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Summary Project Management
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Summary of Project Management for MA1 Business Engineering at the VUB.
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Project Management4 Parts: Themes of the Course
1. Project Context
2. Project Performance
3. Project Process
4. Project Governance
Part 1: Project Context
Chapter 1: Modern Project Management
Overview of Project Management:
1
,What is a Project?
• Project Defined:
o A complex, non-routine, one-time effort limited by time, budget, resources, and
performance specifications designed to meet ‘customer’ needs.
• Major Characteristics of a Project:
o Has an established objective.
o Has a defined life span with a beginning and an end.
o Requires across-organizational participation.
o Involves doing something never been done before.
o Has specific time, cost, and performance requirements.
Program vs. Project:
• Program Defined:
o A series of coordinated, related, multiple projects that continue over an
extended time and are intended to achieve a goal.
o A higher-level group of projects targeted at a common goal.
• Examples:
o Project: completion of a required project management course.
o Program: completion of all courses required for a business major or masters.
Comparison of routine work with projects: examples:
Routine, Repetitive Work Projects
• Taking class notes • Writing a term/bachelor/master
• Daily entering sales receipts into the paper
accounting ledger • Setting up a sales kiosk for a
• Responding to a supply-chain professional accounting meeting
request • Developing a supply-chain
• Practicing scales on the piano information system
• Routine manufacture of an Apple • Writing a new piano piece
iPod • Designing an iPod that is
• Attaching tags on a manufactured approximately 2 X 4 inches,
product interfaces with PC, and
stores 10,000 songs
• Wire-tag projects for GE and Wal-
Mart
2
,Product Life Cycle (PLC):
The challenges of project management:
• The Project Manager (also plans, decides, organizes, leads and controls...)
o Manages temporary, non-repetitive activities and frequently acts
independently of the formal organization.
o Marshals resources for the project.
o Is linked directly to the customer interface.
o Provides direction, coordination, and integration to the project team.
o Is responsible for performance and success of the project.
• Must induce the right people at the right time to address the right issues and make the
right decisions.
The importance of project management:
• Factors leading to the increased use of project management:
o Compression of the product lifecycle (ex. project teams to shorten “time to
market”)
o Knowledge explosion
o Triple bottom line (planet, people, profit)
o Corporate downsizing
o Increased customer focus
o Small projects represent big problems
• Research observation: managing project portfolios by senior management is difficult,
prioritizing of projects within portfolios is often missing and measuring inefficiencies is
largely absent.
3
, Benefits of an Integrative Approach to Project Management:
• Integration (or centralization) of project management provides senior management
with:
o An overview of all project management activities
o A big picture of how organizational resources are used
o A risk assessment of their portfolio of projects
o A rough metric of the firm’s improvement in managing projects relative to
others in the industry
o Linkages of senior management with actual project execution management
Integrated Project Management Systems:
• Problems resulting from the use of piecemeal/ad hoc project management systems:
o Do not tie together and with the overall strategy of the firm.
o Fail to prioritize selection of projects by their importance of their contribution
to the firm’s strategy.
o Are not integrated throughout the project lifecycle.
o Do not match project planning and controls with organizational culture, to make
appropriate adjustments in support of project endeavors.
• Integrated Management of Projects:
Major Functions of Portfolio Management:
1. Oversee project selection.
2. Monitor aggregate resource levels and skills.
3. Encourage use of best practices.
4. Balance projects in the portfolio in order to represent a risk level appropriate to the
organization.
5. Improve communication among all stakeholders.
6. Create a total organization perspective that goes beyond silo thinking.
7. Improve overall management of projects over time.
4
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