PROJECT MANAGEMENT

The need to respond in a cost-effective and rapid way to increasingly diverse customer demands requires organisations to adopt new ways of working. The traditional hierarchical and functional lines along which businesses have been organised do not have the flexibility or appropriate mix of professional skills to meet these challenges.

Project management is an important strategy for managing these scenarios and requires the deployment of a number of cross-functional skills in addition to the more traditional ones. As an example, production managers who take on a project management brief could find themselves recruiting and leading a multi-disciplinary team, managing the expectations of the sponsor in a realistic and professional way, and exerting tight budgetary control.

Project management has a number of defining characteristics which include:

1. A set of clearly articulated objectives
   
   

2. A definite time scale and devolved budget to complete all these objectives
   
   

3. Being separate from the normal, routine activities carried out by the organisation
   
   

4. The need to form a specialist team to carry out the project objectives, answerable to a project manager.

In addition, it is possible to identify a four-stage project life cycle:

1. conception
   
   

2. planning
   
   

3. implementation
   
   

4. termination.

A project manager will need to clarify at the outset with key people, the project brief, resources available, timescale, his or her level of authority and the strategic significance of this project in the context of the wider organisation.

Project planning can be a complex and detailed activity and to help this phase, a number of techniques are available such as: the use of Gantt charts or PERT charts, network diagrams and Critical Path Analysis. You may also choose to make use of project management software for this phase: there is a wide variety of available packages at present, but one of the chief benefits they offer is the ability to process and schedule numerous, related tasks, perhaps across a suite of interdependent projects.

POINTS TO PONDER

For any particular project, could you:

• Show that you understand the strategic significance of the project?

• Demonstrate that in your discussions with the sponsor you clearly understand both the client's and your own responsibilities?

• Describe the part that you played in selecting team members and how the roles within this team were allocated?

• Provide a critical assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of your team and any training and development needs that this analysis highlights?

• Show how you agreed with your sponsor, project quality standards and performance measures?

• Explain how you developed an appropriate management plan for the project which demonstrates that you understand the principles involved in effective project planning?

• Show what measures you took to check the project plans with key people and based on this feedback, what revisions to the plan you made?

• Show what monitoring and control measures were planned when the project entered its operational phase, including details of team meetings and cost control measures?

In order to help you,  we have published two dossiers on this subject called  "Delivering Successful Projects"  and Planning and Controlling Projects these dossiers along with our well stocked on-line reading room will help you to develop your knowledge in this area as part of our multi-format management development infrastructure.