SUPERIOR MANAGEMENT TRAINING

Project Management Training - What is a Project

You lie awake at night wondering how you are going to hit deadlines and meet production goals and keep your team motivated an keep the executives off your back and keep the customers coming back. Being a manager can sometimes be like living in a waking, walking nightmare. Isn’t there a better way to get this job done? We thought you’d never ask. Our unique, Management Training workshops are designed to provide you with everything you could possibly ask for in project management training. From planning to conflict resolution to communicating clearly with team members to conducting effective meetings and so much more, we will give you the management skills you need to get the job done. And we promise you will sleep better, too.

What is a Project

A Project is series of related jobs usually directed toward some major output and requiring a significant period of time to perform.1

Project Management can be defined as a planning, directing and controlling resources to meet the technical, cost, and time constraints of the project.2

A project requires a different kind of managerial concept as compared to the conventional systems. This is due to the fact that in a project a team consisting of highly specialized individuals comes together for a short span of time to achieve some "Common Objective".

"Common Objective" is the key phrase here, because individuals from diverse technical backgrounds come together and have to work as a team. An integration of this diverse intellectual pool along with a diverse technical skill requires special managerial skill.

A few aspects of the managerial skills required for the purpose are listed below.

Work Break Down Structure.

The work required to obtain the objective is broken down and divided into tasks and subtasks. Various teams responsible for the completion of the project then perform these tasks.

Organizational Structure.

The management can choose one of three organizational structures to follow in their projects. These are the Pure, Functional and Matrix Structure.
Pure Project: This structure is the self-contained autonomous unit, the strengths of which are speed and flexibility. Here the project manager enjoys full authority over the project and team members have to report to one boss only. One main disadvantage of this structure is that since the resources are not being shared across the organization there will be duplication of resources and wastage.

The second type of structure is the Functional where one department services the needs of the entire organization. For instance the Research and Development department takes care of the R & D of the entire product range of the organization. This structure gives the members to work on many projects simultaneously and widens their horizon. However this creates the need of reporting to multiple bosses and thus creates problems for the members.

Matrix structure is a mix between functional and pure projects. Here each project utilizes people from different functional areas. The project manager decides what task is to be done and at what time whereas the functional head determines the people who will work on the project. One main disadvantage here is that a person has two bosses and very often it creates a doubt in the mind of the person as to whose orders have to be followed.

Scheduling.

Once the tasks have been identified a schedule is formed regarding what activity is to be done at what point of time. This can be done with the use of a technique known as the "Critical Path Method". CPM is a graphical technique which shows the use of resources, time at which these are being used and the cost involved.

The benefit of using CPM is that the manager knows what are the various activities involved in the project and then he can plan accordingly. This is essential as without such planning starting the project becomes impossible. However there is a flip side to it. Generally projects are of complex nature and involve large degree of uncertainty. CPM is based on the principle that activities follow a flow. So break in one step ruins the entire path and then the entire activity has to be performed again. A relevant example can be seen in the current Telecom scenario in India. Cellular operators invested huge amount of money and paid entry fee to the government. This fee was included in the cost structure and pricing was done accordingly. With the entrance of the players with WLL, the plans of the cellular operator went awry. The WLL players did not have to pay any fee to the government and were able to provide the same services at a much lower price. Due to this a large market of the cellular operators was taken away from them and their plans went for a toss. CPM does not include provisions for any such contingency and this is a draw back of this method.

By. Dr. J.S. Donald

Project Management Training - Obtaining the Common Objective

Project Management Quote
"Be courageous! Have faith! Go Forward!"
Thomas Edison

Suggested Reading:

Effective Project Management: Traditional, Adaptive, Extreme, Third Edition
by Robert K. Wysocki

Project Management : A Managerial Approach
by Jack R. Meredith, Samuel J. Mantel

Project Management (The Briefcase Book Series)
by Gary R. Heerkens

Software Project Management Kit for Dummies
by Greg Mandanis, Allen Wyatt

Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling
by Harold Kerzner

Project Management ToolBox : Tools and Techniques for the Practicing Project Manager
by Dragan Z. Milosevic

Earned Value Project Management, Second Edition
by Quentin W. Fleming, Joel M. Koppelman

Critical Chain Project Management, Second Edition
by Lawrence P. Leach