Most Projects in the Professional Fashion Industry Go Exactly as Planned.
Main Body
2. Projection Management Overview
The starting indicate in discussing how projects should be properly managed is to first understand what a project is and, just as chiefly, what it is not.
People have been undertaking projects since the earliest days of organized human activity. The hunting parties of our prehistoric ancestors were projects, for example; they were temporary undertakings directed at the goal of obtaining meat for the community. Large complex projects have besides been with the states for a long time. The pyramids and the Great Wall of China were in their mean solar day of roughly the same dimensions as the Apollo projection to transport men to the moon. Nosotros use the term "project" frequently in our daily conversations. A husband, for example may tell his married woman, "My main project for this weekend is to straighten out the garage." Going hunting, edifice pyramids, and fixing faucets all share certain features that brand them projects.
Projection Attributes
A project has distinctive attributes that distinguish it from ongoing work or concern operations. Projects are temporary in nature. They are not an everyday business concern process and have definitive start dates and end dates. This characteristic is important because a large part of the project endeavour is dedicated to ensuring that the project is completed at the appointed time. To practise this, schedules are created showing when tasks should begin and end. Projects can final minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years.
Projects exist to bring most a production or service that hasn't existed before. In this sense, a project is unique. Unique means that this is new; this has never been done before. Perhaps it's been done in a very similar way earlier but never exactly in this way. For example, Ford Motor Company is in the business of designing and assembling cars. Each model that Ford designs and produces tin exist considered a project. The models differ from each other in their features and are marketed to people with diverse needs. An SUV serves a unlike purpose and clientele than a luxury car. The design and marketing of these two models are unique projects. However, the bodily assembly of the cars is considered an functioning (i.e., a repetitive process that is followed for most makes and models).
In contrast with projects, operations are ongoing and repetitive. They involve work that is continuous without an ending date and with the same processes repeated to produce the same results. The purpose of operations is to keep the organization functioning while the purpose of a project is to come across its goals and conclude. Therefore, operations are ongoing while projects are unique and temporary.
A project is completed when its goals and objectives are accomplished. It is these goals that drive the project, and all the planning and implementation efforts undertaken to achieve them. Sometimes projects end when it is determined that the goals and objectives cannot be accomplished or when the product or service of the project is no longer needed and the project is cancelled.
Definition of a Project
At that place are many written definitions of a project. All of them contain the fundamental elements described higher up. For those looking for a formal definition of a project, the Project Management Institute (PMI) defines a projection as a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique production, service, or result. The temporary nature of projects indicates a definite beginning and end. The cease is reached when the projection's objectives have been achieved or when the project is terminated because its objectives will not or cannot be met, or when the need for the projection no longer exists.
Project Characteristics
When because whether or not you have a projection on your hands, there are some things to keep in mind. First, is it a projection or an ongoing operation? Second, if it is a projection, who are the stakeholders? And third, what characteristics distinguish this try as a projection?
Projects have several characteristics:
- Projects are unique.
- Projects are temporary in nature and have a definite kickoff and catastrophe date.
- Projects are completed when the project goals are achieved or it'south determined the project is no longer viable.
A successful project is one that meets or exceeds the expectations of the stakeholders.
Consider the following scenario: The vice-president (VP) of marketing approaches you lot with a fabulous idea. (Obviously it must exist "fabulous" considering he idea of it.) He wants to set upward kiosks in local grocery stores as mini-offices. These offices will offer customers the ability to sign up for car and dwelling house insurance services as well as make their nib payments. He believes that the exposure in grocery stores will increment sensation of the visitor'due south offerings. He told you lot that senior management has already cleared the project, and he'll dedicate as many resource to this as he can. He wants the new kiosks in identify in 12 selected stores in a major urban center by the cease of the yr. Finally, he has assigned yous to head up this projection.
Your outset question should be, "Is it a project?" This may seem elementary, but confusing projects with ongoing operations happens often. Projects are temporary in nature, have definite commencement and end dates, outcome in the cosmos of a unique product or service, and are completed when their goals and objectives have been met and signed off by the stakeholders.
Using these criteria, permit'southward examine the assignment from the VP of marketing to decide if information technology is a project:
- Is it unique? Aye, because the kiosks don't exist in the local grocery stores. This is a new mode of offering the company'south services to its customer base. While the service the company is offering isn't new, the way information technology is presenting its services is.
- Does the production accept a limited timeframe? Yes, the start date of this projection is today, and the end appointment is the end of adjacent year. It is a temporary endeavor.
- Is in that location a way to decide when the project is completed? Yep, the kiosks volition be installed and the services will be offered from them. In one case all the kiosks are installed and operating, the project will come to a close.
- Is there a way to determine stakeholder satisfaction? Yes, the expectations of the stakeholders will exist documented in the form of requirements during the planning processes. These requirements volition be compared to the finished production to determine if it meets the expectations of the stakeholder.
If the answer is yes to all these questions, so we take a projection.
The Procedure of Project Management
Y'all've determined that y'all accept a project. What now? The notes you scribbled down on the back of the napkin at luncheon are a showtime, but not exactly good project direction practise. As well often, organizations follow Nike'due south advice when it comes to managing projects when they "just do it." An consignment is fabricated, and the project squad members jump directly into the evolution of the production or service requested. In the end, the delivered product doesn't encounter the expectations of the client. Unfortunately, many projects follow this poorly constructed path, and that is a primary contributor to a large percentage of projects not meeting their original objectives, as defined by performance, schedule, and budget.
In the U.s., more than $250 billion is spent each twelvemonth on information technology (IT) awarding evolution in approximately 175,000 projects. The Standish Group (a Boston-based leader in projection and value performance research) released the summary version of their 2009 CHAOS Report that tracks project failure rates across a broad range of companies and industries (Figure 2.i).
Jim Johnson, chairman of the Standish Group, has stated that "this year's results show a marked decrease in project success rates, with 32% of all projects succeeding which are delivered on time, on budget, with required features and functions, 44% were challenged-which are late, over upkeep, and/or with less than the required features and functions and 24% failed which are cancelled prior to completion or delivered and never used."
When are companies going to stop wasting billions of dollars on failed projects? The vast majority of this waste product is completely avoidable: simply get the right business concern needs (requirements) understood early in the process and ensure that project management techniques are applied and followed, and the projection activities are monitored.
Applying good project management discipline is the way to assistance reduce the risks. Having good project management skills does not completely eliminate problems, risks, or surprises. The value of good project management is that you have standard processes in place to deal with all contingencies.
Project management is the awarding of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques applied to project activities in order to meet the project requirements. Projection management is a process that includes planning, putting the project plan into action, and measuring progress and performance.
Managing a project includes identifying your project's requirements and writing down what everyone needs from the projection. What are the objectives for your project? When everyone understands the goal, it's much easier to keep them all on the correct path. Brand sure y'all ready goals that everyone agrees on to avoid team conflicts afterward. Agreement and addressing the needs of anybody affected by the project means the end outcome of your project is far more likely to satisfy your stakeholders. Last but non to the lowest degree, every bit projection managing director, you will besides exist balancing the many competing project constraints.
On whatsoever project, you will accept a number of project constraints that are competing for your attention. They are price, telescopic, quality, risk, resource, and fourth dimension.
- Cost is the budget approved for the project including all necessary expenses needed to deliver the project. Within organizations, project managers accept to remainder between not running out of coin and not underspending because many projects receive funds or grants that accept contract clauses with a "utilise it or lose it" approach to project funds. Poorly executed budget plans can result in a last-minute rush to spend the allocated funds. For virtually all projects, cost is ultimately a limiting constraint; few projects can go over budget without eventually requiring a cosmetic action.
- Telescopic is what the projection is trying to attain. It entails all the piece of work involved in delivering the project outcomes and the processes used to produce them. It is the reason and the purpose of the project.
- Quality is a combination of the standards and criteria to which the project's products must be delivered for them to perform effectively. The product must perform to provide the functionality expected, solve the identified problem, and deliver the benefit and value expected. It must also run across other performance requirements, or service levels, such as availability, reliability, and maintainability, and have acceptable finish and polish. Quality on a project is controlled through quality assurance (QA), which is the process of evaluating overall project performance on a regular basis to provide conviction that the projection volition satisfy the relevant quality standards.
- Hazard is divers by potential external events that will accept a negative touch on your projection if they occur. Adventure refers to the combination of the probability the event volition occur and the bear on on the projection if the upshot occurs. If the combination of the probability of the occurrence and the touch on on the project is also high, you lot should identify the potential event as a adventure and put a proactive plan in place to manage the risk.
- Resource are required to carry out the projection tasks. They can exist people, equipment, facilities, funding, or anything else capable of definition (usually other than labour) required for the completion of a project activeness.
- Time is divers as the time to complete the projection. Time is often the about frequent projection oversight in developing projects. This is reflected in missed deadlines and incomplete deliverables. Proper control of the schedule requires the careful identification of tasks to be performed and authentic estimations of their durations, the sequence in which they are going to be done, and how people and other resource are to be allocated. Whatsoever schedule should take into business relationship vacations and holidays.
You may take heard of the term "triple constraint," which traditionally consisted of only fourth dimension, cost, and telescopic. These are the chief competing project constraints that you have to exist nigh enlightened of. The triple constraint is illustrated in the course of a triangle to visualize the projection piece of work and see the relationship between the scope/quality, schedule/time, and cost/resource (Figure 2.2). In this triangle, each side represents ane of the constraints (or related constraints) wherein whatever changes to any one side cause a change in the other sides. The best projects have a perfectly balanced triangle. Maintaining this balance is hard because projects are prone to alter. For example, if scope increases, cost and time may increase disproportionately. Alternatively, if the amount of coin you have for your project decreases, y'all may be able to practice as much, but your time may increase.
Your project may have additional constraints that you must face, and as the project manager, you lot accept to rest the needs of these constraints against the needs of the stakeholders and your project goals. For instance, if your sponsor wants to add functionality to the original scope, you volition very likely need more than coin to finish the projection, or if they cut the budget, you will have to reduce the quality of your scope, and if yous don't get the advisable resources to work on your project tasks, you will accept to extend your schedule because the resource you lot have take much longer to finish the work.
Yous get the idea; the constraints are all dependent on each other. Think of all of these constraints equally the archetype carnival game of Whac-a-mole (Figure 2.3). Each time you effort to push one mole dorsum in the hole, another one pops out. The best advice is to rely on your project squad to keep these moles in place.
Here is an instance of a project that cut quality because the project costs were stock-still. The P-36 oil platform (Figure 2.4) was the largest basis product platform in the world capable of processing 180,000 barrels of oil per mean solar day and 5.2 million cubic metres of gas per day. Located in the Roncador Field, Campos Basin, Brazil, the P-36 was operated by Petrobras.
In March 2001, the P-36 was producing around 84,000 barrels of oil and ane.3 1000000 cubic metres of gas per twenty-four hours when it became destabilized by two explosions and subsequently sank in 3,900 feet of water with 1,650 short tons of rough oil remaining on lath, killing 11 people. The sinking is attributed to a complete failure in quality assurance, and force per unit area for increased production led to corners being cut on safe procedures. It is listed equally i of the well-nigh expensive accidents with a price tag of $515,000,000.
The following quotes are from a Petrobras executive, citing the benefits of cutting quality assurance and inspection costs on the projection.
"Petrobras has established new global benchmarks for the generation of infrequent shareholder wealth through an aggressive and innovative program of cost cut on its P36 production facility."
"Conventional constraints have been successfully challenged and replaced with new paradigms appropriate to the globalized corporate marketplace place."
"Elimination of these unnecessary straitjackets has empowered the project'southward suppliers and contractors to advise highly economical solutions, with the win-win bonus of enhanced profitability margins for themselves."
"The P36 platform shows the shape of things to come up in the unregulated global market economy of the 21st century."
The dynamic trade-offs between the project constraint values have been humorously and accurately described in Figure two.5.
Project Management Expertise
In society for you lot, every bit the project manager, to manage the competing project constraints and the project as a whole, there are some areas of expertise you should bring to the project team (Figure two.11). They are knowledge of the application area and the standards and regulations in your industry, understanding of the project surroundings, general management knowledge and skills, and interpersonal skills. It should exist noted that industry expertise is not in a sure field just the expertise to run the project. So while knowledge of the type of industry is important, y'all will have a project squad supporting y'all in this endeavor. For example, if y'all are managing a project that is building an oil platform, you would not be expected to take a detailed understanding of the engineering since your squad volition take mechanical and civil engineers who will provide the appropriate expertise; however, it would definitely help if y'all understood this type of work.
Let's take a look at each of these areas in more than detail.
Application knowledge
Past standards, nosotros mean guidelines or preferred approaches that are not necessarily mandatory. In contrast, when referring to regulations we mean mandatory rules that must be followed, such as government-imposed requirements through laws. It should get without saying that equally a professional, yous're required to follow all applicable laws and rules that apply to your industry, organization, or project. Every industry has standards and regulations. Knowing which ones affect your projection before you lot begin work will not only assist the projection to unfold smoothly, simply will as well allow for effective take chances analysis.
Some projects crave specific skills in certain application areas. Application areas are made upwards of categories of projects that have mutual elements. They can be defined past manufacture group (pharmaceutical, financial, etc.), department (accounting, marketing, legal, etc.), engineering science (software development, engineering, etc), or management specialties (procurement, research and evolution, etc.). These application areas are usually concerned with disciplines, regulations, and the specific needs of the projection, the customer, or the industry. For example, most authorities agencies accept specific procurement rules that apply to their projects that wouldn't be applicative in the construction industry. The pharmaceutical industry is interested in regulations set forth by regime regulators, whereas the automotive industry has little or no business organization for either of these types of regulations. Y'all need to stay up-to-date regarding your industry so that y'all can apply your noesis effectively. Today'south fast-paced advances can go out you behind fairly quickly if you don't stay beside of current trends.
Having some level of experience in the application area you're working in will requite you lot an advantage when it comes to projection management. While you can call in experts who have the application area knowledge, information technology doesn't hurt for yous to understand the specific aspects of the application areas of your projection.
Agreement the Project Environment
At that place are many factors that demand to be understood within your project environs (Figure 2.seven). At one level, y'all need to call back in terms of the cultural and social environments (i.e., people, demographics, and education). The international and political surround is where you lot need to understand virtually dissimilar countries' cultural influences. Then we move to the physical environment; here we think almost time zones. Think about different countries and how differently your project will exist executed whether information technology is merely in your country or if information technology involves an international project squad that is distributed throughout the world in v dissimilar countries.
Of all the factors, the physical ones are the easiest to empathize, and it is the cultural and international factors that are often misunderstood or ignored. How we bargain with clients, customers, or project members from other countries tin exist critical to the success of the project. For example, the culture of the U.s.a. values accomplishments and individualism. Americans tend to exist informal and call each other by offset names, fifty-fifty if having just met. Europeans tend to be more formal, using surnames instead of showtime names in a business setting, fifty-fifty if they know each other well. In improver, their communication way is more formal than in the United states, and while they tend to value individualism, they as well value history, bureaucracy, and loyalty. The Japanese, on the other mitt, tend to communicate indirectly and consider themselves part of a group, not equally individuals. The Japanese value hard piece of work and success, equally well-nigh of us exercise.
How a product is received can be very dependent on the international cultural differences. For case, in the 1990s, when many big American and European telecommunications companies were cultivating new markets in Asia, their client's cultural differences frequently produced unexpected situations. Western companies planned their phone systems to work the aforementioned way in Asia every bit they did in Europe and the United States. But the protocol of conversation was different. Call-waiting, a popular feature in the West, is considered boorish in some parts of Asia. This cultural blunder could have been avoided had the team captured the projection environment requirements and involved the customer.
It is often the simplest things that tin crusade problem since, unsurprisingly, in different countries, people practice things differently. One of the most notorious examples of this is as well one of the nearly simple: date formats. What day and month is 2/eight/2009? Of course it depends where you come up from; in Due north America it is February eighth while in Europe (and much of the rest of the world) it is second August. Clearly, when schedules and deadlines are being defined it is important that everyone is articulate on the format used.
The diversity of practices and cultures and its impact on products in general and on software in item goes well beyond the appointment issue. You may exist managing a project to create a new website for a visitor that sells products worldwide. There are language and presentation style issues to accept into consideration; converting the site into different languages isn't enough. Information technology is obvious that you need to ensure the translation is correct; however, the presentation layer will have its own prepare of requirements for unlike cultures. The left side of a website may be the first focus of attention for a Canadian; the right side would exist the initial focus for anyone from the Middle East, as both Arabic and Hebrew are written from right to left. Colors too take unlike meanings in different cultures. White, which is a sign of purity in North America (e.g., a bride's wedding dress), and thus would be a favoured background colour in North America, signifies death in Nihon (e.g., a burying shroud). Table two.one summarizes dissimilar meanings of common colours.
| Colour | Us | China | Japan | Egypt | France |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Red | Danger, stop | Happiness | Anger, danger | Death | Elite |
| Bluish | Sadness, melancholy | Heavens, clouds | Villainy | Virtue, faith, truth | Freedom, peace |
| Greenish | Novice, apprentice | Ming dynasty, heavens | Futurity, youth, free energy | Fertility, forcefulness | Misdeed |
| Yellow | Cowardice | Nativity, wealth | Grace, nobility | Happiness, prosperity | Temporary |
| White | Purity | Decease, purity | Decease | Joy | Naturality |
Project managers in multicultural projects must appreciate the culture dimensions and effort to larn relevant customs, courtesies, and business protocols earlier taking responsibleness for managing an international project. A project manager must take into consideration these various cultural influences and how they may affect the project'southward completion, schedule, telescopic, and price.
Direction Noesis and Skills
Every bit the project manager, yous have to rely on your projection management knowledge and your general management skills. Here, nosotros are thinking of items like your ability to plan the project, execute it properly, and of course command information technology and bring it to a successful decision, along with your ability to guide the project squad to achieve project objectives and balance project constraints.
In that location is more to project direction than only getting the work done. Inherent in the process of project management are the full general direction skills that allow the project manager to complete the projection with some level of efficiency and control. In some respects, managing a projection is like to running a business organisation: in that location are take chances and rewards, finance and accounting activities, homo resource issues, fourth dimension management, stress management, and a purpose for the projection to exist. General management skills are needed in every project.
Interpersonal Skills
Concluding but non to the lowest degree you likewise have to bring the ability into the project to manage personal relationships and deal with personnel issues as they arise. Here were talking about your interpersonal skills as shown in Figure two.8.
Advice
Project managers spend xc% of their time communicating. Therefore they must exist proficient communicators, promoting clear, unambiguous substitution of information. As a project managing director, information technology is your job to keep a number of people well informed. It is essential that your project staff know what is expected of them: what they take to do, when they accept to do information technology, and what budget and time constraints and quality specifications they are working toward. If project staff members do not know what their tasks are, or how to reach them, then the unabridged project volition grind to a halt. If you do not know what the projection staff is (or often is not) doing, and then yous will be unable to monitor project progress. Finally, if you are uncertain of what the customer expects of you, then the project will not even become off the ground. Project communication tin can thus exist summed up as knowing "who needs what information and when" and making sure they have it.
All projects crave sound advice plans, just not all projects will have the same types of communication or the same methods for distributing the information. For example, will data be distributed via mail or email, is there a shared website, or are face-to-face meetings required? The communication management plan documents how the advice needs of the stakeholders will exist met, including the types of data that will be communicated, who will communicate them, and who volition receive them; the methods used to communicate; the timing and frequency of advice; the method for updating the plan equally the project progresses, including the escalation process; and a glossary of common terms.
Influence
Projection management is almost getting things done. Every organization is dissimilar in its policies, modes of operations, and underlying civilization. At that place are political alliances, differing motivations, conflicting interests, and power struggles. A project director must understand all of the unspoken influences at work inside an organisation.
Leadership
Leadership is the power to motivate and inspire individuals to work toward expected results. Leaders inspire vision and rally people effectually common goals. A good project manager can motivate and inspire the project team to see the vision and value of the projection. The project manager as a leader can inspire the project team to find a solution to overcome perceived obstacles to get the work done.
Motivation
Motivation helps people work more than efficiently and produce better results. Motivation is a constant process that the project manager must guide to help the squad move toward completion with passion and a profound reason to complete the work. Motivating the squad is accomplished by using a multifariousness of team-building techniques and exercises. Team building is simply getting a diverse group of people to work together in the most efficient and effective manner possible. This may involve management events also every bit private actions designed to improve team functioning.
Recognition and rewards are an important part of team motivations. They are formal ways of recognizing and promoting desirable behaviour and are most effective when carried out by the direction team and the projection director. Consider individual preferences and cultural differences when using rewards and recognition. Some people don't similar to exist recognized in front of a grouping; others thrive on it.
Negotiation
Project managers must negotiate for the expert of the project. In any project, the project manager, the project sponsor, and the project squad will have to negotiate with stakeholders, vendors, and customers to reach a level of agreement adequate to all parties involved in the negotiation process.
Problem Solving
Trouble solving is the ability to sympathize the heart of a trouble, look for a viable solution, and so brand a determination to implement that solution. The starting indicate for problem solving is problem definition. Trouble definition is the ability to sympathize the cause and effect of the problem; this centres on root-cause analysis. If a project manager treats only the symptoms of a problem rather than its cause, the symptoms will perpetuate and continue through the project life. Even worse, treating a symptom may effect in a greater problem. For example, increasing the ampere rating of a fuse in your motorcar because the onetime 1 keeps blowing does not solve the problem of an electrical short that could issue in a fire. Root-cause analysis looks beyond the immediate symptoms to the cause of the symptoms, which so affords opportunities for solutions. Once the root of a problem has been identified, a decision must be fabricated to effectively address the problem.
Solutions tin can be presented from vendors, the project squad, the project manager, or various stakeholders. A viable solution focuses on more than but the problem; it looks at the cause and effect of the solution itself. In addition, a timely determination is needed or the window of opportunity may laissez passer and and so a new decision volition be needed to address the trouble. As in nearly cases, the worst thing you can exercise is nothing.
All of these interpersonal skills will exist used in all areas of project management. Start practicing now considering it'due south guaranteed that you'll need these skills on your next project.
Prototype Descriptions
Figure 2.5 image description: The sign says, "We can do proficient, quick, and cheap piece of work. Y'all tin can accept any two but non all three. ane. Good, quick work won't exist cheap. 2. Good, inexpensive work won't be quick. 3. Quick, cheap work won't be expert." [Render to Effigy 2.5]
Text Attributions
- This chapter of Project Management is a derivative of Project Management by Merrie Barron and Andrew Barron. © CC By (Attribution).
- Table 2.1: Adapted from P. Russo and S. Churl, How Fluent is Your Interface? Designing for International Users, Proceedings of the Interact '93 and CHI '93, Clan for Computing Machinery, Inc. (1993). Table from Barron & Barron Project Direction for Scientists and Engineers, Source: Project Management for Scientists and Engineers by Merrie Barron; Andrew R. Barron
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