and is generally accepted as representing “best practice”. It is used by many UK government departments and also by many private sector organisations. It is intended as a standard approach for any type of project. In 2009 the method was thoroughly revised and updated to reflect the experience of users and current thinking.

The method is fully defined in the OGC manual Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2®.

This article is intended to help you to take and pass the PRINCE2® Foundation Examination. It covers the basic structure and format of the exam. Future articles will include more on preparation, revision and exam technique. I will also be publishing articles about the PRINCE2® Practitioner Examination and use of the method in practice. (more…)

With each project producing unique products or services, you may find it impossible to identify every unique task’s delays before they impact a deadline. Skilled project managers often fail to deliver on time while some are able to stay on top of every moving task. The successful managers invest significant effort into creating, monitoring, and maintaining an accurate schedule. Holding deliverables to an accurate schedule will reveal slippage before it’s too late. It will also provide you with the comfort of knowing which tasks require your attention and when.

The acquisition of National City Bank of Ohio and its total assets of approximately 150 billion USD by PNC Bank of Pennsylvania triggered a cascade of events. The acquisition resulted in one of the nation’s top five banks with 60,000 employees and 279 billion USD assets. You can only imagine the enormity of decommissioning millions of lines of code and moving billions of records over a 23 month integration. This required many simultaneous projects all dependant on each other to be completed on time. To prevent one task on a critical path of any project impacting all projects, billions of investments, and thousands of customers, we used detailed scheduling techniques to plan and manage these projects and their critical paths. (more…)

Project stakeholders are a key element of any delivery. They determine direction, refine the scope and basically ensure it gets delivered. In theory that sounds wonderful. In practice it translates into something else altogether. You see the reality is that these key individuals can either make or break a delivery unless the PM has developed the necessary soft skills to successfully work with them.

Having delivered countless projects over the years I know this only too well from first hand experience. You need to understand the different types of stakeholder on your team as well as what their aims and motivation are. Not everyone after all is keen on seeing the same end result delivered, despite the fact they all have a stake and hence a vested interest in it. Office politics has a huge part to play, and this only adds to the problems faced by a PM.

It means that the tough decisions take forever to be made, which when time is in short supply is not a good thing. It means that decisions which are made, are often reversed later on which leads to the dreaded scope creep. It also leads to increases in budget which you as the PM have to explain away. (more…)

Now more than ever, supplier selection must produce stellar results as companies increase their focus on supply chain management and push more requirements down the chain to their partners. Business continues, but with different strategies. For example, Siemens AG plans to reduce costs by centralizing 47% of its procurement spending by 2010, compared to its current level of 29%.

Clearly, companies are viewing changes in supplier management as a way to gain more value from their partners. Consequently, performance expectations are increasing, and companies are using their supplier partnerships as a means of driving innovation. Using the right supplier selection tools can play a critical role in building value-based relationships. (more…)