MGT400 1

MGT400 – Project Management

Chapter 1: Introduction to Project Management

Lesson content • Talk about the Syllabus and Moodle

• Ice Breaker

• Definitions: • Project Management.

• Project Managers. • Who are they?

• Characteristics.

• Skills.

• Program Managers

• Project Life Cycle

• Current drivers of project management

• Integration of projects

• Socio-technical approach in project management

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Review of Syllabus and Moodle

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Ice Breaker

• Organize yourselves in groups of four.

• Get introduced first.

• As a group, consider answering these questions: • The best commercial project in Kuwait?

• The non-commercial project in Kuwait?

• The best governmental project in Kuwait?

• The biggest project ever undertaken in Kuwait?

• In 10mins I will ask each group to tell me their answers. • You should be able to justify your answer.

• The winning group will win a small treat!

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Definitions:

• What is Project management? • “the activity of defining, planning, directing, monitoring, and controlling a

project to develop an acceptable system within the allotted time and budget.” (Whitten, 2007)

• What is a Project Manager? • “the person in overall charge of the planning and execution of a particular

project.” (Stevenson& Waite, 2011)

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Definitions:

• Who are the project managers? • You would be surprised to know that most project managers do not have

the title of project managers!

• Project managers could be: • Accountants, lawyers, MIS, administrators, scientists, contractors, teachers,

ministers, musicians, film directors, store manager…etc.

• Anyone who finds themselves in a position where they are encharge of an outcome that requires the management of many tasks.

• You can see from this why it is a skill required for most majors and requested by employers

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Definitions:

• Major characteristics of a project: A project should have:

• An established objective. • A defined life span (cycle) with beginning and an end. • Usually the involvement of many players (departments

and professionals). • Usually, doing something not done before. • Has specific time, cost, and performance. (p.7)

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Guess!

• Which one of these is a project: 1. A manager sorting out new products for her shop.

2. A company director making a decision to start a new store.

3. A regional manager responsible for locating and opening a new store.

4. A student taking the responsibility to manage an MIS project of five students.

5. A manager responsible to fulfill a large order.

6. A business women starting her own company.

7. Trying new treatment at a cancer research company.

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How to tell:

• Project or not project

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Routine, Repetitive Work Projects

Taking class notes Writing a term paper

Responding to a supply-chain request Developing a supply-chain information

system

Practicing scales on the piano Writing a new piano piece

Routine manufacture of an Apple iPod

Designing an iPod that is approximately 2 X 4 inches, interfaces with PC, and stores 10,000 songs

MGT400 - Project Management

Definitions:

• What is a program management? • “…is the process of managing a group of ongoing, interdependent, related projects in

a coordinated way to achieve strategic objectives.” (p.8)

• Examples of Program Managers: • Health program for ministry of health would include coordinating all health projects.

• Dean would look after teaching program; which is coordinating all courses.

• Exhibition program manager would coordinate the different events taking place in a project.

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The Project Life Cycle

• Remember from MIS300?

• What is project life cycle? • It is series of activities which are necessary to fulfill project goals or objectives.

• Projects vary in size and complexity, but, no matter how large or small, all projects can be mapped to the following life cycle structure.

• Four phases: Defining, Planning, Executing, and Closing. (Project Life cycle, 2015)

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Defining Planning Executing Closing MGT400 - Project Management

Project Manager’s Skills

• Manage temporary, non-repetitive activities (in contrast to functional manager).

• Meet the challenges of each phase of projects life cycle.

• Must work with a diverse people to complete projects.

• Must manage the tension between customer expectations and what is feasible and reasonable.

• Has to have the ability manage external parties (e.g. vendors, suppliers,..) who do not necessarily share his/her project aims.

• Must ensure the trade-offs between the time, cost and performance requirements of the project

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Current Drivers of Project Management

• What drives future changes to Project Management? • Comparison of the product Life cycle:

• Companies constantly looking for better and quicker life cycles.

• Knowledge Expansion: • Managing ever more complex project (example of roads).

• Triple Bottom Line: • Focusing on Planet, People, and Profit.

• Corporate Downsizing: • Challenges for project managers as outsources is becoming preferred options for companies.

• Increase customer focus: • Project managers working closer with customers to meet their needs.

• Small projects Represent Big Problems: • Many parallel projects sharing same pool of resources.

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Integrated Management of Projects

• Today’s market enforce companies to be involved in more

than one project.

• Some companies like Dell, IBM, HP and others may have

over 1000 project being implemented concurrently.

• How do these companies manage all these projects?

• How were these projects selected?

• How do they ensure their progress and accountability?

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Integration Provides Senior Manager:

• Centralization and Governance:

• An overview of all projects activities

• A big picture of how organizational resources are used

• A risk assessment of their portfolio of projects

• A rough metric of the firm’s improvement in managing projects

• Linkages of senior management with actual project execution

management

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Considerations:

• Can an organization operate if each department has it own agenda?

• Can a company running many projects be successful if its department do not coordinate under one strategy?

• When an organization is running many projects, they need to ensure that the organizational culture is integrated and working in harmony.

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Integration Management Project

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Dimensions of project management:

• Two dimensions: • Technical dimension: Focusing on managing the phases of the project and

planning every stage. • Using MS project and Gantt charts.

• Sociocultural dimension: Focusing on managing the social dynamics of the teams and individuals working on the project, including customers and supplies.

• “Good project managers balance their attention to both the technical and sociocultural aspects of project management.” (p.18)

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Socio-technical approach

Socio-technical approach

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References

• Stevenson, A & Waite, M (2011) Concise Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• Whitten, J. (2007) System Analysis and Design Methods. New York: McGraw-Hill International

• Project Life cycle. (2015). Retrieved February 1, 2015, from http://www.uakron.edu/pmo/plc/

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