...1a The definition of project. Project is temporary endeavor with a defined beginning and end, undertaken to meet the unique goals and objectives, usually to bring beneficial change or added value. It is a complex, non-routine, start date, specific objectives and conditions, clarify responsibilities, budget planning, a fixed end date, and participatory activities. The project's main goal is to meet customer needs, and carefully planned in order to achieve a specific purpose. To defining a project, its describes a discipline, structured method for selectively collecting information to use through all phases of the project life cycle, to meet the needs of all stakeholders, and to measure performance against the strategic plan of the organization. There are five generic steps for developing a project plan: Defining the Project Scope Project scope is a definition of the end results of a project, mainly is to define as clearly as possible. Project Scope describes what is the expectations to delivered when the project complete, it should define the results to be achieved in specific, tangible and measurable terms. To ensure that scope definition is complete, there is a checklist: Project objective The first step of project scope definition is to define the overall objective to meet the needs. Deliverables The next step is to define major deliverables. Milestones A milestone is a significant event in a project that occurs at a point in time. It should be natural...
Words: 3655 - Pages: 15
...Course: Date: Opening Cooking Classes Project Synopsis A project is a mutual enterprise that involves research and design. A Project is particularly planned in order to achieve the purpose it is aimed. A project can be termed as a series of activities aimed at addressing a particular issue or task. Bernes & Noble (2) state that a project is temporary because it has a start and end time; hence, has a defined scope and resource. A project has a set of objectives, which involves the accomplishment of a specific goal. This project is focused on taking cookery classes for interested people. Project management revolves around the application of facts, skills and techniques to execute a project effectively and efficiently. It outlines the path to undertake in the introduction of a desired change (Bernes & Noble 5). In this project, the path is to impart cookery knowledge to interested students. This is undertaken to create a unique service of imparting cookery knowledge. Project management involves the undertaking of projects in a number of stages, which entail the project lifecycle. The project at hand is a cooking project. The project aims at starting classes to teach cooking to interested people. The project follows certain stages that include project initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and evaluation and project closure. Discussion Project Initiation Project initiation involves exploring the ideas of a project and elaborating them. It is also known as...
Words: 2665 - Pages: 11
...Task 1 The differences in project management success rates may be a result of the fact that some organizations do a better job of training their project managers. So they may be more skilled and knowledgeable in the project management discipline. But the way your organization deals with training is just one aspect of your overall organizational culture. A number of big-picture factors influence your ability to deliver projects successfully. Let's look at two of them: culture and structure. Culture has a huge effect on your success rate Your organization's culture has a lot to do with the success rate of your projects. Keep in mind that I'm talking about projects all throughout your organization, not just about one particular project. The term culture generally means “how we do things around here.” Imagine that someone asks you how successfully your organization delivers projects. If you say, “We’re pretty poor at delivering projects,” you’re voicing a perception of one aspect of your culture. Culture comes into play on projects in a number of areas. Process orientation Many organizations have good processes in place and people generally follow them. This is perhaps the biggest single factor in overall project success. If your organization follows a good, scalable project management process, you’re more likely to be consistently successful on your projects. The entire project team generally knows how to create and follow a work plan, and can use standard processes...
Words: 1760 - Pages: 8
...Information Technology Projects What is the current state of IT projects? What are key factors for successful IT projects? Hint: Refer to the summary of CHAO study IT Projects are showing higher success rates. Better project management tools & processes, smaller projects, improved communication among stakeholders, more skillful IT project managers What are four different approaches to improving the likelihood of success of IT projects? Hint: Understand the major characteristics of each approach. 1. Value-Driven Approach; Plain & Simple: IT Projects must provide value to the organization 2. Socio-technical Approach; It’s not just about the technology or building a better mouse trap 3. Project Management Approach; processes and infrastructure (Methodology), resources, expectations, competition, efficiency and effectiveness 4. Knowledge Management Approach, lessons learned, best practices & shared knowledge What is a project? And its attributes? Project: a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. Attributes: Time Frame, Purpose (to provide value!), Ownership, Resources (the triple constraint), Roles (Project Manager, Project Sponsor, SME (domain & technical)), Risk & Assumptions, Interdependent Tasks (progressive elaboration – steps & increments), Planned Organizational Change, Operate in Environments Larger than the Project Itself What are different roles in IT projects? Hint: Know the different...
Words: 2296 - Pages: 10
... What is a project? It is a temporary effort intended to create a unique product, service, or result. 2. What is project management? It is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements. 3. How are projects different from ongoing operations? Projects are temporary and unique while operations are continuous. Operations are an ongoing process to ensure that an organization continues to work effectively. For instance, operation managers can often use checklists to guide much of their work, but project managers rarely have checklists that identify all of the activities they need to accomplish. 4. What types of constraints are common to most projects? Time and budget constraints are common to most projects for clients, and the amount of resources available and the decision maker’s risk tolerance are constraints from an internal point of view. 5. Which deliverable authorizes the project team to move from Selecting and Initiating to Planning? The approval of a charter 6. At what stage of a project life cycle are the majority of the “hands-on” tasks completed? At the execution stage 7. During which state of the project life cycle are loose ends tied up? During the Closing stage 8. What are the five process groups of project management? Initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing 9. Which process group defines a new project or phase by...
Words: 868 - Pages: 4
...commonly set goals to achieve their directives and without clarity to define the goals themselves, many of them would miss the mark. The importance of asking questions helps clarify goals. Asking the right questions is important and so is knowing if one has the right answers before beginning any project in which goals are used as milestones along the way. Let’s first look at the “how” of this process by examining how questions can ensure the success of any given project. How Questions Help Questions do not just define the goal itself. Rather, questions must also be asked in order to define the basis for the goal. The importance of asking questions to ensure a successful project can be explained thus: A clear project definition and detailed objectives are critical to the success of the project. If the definition and objectives are ambiguous, unrealistic, not agreed upon, or not written down, the project is in serious trouble before it begins. Whatever time and energy you need to define the project properly in the planning stage is much less than what it will cost to fix problems after the project is completed (Richman, 2011, p. 46). Therefore, by asking questions at the beginning of the project, one can save both time and money as well as minimize the potential for running into trouble from the start. It is evident that it is important to ask questions to help ensure a smoother project overall, so now what? Ask the Right Questions According to...
Words: 709 - Pages: 3
...environment is necessary to the success of all projects. The project leader must have the appropriate skill set to successfully understand how to lead diverse teams and identify, lead conflict in a positive manner and communicate appropriately to our customers. We want to ensure that our customers are receiving what product that they have requested. The project leader will also ensure the customer is full satisfied with all status updates and agrees with the timelines the project team has assembled. We want to ensure that the project team and the customer clearly understand the end result and the timeline needed. The problem is project team does not have a single goal and the customer is changing the requirements each week. The customer does not understand the changes being requested will delay the project timeline and other deliverables that are dependent upon each phase. As the project leader I have identified some issues that need to be addressed immediately to ensure the project phases and timelines are being met for our customer: 1. Define single goal for customer and project team to be in sync 2. Understand phase requirements and timelines 3. Provide written communication confirming goal, requirements, phases and timelines to customer and project team The first phase of the project was not completed within the timeframe the customer requested for the following reasons: • The project team did not have a project leader to identify scope, requirements...
Words: 1421 - Pages: 6
...Project Management- Student Led Discussion • Project Leadership: What Drives You to the Finish Line What Melvyn Lee is trying to do here is not only paint a picture of characteristics that leaders possess but also use those characteristics to define the type of leader you are. One item that I highly agree on with the author is that leaders ARE NOT created from a ready-made mold. Rather they get there from experience. I do however think that one piece that is missing from many areas in life is that being a leader is also a choice. Again, there is no mold. It’s the decision to inspire, be adaptive, walk around with your head help high, be a visionary; it’s the choice to be all in. Since I have been in the business world, I have adapted a mindset that has helped mold me into, not only who I am today, but has also helped to dictate the success that I have had in my career thus far. Every project, every task should be taken on like it’s YOUR company; you are the boss, you are the CEO. To be this person though you must first define what type of leader you really are. This helps to build a foundation that you can grow and nourish. Below I have included two charts from the article that are used across project phases and that are based on the project factors as mapped to stereotypical leadership styles. To conclude, we must understand that there is no definitive leadership style that guarantees success. Under some circumstances, experience helps leaders bring success to...
Words: 693 - Pages: 3
...understanding of project management. • Understand why project management is needed and how it differs from other forms of management. • Identify the relevance of project management to the business and academic world of management. • Identify the role of a project manager. • Identify the purpose or relevance of a feasibility study in the project environment. • Identify all the stakeholders and identify their needs and expectations. Project management is seen as a rather modern discipline, however many of the greatest monuments in the world, e.g. Pyramids, Taj Mahal etc, could not have been formed without some form of project management. The art and science of project management has been used in many ways although it was not until the 20th century that businesses began to see the relevance and importance of this discipline. Its role in business began as external to the organisation, however in recent years more and more organisations have begun to use project management internally. Project management has become a vital part of many businesses and it is used in many different fields of study, from engineering, programming or IT development, research and development, product development, marketing etc. The aim of this assignment is to see how project management is defined, how it applies to the telecommunications business and how project managers and organisations can use project management to ensure stakeholders’ expectations are met. QUESTION 1: Explain what project management...
Words: 7586 - Pages: 31
...regarding when the selection of an EHR system should be made in the planning phase. Some practices go through the planning process and develop the selection criteria they wish to use. Other practices begin by selecting an EHR system and then conduct planning to support the selected EHR system. * Understand if and how a vendor's product will accomplish the key goals of the practice. Essentially, a test drive of your specific needs with the vendor’s product. Provide the vendor with patient and office scenarios that they may use to customize their product demonstration = Test Drive * Clarify start-up pricing before selecting an EHR system (hardware, software, maintenance and upgrade costs, option of phased payments, interfaces for labs and pharmacies, cost to connect to health information exchange (HIE), customized quality reports) = Get Accurate Pricing * Define implementation support (amount, schedule, information on trainer(s) such as their communication efficiency and experience with product and company)= Define Your Support * Clarify roles, responsibilities, and costs for data migration strategy if desired. Sometimes, being selective with which data or how much data to migrate can influence the ease of transition = Clarify the data * Server options (e.g., client server, application service provider (ASP), software as a service (SAS)) = Server options * Ability to integrate with other products (e.g., practice management software, billing systems, and public...
Words: 1052 - Pages: 5
...Business Project Management MODULE 26340 Module Leader: Dr Ashish Dwivedi Submission date: Monday 02.02.09 Describe the main phases of the project lifecycle. Critically discuss where in this lifecycle failures may occur and explain how effective project management might reduce their likelihood. 1.0 Introduction Projects are being born all around us and can be found in every facet of life – they can range from say the relatively simple task of organising and executing a dinner party to mega projects such as the construction of the Channel Tunnel. This paper aims to investigate some fundamental questions relating to the make –up of the project lifecycle, failures that can occur within it and the effect that good project management has on delivering project success. 2.0 Describe the main phases of the project lifecycle. By implication, whether it be a dinner party or the complex development and construction of the Channel tunnel, the ‘project process’ follows the same route and to this end definable stages can be assigned to the task – these stages are referred to in combination as ‘the project life cycle’. As such the project life cycle, according to the PMBOK (2004), “defines the phases that connect the beginning of a project to its end” (2004, 19). Each of these phases can be referred to as a primary phase and they can be managed independently of each other. At this point, Baynon- Davies (2002) concurs with the PMBOK, advocating that each primary phase can then be broken...
Words: 2495 - Pages: 10
...Resource 11. TRAINING MODULE IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT (Created by the Institute for Development Management, Botswana for the NGO Institute, STF. (Some materials in this module have been extracted from “A Guide to Project Management Body of Knowledge, 3rd. edition, 2004) What is a project? “A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service.” The Three P’s [pic] Working definition of project management Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities in order to meet or exceed stakeholder needs and expectations from a project. (Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge Project Management Institute 2004) Project Management in Your Organization • What are the current methods of project management in your organization? • What project management issues is your organization facing? Important Characteristics of Real Life Projects • Accomplish with shared resources often only available on part-time basis • Require cross-functional team work • Involve uncertainty and are subject to change during execution • Subject to specific deadlines and time and resource constraints • Project manager often lacks functional authority over team members Proven Benefits of Project Management ✓ Provides clear roles, responsibilities, activities and schedules for team efforts ✓ Includes a method for considering the consequences of decreasing or increasing funds, resources...
Words: 2885 - Pages: 12
...Communication Imperative Project managers must create an environment in which team members understand that communication is part of their job description. They should be comfortable sharing bad as well as good news, and encouraged to offer solutions. It all starts with upholding your end of the bargain. You know the old saying: the three most important factors in buying or selling real estate are “location, location, location.” The key to project management success is communication, communication and communication. A project brings together all the resources of the project team. For the project to succeed, the team members must deliver on their pieces of the project. However, you cannot assume that team members will deliver what was assigned to them or that they will deliver within the allotted timeframe. Goals, expectations and needs must be communicated, from beginning to finish. If you do not create an environment in which people collaborate and communicate, two aspects of the project will suffer. First, you will not get peak performance from the project team. You need the project team’s expertise when defining and refining the project, the project tasks, timeframe and risks. By creating a communicative environment, you encourage people to do their best work. They will be more apt to bring their expertise to the endeavor and deliver on their promises. Second, by not creating the right environment, you can affect the implementation of the project tasks. There will be a sequential...
Words: 956 - Pages: 4
...Project scope is the parameter of the project. It defines what are the deliverables, requirements and expectations for the project and provides a baseline to exclude unrelated works. The project manager’s job is to ensure all necessary works for the project success are included. And this process is referring to as the project scope management. Project scope management involves six processes, which are planning scope management, collecting requirements, defining scope, creating WBS, validating scope and controlling scope. These six interrelated steps provide an agreement between the stakeholders and project team to clarify expectation and requirements. The six processes also allow the team to understand how and what they should do in order to deliver the project within the deadline and without exceeding limited resources. 1. Planning scope management: This process answers the question “how will the team manage and maintain the scope” and “how to prepare required documents”. The team will review the project description from the project charter and project management plan to develop scope management plan and requirements management plan. The scope management plan defines how to prepare, maintain and control all management documents such as project scope statement, WBS and change requests. This step set the foundation for the scope management, as the team and manager will choose the most efficient way in controlling the process. 2. Collecting requirements: After defining the...
Words: 797 - Pages: 4
...identifies the goals of a company and defines ways of achieving those goals. Project management takes one of the goals and manages costs, schedules and resources to give the desired result. When small businesses use projects to make progress toward their strategic goals, they have to be aware of the differences between the two processes. While both corporate strategy and project management share planning and control characteristics, the details of their implementation and execution are not the same. Goals: The goals of corporate strategy and project management are different. Those of corporate strategy define the direction of the company and are not usually time limited. A strategic goal of excellent customer service is a continuous process. A project is designed to achieve its goals within a certain time frame. Its goals are to produce the desired result within budget and according to the schedule. Once the goals are met, the project is complete. Corporate strategy may use projects to further its goals, but the projects are steps in the overall process while the corporate strategy carries on. A project is “a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.”Operations, on the other hand, is work done in organizations to sustain the business. Projects are different from operations in that they end when their objectives have been reached or the project has been terminated. A program is “a group of related projects managed in a coordinated way to obtain...
Words: 1049 - Pages: 5
