PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Project Management



Project Management

Introduction

The abundance of projects in today's industry and business life has given rise to much interest in PM. And some commentators argue that the use of the project form of organization is still on the increase so that there is continually an ongoing projectization in society as a whole. Many activities are defined as projects and organized as time-limited efforts. One implication of this is that a growing number of people are involved in PM and some of them even have the title project manager or consider themselves to be project managers. This proliferation of projects is paralleled by the availability of practical handbooks in the area. So even if project manager is not an officially recognized profession, it has some of the traits of a profession.

“Project management is the art of directing and coordinating human and material resources throughout the life of a project by using modern management techniques to achieve predetermined objectives of scope, cost, time, quality and participation satisfaction''(Kerzner, 2009: 149-151).

By contrast, the general management of business and industrial corporations assumes a broader outlook with greater continuity of operations. Nevertheless, there are sufficient similarities as well as differences between the two so that modern management techniques developed for general management may be adapted for project management.

The basic ingredients for a project management framework may be represented schematically in Figure -1. A working knowledge of general management and familiarity with the special knowledge domain related to the project are indispensable. Supporting disciplines such as computer science and decision science may also play an important role. The representation in Figure -1 reflects only the sources from which the project management framework evolves.

Figure 1:  Basic Ingredients in Project Management

Main Requirements of the Project

To advertise and recruit required professionals.

To analyze and document the specifications for the required functionality.

To acquire the needed hardware and software as part of building construction infrastructure facilities.

To design, implement, test and operate the entire system.

Next step is defining human resources in terms of category, seniority and hourly cost:

Functional expert(s) - Knows the business process

Technical support - Technical product knowledge

Workflow Business Analyst - Workflow tools expert

Building Construction Administrator- Maintain workflow environment

Business Analyst - assist in doing a business process analysis

The Number of Programmers and Designers Needed To Finish the Project

At the very heart of PM is the concern for fulfilling the task of the particular project at hand. That task can be described in physical terms—a house to be constructed, to give one example—or in abstract terms—a reorganization of the market activities of a company, as another example—and the task is central for the project. One foremost prerequisite for good PM is that the project task gets completed.

Development Costs - Personnel

Next, we need to determine the output of a typical team member. Some companies prefer to segregate team members depending upon the role, position, and pay scale of the team member. A team member's output should be proportionate to the role, position, and ...