Project Management (ENG) — Ünite 1 Soru-Cevap

A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.

Project Management Institute, which was founded in 1969, is a professional organization for project management specialists. Its services include the development of standards, research, education, publication, networking opportunities in local chapters, hosting conferences and training seminars, and providing accreditation in project management.

The Channel Tunnel is an undersea tunnel linking southern England and northern France. It is operated by the company Eurotunnel. The tunnel has one of the longest underwater section of any tunnel in the world.

1. A project states certain specific objectives that can be defined in terms of schedule and cost.

2. Projects are temporary activities. They have a definite beginning and ending point, and they can last minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years.

3. A project may be unique or may have some unique elements. Especially, megaprojects like Panama Canal are unique since they have never been done before. Other projects like building a shopping mall or an apartment building include established set of routines. On the other hand, these projects are also unique because of the customization.

4. A project uses various resources to conduct project activities. Such resources can involve people, equipment, material, machines and facilities. 

The main distinction lies in life span and objective. A program covers a longer time period and includes several parallel or sequential projects that share common goals and resources. As an example, Climate Change Program may include several projects such as recycling of paper, plastic, newspaper, glass and aluminum cans, minimization of carbon emission, increasing planting density, and so on. The other examples can be Mars exploration program or U.S space program.

This first phase of project life cycle involves identification and specification of the project. Project objectives and requirements are determined. The project team members are formed and their tasks are assigned.

Project management is a system approach to management. A project is a system of interrelated components such as tasks, resources, stakeholders, schedules, budgets, and plans. The aim of project management is to integrate the components to accomplish the project goal.

Compression of the Product Life Cycle

Global Competition

Knowledge Explosion

Corporate Downsizing

Increased Customer Focus

Rapid Development of Third World and Closed Economies

One of the most important reasons for demanding a project management process is product life cycles. For today, products in high-tech industries have an average life cycle between 1-3 years. Just 30 years ago, the average life cycle was 10 to 15 years, which was considered normal. Because of the short life cycles, when the product will enter the market is important . This situation is so important that if a high-tech products development project delays six months, the revenue will decrease 33 percent.

Competition between companies have increased the value for customers. Customers want more specific products for their needs and enjoyment over the old generic products. This situation necessitates a closer relationship between the customer and the producer. Because of that, sales representatives evolve into project managers for answering their customers’ specific needs. With the increased customer needs, customized products became more common in the industry. For example, if you want to buy a golf club about 10 years ago, you only looked for price and feeling. But today, there are many golf clubs like long or short handles, for power shots or more technical shots etc. Project management has become mandatory for producing that kind of customized products for customer satisfaction.

Over the years, knowledge of new things has significantly increased, which leads to complexity in projects. In the beginning of 1900s, building a railroad was not that complex. But today there are many variables like materials, equipment, codes, required specialists etc. This complexity needs different technologies to integrate with. Project management succeeded to making things possible.

The most important characteristic of project management is the role of the project manager who is responsible for planning, directing, and combining the efforts of all project stakeholders to achieve the project goal. Project managers must also guarantee that appropriate tradeoffs are made between the time, cost and performance requirements of the project.

When a project continues from one phase to the next, the project management methodology helps the project manager to (1) identify the required project tasks, (2) identify the required resources and costs, (3) establish priorities, (4) plan and update schedules, (5) monitor and control end-item quality and performance, and (6) measure project performance.

According to the Project Management Institute (PMI®), the term project stakeholder refers to “an individual, group, or organization, who may affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be affected by a decision, activity, or outcome of a project”. The primary stakeholders are customers, end users, and builders.

Initiating process group, Planning process group, executing process group, monitoring and controlling process group and closing process group. 

• Developing Project Management Plan

• Requirement of stakeholders

• Definition of scope of the reasons for your project

• Creating Work Breakdown Structure

• A list of all activities and their sequence

• A detailed project schedule • Estimation of cost and determination of budget

• A description of how you plan to manage any significant risks and uncertainties

• Plans for project communications

• Plans for ensuring project quality

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a method for dividing the overall project into smaller elements that is called work packages. The WBS usually defines the organization or individual responsible for each work package. It also makes it easier to prepare schedules and budgets.

• Monitor and control project work

• Perform integrated change control

• Verify scope

• Control scope

• Control schedule

• Control costs

• Perform quality control

• Report performance

• Monitor and control risks

• Administer procurement

The closing process group includes two project management processes: closing project or phase and closing procurements. Closing project or phase provides finalizing all activities across all of the management process groups to formally accomplish the project or phase. Closing procurements involves the completion of each project procurement.

• Direct and manage project execution: Performing the activities in the project management plan,

• Perform quality assurance: Controlling the quality requirements to guarantee appropriate quality standards,

• Acquire project team: Confirming human resource availability,

• Develop project team: Improving the team interaction to increase the project performance,

• Manage project team: Tracking team member performance and providing feedback,

• Distribute information: Ensuring relevant information to project stakeholders,

• Manage stakeholders’ expectations: working with stakeholders to meet their expectations,

• Conduct procurements: obtaining seller responses, selecting a seller and so on.