Project Management 1

PROJECT MANAGEMENT 3RD SEMESTER
UNIT I
Introduction to Project Management: Key Concepts
Project management dates back to the early 1950s in its contemporary form, although its roots
date back to the latter years of the 19th century. A defined method of project management
emerged as companies realized the advantages of organizing job around projects-recognizing the
critical need to communicate and coordinate work across departments and professions.
Project management relies mainly on planning, handling and arranging the funds accessible.
Some of the components of project management are to direct the project team effectively
through all stages and effectively implement the project. Other operations include the
identification and efficient management of the life cycle of the project and its implementation in
the user-centric development method.
Project management is a quickly rising focus discipline inside most businesses and organizations.
It is a continuous challenge to find the optimal way of managing projects. Today concerns project
management the whole organization, whether it is a private venture or public ability. Nearly
everyone in their professional careers comes across projects. This refers on the individual
member of staff, who might be involved in one or more projects, right up to the senior
management were it is decided which projects to run and how to distribute resources.
Nevertheless, the knowledge on project management and what ii really comprises is weakly
disseminated and is often misunderstood. Regretfully there are many frustrated project
managers who do not get the support and the resources they need to succeed their projects.
Definition of Project Management

Project Management Institute (PMI) defined Project Management as "the application of
knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to a broad range of activities in order to meet the
requirements of a particular project."
Consequently, a project is a plan which is carried out for the realization of certain aims in an
agreed period. In modern time’s projects, project work and the associated project management
for the companies gain more significance. This process is accelerated by a shorter growing life
cycle of products and the quicker technological change of the environmental conditions and
circumstances of competition. To carry out such a project it is necessary, to go forward in a
systematic manner and also supported by a premeditated method. For that reason, the project
organization receives more importance. Projects are not from long duration but limited in time,
consequently there are temporarily. Beyond projects are cross- departmental and ranged above
several departments of a company (Wessels, 2008, p. 1).
An easy project management definition involves a few main premises:
project management is no small challenge.
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The management of the project has a definite start and end. It's not an ongoing method.
Project management utilizes different instruments to evaluate performance and monitor project
tasks. These include structures for work breakdown, charts for Gantt and charts for PERT.
Projects often need resources that are ad-hoc rather than committed, prevalent full-time
positions in organizations.
Project management lowers risk and improves opportunities for achievement.
Often, a triangle is used to summarize project management, frequently referred to as the "triple
constraint." Time, price and range are the three most significant variables. These shape the
vertices as the main feature of value.
Generally, there are four key elements in the “triple constraint”:

1. projects must be cost-effective.
2. Projects need to be delivered on time.
3. There must be scope for projects.
4. Projects must satisfy the demands of client quality.
Phases of Project Management
A project runs through six stages during its lifecycle:
1. Project Definition: Defining the objectives, priorities and critical success factors for the
project
2. Project Initiation: Everything needed to build up the project before the job can begin
3. Project Planning: Detailed instructions on how the project will be carried out, including
moment, price and resource estimates
4. Project Execution: Working to deliver the product, service or desired outcome
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5. Project Monitoring & Control: Ensuring that a project remains on track and taking
corrective action to ensure completion of the project:
6. Project Closure: Formal acceptance of the deliverables and disbandment of all the
elements required to run the project
Role of a Project Manager
Accountability of the entire project is the role of the project manager. The task of the project
manager is to guide, monitor and regulate the project from start to finish. Project managers
should not perform the tasks within the project - it is sufficient to manage the project. Here are
some of the operations undertaken by a project manager:
1. The project manager has to identify the project, decrease it to a collection of
manageable activities, get adequate funds and create a squad to do the job.
2. The project manager has to set the project's ultimate objective and motivate the project
squad to finish the project on time.
3. The project manager must regularly report advancement to all stakeholders.
4. The project manager must evaluate and monitor and mitigate the hazards to the
project.
5. No project will ever go as scheduled. Project managers need to know how to adapt and
handle the transition.
Characteristics of a Project
1. A single definable purpose, end-item or result. This is usually specified in terms of cost,
schedule and performance requirements.
Every project is unique. It requires the doing of something different, something that was not done
previously. Even in what are often called “routine” projects such as home construction, the variables such
as terrain, access, zoning laws, labour market, public services and local utilities make each project
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different. A project is a one-time, once-off activity, never to be repeated exactly the same way
again.
Projects are temporary activities. A project is an ad hoc organization of staff, material,
equipment and facilities that is put together to accomplish a goal. This goal is within a specific
time-frame. Once the goal is achieved, the organization created for it is disbanded or sometimes
it is reconstituted to begin work on a new goal (project).
Projects cut across organizational lines. Projects always cut across the regular organizational
lines and structures within a firm. They do this because the project needs to draw from the skills
and the talents of multiple professions and departments within the firm and sometimes even
from other organizations. The complexity of advanced technology often leads to additional
project difficulties, as they create task interdependencies that may introduce new and unique
problems.
Projects involve unfamiliarity. Because a project differs from what was previously done, it also
involves unfamiliarity. And oft time a project also encompasses new technology and, for the
organization/firm undertaking the project, these bring into play significant elements of
uncertainty and risk.
The organization usually has something at stake when undertaking a project. The unique
project “activity” may call for special scrutiny or effort because failure would jeopardize the
organization/firm or its goals.
A project is the process of working to achieve a goal. During the process, projects pass through
several distinct phases, which form and are called the project life cycle. The tasks, people,
organizations, and other resources will change as the project moves from one phase to the next.
The organizational structure and the resource expenditures build with each succeeding phase;
peak; and then decline as the project nears completion.
Project Manager's Skill Set
A project manager must have a range of competencies:
1. Leadership
2. People management
3. Effective communication
4. Influencing
5. Negotiation
6. Conflict management
7. Planning
8. Contract management
9. Estimating
10. Problem-solving
11. Creative thinking
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12. Time management

Projects and project management procedures differ with each project due to their size and
complexity. Project managers should gather a thorough knowledge of project demands and
implement all stages of project management to perform the project efficiently.
Project management is all about establishing an atmosphere and circumstances for achieving a
specific goal or objective with a group of individuals in a monitored way. If you are acquainted
with what project management entails, from the phase to mitigating everything that might (and
often does) go right, you will influence the end outcome-whether you are first involved in a
project methodology or a trained professional.
Project vs Program
Project vs Program, plus the difference between Project and Program Managers.
What is a project?
A project refers to a specific, singular endeavor to deliver a tangible output. A project manager
is therefore responsible for ensuring a project delivers on its intended output in line with a
defined time frame and budget.
What is a program/programme?
A program refers to multiple projects which are managed and delivered as a single package.
A program manager is therefore tasked with overseeing all the projects comprising the program
– to ensure it achieves its outcomes.
How projects and programs differ
 Structure:
o The components of a project are specific and exact.
o The scope and goals of a project are well-defined – while programs are typically
less clear-cut.
o Because a program covers multiple projects – a program team tends to be larger
as it also incorporates the project managers and their project team members.
 Effort:
o A project represents a single, focused endeavor.
o A program is a collection of projects – together all the projects form a connected
package of work. The different projects complement each other to assist the
program in achieving its overall objectives. It’s likely the different projects within
a program will overlap – the program manager will therefore assess these
overlaps and work with the relevant project managers to ensure the program’s
smooth progression.
 Length:
o While some projects take several years – the typical project will not take very
long to complete.
o Programs often take a very long time to complete as they intend to deliver more.
It’s therefore common for programs to be organized into phases or tranches.
A particularly long project may also be organized into multiple phases – but this is less common.
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Benefits:
Projects focus on achieving tangible outputs, i.e. what you gain upon completing the project.
Programs focus on outcomes – which are often not tangible. The benefits provided by a program
depend on the collective benefits of its projects. Examples of a program outcome include a
cultural or political change within an organization – or a change in the way in which an
organization operates.
How are Project and Program Managers different?
Project Managers need to focus on the deliverables of their project which must be achieved
within certain cost and time constraints.
Program Managers must be comfortable in being less hands-on and they need to have a vision
of the benefits the program will achieve.
The best thing for the organization running program and projects is that everyone understands
the different pressures faced by their colleagues.
So if you are a project manager it’s well worth finding out more about program management and
similarly program managers benefit from understanding the challenges that project
managers face.
Similarities Between Projects and Programs
All that might make programs seem really different to projects. However, while projects and
programs do have differences, there are some characteristics that are similar to both. Here are
four traits that projects and programs have in common.
 They are temporary: Projects and programs are not long term endeavors. They exist for
a while until the work is done, and then the project or program structure and the team
are disbanded. This is part of what makes project and program work so interesting – you
can always see the end and you have the opportunity to work on lots of different
initiatives over your career!
 They have business cases: This is similar to all the work that a company does, even the
business as usual stuff. Projects and programs should only start when they have a
valid business case. In other words, as project and program managers, we only work on
activities that will add some real value and that have already been shown to make good
business sense. There is no point in wasting time working on something that isn’t going
to benefit the company.
 They are aligned to strategic objectives: It should be easy to see how the projects and
programs you work on line up to the company’s strategic objectives. If this isn’t specified
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in the business case, ask your project sponsor. It should be easy to see that the work your
team is doing on the project or program directly contributes to the company’s goals.
Otherwise, what’s the point?
 They deliver change: This is the big one – projects and programs both deliver change. You
do a project or a program and at the end something is different. This could be something
big, or something small. Programs tend to have larger goals for changing the status quo
and often include an element of cultural change but the concept is the same.
Evolution of Integrated Project Management System
Project management, in its modern form, began to take root only a few decades ago. Starting in
the early 1960s, businesses and other organizations began to see the benefit of organizing work
around projects and to understand the critical need to communicate and integrate work across
multiple departments and professions.
The Early Years:
Late 19th Century: We can travel back further, though, to the latter half of the 19th century and
to the rising complexities of the business world to see how project management evolved from
management principles. Large-scale government projects were the impetus for making
important decisions that became management decisions. In this country, the first large
organization was the transcontinental railroad, which began construction in the early 1870s.
Suddenly, business leaders found themselves faced with the daunting task of organizing the
manual labor of thousands of workers and the manufacturing and assembly of unprecedented
quantities of raw material.
Early 20th Century Efforts:
Near the turn of the century, Frederick Taylor (1856–1915) began his detailed studies of work.
He applied scientific reasoning to work by showing that labor can be analyzed and improved by
focusing on its elementary parts. He applied his thinking to tasks found in steel mills, such as
shoveling sand and lifting and moving parts. Before then, the only way to improve productivity
was to demand harder and longer hours from workers. The inscription on Taylor's tomb in
Philadelphia attests to his place in the history of management: "the father of scientific
management." Taylor's associate, Henry Gantt (1861–1919), studied in great detail the order of
operations in work. His studies of management focused on Navy ship construction during WWI.
His Gantt charts, complete with task bars and milestone markers, outline the sequence and
duration of all tasks in a process. Gantt chart diagrams proved to be such a powerful analytical
tool for managers that they remained virtually unchanged for nearly a hundred years. It wasn't
until the early 1990s that link lines were added to these task bars depicting more precise
dependencies between tasks.
Taylor, Gantt, and others helped evolve management into a distinct business function that
requires study and discipline. In the decades leading up to WWII, marketing approaches,
industrial psychology, and human relations began to take hold as integral parts of business
management.
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Mid-20th Century Efforts

After WWII, the complexities of projects and a shrinking war-time labor supply demanded new
organizational structures. Complex network diagrams called PERT charts and the critical path
method were introduced, giving managers greater control over massively engineered and
extremely complex projects (such as military weapon systems with their huge variety of tasks and
numerous interactions at many points in time). Soon these techniques spread to all types of
industries as business leaders sought new management strategies and tools to handle their
growth in a quickly changing and competitive world. In the early 1960s, general system theories
of science began to be applied to business interactions. Richard Johnson, Fremont Kast, and
James Rosenzweig described in their book The Theory and Management of Systems how a
modern business is like a human organism, with a skeletal system, a muscular system, circulatory
system, nervous system, and so on. Today This view of business as a human organism implies
that in order for a business to survive and prosper, all of its functional parts must work in concert
toward specific goals, or projects. In the following decades, this approach toward project
management began to take root in its modern forms. While various business models evolved
during this period, they all shared a common underlying structure (especially for larger
businesses): that a project manager, who puts together a team and ensures the integration and
communication of the workflow horizontally across different departments, manages the project
What is Integrated Project Management?
Integrated project management is the collection of processes that ensure various elements of
projects are properly coordinated. It establishes and manages the involvement of all relevant
stakeholders and resources, according to defined processes devised from your organization’s set
of standard processes.
Finally, it involves making trade-offs among competing objectives and alternatives to meet or
exceed needs and expectations. Integrated project management aims to work at an
organizational scale. Far too often, project management knowledge remains soloed in individual
departments at a business. How IT manages its projects is rarely shared with the Product team’s
approach. “The lack of proper communication inside the company is the main cause of a situation
in which everyone builds his or her own “island of knowledge about project management” ...an
integrated approach and a general view of the organization enable effective development in
project, program, and project portfolio management.”
Which is to say, integrated project management describes a way to understand, collect, share
and implement project management knowledge and best practices across the organization.
II. Why You Need Integrated Project Management
As a project manager, you need to be able to keep your team motivated and directed throughout
each project. Leveraging integrated project management software helps to keep the process on
track and aligned with the intended scope Here are four reasons why you need integrated project
management:
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1. Improves Scope Definition

Ideally, you will define the solution and intended direction before beginning work on the project.
This allows you to have a few ideas of how to arrive at the end result, and will keep the entire
team in the loop when you need to define the project scope. With integrated project
management, when the original scope is defined, it can be clearly communicated to your team.
And when the customer decides that the scope needs to change slightly, you can make these
changes seamlessly without disrupting the original project flow. This can help avoid scope creep,
and can keep the project on track for deadlines and budgets.
2. Keeps Communication Open
Along with project scope, communication is an extremely important aspect of any project.
When the direction is defined, it needs to be communicated to the team. And when it changes,
that communication needs to take place as soon as possible. With integrated project
management, not only is the project scope given prominence, but it allows for constant
communication between team members. When tasks are completed, the next responsible party
is notified to begin work. And when your team members need to discuss their plan of attack on
any given deliverable, it can be accomplished within the integrated project management system.
3. Improves Schedule Monitoring
When you have defined the project scope, the next step is to go through and set up schedules
and deadlines. Within integrated project management, you can set up the interdependent
deliverables, and allow for the communication to happen between each group as the project
evolves. Scope changes don’t require an entirely new time frame, but can be accounted for as
they arise and the project schedule can be adjusted to accommodate the changes. This can help
you still arrive at the final deadlines on time, and avoid any costly re-work issues.
4. Assess and Provide Feedback
Finally, with integrated project management, you can help drive the final project deliverables to
meet deadlines and budget constraints without requiring an untoward amount of input on your
behalf. When tasks need to be nudged, you can initiate it without feeling that your team would
get the wrong impression. At the same time, you can monitor the status of your tasks and give
praise where it is due, without making anyone else feel that they have been an inadequate team
member. This can be very useful when it seems like your team morale needs a boost, or perhaps
some of your team needs a slight ego check. Whether things need to be sped up or kept in check,
with integrated project management you can take care of both monitoring and assessing the
situation at the same time.
Aligning Projects with Organization Strategy
In some traditional project management approaches, projects are seen as independent entities
under the watchful eye of the project manager. In general, while this can allow a great deal of
flexibility of vision for the project manager to take a project wherever he/she wishes it to go, it
also risks diverging too far from the overall goals and aims of the organization as a whole.
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As an alternative, many project managers are now seeing the benefits of aligning projects with
organizational strategy. Here, what is lost in absolute flexibility is gained in a sense of purpose
and clear contribution to the welfare of the organization. For modern organizations, unaligned
projects are seen as excess weight that can hinder a company’s overall performance. By aligning
projects and greater strategic goals, project managers help ensure that resources are well spent
and clearly affect company welfare.
Strategic alignment in an organization can help ensure that resources are allocated correctly.
Projects are less likely to be undertaken if they aren’t aligned with the long-term vision of the
organization, and this alignment can be useful as a recruiting tool because the organization can
promise the mobile workforce the opportunity to work on much more high-value projects.
Here are a few steps you can take to align your existing and future projects with your
organization’s strategic goals:
Review Every Project
This first step will require you to have an understanding of your organization’s overall long-range
strategy. Once you have an idea of where you and your organization are trying to get to, you can
begin reviewing all of the projects that are in-progress and all of the projects that are in the
pipeline to ensure that they are consistent with your organization’s overall goals. In reviewing
these projects, you need to look at several things:
Set realistic expectations.
First, understand that management and the executives of the organization own the portfolio of
projects that you and your teams are working on. Which means that if you aren’t an executive,
you may find that some projects that are not aligned with the overall organizational strategy will
still be advanced and taken on. So from the outset, you need to understand that even the best
understanding and strategic effort can be thwarted.
Consult key stakeholders.
This is important because each key stakeholder will have an opinion and an idea for why a project
was taken on and why it is important. From this information, you can learn things about how the
decision to take on the project was constructed, which will help you understand better where or
why the project fits into the strategy at the current moment.
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Remember: change happens.

Organizations and priorities are living entities. Mike Tyson said something to the effect of
“everyone has a strategy until they get punched in the mouth.” The same idea applies to your
organization’s strategy. It is great and perfect until its first engagement with the real world. So
you have to be prepared and understand that projects and strategy are living entities that will
grow and change as they engage with the world. This can be either a positive event or a negative
event, depending on how wed to the initial strategy your organization is.
It’s okay to kill (projects).
Finally, the most important thing to remember maybe, it is okay to kill projects. The idea of a
trying to save a sunk cost can really trip up an organization. No matter how rational it is to stop
throwing good money after bad on a project that is misaligned or so far off track that there is
never anyway that value will be captured from the project, many organizations become so wed
to the investment already made that they continue to make every effort to recoup something
from the project. To more effectively align strategy with your projects, you have to come to the
realization pretty quickly that it is not just okay, but required that you kill some projects because
they no longer have the same priority in the organization
Build a Decision Making Framework

In some organizations, this framework can take the form of a project management office (PMO).
In other, smaller organizations, this framework can just rest with an executive or a project
manager that has been tasked with the ability to make “yes” or “no” decisions on projects based
upon the strategic importance of a project to the organization’s strategy.
To create an effective decision making framework, you need to think about three important
concepts as you make your strategic decisions:
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1. First, the business purpose of a project should be clearly stated. By stating the business
purpose of a project clearly at the outset, it is much easier for you to make a decision on
whether or not this project aligns with your organization’s strategy. Allowing you to make
a “yes” or “no” decision pretty confidently. Thinking in terms of business purpose will
require that you spend a great deal of time focusing on getting as much tangible
information about the projects that you are weighing as possible. If you don’t, your
decision-making can be less successful because you can confuse intangible values and
irrelevant metrics with real, true, strategically aligned value, which can destroy your
framework from the start.
2. Second, think about any special considerations that are at play with your project, your
organization, your clients, or your market. Organizations and their projects don’t live in
vacuums, so to not consider the reality of the environment you are a part of is bad
decision making. The truth is, the decision to work on a project is driven by personality
and desire as much as utility and strategic purpose more often than we may care to admit.
So it is important to recognize these situations when they are happening so that you can
have the opportunity to reorient a project in a manner that works with these
considerations while doing your best to align the project with the strategic ambitions of
the organization.
3. Third, think about the iterations that the project may achieve as it advances. As when you
are reviewing your projects, here you also need to remember that projects and strategies
are living entities. As the project advances, you should be gaining new information on the
project, the market, and the likelihood that the project is going to be successful against
the strategic goals it was green lit against. Because you aren’t making your decisions in a
vacuum, it is important to build and plan for the idea that you should expect change and
that you need to adapt to it in a proactive manner.
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Set Priorities
The logical conclusion of reviewing your projects and building a decision-making framework is to
set priorities for your projects built upon the snapshot of your organization at the point you are
making the decision. While setting priorities can be difficult, it is necessary to enable
the organization to capture value from its strategic planning. The key in setting priorities is:
Define alignment
Alignment between projects and strategies should not be the one true marker of any decision
you make or suggest, even knowing what considerations are at play. This allows you to
acknowledge the best course of action and to make any subsequent decisions from the basis of
why you are or are not following this course of action.
Measure projects
Give more weight to the projects that will accelerate the organization’s growth and achievement
of long-term goals. It can’t be stated clearly that any time you have the chance to offer up
immediate, significant advancement towards a goal, you should. Because these successes will
certainly help your ability to have greater influence in the future and the success will often
provide increased motivation to everyone involved.
Set clear guidelines and expectations for review
As we have discussed throughout, strategies and projects are living entities. So to ensure your
priorities maintain their ability to drive positive results, set up some clear off ramps for review
and reevaluation. This will help you overcome any inclination to allow your strategy and projects
to coast on autopilot.
Communicate
To gain true buy-in at all levels, you really need to put extra emphasis on communicating with
your teams and key stakeholders throughout the strategic process and the project. Giving people
a voice will allow you to gain stronger commitments and will often elicit better feedback which
will help you ultimately ensure that your projects deliver on your organization’s strategy.
Strategic alignment in an organization is a constant battle that is brought on by forces inside and
outside of the organization. To capitalize on the benefits of strong project management and
strategic vision, it is vital that the project leaders in an organization spend the necessary effort
on creating alignment between strategy and project delivery. In the long-term, the benefits of
this alignment can be felt in the organization’s ability to achieve its goals, maximize its value to
its customers, and to thrive in an environment where projects are the norm and change is a
rapidly evolving constant. Make sure your organizational tools enable you to measure project
progress and collaborate with your teams about strategic alignment at every step of the project.
ProjectManager.com allows teams to gain better visibility of the project progress with its
powerful dashboard reporting and collaboration features. See for yourself, with this 30-day free
trial.
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Benefits of Aligning Project Management and Strategies

Research suggests that aligning project management and organization strategy produces
significant benefits for the organization. Where previously project managers might lead
expensive projects that may or may not have been compatible with greater business aims,
alignment casts spending in a new light. Funds are spent to directly impact a company’s overall
performance, thereby increasing profitability and reducing unnecessary expenses.
Alignment can also help improve project success rates and, therefore, the ability for the
organization to address customer needs and expectations. Research has shown a significant
increase in organizational financial performance and project success rates when projects were
aligned with business strategies. When each project directly contributes to the welfare of the
company, the organization as a whole improves, improving customer experiences and retention
rates.
How to Align Projects with Strategies?
For many organizations, alignment results from transitioning traditional project management
offices (PMOs) to enterprise project management offices (EPMOs). An EPMO, as a centralized,
organization-level entity, is designed to specifically plan new projects with greater organizational
strategy in mind. EPMOs participate in both executive-level planning sessions and overall
strategic planning sessions to better understand how individual projects can meet the needs of
the organization and establish a unified company vision. Here, it is crucial that both project
managers and senior leaders recognize the value of full EPMO integration and view the entity as
having executive-level access to better align projects with overall goals.
For each project, the EPMO is designed to serve as a liaison between team members, project
managers and senior executives. EPMO managers and executive leaders should work together
throughout a project’s implementation to establish a continuing dialogue and ensure alignment.
When projects are completed, EPMOs have the added responsibility of reporting success in the
context of overall business aims. Managers must be prepared to report to senior executives and
illustrate how the project fit with strategic considerations. Unlike in traditional project
management, EPMO projects are generally not viewed as successes in and of themselves. Rather,
a success is defined by the degree to which it helps achieve business goals.
Conclusion
As businesses continue to compete with each other and define themselves in their industries,
project alignment can be used to ensure that everything a business does is for a specific purpose.
Facing the near-constant scrutiny enabled by digital technology, businesses wishing to be seen
as having a clear mission should analyze the extent to which their various departments are
aligned with that strategy. EPMOs are one way of pursuing alignment and, therefore, improving
both financial performance and company image.
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Project Life Cycle
A project life cycle is the sequence of phases that a project goes through from its initiation to its
closure. The number and sequence of the cycle are determined by the management and various
other factors like needs of the organization involved in the project, the nature of the project, and
its area of application. The phases have a definite start, end, and control point and are
constrained by time. The project lifecycle can be defined and modified as per the needs and
aspects of the organization. Even though every project has a definite start and end, the particular
objectives, deliverables, and activities vary widely. The lifecycle provides the basic foundation of
the actions that has to be performed in the project, irrespective of the specific work involved.
Project life cycles can range from predictive or plan-driven approaches to adaptive or change-
driven approaches. In a predictive life cycle, the specifics are defined at the start of the project,
and any alterations to scope are carefully addressed. In an adaptive life cycle, the product is
developed over multiple iterations, and detailed scope is defined for iteration only as the
iteration begins.
Characteristics of the Project Life Cycle

Although projects are unique and highly unpredictable, their standard framework consists of
same generic lifecycle structure, consisting of following phases:
1. The Initiation Phase: Starting of the project
2. The Planning Phase: Organizing and Preparing
3. The Execution Phase: Carrying out the project
4. The Termination Phase: Closing the project
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1. The Initiation Phase: The initiation phase aims to define and authorize the project. The
project manager takes the given information and creates a Project Charter. The Project
Charter authorizes the project and documents the primary requirements for the project.
It includes information such as:
o Project’s purpose, vision, and mission
o Measurable objectives and success criteria
o Elaborated project description, conditions, and risks
o Name and authority of the project sponsor
o Concerned stakeholders
2. The Planning Phase: The purpose of this phase is to lay down a detailed strategy of how
the project has to be performed and how to make it a success.
Project Planning consists of two parts:
o Strategic Planning
o Implementation Planning
In strategic planning, the overall approach to the project is developed. In implementation
planning, the ways to apply those decisions are sought.
3. The Execution Phase: In this phase, the decisions and activities defined during the
planning phase are implemented. During this phase, the project manager has to supervise
the project and prevent any errors from taking place. This process is also termed
as monitoring and controlling. After satisfaction from the customer, sponsor, and
stakeholder’s end, he takes the process to the next step.
4. The Termination Phase: This is the last phase of any project, and it marks the official
closure of the project.
This general lifecycle structure is used when dealing with upper management or other people
less familiar with the project. Some people might confuse it with the project management
process groups, but the latter contains activities specific to the project. The project lifecycle, on
the other hand, is independent of the life cycle of the particular outcome of the project. However,
it is beneficial to take the current life-cycle phase of the product into account. It can provide a
common frame of reference for comparing different projects.
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The generic life cycle structure commonly exhibits the following characteristics:
 At the start, cost and staffing levels are low and reach a peak when the work is in progress.
It again starts to drop rapidly as the project begins to halt.
 The typical cost and staffing curve does not apply to all projects. Considerable expenses
are required to secure essential resources early in its life cycle.
 Risk and uncertainty are at their peak at the beginning of the project. These factors drop
over the lifecycle of the project as decisions are reached, and deliverables are accepted.
 The ability to affect the final product of the project without impacting the cost drastically
is highest at the start of the project and decreases as the project advances towards
completion. It is clear from the figure 2 that the cost of making new changes and rectifying
errors increases as the project approaches completion.
These features are present almost in all kinds of project lifecycles but in different ways or to
different degrees. Adaptive life cycles are developed particularly with the intent of keeping
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stakeholder influences higher and the costs of changes lower all through the life cycle than in
predictive life cycles.
Let’s take a look at how knowledge on project lifecycle benefits an organization:
 It helps professional services teams to be more proficient and profitable.
 It helps the organization.
 It makes the flow of communication easier.
 It emphasizes on reporting and examining previous projects.
9 Project Management Challenges and How to Overcome Them
Whether you are someone just starting your career in the field of project management or have a
lot of experience, you’ll agree that being a project manager is not simple. You need to constantly
stay on your feet by learning the project management basics and ensure that the project remains
within all the agreed-upon project constraints like
time
project scope
budget
Despite the availability of multiple resources, project management tools, training materials, and
flexible methodologies, companies are still wasting millions of dollars every year and are
struggling to tackle the project management challenges and issues they face. A study published
in the Harvard Business Review states that one in every six projects costs more than 200 percent
of the estimated amount and almost 70 percent of IT projects face project delays. It is the job of
project managers to prevent that but in doing so they face a lot of challenges.
We have created a list of the nine most common issues project managers face along with advice
on how to deal with them when they arise.
1. Lack of clear goals and success criteria

Clarity is one of the most important requirements for the successful completion of the project
and the lack of it creates several project management issues. A study states that about 39% of
projects fail due to the lack of project planning and a clearly defined goal.
It is also important for a project manager to come up with a way of quantifying project progress
by setting up milestones and quality tests. In addition to helping your team progress, having a
clear set of objectives will also help project managers defend their vision in front of the upper
management and the customers.
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How to deal with it:

The popular approaches to goal setting like SMART and CLEAR can help the project manager in
coming up with a set of effective goals from the start of the project which can help them pass the
barriers of project management.
2. Lack of communication
Effective communication in project management is extremely important for a successful project.
You need to have timely and transparent methods of communication to ensure that all
stakeholders are involved in the process. Deloitte states that 32 percent of professionals believe
that communication is the biggest issue of project management. Miscommunication is also
dangerous for project teams because it affects their teamwork. It can cause conflicts among team
members and can potentially delay the project.

Project managers often rely on various collaborative and project management software available
in the market in order to ensure that everyone stays updated. These collaborative tools not only
make it easier for managers to carry on their duties but also ensure greater transparency in
projects and accountability within the team.
3. Budgeting issues
Most managers consider financial issues as one of the biggest hurdles in effective project
management. A study in 2017 revealed that 49.5 percent of manufacturing managers’ report
costs as the biggest project management challenge they face. By efficient cost management, a
manager can avoid various common complications a project may face and strive for better and
quicker results.

For this reason, it is absolutely necessary to adopt a proper planning procedure and making
realistic assumptions to avoid any cost overruns.
4. Inadequate skills of team members

A chain is as strong as its weakest link and in the case of project teams, performance highly
depends on their individual skill levels. As a project manager, you can create the most ideal
environment but if the team does not possess the necessary skills to tackle the problem at hand,
your project is bound to fail. This is a huge project management problem that can only be solved
with proper experience and foresight.
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Effective project managers pre-determine the needed project management skills and
competencies and assess the available workforce to determine whether the present task needs
some additional staff or not.
5. Lack of accountability
A project team performs really well when every member feels responsible and tries to fulfill the
role assigned to them.

Effective project managers properly assign responsibility to the team and direct the team
towards the common goal of successfully completing their project.
6. Scope creep
Scope creep is a natural and expected phenomenon for any project. There are times when it can
be beneficial but mostly the cons outweigh the pros. 52% of project teams reported facing scope
creep in 2017 and the trend is continuing upwards. Clients who don’t precisely know what they
want and have vague requirements are one of the biggest project management challenges for
both managers and the project team.

By being proactive with client engagement during the planning phase can help you get their exact
requirements. It’s also important to not take up ad-hoc change requests as that can result in
delays and added costs. You’ll find more ways to deal with scope creep here.
7. Inadequate risk management

Having the foresight to identify potential ‘what if’ scenarios and making up contingency plans is
an important aspect of project management. Projects rarely go exactly as planned because there
are so many variables that can create unlimited possibilities.

It is the job of the project manager to come up with alternate plans that the team may adopt if
the project starts to spiral out of control. Having a project risk management system helps in
identifying the types of risks and mitigate them.
8. Unrealistic deadlines
Having an impossible deadline is another project management challenges that can severely affect
the quality of the end product. Any effective project manager knows the capability of the project
team and negotiates the project timeline accordingly by prioritizing deadlines and project tasks.

In agile project management, the velocity which is the measure of work completed in a single
sprint is decided collectively by taking input from all the stakeholders.
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9. The limited engagement of stakeholders

It is important for project managers to ensure that all the project stakeholders are on the same
page and have a clear vision of the project. An uninvolved client can cause a lot of problems in
the final stages of a project so it’s important to consider the customer’s feedback and keep them
updated throughout the project.

Invite your client and other stakeholders to your project management tool so they can actively
participate in shaping the project and give feedback.
The right tools to tackle project management challenges

For project management, people are now relying more and more on cloud-based project
management software that not only centralizes all the data but also allows internet access
through multiple devices like their computers, mobile phones, tablets, etc.
Completing a project on time and staying within all the constraints is not an easy task. By using a
project management tool like Kiss flow Project, you can completely change the way your team
handles projects and tackle the project management challenges you face.
Importance of Project Management

Great project management means much more than keeping project management’s iron triangle
in check, delivering on time, budget, and scope; it unites clients and teams, creates a vision for a
successful project and gets everyone on the same page of what’s needed to stay on track for
success. When projects are managed properly, there’s a positive impact that reverberates
beyond delivery of ‘the stuff’.
Why Is Project Management Important?
1. Strategic Alignment
Project management is important because it ensures what is being delivered, is right, and will
deliver real value against the business opportunity.
Every client has strategic goals and the projects that we do for them advance those goals. Project
management is important because part of a PM’s duties is to ensure there’s rigor in architecting
projects properly so that they fit well within the broader context of our client’s strategic
frameworks. Good project management ensures that the goals of projects closely align with the
strategic goals of the business. In identifying a solid business case, and being methodical about
calculating ROI, project management is important because it can help to ensure the right thing is
delivered, that’s going to deliver real value. Of course, as projects progress, it is possible that risks
may emerge, that turn into issues or even the business strategy may change. But a project
manager will ensure that the project is part of that realignment. Project management really
matters here because projects that veer off course, or which fail to adapt to the business needs
may end up being expensive and/or unnecessary.
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2. Leadership
Project management is important because it brings leadership and direction to projects.
Without project management, a team can be like a ship without a rudder; moving but without
direction, control, or purpose. Leadership allows and enables team members to do their best
work. Project management provides leadership and vision, motivation, removing roadblocks,
coaching, and inspiring the team to do their best work.
Project managers serve the team but also ensure clear lines of accountability. With a project
manager in place there’s no confusion about who’s in charge and in control of whatever’s going
on in a project (especially if you’re using a RACI chart or other similar tools). Project managers
enforce process and keep everyone on the team in line too because ultimately they carry
responsibility for whether the project fails or succeeds.
3. Clear Focus & Objectives
Project management is important because it ensures there’s a proper plan for executing on
strategic goals. Where project management is left to the team to work out by themselves, you’ll
find teams work without proper briefs and without a defined project management methodology.
Projects lack focus, can have vague or nebulous objectives, and leave the team not quite sure
what they’re supposed to be doing, or why. As project managers, we position ourselves to
prevent such a situation and drive the timely accomplishment of tasks, by breaking up a project
into tasks for our teams. Oftentimes, the foresight to take such an approach is what differentiates
good project management from bad. Breaking up into smaller chunks of work enables teams to
remain focused on clear objectives, gear their efforts towards achieving the ultimate project goal
through the completion of smaller steps and to quickly identify risks, since risk management is
important in project management.
Often a project’s goals have to change in line with a materializing risk. Again, without dedicated
oversight and management, a project could swiftly falter but good project management (and a
good project manager) is what enables the team to focus, and when necessary refocus, on their
objectives.
4. Realistic Project Planning
Project management is important because it ensures proper expectations are set around what
can be delivered, by when, and for how much.
Without proper project management, budget estimates and project delivery timelines can be set
that are over-ambitious or lacking in analogous estimating insight from similar projects.
Ultimately this means without good project management, projects get delivered late, and over
budget. Effective project managers should be able to negotiate reasonable and achievable
deadlines and milestones across stakeholders, teams, and management. Too often, the urgency
placed on delivery compromises the necessary steps, and ultimately, the quality of the project’s
outcome. We all know that most tasks will take longer than initially anticipated; a good project
manager is able to analyze and balance the available resources, with the required timeline,
and develop a realistic schedule. Project management really matters when scheduling because it
brings objectivity to the planning.
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A good project manager creates a clear process, with achievable deadlines, that enables
everyone within the project team to work within reasonable bounds, and not unreasonable
expectations.
5. Quality Control
Projects management is important because it ensures the quality of whatever is being delivered,
consistently hits the mark. Projects are also usually under enormous pressure to be completed.
Without a dedicated project manager, who has the support and buy-in of executive
management, tasks are underestimated, schedules tightened and processes rushed. The result is
bad quality output because there’s no quality management in place.
Dedicated project management ensures that not only does a project have the time and resources
to deliver, but also that the output is quality tested at every stage.
Good project management demands gated phases where teams can assess the output for quality,
applicability, and ROI. Project management is important to quality because it allows for a
staggered and phased process, creating time for teams to examine and test their outputs at every
step along the way.
6. Risk Management
Project management is important because it ensures risks are properly managed and mitigated
against to avoid becoming issues.
Risk management is critical to project success. The temptation is just to sweep them under the
carpet, never talk about them to the client and hope for the best. But having a robust process
around the identification, management and mitigation of risk is what helps prevent risks from
becoming issues. Especially in complex projects, dealing with risk is where the value of project
management really comes into play.
Good project management practice requires project managers to carefully analyze all potential
risks to the project, quantify them, develop a mitigation plan against them, and a contingency
plan should any of them materialize. It requires knowing the right questions to ask in order to
uncover risks early. Naturally, risks should be prioritized according to the likelihood of them
occurring, and appropriate responses are allocated per risk (some PMs use a dedicate risk
management software for this). Good project management matters in this regard, because
projects never go to plan, and how we deal with change and adapt our project management plan
is a key to delivering projects successfully.
7. Orderly Process
Project management is important because it ensures the right people do the right things, at the
right time – it ensures proper project process is followed throughout the project lifecycle.
Surprisingly, many large and well-known companies have reactive planning processes that aren’t
really based around any real project management strategies.
But reactivity – as opposed to proactivity – can often cause projects to go into survival mode.
This is a when teams fracture, tasks duplicate, and planning becomes reactive creating
inefficiency and frustration in the team.
Proper planning and process can make a massive difference as the team knows who’s doing what,
when, and how. Proper process helps to clarify roles, streamline processes and inputs, anticipate
risks, and creates the checks and balances to ensure the project is continually aligned with the
overall strategy. Project management matters here because without an orderly, easily
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understood process, companies risk project failure, attrition of trust in their business
relationships and resource wastage.
8. Continuous Oversight
Project management is important because it ensures a project’s progress is tracked and reported
properly. Status reporting might sound boring and unnecessary – and if everything’s going to
plan, it can just feel like documentation for documentation’s sake. But continuous project
oversight, ensuring that a project is tracking properly against the original plan, is critical to
ensuring that a project stays on track. When proper oversight and project reporting is in place it
makes it easy to see when a project is beginning to deviate from its intended course. The earlier
you’re able to spot project deviation, the easier it is to course correct.
Good project managers will regularly generate easily digestible progress or status reports as part
of their stakeholder management. This enables clients or stakeholders to track the project on
their own. Typically, these status reports will provide insights into the work that was completed
and planned, the hours utilized and how they track against those planned, how the project is
tracking against milestones, risks, assumptions, issues and dependencies and any outputs of the
project as it proceeds.
This data is invaluable not only for tracking progress but helps clients gain the trust of other
stakeholders in their organization, giving them easy oversight of a project’s progress. It also gives
your team a simple, consistent way to maintain regular contact to build your client relationships.
9. Subject Matter Expertise
Project management is important because someone needs to be able to understand if everyone’s
doing what they should.
With a few years’ experience under their belt, project managers will know a little about a lot of
aspects of delivering the projects they manage. They’ll build technical skills and subject matter
expertise; they’ll know everything about the work that their teams execute; the platforms and
systems they use, and the possibilities and limitations, and the kinds of issues that typically occur.
Having this kind of subject matter expertise means they can have intelligent and informed
conversations with clients, team, stakeholders, and suppliers. They’re well equipped to be the
hub of communication on a project, ensuring that as the project flows between different teams
and phases of work, nothing gets forgotten about or overlooked.
Without subject matter expertise through project management, you can find a project becomes
unbalanced – the creatives ignore the limitations of technology or the developers forget the
creative vision of the project. Project management keeps the team focused on the overarching
vision and brings everyone together forcing the right compromises to make the project a success.
10. Managing and Learning from Success and Failure
Project management is important because it learns from the successes and failures of the past.
Project management can break bad habits and when you’re delivering projects, it’s important to
not make the same mistakes twice. Project managers use retrospectives, lessons learned, or post
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project reviews to consider what went well, what didn’t go so well and what should be done
differently for the next project. This produces a valuable set of documentation that becomes a
record of “dos and don’ts” going forward, enabling the organization to learn from failures and
success. Without this learning, teams will often keep making the same mistakes, time and time
again. These retrospectives are great documents to use at a project kickoff meeting to remind
the team about failures such as underestimating projects, and successes such as the benefits of
a solid process or the importance of keeping time sheet reporting up to date!
Feasibilities studies:
As the name implies, a feasibility analysis is used to determine the viability of an idea, such as
ensuring a project is legally and technically feasible as well as economically justifiable. It tells us
whether a project is worth the investment—in some cases, a project may not be doable. There
can be many reasons for this, including requiring too many resources, which not only prevents
those resources from performing other tasks but also may cost more than an organization would
earn back by taking on a project that isn’t profitable.
A well-designed study should offer a historical background of the business or project, such as a
description of the product or service, accounting statements, details of operations and
management, marketing research and policies, financial data, legal requirements, and tax
obligations. Generally, such studies precede technical development and project implementation.
Types of Feasibility Study
A feasibility analysis evaluates the project’s potential for success; therefore, perceived objectivity
is an essential factor in the credibility of the study for potential investors and lending institutions.
There are five types of feasibility study—separate areas that a feasibility study examines,
described below.
1. Technical Feasibility
This assessment focuses on the technical resources available to the organization. It helps
organizations determine whether the technical resources meet capacity and whether the
technical team is capable of converting the ideas into working systems. Technical feasibility also
involves the evaluation of the hardware, software, and other technical requirements of the
proposed system. As an exaggerated example, an organization wouldn’t want to try to put Star
Trek’s transporters in their building—currently, this project is not technically feasible.
2. Economic Feasibility
This assessment typically involves a cost/ benefits analysis of the project, helping organizations
determine the viability, cost, and benefits associated with a project before financial resources
are allocated. It also serves as an independent project assessment and enhances project
credibility—helping decision-makers determine the positive economic benefits to the
organization that the proposed project will provide.
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3. Legal Feasibility
This assessment investigates whether any aspect of the proposed project conflicts with legal
requirements like zoning laws, data protection acts or social media laws. Let’s say an organization
wants to construct a new office building in a specific location. A feasibility study might reveal the
organization’s ideal location isn’t zoned for that type of business. That organization has just saved
considerable time and effort by learning that their project was not feasible right from the
beginning.
4. Operational Feasibility
This assessment involves undertaking a study to analyze and determine whether—and how
well—the organization’s needs can be met by completing the project. Operational feasibility
studies also examine how a project plan satisfies the requirements identified in the requirements
analysis phase of system development.
5. Scheduling Feasibility
This assessment is the most important for project success; after all, a project will fail if not
completed on time. In scheduling feasibility, an organization estimates how much time the
project will take to complete. When these areas have all been examined, the feasibility analysis
helps identify any constraints the proposed project may face, including:
 Internal Project Constraints: Technical, Technology, Budget, Resource, etc.
 Internal Corporate Constraints: Financial, Marketing, Export, etc.
 External Constraints: Logistics, Environment, Laws, and Regulations, etc.
Importance of Feasibility Study
The importance of a feasibility study is based on organizational desire to “get it right” before
committing resources, time, or budget. A feasibility study might uncover new ideas that could
completely change a project’s scope. It’s best to make these determinations in advance, rather
than to jump in and to learn that the project won’t work. Conducting a feasibility study is always
beneficial to the project as it gives you and other stakeholders a clear picture of the proposed
project.
Below are some key benefits of conducting a feasibility study:
 Improves project teams’ focus

 Identifies new opportunities
 Provides valuable information for a “go/no-go” decision
 Narrows the business alternatives
 Identifies a valid reason to undertake the project
 Enhances the success rate by evaluating multiple parameters
 Aids decision-making on the project
 Identifies reasons not to proceed
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Different forms of Project Contracting
Introduction
In the world of business, contracts are used for establishing business deals and partnerships. The
parties involved in the business engagement decide the type of the contract. usually, the type of
the contract used for the business engagement varies depending on the type of the work and the
nature of the industry. The contract is simply an elaborated agreement between two or more
parties. One or more parties may provide products or services in return to something provided
by other parties (client). The contract type is the key relationship between the parties engaged
in the business and the contract type determines the project risk.
Let' have a look at most widely used contract types.
Fixed Price (Lump Sum)

This is the simplest type of all contracts. The terms are quite straightforward and easy to
understand. To put in simple, the service provider agrees to provide a defined service for a
specific period of time and the client agrees to pay a fixed amount of money for the service.
This contract type may define various milestones for the deliveries as well as KPIs (Key
Performance Indicators). In addition, the contractor may have an acceptance criteria defined for
the milestones and the final delivery. The main advantages of this type of contract is that the
contractor knows the total project cost before the project commences.
Unit Price
In this model, the project is divided into units and the charge for each unit is defined. This contract
type can be introduced as one of the more flexible methods compared to fixed price contract.
Usually, the owner (contractor/client) of the project decides on the estimates and asks the
bidders to bid of each element of the project.
After bidding, depending on the bid amounts and the qualifications of bidders, the entire project
may be given to the same service provider or different units may be allocated to different service
providers. This is a good approach when different project units require different expertise to
complete.
Cost Plus
In this contract model, the services provider is reimbursed for their machinery, labour and other
costs, in addition to contractor paying an agreed fee to the service provider.
In this method, the service provider should offer a detailed schedule and the resource allocation
for the project. Apart from that, all the costs should be properly listed and should be reported to
the contractor periodically. The payments may be paid by the contractor at a certain frequency
(such as monthly, quarterly) or by the end of milestones.
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Incentive
Incentive contracts are usually used when there is some level of uncertainty in the project cost.
Although there are nearly-accurate estimations, the technological challenges may impact on the
overall resources as well as the effort.
This type of contract is common for the projects involving pilot programs or the project that
harness new technologies.
There are three cost factors in an Incentive contract; target price, target profit and the maximum
cost.
The main mechanism of Incentive contract is to divide any target price overrun between the
client and the service provider in order to minimize the business risks for both parties.
Retainer (Time and Material - T&M)
This is one of the most beautiful engagements that can get into by two or more parties. This
engagement type is the most risk-free type where the time and material used for the project are
priced. The contractor only requires knowing the time and material for the project in order to
make the payments. This type of contract has short delivery cycles, and for each cycle, separate
estimates are sent of the contractor. Once the contractor signs off the estimate and Statement
of Work (SOW), the service provider can start work.
Unlike most of the other contract types, retainer contracts are mostly used for long-term
business engagements.
Percentage of Construction Fee

This type of contracts is used for engineering projects. Based on the resources and material
required, the cost for the construction is estimated. Then, the client contracts a service provider
and pays a percentage of the cost of the project as the fee for the service provider.
As an example, take the scenario of constructing a house. Assume that the estimate comes up to
$230,000. When this project is contracted to a service provider, the client may agree to pay 30%
of the total cost as the construction fee which comes up to $69,000.
Conclusion
Selecting the contract type is the most crucial step of establishing a business agreement with
another party. This step determines the possible engagement risks. Therefore, companies should
get into contracts where there is a minimum risk for their business. It is always a good idea to
engage in fixed bids (fixed priced) whenever the project is short-termed and predictable.
If the project nature is exploratory, it is always best to adopt retainer or cost plus contract types.
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UNIT II
What Is Project Scope Management and Why It's Important?
The Project Scope Management is the process to ensure that a particular project includes all the
work relevant/appropriate to achieve the project's objectives. Its primary aim is to control what
is and is not involved in the project. The Scope Management techniques enable project managers
and supervisors to allocate just the right amount of work necessary to complete a project.
What is Project Scope?
Project Scope is the work that needs to be accomplished to deliver a product, service, or result
with the specified features and functions. Scope refers to the detailed set of deliverables or
elements of a project; these deliverables are derived from a project's requirements.
Project Scope Statement
The scope of a project is the clear identification of the work that is required to complete or deliver
a project successfully. One of the project manager’s responsibilities is to ensure that only the
needed work (the scope) will be performed and that each of the deliverables can be completed
in the allotted time and within budget. The documentation of the scope of the project will explain
the boundaries of the project, establish the responsibilities of each member of the team, and set
up procedures for how a work that is completed will be verified and approved. This
documentation may be referred to as the scope statement, the statement of work, or the terms
of reference.
Project Scope Management consists of three processes namely:
1. Planning: The process of getting an overview and defining the work that needs to be done
to achieve the deliverables is called Planning.
2. Controlling: The process of documenting, tracking, focusing on scope disruption and also
continually approving and disapproving the project changes through controlling and
monitoring process is called controlling.
3. Closing: The process that includes an examination of the project deliverables and an
assessment of the outcomes of the project against the original plan is the primary function
of Closing.
As projects are taken up to deliver a product, it is highly impossible to achieve the desired
objective of the project, if the project and product scope are not adequately explained. The two
most widely used terms in Project Management are Project Scope and Product Scope.
1. Product Scope: Product scope can be defined as the features or characteristics of a
product regardless of the design, function or parts, and the critical point is that product
scope refers to the actual tangible product that is finally produced.
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2. Project Scope: In contrast to product scope, project scope focuses on the various steps
taken to deliver a product. Project scope can include, things like assembly lines, budgets,
staff training, and supply chains and personnel allocations.
Steps Involved in Project Scope Management

As a project manager, you’ll need to define project scope no matter what methodology you
choose. Here’s one example of a systematic process to capture, define, and monitor scope.
1. Define Project Needs
Defining the needs of the project is the first step to establish a project timeline, allocate project
resources, and set project goals. Only with these defined steps, you will be able to understand
the work that needs to be done, meaning, the scope of the project needs to be defined. Once
that is done, team members can be allocated tasks and provided direction to deliver a project in
the given time and budget.
2. Understand the Project Objectives
To define the project scope, it is important first to establish the objectives of the project, which
may include a new product, creating a new service within the organization, or developing a new
piece of software. There are several objectives that could be central to a project; the project
manager ensures the team delivers results according to the specified features or functions.
3. Define the Project Scope
The resources and work that goes into the creation of a product or service are essentially what
defines the scope of the project. The scope generally outlines the goals that will be met to achieve
a satisfactory result.
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Six main processes that are listed under the Project Scope Management are as follows:
These six processes will be explained in detail in the upcoming articles under a specified topic.
For now, here’s a brief on each of the processes:
1. Plan scope management: The scope management plan describes the project scope and
documents how it will be further defined, validated, and controlled throughout the
lifecycle of the project.
2. Collect requirements: It is the process of defining and documenting stakeholders needs
to meet the project activities. The document for collecting requirements is developed in
the project planning phase.
3. Define scope: This is the process of developing a detailed description of the Project and
product. So while Collecting requirement list, all the different requirements of the Project
and the resulting product or service are defined.
4. Create Work Breakdown Structure: Creating work breakdown structure is done using a
technique called decomposition/breakdown. It is the process of subdividing project
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deliverables and project work into smaller and more manageable components for
achieving a better outcome.
5. Validate scope: A part of project monitoring and control process group in which the
process includes reviewing deliverables with the customer or sponsor to ensure that they
are completed satisfactorily and obtaining formal acceptance of deliverables by the
customer or sponsor.
6. Control scope: Control Scope is the last process group in the project scope management.
It is again a part of project monitoring and control process group. Control scope is the
process of monitoring the status of the project and product scope and managing changes
to the scope baseline.
How vital is Scope Management for Project Managers?
Communication is considered as the primary tool to adequately define the importance of scope
management, to both the stakeholders and team members. This process takes place to ensure
and agree as to how the project goals will be met.
The important features of scope management are that it helps in avoiding the challenges that a
project might face when provided with increasing scope and never-ending requirement list. As
the project is executed, the project scope filters out the essential and feasible aspects of the
project and controls all the aspects mentioned in the project scope. Additionally, the scope
management establishes control mechanism to address factors that may result in changes during
the project lifecycle. It is highly impossible to estimate the time and cost required for the project
without adequately defining the project scope. Due to lack of communication, the project scope
can change drastically, which will, in turn, affect the cost and causes variations in the schedule of
the project, causing losses. The implementation of scope management in a project is considered
essential and is never a difficult task; however, it requires effort, time, and patience. Only with
the help of scope management, a project manager can define, control and ensure that the project
deliverables are met, without any issues/risk occurring during the project lifecycle and that the
stakeholders are satisfied with the investments that they have made.
What is a Work Breakdown Structure?
Breaking work into smaller tasks is a common productivity technique used to make the work
more manageable and approachable. For projects, the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is the
tool that utilizes this technique and is one of the most important project management
documents. It singlehandedly integrates scope, cost and schedule baselines ensuring that project
plans are in alignment.
Usually, the project managers use this method for simplifying the project execution. In WBS,
much larger tasks are broken down to manageable chunks of work. These chunks can be easily
supervised and estimated.
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WBS is not restricted to a specific field when it comes to application. This methodology can be
used for any type of project management.
Following are a few reasons for creating a WBS in a project:
 Accurate and readable project organization.
 Accurate assignment of responsibilities to the project team.
 Indicates the project milestones and control points.
 Helps to estimate the cost, time and risk.
 Illustrate the project scope, so the stakeholders can have a better understanding of the
same.
approach. The main difference between the two approaches are the Elements identified in the
first Level of the WBS.
Deliverable-Based Work Breakdown Structure
A Deliverable-Based Work Breakdown Structure clearly demonstrates the relationship between
the project deliverables (i.e., products, services or results) and the scope (i.e., work to be
executed). Figure 1 is an example of a Deliverable-Based WBS for building a house. Figure 2 is an
example of a Phase-Based WBS for the same project.
In the above Figure, the Level 1 Elements are summary deliverable descriptions. The Level 2
Elements in each Leg of the WBS are all the unique deliverables required to create the respective
Level 1 deliverable.
Phase-Based Work Breakdown Structure
In Figure 2, a Phase-Based WBS, the Level 1 has five Elements. Each of these Elements are typical
phases of a project. The Level 2 Elements are the unique deliverables in each phase. Regardless
of the type of WBS, the lower Level Elements are all deliverables. Notice that Elements in
different Legs have the same name. A Phase-Based WBS requires work associated with multiple
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elements be divided into the work unique to each Level 1 Element. A WBS Dictionary is created
to describe the work in each Element.
A good WBS is simply one that makes the project more manageable. Every project is different;
every project manager is different and every WBS is different. So, the right WBS is the one that
best answers the question, “What structure makes the project more manageable?”
How to Make a Work Breakdown Structure?
A good Work Breakdown Structure is created using an iterative process by following these steps
and meeting these guidelines:
1. GATHER CRITICAL DOCUMENTS
a. Gather critical project documents.
b. Identify content containing project deliverables, such as the Project Charter,
Scope Statement and Project Management Plan (PMP) subsidiary plans.
2. IDENTIFY KEY TEAM MEMBERS
a. Identify the appropriate project team members.
b. Analyze the documents and identify the deliverables.
3. DEFINE LEVEL 1 ELEMENTS
a. Define the Level 1 Elements. Level 1 Elements are summary deliverable
descriptions that must capture 100% of the project scope.
b. Verify 100% of scope is captured. This requirement is commonly referred to as
the 100% Rule.
4. DECOMPOSE (BREAKDOWN) ELEMENTS
a. Begin the process of breaking the Level 1 deliverables into unique lower Level
deliverables. This “breaking down” technique is called Decomposition.
b. Continue breaking down the work until the work covered in each Element is
managed by a single individual or organization. Ensure that all Elements are
mutually exclusive.
c. Ask the question, would any additional decomposition make the project more
manageable? If the answer is “no”, the WBS is done.
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5. CREATE WBS DICTIONARY

a. Define the content of the WBS Dictionary. The WBS Dictionary is a narrative
description of the work covered in each Element in the WBS. The lowest Level
Elements in the WBS are called Work Packages.
b. Create the WBS Dictionary descriptions at the Work Package Level with detail
enough to ensure that 100% of the project scope is covered. The descriptions
should include information such as, boundaries, milestones, risks, owner, costs,
etc.
6. CREATE GANTT CHART SCHEDULE
a. Decompose the Work Packages to activities as appropriate.
b. Export or enter the Work Breakdown Structure into a Gantt chart for further
scheduling and project tracking.
Caution: It is possible to break the work down too much. How much is too much? Since cost and
schedule data collection, analysis and reporting are connected to the WBS, a very detailed WBS
could require a significant amount of unnecessary effort to manage.
WBS Diagram
In a WBS diagram, the project scope is graphically expressed. Usually the diagram starts with a
graphic object or a box at the top, which represents the entire project. Then, there are sub-
components under the box. These boxes represent the deliverables of the project. Under each
deliverable, there are sub-elements listed. These sub-elements are the activities that should be
performed in order to achieve the deliverables. Although most of the WBS diagrams are designed
based on the deliveries, some WBS are created based on the project phases. Usually, information
technology projects are perfectly fit into WBS model. Therefore, almost all information
technology projects make use of WBS. In addition to the general use of WBS, there is specific
objective for deriving a WBS as well. WBS is the input for Gantt charts, a tool that is used for
project management purpose. Gantt chart is used for tracking the progression of the tasks
derived by WBS.
Following is a sample WBS diagram:
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Conclusion
The efficiency of a work breakdown structure can determine the success of a project.
The WBS provides the foundation for all project management work, including, planning, cost and
effort estimation, resource allocation, and scheduling. Therefore, one should take creating WBS
as a critical step in the process of project management.
Project Roll up
Work Break Down Structure (WBS)
Having an effective and efficient project or workflow management system in place is important
for any company in the business for creating something new and useful. There are countless
steps, multiple team members and a potentially endless set of features at play. With so many
moving parts, it’s important to have a system in place that will ensure thorough completion
while optimizing efficiency and resources.
With any project, a proper scope needs to be created in order to keep it on time, on budget and
completed in full. An efficient way to create a project scope is through the process known as a
work breakdown structure, or WBS. A work breakdown structure takes a highly involved project,
activity or design and breaks it down into smaller manageable sections that can be easily
allocated and tracked to completion. It is performed before any cost and time estimation is fully
determined. In fact, the work breakdown structure is what determines the estimated time and
money required to complete the desired outcome. This is also what is known as the project
schedule.
What Is a Work Breakdown Structure?
A work breakdown structure is a scope management process that is entirely deliverable-oriented.
It is based on an order of tasks that must be completed to eventually arrive at the final product.
The work breakdown structure aims to keep all project members on task and clearly focused on
the purpose of the project. It accomplishes this through a clearly and concisely written statement
of work, followed by a dissection of the work required.
A work breakdown structure is created at the beginning of the project’s conception and
determines each deliverable and their respective timeline before any work begins. A WBS
approach helps further identify individual tasks among those deliverables, which can be
completed regardless of the completion of other tasks. This way your project avoids succumbing
to bottlenecks that occur when item B can’t happen until item A is done. If your team has done
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an effective tasks breakdown job, then the sum of these tasks is what eventually encompasses
the complete scope of work.
While some project managers or leaders are more detail-oriented, there are also some who are
more big-picture thinkers. The work breakdown structure approach helps cater to both of these
mindsets all the way along the project planning process and development phase. Because it is a
visual form of planning, it easily communicates the complete project with all assigned team
members. This is why project managers shouldn’t neglect the importance of a work breakdown
structure.
Work Breakdown Structure Elements
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The WBS hierarchical nature means that there are specific levels or components that must be
included to make the project easier to manage. Without each of these components addressed
and accounted for, it isn’t a true work breakdown structure; and has the following primary
components:
1. Statement of work or project vision;
2. Phases – dependent on the size of the project;
3. Deliverables that can be completed in full along the way;
4. Tasks that comprise each deliverable.
Depending on the organization, there may be different terminology used at each level. Phases
are sometimes referred to as entries or activities, and tasks may be referred to as subtasks or
work packages.
How to Create a Work Breakdown Structure?
There is a definite way to execute a work breakdown structure so it achieves its purpose and
functions properly. Organize the steps in the project scope by beginning with the project
statement or vision at the top of the hierarchy. You then work your way down through the main
deliverables of the project and outline unique tasks that will comprise those deliverables.
For example, a statement of work may be something like “Develop a company-wide widget that
tracks numbers of hours spent on X activity.” Then you determine which deliverables you need
to make this happen, such as an interactive calendar with input functions, a reporting tool, and
a warning system. In terms of resource allocation and team involvement, the WBS begins with
heavy group involvement at the top level(s) and finishes with assigning individual team members
to tasks at the lower level(s). In essence, the whole team should be involved in the planning
process, defining the vision and outlining the deliverables. However, individuals are responsible
for the actual execution of each task.
1. Describe the Statement of Work
The statement of work is a sentence or paragraph that describes the vision and function of the
project in its completed form. This portion of the WBS is the guiding big picture of the project
and is generally developed by the entire project team.
2. Determine Any Necessary Project Phases
After the statement of work is complete, the following tier of the hierarchy will be inputting each
of the phases. Depending on the nature of the project, it may be necessary to segment the scope
into multiple phases.
Sometimes there is only a single phase and other times there are two, three or even more phases.
This often depends on the time frame and budget, but can also depend on the project’s
requirements. Some projects just make more sense in phases, such as pre and post-production.
3. Develop the Deliverables of Each Phase
In the second or third tier of the hierarchy, outline each of the deliverables that must be
completed within each phase.
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Each phase should have an end result or deliverable that must be accomplished before moving
on to the next. The deliverable should also have its own statement describing its purpose or
function in the project’s outcome.
4. Segment Deliverables in Manageable Sections or Tasks

Once the deliverables have been stated, add another tier to the hierarchy that describes each of
the tasks required to complete each deliverable. This is a granular level where tasks breakdown
should be detailed. These tasks should be designed as work packages, or sections, that can be
easily managed by one team member or, in some cases, a small group of members.
5. Assign Each Manageable Section

6. Finally, the last section of the hierarchy is the assignment of each manageable section to
the appropriate team members. These members will be responsible for the tasks involved
in each section of work, ultimately leading to the corresponding deliverable. A time frame
is set for each section. Its progress is tracked by whether or not the deliverable has been
completed.
An additional step may include the circumstance when extra requested items are added to the
project scope after the project has started. The work breakdown structure can also be used
quickly and effectively in this scenario to create a simple set of described deliverables for the new
items without having to build a completely new work breakdown structure. It also allows
flexibility in adjusting the estimated time and costs of the project.
Benefits of Work Breakdown Structure
WBS is a widely used method of project planning and management. When we look at the
enormous number of benefits it provides, it’s easy to see why it has become such a popular
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planning tool, especially in software development. Here are some of the most important benefits
of the work breakdown structure in project management efficiency:
1. Allows for Creativity
Though software development is a very analytical area, it is also an opportunity to be extremely
creative. Because a work breakdown structure is used to define the project’s vision and plan its
development, this leaves team members with ample room to get creative in how the project will
unfold. Begin this creative process early on in the planning stages so it’s easier to consider all
ideas from the start.
2. Increases Communication
Whether the project is performed internally or directly for clients, a work breakdown structure
communicates everything from the get-go: vision, details, assigned team members. It also
maintains communication as the project goes along, which is essential in keeping everyone in the
loop and tasks on track.
3. Maintains the Vision at the Forefront
Often a project becomes so convoluted that it’s easy to forget what the purpose of it was in the
first place. A work breakdown structure that begins with a clear statement of work helps keep all
team members focused on the end-goal. It mitigates the chance that unnecessary work will be
performed because the scope has been clearly defined.
4. Organizes Details
In the same respect that the work breakdown structure is ideal for big-picture thinking, it’s also
exceptional at taking into account the details which will comprise the ultimate vision. As each
detail is meticulously accounted for, nothing gets lost as the project is executed.
5. Prevents Future Problems
Once the project is signed off or goes live, problems can occur whereby further requirements are
needed. This involves opening up the project or creating a new one to complete additional needs
that weren’t originally included. A work breakdown structure mitigates this from happening by
taking into consideration all the details of all tasks before execution. It also leaves room for
flexibility should new items arise.
6. Collects and Organizes Ideas
The work breakdown structure is ideal for brainstorming and coming up with ideas of what to
include in the project. Because it is such an involved planning process, it makes it easy to list all
the ideas and then scratches out the unnecessary ones as the plan becomes clearer and more
succinct.
7. Manages Risk
Risk is mitigated and managed from the beginning when using the work breakdown structure.
The WBS is performed before any work has begun in order to anticipate all requirements of the
project. This includes resource allocation like time, money and labor. The process of performing
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the work breakdown structure helps the team think about the areas of potential risk and account
for them in the planning phase.
8. Allocates Tasks
When a project is broken down into manageable tasks or packages, it becomes a lot easier to
assign these to the appropriate individual. This helps your team plan around other work that
needs to be completed outside of the project in question.
9. Keeps the Project on Budget
A properly performed work breakdown structure is the guide to project scheduling and
budgeting. Each manageable task will ideally have an associated cost, whether it’s in money or
time.
10. Keeps the Project on Schedule
As the project runs along, it becomes easy to identify which of the deliverables are falling behind
schedule. If items fall too far behind, it becomes obvious where shifts need to occur without it
affecting all other deliverables.
11. Collects Data
Once the project begins on the basis of a work breakdown structure, it’s easy to collect data on
the project’s progression. Is it on schedule? What outstanding tasks are there to be completed?
Did we follow the project’s budget? Reports can then be generated to assess the project’s
evolution. This maintains accountability internally and/or to the client.
12. Flexible for a Variety of Teams
The work breakdown structure approach has been proven to work in a number of different
environments. Whether it’s a small team or a large one, the WBS will always support project
execution. It’s also an excellent system for remote teams as it can be performed through a variety
of digital programs. The work breakdown structure is also a wonderful client-engagement tool.
It brings them into the team atmosphere and helps them better understand the planning process.
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Who Should Use a Work Breakdown Structure?

Traditionally, work breakdown structures have been used in residential, commercial and
industrial construction projects. This project management process is implemented as a means of
formulating the most accurate estimate possible. It also gives the customer or investor a better
idea of everything that goes into building the project in order to justify the estimate.
Since the rise in demand for software development across any number of organizations, work
breakdown structures have been applied to this industry and they’ve become incredibly useful.
Software development, like construction, is performed by taking a vision or idea and actually
creating it based on a list of requirements. This makes WBS an ideal process for software
development teams.
1. Creative and Technical Teams

The benefits of a work breakdown structure can be used by organizations of any shape and size.
Teams with creative members will benefit from the work breakdown structure because it gives
them an opportunity to brainstorm together. On the other hand, if your team is more technically
focused, then this process is also effective. Work breakdown structures help keep an analytical
perspective of not only the project’s scope of work, but also its progression.
2. Teams Dealing Directly with Clients
Of course, if you’re developing software for a client, then the work breakdown structure is an
important tool to use in ensuring their needs are met. It shows that your team is actively working
to meet all requirements in an appropriately estimated amount of time. It also helps build the
client’s confidence in your team.
3. Teams Working on Internal Projects
Conversely, work breakdown structures are great to use as an internal project management tool.
It helps pitch the project idea to upper levels of management. It also helps include all
departments and is an excellent communication tool for the project’s vision.
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4. Remote Teams
The reality of today’s world is that many team members live and work remotely. Specialized
software programs can easily help connect remote team members building a work breakdown
structure. As it is updated in real-time upon completion, remote team members should never be
out of the loop.
Tips for Creating an Effective Work Breakdown Structure
If your team has decided that this project management process is right for you, then you’ll want
it to be as effective as possible. When creating a work breakdown structure, keep in mind the
following rules and guidelines: 100 percent rule: The work breakdown structure lists 100 percent
of the work that is to be completed. It doesn’t leave anything out. It is what it is and you must
strive to think of everything before getting started as much as possible.
Mutually exclusive tasks: When building out tasks or work packages, remember that each task
is mutually exclusive, meaning it is its own section of work to be completed in full. In other words,
ideally one person independently performs the task.
Accept non-balanced projects: If different deliverables have a different number of tasks or
subtasks, this is acceptable. It isn’t important to have balance along with the lower level of the
hierarchy in terms of item numbers.
Think of it as a map: If you and your team always keep in mind that a work breakdown structure
is a map or flow chart of the project, it will help to ensure full consideration of all required tasks.
Use color-coding: For visual teams, use color-codes to determine the status of each deliverable.
Associate by color which items are late, at-risk, on-target and complete. This way your team can
produce a color map to help identify the areas that need improvement during project
development.
Ensure there is no duplication: At the lowest level of the work breakdown structure, individual
work packages or tasks should be unique. Double-check that there is no duplicated effort
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anywhere. Ensure that none of these tasks could have been placed under another deliverable
somewhere else.
Be flexible: As much as you think you’ve thought of everything, it’s sometimes not the case. Plan
for flexibility in time frames by padding them a bit more. This adds relief in case some tasks take
longer than anticipated. On the other hand, some tasks may take less time than budgeted. Being
flexible with time allows your plan to balance itself out a bit better.
Anticipate challenges: The ability to anticipate potential challenges is how all successful plans
unfold. You and your team must picture your plan’s execution in the future and work backward
to anticipate where things may go wrong. Remember, projects go wrong very often. Then, plan
for these in the scheduling and dividing of tasks.
Investing in the Planning Process
Creating a work breakdown structure is not a simple task. It requires a tremendous amount of
focus and attention. It can be painstaking and meticulous. However, it is a crucial procedure to
implement at the outset of any major, or even minor, software development project. The
ultimate goal of the work breakdown structure is to segment a complex project into smaller,
more manageable portions. Work breakdown structures do this by deconstructing each step of
the project and taking into consideration all tasks that will be required to achieve the desired
outcome. This system not only mitigates the risk, but it also provides a clear structure that
accurately estimates time and costs. It’s a procedure that gets the whole team involved and
leaves plenty of room for creativity.
Responsibility Assignment Matrix

A common problem in many projects is that team members have a wrong perception of their
roles and roles of others. Often enough, there is a difference between what a person thinks their
role is and what the organizer thinks they should be doing. As the process goes, this confusion is
likely to grow. With time, team members can drift away from what they were assigned to do
originally. This can lead to:
 conflicts over who’s ought to do the job;
 lack of people to handle crucial tasks
 unbalanced workloads for different team members;
 lack of action because of uncertainty and ineffective communication;
 creation of non-essential and unnecessary tasks to fill time;
 idleness and poor morale.
This is where RACI matrix comes handy. It’s a responsibility charting tool that specifies not only
who is responsible for a given task, but also the role of each person involved in it. By constructing
a RACI matrix, a project manager can make sure that the team members stick to the specific roles
he or she wants them to take. It helps avoid any kind of confusion about roles sometime down
the line for the project.
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Essentially, RACI matrix is a project management tool.

RACI stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed – the four roles assigned to
team members. The tasks are normally listed in the first column of the matrix and the team
members are listed in the top row of the table. Responsibility charting through creating a RACI
matrix brings clarity to what every team member has to do in the project. In addition to that, it
serves as a check on what should be done and who’s ought to be doing what in the future.
project, which can be broken into the following levels of accountability.
Responsible (R)
“Responsible” refers to the person who actually completes the task – aka “the doer.” There
always has to be at least one Responsible per each task. If you are missing an R in any of the rows
of the matrix – you have a gap that has to be filled immediately.
Accountable (A)
“Accountable” is the person who is ultimately answerable for the activity or decision to be made.
This is someone who has the final authority over the task – typically some kind of a manager or
senior offices. Typically, you should have the minimum number of people accountable for every
task. In most projects, there will be only one person listed as “accountable.”
Consulted (C)
“Consulted” is the adviser for the given task or entire project. Normally, this is the subject matter
expert whose opinion you seek before making the final decision or action. Keep in mind that you
should keep the number of C’s to the minimum for each row. Having too many consultants can
slow down the process significantly and add unnecessary deliberation and idle discussion. Too
many C’s can raise the risk of poor performance.
Informed (I)
“Informed” are the people you keep updated on how the process is going. These would be the
people who you will notify once the task is completed and who will take action as the result of
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the outcome. There can be as many “informed” as necessary per process. You usually have only
a one-way communication with these people.
Five Steps to Charting a RACI Matrix
Step 1: Identify the Work Process

The first thing to do when charting a RACI matrix is to identify the specific work process. In this
step, you want to focus on the high impact areas first. Improving performance in those area
brings more benefit for the whole business overall. You may also want to focus on the processes
that seem to underperform because of role confusion. If you feel that too many people do the
same task or there is a slack because team members interfere in the tasks that’s not theirs, this
could mean that this work process needs a responsibility chart. Chose a process that is not set to
change in the nearest future. Be sure to completely define the work process. A chart for a work
process should include between 10 and 25 tasks. Otherwise, it may be that your definition of the
process in question is either too narrow or too broad.
Step 2: Determine the Decisions and Tasks to Include in the Chart In this step, your goal is to
determine every task within the process that someone has to be responsible for. Avoid obvious,
generic sounding, or meaningless tasks – like “go to meetings” or “write reports.” The point of
RACI matrix is to see whether each important task has a “doer,” not give meaningless
assignments. In this step, it would be useful to consult the people directly involved in the process.
By conducting some sort of one-to-one interviews with the senior team member or simply
brainstorming with the team, you will have a better grasp of the whole process. This will ensure
that you don’t miss any important details. Also, when listing the activities, try to be as specific as
possible and use action-oriented language. This will help to keep the focus of the team members
in the future.
Step 3: Figure out Who Is Responsible for What?
Here, your job is to see who are the people assigned to each task. The list of people can include
those directly working on the project as well as people from other departments or outside the
company. It would be better if you do not list specific people, but rather specify which roles are
involved in the process. E.g., instead of putting “Ben” in your list of people, put “Project Sponsor.”
Specific people working on the process may change, so listing roles rather than people makes
your RACI matrix more adaptive. This way the chart will be still valid if new people fill the roles
tomorrow.
Step 4: Construct the RACI Matrix
As a general rule, you should start filling out the squares with “R’s” – Responsible – as these are
usually the people directly responsible for the output. Next, move on to the “A’s” – Accountable
– since these would be the people ultimately answerable for the process. The last step is to
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determine the “C’s” and the “I’s” – Consulted and Informed. These people would not have direct
responsibility for the project but are still related to it.
Step 5: Get Feedback and Revise
Once you complete the RACI matrix, distribute it among the team members that did not directly
participate in its creation and ask them for feedback. Capture their opinions and revise the chart
to see if there are any changes you have to add. This way you’ll make sure that you don’t miss
anything important and have all your team members on the same page about their
responsibilities. It’s crucial you discuss and agree on the final version of the matrix before you
begin working on the process. Before finalizing your chart, make sure to see if the assignments
are reasonable. Ask yourself the following questions:
 Does one role have too many responsibilities? Can they be assigned to someone else?
 Do you have the appropriate number of Consulted and Informed per task?
 Does every task have an Accountable and a Responsible?
 If you have some particularly complex tasks, is one Accountable enough for smooth
decision making?
Finally, remember that as you work on the process, you will have to constantly reevaluate and
update your RACI matrix. Some parts of the project may change with time, and you have to note
these changes in the chart.
UNIT III
Estimating Project Cost and Time:
Good cost estimation is essential for keeping a project under budget. Many costs can appear
over the life cycle of a project, and an accurate estimation method can be the difference between
a successful plan and a failed one. Estimation, however, is easier said than done. Projects bring
risks, and risks bring unexpected costs.
Cost estimation is the process that takes those factors into account, and calculates a budget that
meets the financial commitment necessary for a successful project. Project cost estimation
applies to everything from building a bridge to developing that new killer app. It all costs money,
so the clearer you are on the amount required, the more likely you’ll achieve your objective.
Past experience is a good starting point for developing time and cost estimates. But past
experience estimates must almost always be refined by other considerations to reach the 95
percent probability level. A typical statement in the field is the desire to “have a 95 percent
probability of meeting time and cost estimates.” Past experience is a good starting point for
developing time and cost estimates. But past experience estimates must almost always be
refined by other considerations to reach the 95 percent probability level.
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Factors affecting estimates

Factors related to the uniqueness of the project will have a strong influence on the accuracy of
estimates. Project, people, and external factors all need to be considered to improve quality of
estimates for project times and costs.
Planning Horizon
The quality of the estimate depends on the planning horizon; estimates of current events are
close to 100 percent accurate but are reduced for more distant events. The accuracy of time and
cost estimates should improve as you move from the conceptual phase to the point where
individual work packages are defined.
Project Duration
Time to implement new technology has a habit of expanding in an increasing, nonlinear fashion.
Sometimes poorly written scope specifications for new technology result in errors in estimating
times and costs. Long-duration projects increase the uncertainty in estimates.
People
The people factor can also introduce errors in estimating times and cost. For example, accuracy
of estimates depends on the skills of the people making the estimates. A close match of people
skills to the task will influence productivity and learning time. Similarly, whether members of the
project team have worked together before on similar projects will influence the time it takes to
coalesce into an effective team. Sometimes factors such as staff turnover can influence
estimates. It should be noted that adding new people to a project increases time spent
communicating. Typically, people have only five to six productive hours available for each
working day; the other hours are taken up with indirect work, such as meetings, paperwork,
answering e-mail.
Project Structure and Organization
Which project structure is chosen to manage the project will influence time and cost estimates.
One of the major advantages of a dedicated project team discussed earlier is the speed gained
from concentrated focus and localized project decision This speed comes at an additional cost of
tying up personnel full-time. Converse projects operating in a matrix environment may reduce
costs by more efficiently sharing personnel across projects but may take longer to complete since
attention is divided and coordination demands are higher.
Padding Estimates
In some cases, people are inclined to pad estimates.
For example, if you are asked how long it takes you to drive to the airport, you might give an
average time of 30 minutes, assuming a 50/50 chance of getting there in 30 minutes. If you are
asked the fastest you could possibly get there, you might reduce the driving time to 20 minutes.
Finally, if you are asked how long the drive would take if you absolutely had to be there to meet
with the president, it is likely you would increase the estimate to say 50 minutes to ensure not
being late. In work situations where you are asked for time and cost estimates, most of us are
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inclined to add a little padding to increase the probability and reduce the risk of being late. If
everyone at all levels of the project adds a little padding to reduce risk, the project duration and
cost are seriously overstated. This phenomenon causes some managers or owners to call for a
10—15 percent cut in time and/or cost for the project. Of course the next time the game is
played, the person estimating cost and/or time will pad the estimate to 20 percent or more.
Clearly such games defeat chances for realistic estimates, which is what is needed to be
competitive.
Organization Culture
Organization culture can significantly influence project estimates. In some organizations padding
estimates is tolerated and even privately encouraged. Other organizations place a premium on
accuracy and strongly discourage estimating gamesmanship. Organizations vary in the
importance they attach to estimates. The prevailing belief in some organizations is that detailed
estimating takes too much time and is not worth the effort or that it’s impossible to predict the
future. Other organizations subscribe to the belief that accurate estimates are the bedrock of
effective project management. Organization culture shapes every dimension of project
management; estimating is not immune to this influence.
Other Factors
Finally, non-project factors can impact time and cost estimates. For example, equipment down-
time can alter time estimates. National holidays, vacations, and legal limits can influence project
estimates. Project priority can influence resource assignment and impact time and cost.
Project estimating is a complex process. The quality of time and cost estimates can be improved
when these variables are considered in making the estimates.
Estimates of time and cost together allow the manager to develop a time-phased budget, which
is imperative for project control.
Estimating Guidelines for Times, Costs, and Resources
Managers recognize time, cost, and resource estimates must be accurate if project planning,
scheduling, and controlling are to be effective. However, there is substantial evidence suggesting
poor estimates are a major contributor to projects that have failed. Therefore, every effort should
be made to see that initial estimates are as accurate as possible since the choice of no estimates
leaves a great deal to luck and is not palatable to serious project managers. Even though a project
has never been done before, a manager can follow seven guidelines to develop useful work
package estimates.
Responsibility
At the work package level, estimates should be made by the person(s) most familiar with the
task. Draw on their expertise! Except for super-technical tasks, those responsible for getting the
job done on schedule and within budget are usually first-line supervisors or technicians who are
experienced and familiar with the type of work involved. These people will not have some
preconceived, imposed duration for a deliverable in mind. They will give an estimate based on
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experience and best judgment. A secondary benefit of using those responsible is the hope they
will “buy in” to seeing that the estimate materializes when they implement the work package. If
those involved are not consulted, it will be difficult to hold them responsible for failure to achieve
the estimated time. Finally, drawing on the expertise of team members who will be responsible
helps to build communication channels early.
Use several people to estimate
It is well-known that a cost or time estimate usually has a better chance of being reasonable and
realistic when several people with relevant experience and/or knowledge of the task are used.
True, people bring different biases based on their experience. But discussion of the individual
differences in their estimate leads to consensus and tends to eliminate extreme estimate errors.
This approach is similar to the Delphi estimating method, which can also be used.
Normal conditions
When task time, cost, and resource estimates are determined, they are based on certain
assumptions. Estimates should be based on normal conditions, efficient methods, and a normal
level of resources. Normal conditions are sometimes difficult to discern, but it is necessary to
have a consensus in the organization as to what normal conditions mean in this project. If the
normal workday is eight hours, the time estimate should be based on an eight-hour day.
Similarly, if the normal workday is two shifts, the time estimate should be based on a two-shift
workday. Any time estimate should reflect efficient methods for the resources normally
available. The time estimate should represent the normal level of resources (people or
equipment). For example, if three programmers are available for coding or two road graders are
available for road construction, time and cost estimates should be based on these normal levels
of resources unless it is anticipated the project will change what is currently viewed as “normal.”
In addition, possible conflicts in demand for resources on parallel or concurrent activities should
not be considered at this stage. The need for adding resources will be examined when resource
scheduling is discussed in a later chapter.
Time units
Specific time units to use should be selected early in the development phase of the project
network. All task time estimates need consistent tiny units. Estimates of time must consider
whether normal time is represented by calendar days, workdays, work weeks, person days, single
shift, hours, minutes, etc. In practice the use of workdays is the dominant choice for expressing
task duration. However, in projects such as a heart transplant operation, minutes probably would
be more appropriate as a time unit. One such project that used minutes as the time unit was the
movement of patients from an old hospital to an elegant new one across town. Since there were
several life-endangering moves, minutes were used to ensure patient safety so proper
emergency life-support systems would be available if needed. The point is, network analysis
requires a standard unit of time. When computer programs allow more than one option, some
notation should be made of any variance from the standard unit of time. If the standard unit of
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time is a five-day workweek and the estimated activity duration is in calendar days, it must be
converted to the normal workweek.
Independence
Estimators should treat each task as independent of other tasks that might be integrated by the
WBS (Work Breakdown Structure). Use of first-line managers usually results in considering tasks
independently; this is good. Top managers are prone to aggregate many tasks into one-time
estimate and then deductively make the individual task time estimates add to the total. If tasks
are in a chain and performed by the same group or department, it is best not to ask for all the
time estimates in the sequence, at once. This is to avoid the need for a planner or a supervisor to
look at the whole path and try to adjust individual task times in the sequence to meet an arbitrary
imposed schedule or some rough “guesstimate” of the total time for the whole path or segment
of the project. This tendency does not reflect the uncertainties of individual activities and
generally results in optimistic task time estimates. In summary, each task time estimate should
be considered independently of other activities.
Contingencies
Work package estimates should not include allowances for contingencies. The estimate should
assume normal or average conditions even though every work package will not materialize as
planned. For this reason, top management needs to create an extra fund for contingencies that
can be used to cover unforeseen events.
Adding risk assessment to the estimate helps to avoid surprises to stakeholders.
It is obvious some tasks carry more time and cost risks than others. For example, a new
technology usually carries more time and cost risks than a proven process. Simply identifying the
degree of risk lets stakeholders consider alternative methods and alter process decisions. A
simple breakdown by optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic for task time could provide valuable
information regarding time and cost. Where applicable, these guidelines will greatly help to avoid
many of the pitfalls found so often in practice.
Methods for Estimating Project Times and Costs

Estimating in Project Management
A project usually begins with an idea. For example, the management team at a high-street shoe
seller decides to lower production costs by building their own factory. How this will be
accomplished, how long it will take, and how much will it cost is unknown from the outset.
However, in order to make a decision about whether the project is worth implementing, these
questions need to be answered. The process of predicting the cost and time needed to deliver
project products is known as estimating. Reliable estimating is crucial for making informed
decisions, evaluating the viability of a project, understanding project resource requirements,
creating work schedules, and monitoring the project performance. When evaluating the viability
of a new factory, you will need to take into consideration the cost and availability of land, the
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cost and duration of the actual construction work, and any additional investments into logistics.
As estimates are created before the actual work is carried out, they are inevitably inaccurate.
Naturally, higher accuracy requires more effort and money being spent on the estimating itself,
so a trade-off between costs and accuracy must be reached. For a huge project like a new factory,
where the investment under consideration is significant, additional money paid to the team
evaluating the proposal is justified. Estimates for smaller projects may only take a few hours.
Macro Approaches for Estimating Project Times and Costs:
Top-Down Estimating Technique

Top-down estimating is carried out by senior management based on the general information
available about the project. The estimating process can also be supported by experience or input
from an expert. For example, when estimating the cost of constructing a factory, project
managers may rely on the historical information about how much competitors have paid for a
similar capacity shoe producing factory, rather than take into consideration the unique setting of
a particular project. While this is a quick and cost-efficient way of estimating, it ignores the
technical details of the project. Therefore, it can yield inaccurate results. Top-down estimating
techniques should be used in highly uncertain conditions: the scope of the project is not yet clear,
the team is making strategic decisions, or for small projects. The most popular methods for top-
down estimating include:
Consensus method - instead of assigning the estimating job to a single person, this method relies
on the experience of several senior managers to improve the accuracy of estimates. This typically
involves a meeting where experts discuss, argue, and ultimately reach a decision as to their best
guess estimate. It is important to recognize that these first, macro estimates are only a rough cut
and typically occur in the conceptual stage of the project. The top down estimates are helpful in
initial development of a complete plan. However, such estimates are sometimes significantly off
the mark because little detailed information is gathered. Be careful that macro estimates made
by senior managers are not dictated to lower level managers who might feel compelled to accept
the estimates even if they believe resources are inadequate.
Ratio method - this ratio relies on a fundamental project characteristic, such as size in square
meters or the number of features in the software, and the cost per meter or feature to estimate
the total project cost and duration. For example, contractors frequently use number of square
feet to estimate the cost and time to build a house; that is a house of 2700 square feet and dollars
per square foot (2700 X $110 per foot equals $297000). Likewise, knowing the square feet and
dollars per square foot, experience suggests it should take approximately 100 days to complete.
Apportion method - this method calculates the cost of individual tasks as a percentage of the
total project cost. This method is very common in projects that are relatively standard but have
some small variation or customization.
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Apportionment method is also known as analogous estimating, uses historical data of past
projects that are relatively standard to allocate duration and costs to various segments of the
current project. This is performed by assigning percentages of the total planned duration or costs
to each segment. It is commonly used in projects that are relatively standard with minimal
variation. The percentages are assigned with close reference to past projects' resources and costs
allocation. With good data integrity, estimates can be derived quickly with optimal accuracy.
Example: Assuming the total project costs of a standardized product is estimated using a top-
down approach to be $500,000, the costs of each top project deliverable are apportioned as a
percentage of the total project cost as follows:
Total Project Costs: $500,000
Design Cost: 25% = $125,000
Engineering Cost: 25% = $125,000
Test Cost: 20% = $100,000
Documentation Cost: 10% = $50,000
Produce Goods Cost: 20% = $100,000
Function points Methods for software and system Projects - similar to the ratio method, this
method relies on the project characteristics, but takes into consideration more than one
parameter and allows weighting each component differently. This estimate provides an
important basis for providing estimates of the resources required by software companies to
prepare tender proposals and project plans. One of the problems encountered in software
project development is that the project experiences delays in its completion due to errors in
estimating the complexity of the project undertaken and impacting the time and cost of the
project. Function point method can prevent or reduce the error of project cost plan. By using the
Function Point method, the complexity of software projects can be known so that the time and
cost of project work in accordance with the needs and the company can complete the project on
time.
Learning curves - useful for repeating tasks and projects, this method accounts for the fact that
each time an activity is repeated, it will take less time. The learning curve shows that if a task is
performed over and over than less time will be required at each iteration. Historically, it has been
reported that whenever there has been instanced of double production, the required labor time
has decreased by 10 or 15 percent or more. Learning curves are also known as experience curve,
cost curves, efficiency curves and productivity curves. These curves help demonstrate the cost
per unit of output decreases over time with the increase in experience of the workforce. Learning
curves and experience curves is extensively used by organization in production planning, cost
forecasting and setting delivery schedules.
Learning curve demonstrates that over a period time, there is an increase in productivity but with
diminishing rate as production increases. Therefore, if the rate of reduction is 20% than the
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learning curve is referred as 80% learning curve. Research has shown that as production
quantities double over a period of time, the average time decreases by 20% for immediate
production unit.
Micro Approaches for Estimating Project Times and Costs:
Bottom-up estimating Technique:

Bottom-up estimating is an extremely helpful technique in project management as it allows for
the ability to get a more refined estimate of a particular component of work. In bottom-up
estimating, each task is broken down into smaller components. Then, individual estimates are
developed to determine what specifically is needed to meet the requirements of each of these
smaller components of the work. The estimates for the smaller individual components are then
aggregated to develop a larger estimate for the entire task as a whole. In doing this, the estimate
for the task as a whole is typically far more accurate, as it allows for careful consideration of each
of the smaller parts of the task and then combining these carefully considered estimates rather
than merely making one large estimate which typically will not as thoroughly consider all of the
individual components of a task. In general, the smaller the scope, the greater the accuracy.
Template Methods
If the project is similar to past projects, the costs from past projects can be used as a starting
point for the new project. Differences in the new project can be noted and past times and costs
adjusted to reflect these differences.
For example, a ship repair dry-dock firm has a set of standard repair projects (i.e. templates for
overhaul, electrical, mechanical) that are used as starting points for estimating the cost and
duration of any new project. Differences from the appropriate standardized project are noted (for
times, costs, and resources) and changes made.
This approach enables the firm to develop a potential schedule, estimate costs, and develop a
budget in a very short time span. Development or such templates in a database can quickly
reduce estimate errors.
Parametric Procedures Applied to Specific Tasks
Just as parametric techniques such as cost per square foot can be the source of top-down
estimates. the same technique can be applied to specific tasks.
For example, as part of an MS Office conversion project, 36 different computer workstations
needed to be converted. Based on past conversion projects, the project manager determined that
on average one person could convert three workstations per day. Therefore, the task of converting
the 36 workstations would take three technicians four days. Similarly, to estimate the
wallpapering allowance on a house remodel. the contractor figured a cost of $5 per square yard
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of wallpaper and $2 per yard to install it for a total cost of $7. By measuring the length and height
of all the walls she was able to calculate the total area in square yards and multiply it by $7.
Detailed Estimates for the WBS Work Package:
Probably the most reliable method for estimating time and cost is to use the WBS and to ask the
people responsible for the work package to make the estimates.
Detailed estimating works best when work packages have significant uncertainty associated with
the time or cost to complete. If the work package is routine and carries little uncertainty, using a
person most familiar with the work package is usually the best approach. They know from
experience or know where to find the information to estimate work package durations and costs.
However, when work packages have significant uncertainty associated with the time or cost to
complete, it is a prudent policy to require three time estimates—low, average, and high
(borrowed off of PERT methodology that uses probability distributions). The low to high give a
range within which the average estimate will fall. Determining the low and high estimates for the
activity is influenced by factors such as complexity, technology, newness, familiarity.
How do you get the estimates?
Since detailed estimating works best for work packages that have significant uncertainty, having
a group determine the low, average, and high cost or duration gives best results. Group
estimating tends to refine extremes by bringing more evaluative judgments to the estimate and
potential risks. The judgment of others in a group helps to moderate extreme perceived risks
associated with a time or cost estimate. Involving others in making activity estimates gains buy
in and credibility to the estimate.
How do you use the estimate?

Group detail estimating gives the project manager and owner an opportunity to assess the
confidence associated with project times (and/or costs). The approach helps to reduce surprises
as the project progresses. The detailed estimating method also provides a basis for assessing risk,
managing resources, and determining the project contingency fund. Range estimating is popular
in software and new product projects where up-front requirements are fuzzy and not well known.
Group range estimating is often used with phase estimating, which is discussed next.
A Hybrid: Phase Estimating

This approach begins with a top-down estimate for the project and then refines estimates for
phases of the project as it is implemented. Some projects by their nature cannot be rigorously
defined because of the uncertainty of design or the final product. Although rare, such projects
do exist. These projects are often found in aerospace projects, IT projects, new technology
projects, and construction projects where design is incomplete. In these projects, phase or life-
cycle estimating is frequently used.
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Phase estimating is used when an unusual amount of uncertainty surrounds a project and it is
impractical to estimate times and costs for the entire project. Phase estimating uses a two-
estimate system over the life of the project. A detailed estimate is developed for the immediate
phase and a macro estimate is made for the remaining phases of the project.
For example, when the project need is determined, a macro estimate of the project cost and
duration is made so analysis and decisions can be made. Simultaneously a detailed estimate is
made for deriving project specifications and a macro estimate for the remainder of the project.
As the project progresses and specifications are solidified, a detailed estimate for design is made
and a macro estimate for the remainder of the project is computed. Clearly, as the project
progresses through its life cycle and more information is available, the reliability of the estimates
should be improving. Phase estimating is preferred by those working on projects where the final
product is not known and the uncertainty is very large—for example, the integration of wireless
phones and computers. The commitment to cost and schedule is only necessary over the next
phase of the project and commitment to unrealistic future schedules and costs based on poor
information is avoided.
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UNIT V
What is Project Risk Management?
Project risk management is the process that project managers use to manage potential risks that
may affect a project in any way, both positively and negatively. The goal is to minimize the impact
of these risks. A risk is any unexpected event that can affect people, technology, resources, or
processes (including projects). Unlike a regular problem that may arise, risks are incidents that
may occur suddenly, sometimes entirely unexpected. Project managers do not always know
which risks the project is exposed to, when they occur, and why. Due to this high degree of
uncertainty, project risk management requires a serious and in-depth approach. In short, the
Project Risk Management process consists of identifying risks, analyzing them, and subsequently
responding to any risks that may arise throughout the project life cycle. This is done to limit the
consequences of the risk as much as possible, so that objectives can be continued to be met.
Generally speaking, risk management is not a reactive activity. To find out which risks may arise,
risk management must be included in every planning process. Which risks are there that may
influence the project, and how can these risks be controlled?
What is a risk?
A risk is anything that may affect a project’s performance, budgets, or timeline when it
materializes. Risks are therefore possibilities; there is a possibility that a certain incident may
affect the project. In practice, risks are often associated with problems that need to be
addressed. Risk management is therefore the process of identifying, analyzing, and responding
to risks before they actually become problems.
Who conducts Project Risk Management?
Although Project Risk Management works the same for every project, it can take different forms.
Different types and sizes of projects require a different approach to risk management. In many
large-scale projects, a relatively large amount of attention is paid to comprehensive risk
management and mitigation strategies for when problems arise. For smaller projects, a simple
prioritized list of high, medium, and low priority risks is sufficient.
Risk management vs project management

Risks are inevitable in organizations, and virtually every other project is exposed to risks. The
project manager has the responsibility to ensure that the impact of risks is minimized.
Generally speaking, project risk management consists of the following steps.
 Risk identification
 Risk analysis
 Risk assessment
 Risk management
 Risk monitoring
The rest of this article will take a closer look at the various aspects of project risk management.
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Step 1: Risk identification

The first step in Project Risk Management is identification. When identifying risks, the assessor
may work in different ways. For example, they may look up information about similar projects in
the past. Various brainstorming techniques are also used to refresh team members’ knowledge
of past projects and risks, or to share new innovative mitigation strategies. There are different
types of risks, such as operational or business risks. Different risks are borne by different people.
The risks that often directly affect a project include:
 Financial risks (budgeting)
 Legal risks
 Supplier risks
 Physical risks to employee
 Strategic risks
Step 2: Risk Analysis
After various risks have been identified, it is important to evaluate them. Risk analysis is usually
done in a qualitative or quantitative way. Subsequently, risks are categorized based on two
criteria: the probability that the risk will actually occur, and the severity of its impact. Both criteria
are assigned a value, ranging from high, medium, to low.
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The risk is then assigned a category and processed in a matrix.
Qualitative Risk Analysis

Qualitative Risk Analysis is a subjective evaluation of the probability and impact of each risk.
Responses are subsequently devised for the various risks, or alternatively a risk is analyzed again,
but in a quantitative way. An advantage of the qualitative Risk Analysis method is that it is
relatively quick and easy to implement. It is also ideally suited for people who do not have skills
in calculating opportunities and statistics. A qualitative risk analysis also has drawbacks, however.
The results can be ambiguous or difficult to explain, for instance.
Quantitative Risk Analysis
Quantitative Risk Analysis is the numerical analysis of the probability and impact of identified
risks. The main focus is on which risks and activities contribute most to achieving the project
objectives. Quantitative Risk Analysis is less ambiguous and can be easily explained on the basis
of input: numbers. The probability and impact can be analytically combined in a correct way.
Contingency plans can be drawn up on the basis of the data resulting from quantitative risk
analysis. A disadvantage of quantitative risk analysis is that the development of models and
simulations is time-intensive and external expertise is often required.
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Step 3: Risk response

As soon as it is clear where the greatest risks come from and which is the most important to deal
with quickly, corrective measures must be taken. When it comes to risks within project
management, the project manager has four options for responding to a risk. These are explained
below.
Option 1: Avoiding the risk
Avoiding a risk means that the chance that the risk will occur is reduced to as close to zero as
possible. Usually risk avoidance involves making different decisions or making some adjustments
to the original project plan. Suppose a project manager is warned by someone about an increased
risk of bankruptcy with certain suppliers, he or she can then make the decision to choose another
supplier. This avoids the risk of the impact of bankrupt suppliers.
Option 2: Limiting the impact of the risk
Limiting a risk means reducing the impact of a risk incident. By mitigating risks, you ensure that
the impact of a risk is reduced. An example of this is a project risk in the test phase of, for
example, a product. By testing more and better, risks are not prevented, but every effort has
been made to limit the possible consequences of a negative event that may occur.
Option 3: Transferring the risk
Transferring a risk involves moving responsibility for dealing with the consequences of a risk to
someone else. A well-known example of this is taking out insurance. For example, a private
individual can take out luggage insurance so that he or she does not have to deal with any
financial consequences. The impact of the risk of something happening to the luggage is then
dealt with by the insurance company. The private individual receives compensation for the
damage suffered in the event that the risk of luggage theft or damage becomes reality.
Option 4: Accepting the risk
The final option for dealing with risks is to simply accept the impact an event can have once it
becomes reality. Accepting risks may be sensible if the chances of a risk are relatively low and the
costs of mitigating it are high. Accepting a risk is not the same as not making a decision or hiding
from a problem. In many ways, it is a risky response to a risk, but risks are always weighed and
factored in.
Step 4: Implementing a risk response
The fourth step is to implement responses to various risks. Each risk response is part of the
project management plan. A risk response may come in many forms:
 A budget allocated for a specific risk
 A task assigned to a specific person
 Development or implementation of a new process
In project risk management, it is important that a responsible person is assigned to each risk. It
is this person who supervises the risk and specifically works on controlling and managing a risk.
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This person communicates with all stakeholders about the status of the risk and the impact that
the risk may have and what the response looks like.
This risk manager collects as much information about the risk as possible. This approach should
be applied across the whole board of project management activities. Each risk response must
become a small sub-project, as it were.
Tips for risk responses
Consider the project objectives
In order to establish the optimal risk-response strategy, it is important that the main goals of the
project are considered. Trade-offs will probably be necessary because it is difficult to always have
time, quality, and costs go according to plan. Understanding the deep goals of a project will help
the project team plan the right response to the right risk.
Priorities risks
Giving priority to a certain risk is important because it ensures that certain resources are allocated
to a particular function or task. If it is a risk with a high probability of occurrence and high impact,
it goes without saying that sufficient resources must be deployed to minimize both the impact
and probability.
Involve stakeholders
The more collaboration and communication between project team members and other key
stakeholders, the faster and more effective potential risk identification and better risk response
planning.
Step 5: Monitoring the risk
As with all control processes and roadmaps in project manager and other business situations, it
is important that both measures taken and the current situation are monitored. This is important
to ensure that risk responses remain effective, fast, and efficient. The status of the risks and
expect impact and probability must be constantly monitored. There should be considerable
dynamism in this during the project life cycle. If the risks are too high at a certain moment, you
will have to act on them. At worst, risks endanger the feasibility of a project. All information that
may relate to a risk must therefore be assessed.
Effective Project Risk Management methods
It is important to identify the main risks so that the team can effectively prepare responses to
them. In other words, it is crucial to identify the most impactful risks. Various tools can be used
for this.
Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMAE)
FMAE can be used in identifying risks as a way to find cause-effect relationships of risks that may
impact a project. FMAE is also used to perform qualitative risk analysis. The advantage of FMAE
is that it adds the dimension of risk detection. For instance, how likely is a potential risk to be
detected? In this way, three parameters are kept for all risks: the probability that the risk will
become reality, the impact of the risk if it occurs, and the probability of detection of the risk.
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Risk Bow Tie diagram

The Risk Bow Tie diagram is a tool that visualizes the risk in an easy-to-understand way. The
diagram is in the form of a snare, and shows a clear division between proactive and reactive risk
management. The strength of the snare diagram is that it provides an overview of several
plausible scenarios in one image. This provides a simple and visual way of presenting risks.
Decision Analysis
Decision Analysis formally identifies and analyses important aspects of a particular risk. The
method follows a specific step-by-step plan to guide the project team through the risk decision-
making process. The RACI matrix (responsible, accountable, consulted, informed) helps to
identify and define the different roles in the decision-making process.
What is Contingency Plan in Project Management?

A contingency plan is essentially a “Plan B.” It’s a backup plan in place for when things go
differently than expected. In other words, a contingency plan in project management is a defined,
actionable plan that is to be enacted if an identified risk becomes a reality.
You’ve heard the phrase, “Always have a Plan B.”
Well, “Plan B” is just common vernacular for what’s known as a contingency plan. In other words,
a contingency plan is put in place in case the primary plan that you’re executing doesn’t unfold
as expected. Contingency plans are used by smart managers who are aware that there are always
risks that can sideline any project or business. Without having a contingency plan in place, the
chances of completing a project successfully will drop considerably, even if that project plan was
made with planning software. The use of contingency plans is widespread and applies to any
business venture. Governments, for example, use them to prepare for disaster recovery or
economic disruption. If you’re not working on a contingency plan when you’re planning any
enterprise, then you’re opening yourself up to unnecessary risk.
When to use a contingency plan

Contingency plans can only be created for identified risks, not unidentified or unknown risks.
Since, if you don’t know what your risk is, it’s impossible to plan for it. It should be noted that
contingency plans are not only put in place to anticipate when things go wrong. They can also be
created to take advantage of strategic opportunities. For example, you’ve identified that a new
training software should be released soon. If it occurs during your project, you may have a
contingency plan on how to incorporate it into the training phase of your project. The difference
between a contingency plan and a mitigation plan
A mitigation plan attempts to decrease the chances of a risk occurring, or decrease the impact of
the risk if it occurs. It is implemented in advance. A contingency plan explains the steps to take
after the identified risk occurs, in order to reduce its impact. Think of a contingency plan as the
last line of defense.
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How to prepare your contingency plan?

1. When preparing your contingency plan, consider these four guidelines: Identify what
specific event or events need to happen to trigger the implementation of the plan.
2. Cover the five bases in each step of your plan: who will be involved, what do they need
to do, when does it need to happen, where will the plan take place, and how will it be
executed.
3. Have clear guidelines for reporting and communication during the implementation of the
plan. How will internal and external stakeholders be notified? Who will draft and send the
notice, and how soon after the incident will it be released? How often will updates be
provided?
4. Monitor the plan on a regular basis to ensure it is up-to-date.
5. In addition, you should be aware of these four common challenges that Project Managers
face with contingency planning: Contingency planning is viewed as a low priority. Since
the plan may never be needed, there can be a tendency to put off the creation of it.
However, not having a properly planned out contingency can lead to project failure.
6. Team members may be overconfident or overly-invested in Plan A. Therefore, they may
not be motivated to create a detailed, actionable Plan B.
7. Lack of enterprise-wide plan awareness and buy-in can hinder implementation. Projects
do not happen in isolation. If all stakeholders in the organization are not aware of and
bought into the plan, there may be delays in enacting it.
8. Not spending enough time identifying all risks. If a risk has not been properly identified,
it’s impossible to prepare a viable contingency plan.
Contingency Plans and Risk Management in Project Management
In project management, contingency planning is often part of risk management. Any project
manager knows that a plan is only an outline. Sometimes the project will extend beyond those
lines. The more a manager can prepare for chance in their plan, the more effective it will be. But
risk management isn’t the same as contingency planning. Risk management is about identifying,
assessing, avoiding, mitigating, transferring, sharing and accepting risk; while a contingency plan
is about developing steps to take when an actual issue occurs. However, they do share the aspect
of what to do when the risk happens. So, a contingency plan is what to do if an unplanned event
occurs. It can be as simple as asking, “What if…?” and then outlining the steps to your plan as you
answer that question.
Key Steps in Contingency Planning
Project managers are adept at creating contingency plans, as the structure and actions are like
many of the processes already familiar to their profession. For instance, a contingency plan
breaks down tasks to get more detail and, in so doing, more control.
The following are the key steps in contingency planning:
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 Note where there are resources that can be used in an emergency. Also, note where in
your contingency plan these resources might be applied.
 Identify dates that if missed will negatively impact your plan, for example getting approval
from a group or committee that only meets every now and then.
 Know your contingency plan. Check for any weak links and strengthen them. Identify any
slack that you can find in it.
 See if you can find points in your plan where alternative routes can be taken, and think
through each one’s scenario to add flexibility to your plan.
 Use your experience to help you see patterns in your project’s ebb and flow of activity to
sharpen your plan.
What is resource scheduling, and why is it important?
Resource scheduling is a process used by teams to organize and structure their employees so the
tasks they need to complete are scheduled based on availability and capability. Using this
process, team leaders can allocate and assign people tasks without over (or under) allocating
their schedules. In return, team members are always working on an optimized schedule (without
being pushed to their limits), and project managers have greater flexibility should something go
awry.
What are resources? They’re everything you need for a project. That includes people, places and
things. In other words, resources are essential. Dealing with them and coordinating their use is
one of the main hurdles that project managers have to clear if they’re going to cross that project
finish line. Resources will plug into every phase of your project. They’re part of the planning,
scheduling and executing of the project. A sound methodology is required in order to have the
resources you need when you need them. You know where this is going. Yes, resource scheduling.
It’s hard to pinpoint the most important aspect of project management. Everything feels
essential. But there are definitely some pillars that hold up the project and carry more weight
than others. Resource scheduling is one. We have a few tips that will help you manage your
resources better.
Resource scheduling involves the scheduling of start and end dates for each task in the project
based on the resources needed and their availability. Balancing the availability of resources with
the work capacity of teams is how to keep a project on schedule. Resource scheduling gives
project managers a tool to set the duration for their team’s tasks. By allocating and scheduling
resources based on resource capacity, availability, effort and scope, projects can avoid under-
and over-allocation. This leads to not only getting projects done on time and within budget, but
it also builds morale, fosters better relationships, helps with profitability and boosts stakeholder
satisfaction.
Benefits of Resource Scheduling
With resource scheduling comes superior organization for projects, teams, sites, equipment and
any other resource associated with the project. All this sets the stage for an intelligent
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distribution of resources among your project tasks. That includes identifying resources for each
task, what their availability is and then matching those resources with capability. That is, who on
your team is best suited for executing the task. With this information, resource scheduling also
makes for better time estimates, as it provides one more metric by which to measure your
project schedule. It relies on reports and analysis of past project resource scheduling and other
similar projects for information. Planning also benefits from resource scheduling, which helps to
plan for the future by figuring out capacity and demand. The better you do this, the better your
team will feel when working on the project. That’s because smart capacity planning will prevent
over-allocation. They’ll trust project managers, which leads to greater employee retention and
productivity.
5 Tips for Great Resource Scheduling
If you’re looking to schedule resources properly, then you’ll want to follow these tips.
1. List Tasks
This is the obvious first step. You can’t have a thorough resource schedule if you’re not sure what
resources you’ll need. To know that, you must have an understanding of the tasks that are
necessary to complete the project, how long those tasks will likely take and what resources will
be needed. The more complete your list, the more accurate your resource schedule.
2. Be Aware of Constraints
The list is only the beginning, of course. There are other factors at play. These are the constraints,
such as the triple constraint of time, cost and scope. All of these forces are working on your
resources, so the better you can define how they’ll be impacting the tasks in the previous tip, the
tighter your resource schedule will be.
3. Know How Many Resources You Need
Again, going back to your task list, make a determination as to how many resources each task will
require. What type of resource is it? How many of each will be required to finish the task? This
figure can be numerical, as in the quantity needed, but it can also be expressed in time. You might
need the resource for an hour or weeks. This all should be noted.
4. Control Availability of Resources
You want to control the future availability of resources. To do this requires knowing how
much capacity you have. That is, for example, how much work your team can accomplish over a
specific timeframe. Do team members have time off scheduled over that period? Are there
holidays? The more data around the availability of your resources, the more you can manage the
schedule for your resources.
5. Assign Wisely
The final tip applies to assigning your resources after you’ve listed tasks, identified constraints,
know how many resources you’ll need and their availability. At this point, you have the
information necessary to build a resource schedule that can avoid costly bottlenecks. Therefore,
assign with care. Depending on your resources, demand and capacity, due dates might need to
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change or even be delayed. A resource schedule can work better than tea leaves in divining your
project’s future.
Reducing Project Duration
Every project consists of tasks and these in turn have a finite duration consisting of labor,
equipment and materials. When we look at ways to reduce the overall length of a project the
easy view is to throw more resources at it.
Project Delivery Options: When Resources Are Not Constrained
Adding Resources
The most common method for shortening project time is to assign additional staff and equipment
to activities. There are limits, however, as to how much project delivery speed can be gained by
adding staff. Doubling the size of the workforce will not necessarily reduce completion time by
half. The relationship would be correct only when tasks can be partitioned so minimal
communication is needed between workers, as in harvesting a crop by hand or repaving a
highway. Most projects are not set up that way; additional workers increase the communication
requirements to coordinate their efforts.
For example, doubling a team by adding two workers requires six times as much pairwise
intercommunication than is required in the original two-person team. Not only is more time
needed to coordinate and manage a larger team; there is the additional delay of training the new
people and getting them up to speed on the project. The key is whether the new staff is added
early so there is sufficient time to make up for lost ground once the new members have been
fully assimilated.
Outsourcing Project Work
A common method for shortening the project time is to subcontract an activity. The
subcontractor may have access to superior technology or expertise that will accelerate the
completion of the activity.
For example, contracting for a backhoe can accomplish in two hours what it can take a team of
laborers two days to do. Likewise, by hiring a consulting firm that specializes in ADSI
programming, a firm may be able to cut in half the time it would take for less experienced, internal
programmers to do the work.
Subcontracting also frees up resources that can be assigned to a critical activity and will ideally
result in a shorter project delivery duration.
Scheduling Overtime
The easiest way to add more labor to a project is not to add more people, but to schedule
overtime. If a team works 50 hours’ week instead of 40, it might accomplish 20 percent more. By
scheduling overtime, you avoid the additional costs of coordination and communication
encountered when new people are added. If people involved are salaried workers, there may be
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no real additional cost for the extra work. Another advantage is that there are fewer distractions
when people work outside normal hours.
Overtime has disadvantages. First, hourly workers are typically paid time and a half for overtime
and double time for weekends and holidays. Sustained overtime work by salaried employees may
incur intangible costs such as divorce, burnout and turnover. The latter is a key organizational
concern when there is a shortage of workers. Furthermore, it is an oversimplification to assume
that, over a tended period of time, a person is as productive during his or her eleventh hour at
work as during his or her third hour of work. There are natural limits to what is
humanly possible, and extended overtime may actually lead to an overall decline in productivity
when fatigue sets in. Overtime and working longer hours is the preferred choice for accelerating
project delivery, especially when the project team is salaried. The key is to use overtime
judiciously. Remember a project is a marathon not a sprint! You do not want to run out of energy
before the finish line.
Establish a Core Project Team
As discussed here, one of the advantages of creating a dedicated core team to complete a project
is project delivery speed. Assigning professionals full time to a project avoids the hidden cost of
multitasking in which people are forced to juggle the demands of multiple projects. Professionals
are allowed to devote their undivided attention to a specific project. This singular focus creates
a shared goal that can bind a diverse set of professionals into a highly cohesive team capable of
accelerating project delivery. Factors that contribute to the emergence of high performing
project teams are covered in detail in this article.
Do It Twice—Fast and Correctly
If you are in a hurry, try building a “quick and dirty” short-term solution, then go back and do it
the right way.
For example, the Rose Garden stadium in Portland, Oregon, was supposed to be completely
finished in time for the start of the 1995- 1996 National Basketball Association (NBA) season.
Delays made this impossible, so the construction crew set up temporary bleachers to
accommodate the opening-night crowd. The additional costs of doing it twice are often more
than compensated for by the benefits of satisfying the deadline. Project Delivery Options When
Resources Are Constrained A project manager has fewer options for accelerating project delivery
when additional resources are either not available or the budget is severely constrained. This is
especially true once the schedule has been established. Below are some of these options, which
are also available when resources are not constrained.
Fast- Tracking
Sometimes it is possible to rearrange the logic of the project network so that critical activities are
done in parallel (concurrently) rather than sequentially. This alternative is a good one if the
project situation is right. When this alternative is given serious attention, it is amazing to observe
how creative project team-members can be in finding ways to restructure sequential activities in
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parallel. One of the most common methods for restructuring activities is to change a finish-to-
start relationship to a start-to-start relationship.
For example, instead of waiting for the final design to be approved, manufacturing engineers can
begin building the production line as soon as key specifications have been established.
Changing activities from sequential to parallel usually requires closer coordination among those
responsible for the activities affected but can produce tremendous project delivery time savings.
Critical- Chain
Critical-chain project management (CCPM) is designed to accelerate project completion. The jury
is still out in terms of its applicability. Still CCPM principles appear sound and worthy of
experimentation if project delivery speed is essential.
At the same time, it would be difficult to apply CCPM midstream in a project. CCPM requires
considerable training and a shift in habits and perspectives that take time to adopt. Although
there have been reports of immediate gains, especially in terms of project delivery times, a long-
term management commitment is probably necessary to reap full benefits.
Reducing Project Scope
Probably the most common response for meeting unattainable project delivery deadlines is to
reduce or scale back the scope of the project. This invariably leads to a reduction in the
functionality of the project.
For example, the new car will average only 25 mpg instead of 30, or the software product will
have fewer features than originally planned. While scaling back the scope of the project can lead
to big savings in both time and money, it may come at a cost of reducing the value of the project.
If the car gets lower gas mileage, will it stand up to competitive models?
Will customers still want the software minus the features?
The key to reducing a project scope without reducing value is to reassess the true specifications
of the project. Often requirements are added under best-case, blue-sky scenarios and represent
desirables, but not essentials. Here it is important to talk to the customer and/or project sponsors
and explain the situation—you can get it your way but not until February.
This may force them to accept an extension or to add money to expedite the project. If not, then
a healthy discussion of what the essential requirements are and what items can be compromised
in order to meet the project delivery deadline needs to take place. More intense reexamination
of requirements may actually improve the value of the project by getting it done more quickly
and for a lower cost. Calculating the savings of reduced project scope begins with the work
breakdown structure. Reducing functionality means certain tasks, deliverables, or requirements
can be reduced or even eliminated. These tasks need to be found and the schedule adjusted.
Focus should be on changes in activities on the critical path.
Compromise Quality
Reducing quality is always an option, but it is rarely acceptable or used. If quality is sacrificed, it
may be possible to reduce the time of an activity on the critical path.
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Conclusion
In practice the methods most commonly used to speed up project delivery are scheduling
overtime, outsourcing, and adding resources. Each of these maintains the essence of the original
plan. Options that depart from the original project plan include do it twice and fast-tracking.
Rethinking of project scope, customer needs, and timing become major considerations for these
techniques.
UNIT VI
Project Team Management:
Team management is all about working with your team to help them collaborate and be more
productive. It also refers to the activities and tools that allow teams to work better together. That
means managing assignments, schedules, workload and more. To best manage teams, you need
to set clear objectives, help facilitate teamwork, have clear communications and oversee
performance, while adjusting workload as needed to get the most out of your resources. This
also means seeing issues and resolving them before they become problems that sidetrack the
project. Therefore, team management is a day-to-day activity when running a project. It touches
almost every phase and method of project management. For example, when you’re scheduling a
project and prioritizing tasks, what you’re doing is fundamental to team management.
Building high-performance project teams:

Workplaces are all about team management, collaborations, and the ways in which different
facets of project teams are managed for higher profitability and productivity metrics. A lot has
been discussed about the culture, client communication modes, organization, hierarchical
setups, problem solving skills, etc. of such teams. Today, high-performance work teams are what
all mangers are dreaming of creating for making project deadlines or securing success.
These high-performance teams go a long way in helping PMs attain all project goals, finding
solutions to complicated problems, and steering various project phases in the right direction. An
overall effective approach, the right foresight, and delegation of tasks to carefully researched-
upon people are a must for developing a highly functional team. Read on for how.
Preparation of a Cohesive Project Environment
Prior to building a high-performance project team with the available resources on hand, you
need to be completely aware of the team's purpose, overall company goals, and the ways in
which you will be assembling all group members. For instance, if your project involves high levels
of research, then you will benefit by having members boasting of diverse backgrounds in your
team. Teams required for forming advisory panels/committees, or product teams, will benefit by
having members that are likely to perform better as a cohesive team.
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Knowledge of the Mission Statement
For keeping everyone on the same page and helping project members remain totally focused on
gaining the desired results, you have to announce the project mission statement clearly. You may
also like to define all deliverables linked with the project scope as a short summary; so as to
facilitate the daily workings of your team. Regular meetings for discussing and defining the
group's mission, and problems that require group-centric solutions, are essential too. In other
words, each and every member should be aware of the "big picture" and perform with a single
common goal in mind.
Effective Leadership for Higher Motivation
Next, an effective leader, who has the potential of motivating and enhancing team performance
via the right communication channels, has to be identified for the workplace team. He should
succeed in keeping all members glued to their tasks and challenge them to offer their absolute
best. If required, you may include more team leaders for project-focused tasks like collating
specific reports weekly, conducting regular meetings with sub teams, tracking work schedules,
resolving conflicts, and so forth. For best results, these leaders should be reliable, co-operative,
helpful and knowledgeable. It’s a good idea to seek charismatic team leaders who are versed
with transformational styles of leadership and in a position to inspire all members.
Discussions about Ground Rules and Handling of Disagreements
It’s well-advised to solicit the suggestions of all group members while discussing the ground rules
applicable to the team. For instance, you may like to discuss communication and confidentiality,
and the ways in which all disagreements can be handled, with the group. The suggestions of all
team members must be considered wherever applicable. Remember to lay down practical rules,
and be open to changes too.
Setting of Team Goals
Benchmarks and goals that are realistic and measurable in nature are a must for achieving a high-
performance group's overall mission. They give concrete objectives to the team too. Think of all
the activities that your team must undertake for achieving its overall purpose, break them down
into small goals, and set individual deadlines for meeting them.
Assignment of Tasks and Accountability
All individual tasks have to be well-distributed among the team members for developing a
transparent system of accountability. In line with the type of tasks that needs to be performed,
one, two or more people members may be assigned to each sub-task. A proper accountability
system demands consistent reporting of complete and incomplete tasks alike. For instance,
periodic meetings may be held for checking each team member’s progress and ascertaining
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whether he/ she are on track or not. All possible support has to be offered to those who are
incapable of completing their task on time.
Managing Virtual Project Teams:

Virtual Team Management
As more virtual teams become common in organizations, managers are going to have to step up
to the challenges that are inherent in leading them. Building a corporate culture that supports
virtual teams is one thing, but a manager must consistently reinforce that culture while teams
work remotely.
To start, be clear in defining work. Virtual teams are like any other team, in that if they’re not set
to a standard, their work is going to vary considerably. Also, be clear and detailed about what
deliverables everyone is responsible for. Standardize your work system, but maintain enough
flexibility to give team members ownership.
Regular Communication Maintains Team Cohesion
Workers require communication, which is the thread that ties so much of what makes a virtual
team successful. But don’t rely on a single channel. There should be several ways to reach out to
the team and have them reach out to their manager. In some cases, email might be fine, but
more urgent matters may require a text, chat or even phone call.
Another means of communication that should be followed are meetings. Schedule regular virtual
meetings, from daily scrums to get an idea of what everyone is working on and if they need
anything from the manager, to conference calls to discuss larger strategic moves. This not only
keeps everyone on the same page and informed, but develops the bonds that hold teams
together.
Communication is important, but it can become a problem if people are constantly chatting.
Therefore, it is important to manage remote teams and information through the proper channels.
When important information is disseminated through the wrong channel, it can fall through the
cracks or be misconstrued. Important information needs to travel through the right channel.
Flexible Hours, or a Rigid Schedule?
Depending on your organization, virtual teams can work their own hours, or stay fixed to office
hours. Either way, it is helpful if there is some overlap when both the virtual and the on-site
teams are both on the clock, so that they can stay in real-time communication with one another.
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Conduct in Virtual Teams
Staying professional is essential, but of course, different organizations define professionalism in

unique ways. Some companies are fine with casual attire, while others expect a certain dress
code. Virtual teams will be directed on these particulars, but it’s important that each team
member has a dedicated space where they work, which they keep organized and free of
distractions.
A good manager will reward their team for a job well done, and this should apply to virtual teams
as well. It helps to stimulate your team and get them to work more productively.
Virtual Team Building
An important aspect of managing a virtual team is developing the bonds that hold a team
together, so they can work more productively. It can be hard to do that when you’re just
interacting online, but it can be done. The following suggestions are ways to get virtual teams to
connect. A great way to cultivate connection is by getting to know a person beyond what they do
on the team. One way to do this is by having a virtual meeting, in which each team member
shares a list of 10 interesting things about themselves. It can be music they love, a funny story,
where they’re from—or anything, really. This mosaic of trivia will develop into a nuanced portrait
of the person.
Have a virtual coffee break. Make time, regularly, during work hours to have the team get
together for no other purpose other than to blow off steam and have a drink. This is important
at the beginning of a project to help everyone get to know each other, but it can and should
become a routine check-in. For teams to become truly cohesive, they need to know each other
on a personal level. Work isn’t a subject for these meetups. It’s just a time to relax and share.
Play online games together. There are many online games—some competitive, some
cooperative. It doesn’t matter which you choose, as long as the entire team participates. You
could have one team member a week choose the game, to make sure everyone has a chance to
play what they like. Games are like fun projects, and they’ll help teams work better together.
Virtual Team Management Tools
Communication Tools
There are many chat apps, such as Slack and Skype, that provide both one-on-one and group
channels where teams can collaborate, and even participate in video calls. They are an important
virtual team management tool that holds the team together.
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Document Management
Microsoft 365 or G Suite from Google are decent collaborative tools that provide documents,
spreadsheets and presentation tools that can all be shared and worked on together. But these
tools are not necessarily management tools. For that, you’ll need to invest in a project
management software.
The Project Control Process

The Project Managers Institute (PMI) lists the project control process as part of the monitor and
control process group. This group of work consists of the processes required to track and monitor
the progress and performance of a project and identify any areas that require changes. Project
control is a continuous process that requires the project manager to observe, gather information,
and make changes to the project as necessary. The process of monitoring and controlling the
project can be thought of as a feedback cycle.
What Is the Project Control Process?
The project control process compares actual performance versus the planned performance of
the project. A project manager uses a formula to determine if the work that has actually been
completed matches what was originally planned for completion at any given time. For example,
a project planned to have 50% of the work completed and budgeted to spend $100,000 by the
6-month mark. A project manager can calculate the actual amount of work completed and
budget spent versus what was planned. If the two figures are not equal, corrective action may be
required.
The project control process will also identify and track new risks and issues. Tracking risks and
issues is important because either one, if not controlled, can quickly cause the project to
overspend or fall behind schedule.
Project status reports are another method used to determine if a project is under control. A
project manager will meet with the project team regularly to gather status report information
from each work group involved in the project. Status reports are another method a project
manager can use to identify when the project may be experiencing issues that require corrective
action.
Project Control Tools
There are several different project control tools, which include expert judgment, analytical tools,
and meetings.
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Expert Judgment
The project manager will use their past experience, or expert judgment to influence decisions on
the current project. Often, the project manager will use the entire project management team to
help make decisions for the project.
Analytical Tools
There are many analytical techniques the project manager can use to identify the potential for
variations in a project's performance. Regression analysis, causal analysis, and earned value
management are just some of the analytic tools a project manager uses to track a project's
performance.
Meetings
Meetings can be face to face, virtual, formal, or informal, and can include project team members,
executives, and stakeholders. Meetings are useful to the project control process because they
create a method for project stakeholders to discuss issues and concerns.
Areas for Project Control
1. Time Control: Time control can be of two types:
o Normal Time Control: It is the estimated time for completion of an activity.

Increase beyond this time is not likely to result in cost reduction.
o Crash Time Control: It is the estimated time of completion of an activity which

cannot be reduced further irrespective of cost considerations.
o Every project has an optimal time schedule which is effectively controlled to check
overruns. Time delays result in cost overruns.
2. Cost Control: It involves the following:
o Setting up standard costing and budgetary control systems for the project. Project
accounts capture costs as they are committed.
o Allocating responsibilities for cost control at task level.
o Ensuring proper allocation of costs to project codes; ensuring that costs are
properly authorized.
o Measuring actual costs and comparing them with standard costs to prepare cost
reports.
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o Identifying deviations to take corrective actions to control cost overruns and

maintain financial discipline.
o Value engineering can be used for Cost Reduction.
Performance measurement and evaluation

Project performance measurement isn’t just on-time and on-budget. Here are 7 ways for how to
measure project performance meaningfully.
When we think about project performance measurement, it’s not really the same as measuring
the performance of a team or a business process or an organization’s strategy. So we need to
think a little differently about the kinds of measures that will tell us what we really need to know
to manage project performance.
When we measure the performance of the business process or team, we’re interested in how a
particular business result produced by that process or team is changing as time goes by. When
we’re measuring the performance of a project we are interested in the impact the project has at
a point in time, or over a fixed timeframe.
This is because projects by their very definition have a start point and an end point. The reason
we do projects is to make a difference and usually the difference we’re trying to make is to make
some kind of result, especially in business, better. Thus, our first project performance measure
is…
Project KPI #1: Direct Impact
So the size of this impact on a business performance measure is a measure of a project’s success.
It’s the size of the difference between the level of performance before the project’s start time,
and the level after the project’s end time. You can easily measure the direct impact of a project
with an XmR chart of the business performance measure the project aims to improve.
Project KPI #2 & #3: Bottom Line Impact & ROI
A project won’t be successful if the cost of doing it was not sufficiently lower than the value of
the impact. So we need two other important measures about financial impact, like costs saved
or income generated, and ROI, which is the cost of the project relative to the financial impact.
Project KPI #4 & #5: On-time & On-budget
Measures can also help us manage the project while we’re implementing it. A well-managed
project is more likely to have a big impact and big ROI.
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This is where the most commonly used measures of project performance come in: on-time and
on-budget. And these are measured at regular milestones throughout the project. But they only
make sense if we don’t change the goal posts.
Project KPI #6 & #7: Stakeholder Support & Engagement
Support for our project might also be important. Stakeholder perception of value can be
measured to monitor this, in part. But a more direct measure of support is the amount of
stakeholder participation in project tasks and events.
Your Project Performance Measure Checklist
So we now have a basic framework of the project performance results that are worth measuring:
1. ROI
2. Business financial impact
3. Business performance measure impact
4. Milestones completed on-time
5. Milestones completed on-budget
6. Stakeholder perception of value
7. Stakeholder participation
With these seven result areas for project performance, the next step is to decide how to choose
the tailored performance measures to monitor them. There is no one right answer to this,
because each project is different. But there is a step-by-step measure development process to
help you design the quantitative measures right for your project.
Project Quality:
Project quality management is the process through which quality is managed and maintained
throughout a project. While the context may imply that “quality” means “perfection,” in this case,
is usually more about ensuring quality consistency throughout a project. However, what is exactly
meant by “quality” is beholden to what the customer or stakeholder needs from the project, and
therefore can be different on a per-project basis.
Modern quality management and project management are complementary. They both
emphasize customer satisfaction and the underlying belief that quality leads to customer
satisfaction. The main objective in project quality management is making sure that the project
meets the needs it was originally created to meet—nothing more, nothing less.
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In other words, to ensure quality, you must meet the needs of the stakeholder. Meeting or
exceeding requirements, however, is not part of project quality management. According to A
Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), quality is “the degree to
which a set of inherent characteristics fulfill requirements.” The project manager and project
management team have a special responsibility to balance quality and grade (a category or rank
assigned to products or services having the same functional use but different technical
characteristics).
This responsibility ensures quality expectations are met. This means that it might be possible and
reasonable to have a quality, low-grade product, but it is never acceptable to have a low-quality
product. At the beginning of the project, requirements are determined with the stakeholders.
These requirements become the foundation for the work of the project. After that, the project
manager’s job is to ensure that the work is done with no extras included. Quality is not about
giving the customer extras or completing extra work. The notion of extras is often based on
possibly erroneous perceptions of what you believe the customer wants. These extras add time,
possible costs and other impacts to a project but do not always result in increased customer
satisfaction.
What are the different phases in project quality management?
Project quality management consists of three major processes:
1. Quality management planning: This involves identifying the quality requirements and
standards for the project and product. The goal of the project quality management should
be clearly shared with all stakeholders, and appropriate tasks should be delegated to
those responsible.
2. Quality assurance: This involves auditing the quality requirements and quality control
results to ensure appropriate quality standards are used. When standards are not met or
goals aren’t achieved, necessary steps and corrective actions should be employed to fix
these issues.
3. Quality control: This involves monitoring and recording the results of quality activities to
assess performance and recommend necessary changes.
What is the definition of “quality” in “project quality management”?
The definition of quality is central to understanding these three processes. To be able to define
quality, you need to be clear about the meaning of the following terms:
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 Validation: assurance that the product meets the agreed-upon needs
 Verification: compliance with requirements
 Precision: repeatable measures in a tight grouping
 Accuracy: closeness of a measure to the true value
 Tolerance: range of acceptable results
What should a good project quality management plan entail?
The quality management planning process determines the quality standards that are applicable
to the project and devising a way to satisfy them. The goal is to create a quality management
plan which documents the following:
 The way the team will implement the quality policy
 The way the quality of both the project and the product will be assured during the project
 The resources required to ensure quality
 The additional activities necessary to carry out the quality plan
Identifying these items might require updates to the project management plan or schedule,
which emphasizes the evolving nature of the plan and project documents. The plan, like other
components created during the planning phase, is written by the project manager with input
from stakeholders. When planning for quality on a project follow the corporate quality policies
that are in place. If a corporate quality policy does not exist, the project team should create one
for the project. The project team might even need to adapt an existing policy to better suit the
nature of the project
Definition - What does Project Planning mean?

Project planning is a procedural step in project management, where required documentation is
created to ensure successful project completion. Documentation includes all actions required to
define, prepare, integrate and coordinate additional plans. The project plan clearly defines how
the project is executed, monitored, controlled and closed.
Project planning requires an in-depth analysis and structuring of the following activities:
 Setting project goals

 Identifying project deliverables
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 Creating project schedules

 Creating supporting plans
Quality Audit
Quality audits are a necessary part of a project life cycle and need to be a pre-planned part of
project management processes. Quality audits will be conducted internally and externally by a
qualified auditing manager and/or an audit team.
Quality auditors champion quality and compliance while pioneering continuous improvement.
They work with a project management team to ensure a robust quality management system and
meet any quality system standards, such as ISO 9001. Therefore, the standards can be self-
determined as well as set by an industry.
What are ISO 9000 and ISO 14000?
The International Organization of Standardization (ISO) is a worldwide federation consisting of

member bodies from 91 countries, which promotes the development of international
manufacturing, trade and communication standards.
ISO 9000 refers to a generic series of standards published by the ISO that provide quality
assurance requirements and quality management guidance. ISO 9000 is a quality system
standard, not a technical product standard. The ISO 9000 series currently contains four standards
- ISO 9001, ISO 9002, ISO 9003 and ISO 9004. Firms select the standard that is most relevant to
their business activities. However, these four standards will be revised in late 2000. More
information is provided later in this paper under ISO 9000:2000.
ISO 14000 refers to a series of standards on environmental management tools and systems. ISO
14000 deals with a company's system for managing its day-to-day operations and how they
impact the environment. The Environmental Management System and Environmental Auditing
address a wide range of issues to include the following:
 Top management commitment to continuous improvement, compliance, and pollution

prevention.
 Creating and implementing environmental policies, including setting and meeting
appropriate targets.
 Integrating environmental considerations in operating procedures.
 Training employees in regard to their environmental obligations.
 Conducting audits of the environmental management system.
ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 are tools to assist business and government to insure the quality of their
products and services, and to manage the impact of their activities on the environment. Like all
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ISO standards, their use is voluntary unless a business sector makes them a market requirement
or a government issues regulations making their use obligatory. Organizations that implement
ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 voluntarily do so to improve operations and provide real benefits.
Four key elements of a project management quality audit:
1. They are structured and planned
2. Completely independent
3. Involve vigorous process
4. Present documented conclusions
A well-led quality audit will independently determine if a project activity complies with the
policies, procedures, and processes of the organization or project. A quality audit is a
documented assessment that will reveal a level of conformance or non-conformance to
requirements of a system, process or product.
Projects may require more than one type of quality audit.
The types of quality audits will depend on the industry where the project is being conducted.
Construction and building projects will require a different audit schedule to software
development projects. Therefore, the actual audit schedule should be planned in advance as part
of the project management scope. Examples of quality audits are:
 Prequalification/pre-selection audits
 Third-party audits for certification purposes
 General internal project audits
 Specific internal audits from a parent company or joint venture company
 Project Manager audits requested by the client
 Work-Audits which may involve an on-site quality tour/walk
 Unplanned audits in reaction to a request or incident
Quality auditing will uncover both the good and the shortcomings of a project
Project managers will receive vital information about:
 The good and best practices being implemented in the organization or project
 The non-conformities, shortcoming, and gaps in the project
 The good practices found within the organization and project
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 Recommendations to improve the implementation of different processes to raise the

productivity of the team
Quality audits are aimed at correcting any deficiencies in the project that may result in the
reduction of the cost of quality.
Practically speaking, a quality audit will ensure:
 Deliverables are fit for use and meet safety standards
 Adherence to applicable laws and standards
 Corrective action is recommended and implemented where necessary
 The Quality Plan is followed correctly from the beginning
 Quality improvements are identified sooner
 Implementation of approved changes occurs in the right way
Why project managers need to encourage quality audits
The way quality audits are planned and approached will affect the entire project life-cycle.
Successful audit planning will result in:
 Pre-defined standards that will impact the way the project is planned
 Quality requirements for specific work packages and deliverables are identified in
advance
 Procedures being followed at all stages
 Identifying which Quality Methods must be defined and followed
 Completed work and deliverables reviewed for compliance
Quality audits in project management should be an underlying framework and provide a set of
rules to apply to the project’s Quality Management processes.
Project Closure:
So much time and effort is put into the planning of a project, it is often forgotten that the end of
a project is equally important. There’s a lot of work involved even once a project is technically
complete.
For example, there are many tasks that you still must complete. They might be procedural, but
that doesn’t make them any less important. There are approvals, signatures, payments, all of
which might seem like pushing paperwork to you, but tell that to the team member waiting to
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get paid. Not to mention, when you are ending one project, you’re likely beginning another.
Therefore, you want to get transition support for this changeover. You’ll have to release
resources, archive documents and don’t forget to acknowledge the project success with a party
or some type of celebration. That’s important, too.
The close of the project is the final phase of your job, it’s the last turn of the project life cycle,
and like any other aspect of a project, it requires a process. The following are five steps you
should take to make sure you’ve dotted all the I’s and crossed all the T’s, as well as taken full
advantage of the experience.
1. Arrange a Post Mortem
Managing a project isn’t only about tasks and resources, budget and deadlines, it’s an experience
you can constantly learn from. While you should have been learning throughout the project, now
is a great time to look back without the pressure and distractions that might have dulled yor(ow )] TJETQq0.00
82
4. Archive Documents
There are lessons to be learned from old projects, which is why you meet with your team
regularly during the project and look back on the process afterwards. However, if you don’t have
an archive in which to pull the old records, then whatever knowledge you gain is lost because of
poor organization and management. You worked hard to have great project documentation,
don’t lose it.
Before you close a project, archive all the documents and any notes and data that could prove
83

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PROJECT MANAGEMENT 3RD SEMESTER

Definition of Project Management

Project management lowers risk and improves opportunities for achievement.

Generally, there are four key elements in the “triple constraint”:

12. Time management

Similarities Between Projects and Programs

Evolution of Integrated Project Management System

Mid-20th Century Efforts

What is Integrated Project Management?

1. Improves Scope Definition

Remember: change happens.

Build a Decision Making Framework

Benefits of Aligning Project Management and Strategies

Project Life Cycle

Characteristics of the Project Life Cycle

9 Project Management Challenges and How to Overcome Them

1. Lack of clear goals and success criteria

How to deal with it:

How to deal with it:

How to deal with it:

4. Inadequate skills of team members

How to deal with it:

How to deal with it:

How to deal with it:

7. Inadequate risk management

How to deal with it:

How to deal with it:

9. The limited engagement of stakeholders

How to deal with it:

The right tools to tackle project management challenges

Importance of Project Management

Below are some key benefits of conducting a feasibility study:

 Improves project teams’ focus

Different forms of Project Contracting

Let' have a look at most widely used contract types.

Fixed Price (Lump Sum)

Percentage of Construction Fee

What Is Project Scope Management and Why It's Important?

Steps Involved in Project Scope Management

What is a Work Breakdown Structure?

5. CREATE WBS DICTIONARY

Work Break Down Structure (WBS)

4. Segment Deliverables in Manageable Sections or Tasks

5. Assign Each Manageable Section

Benefits of Work Breakdown Structure

Who Should Use a Work Breakdown Structure?

1. Creative and Technical Teams

Responsibility Assignment Matrix

Essentially, RACI matrix is a project management tool.

Five Steps to Charting a RACI Matrix

Step 1: Identify the Work Process

Factors affecting estimates

Methods for Estimating Project Times and Costs

Macro Approaches for Estimating Project Times and Costs:

Top-Down Estimating Technique

Micro Approaches for Estimating Project Times and Costs:

Bottom-up estimating Technique:

How do you use the estimate?

A Hybrid: Phase Estimating

Risk management vs project management