Professional Documents
Culture Documents
: 520966021
MBA – II SEM
MB0033
Ans 1:
Definition of a Project
Several definitions of a project are available, some of which are:
Performed by people
Identifying requirements
Balancing the competing demands for performance, scope, time and cost.
Project management is both an art and a science. The "Art" aspect of project
management relates to the fact that projects are really about getting things
done by people. Hence it requires a keen knowledge of human behavior and
the ability to skillfully apply appropriate interpersonal skills.
The "Science" aspect comprises a set of principles, methods and techniques
that people use to effectively plan and control project work. These principles
and techniques help the project manager and the project team to complete
projects on schedule within budgeted cost and in full accordance with
project specifications. At the same time, they help achieve the other goals of
the organization, such as productivity, quality and cost effectiveness. Hence
the objective of project management is to optimize project cost, time and
performance (includes quality).
Today large and small organizations recognize that project management,
with its structured approach to planning and controlling of projects, is a
necessary core competency for success. Like general management, project
management also involves all aspects of planning, organizing, implementing
and controlling .However, it has its own techniques like work breakdown
structure, critical path analysis, PERT (Program evaluation & review
technique), which will be discussed in later units.
In many strategic projects the function of project management will involve
disciplines like:
Finance
Preparation of financial statements which will form part of the project
proposal, as well as the basis for managing the costs of the project.
Personnel
Identification of skill requirements of personnel who will form the project
team, selecting the personnel, and maintaining a good working
environment.
Operations
Managing the activities /operations that are repetitive in nature.
Supply Chain Management (procurement management)
Sourcing of materials, equipment/machinery/services by identifying eligible
suppliers of each and negotiating with them for procuring the same, and
managing the logistics for smooth project implementation.
R&D
New product development & quality assurance.
Marketing
Marketing the project idea to sponsor (sponsor can be internal or external to
the company).
Defination of Process
PMBoK organizes Project management processes into five groups, defined as
the Project Management Process Groups, each group comprising one or
Manpower
Materials
Infrastructure
Introduction to Project Management Unit 1 Sikkim Manipal University Page
No. 14
The total project cost is the sum total of the costs of all the resources
required to complete the activities mentioned in the scope of the project.
Ans 2
The primary purpose of a project is to deliver a product and/or service to a
customer (the customer can be internal to the company or an external
Client) as per the specified time, cost, detailed scope and performance
requirements as contracted with the customer.
Accordingly we note here that a project is characterized by four constraints.
S (Scope) Magnitude or size of the project
P (Performance) Functional requirements & Technical requirements
(Quality requirements are included in these)
C (Cost) Total cost incurred by owner for the project.
T (Time) Time specified to complete the project
The relationship between these four constraints is
C = f (P, T, S)
This implies that Cost is a function of Performance, Time and Scope. Graphically it can
be represented as a triangle in which P, C and T are the sides and S is the area (fig. 1-
3). If we know the area and the two sides, we can compute the length of the remaining
side.
This translates into a very practical rule of project management – the sponsor can
assign values to any three variables but the project manager must determine the
remaining one.
It is common for the client to ask for too much to be delivered with regard to scope and
quality within the time and cost specified by the client himself i.e. all four parameters
end up as being specified by the client. Here the project manager needs to be proactive
in striking a balance between these constraints by making the client aware of the
limitations pertaining to time, budget, technicalities etc. In striking this balance, he
needs to plan the deployment of resources in sufficient detail.
While the parameters S, P, C and T are dealt with in detail in subsequent units, an
overview of these can be made as under:
Scope:
Briefly, scope refers to the end product or the deliverables required from the project.
The scope document should describe all the activities that are to be performed and the
resources that will be consumed. For the scope to be documented in sufficient detail, a
Detailed Project Report is often prepared (DPR).
Manpower
Materials
Infrastructure
Manpower refers to all the man hours required from various personnel working directly
or indirectly on the project.
Materials refer to all materials that become part of the project. In the case of a building
this will include cement, steel, aggregates, doors & windows, mechanical
electrical/instrumentation equipment and materials, finishing materials like tiles water
proofing, ironmongery, consumables utilized in the construction etc etc. – in summary
all materials that become part of the building structure.
Tools and Plants are those items that are deployed to aid the construction of the project
like lifting equipment (cranes etc.), concreting equipment, welding machines, dozers,
transport vehicles and all machineries deployed as construction aids. They do not
become part of the project, they are utilized for the implementation of the project, and
they are transferred to other projects after such utilization for the ongoing project. The
owner may own some of these tools and plants in which case he will need to apportion
an internally predetermined hiring cost of the same to the project. For the tools and
plants deployed for the project and not owned by the owner, hiring costs charged by the
external agencies shall be apportioned to the project.
Infrastructure refers to temporary arrangements that need to be provided for project
implementation and dismantled at the end of the project. Examples are labor camps,
electric power and water supply systems built for the construction of the project,
dedicated telecommunication facilities during construction at project sites etc.
Each one of the abovementioned resources has a cost associated with it and the sum
total of these costs will form a part of the project cost.
Ans 3:
Initiation phase
Here the need is identified. The project actually begins when an appropriate response
to the need is determined and described. In this phase the issues of feasibility (can we
do the project?) and justification (should we do the project?) are addressed.
Planning phase
Here, the product solution is further developed in as much detail as possible. The final
deliverable of the project is broken into intermediate deliverables, along with the
strategy for producing them. Formulating this strategy involves breaking down the
project into work elements (tasks) and sequence of executing them (the sequence
determines the schedule), estimating the amount of money & time required to perform
the work, and when the work is to be done. The question of feasibility and justification
surfaces again, as formal approval to proceed with the project is normally sought before
continuing.
Execution phase
Here, the prescribed work is performed under the watchful eye of the project manager.
Progress is continuously monitored and appropriate adjustments are made and
recorded as variances from the original plan. Throughout this phase, the project team
remains focused on meeting the objectives developed and agreed upon at the outset of
the project.
Close-out phase
Here, the emphasis is on verifying that the project has satisfied or will satisfy the
original need. A successful project culminates with a smooth transition from the
deliverable creation (Project) to the deliverable utilization (post-project cycle). Through
this phase, the members of the project team are gradually redeployed and the project is
finally shut down.
Project Life cycle
Deliverables from preceding phase are usually approved before work starts on the next
phase. The requirement of speedy completion of the total project will often necessitate
overlapping of phases i.e. a subsequent phase is begun prior to approval of the
previous phase deliverables, when the risks involved are deemed acceptable. This
overlapping is termed fast tracking.
Typical sequence of phases in a project life cycle shown hereunder (fig. 1-7)
Q4. Explain the various concept of managing conflicts and maintaining quality.
Ans 4:
This process determines the information and communication needs of the project
stakeholders and also establishes an appropriate way to satisfy them. The nature and
mode of communication differ from project to project. The main input is the project
scope statement and the organizational process assets. The output is the Project
communication plan, which includes guidelines for project status meetings, e-meetings,
e-mail and video-conferencing. The main tool used in this process is the
communications methodology (which includes communication technology) , which may
Risk identification: This process is for identifying and recording the risks which
might affect the project. Risks can be internal or external – internal risks are those
factors that can be controlled and influenced by the project team eg. a critical
construction aid like a very high capacity crane owned by the organization, planned to
be deployed on the project, and not being available for the project when it is needed on
account of repair or necessity to deploy on another project etc. ; external factors are
factors that are beyond the control of the project team e.g. escalation in the cost of
materials, force majeure conditions. The main inputs are the Risk management plan,
Project Scope statement, the Project management plan and the organizational process
assets. The output is the Risk register. Risk register is a document containing the
details of all identified risks with description, category, cause, probability of occurring,
impacts on objectives, proposed responses, and owners. The risk register is a
component of the project management plan.
Qualitative risk analysis: After identifying the risks, it is necessary to prioritize them
for further analysis or action by assessing and combining their probability of occurrence
and impact. This process addresses these aspects. The main inputs for this process
are the Risk register, risk management plan, Project scope statement and the project
management plan. The output of this is a Risk register update.
Some important factors while prioritizing are:
– One risk element actually occurring in one deliverable can have a cascading effect on
other deliverables e.g. delay in delivery of a key equipment for a project can lead to
delay in project schedule, overrun in project cost and levy of penalty by Client.
– An opportunity for one stakeholder can become a threat to another stake holder
– While mathematical techniques are used in risk analysis, they may convey a false
impression of accuracy and credibility.
Quantitative risk analysis: This process is for numerically analyzing the effect on
overall project objectives of the identifying risks. The inputs are the Risk register the
User based definition says “quality lies in the eyes of the beholder”. This definition is
preferred by marketing people to whom higher quality means better performance, nicer
features, and other (sometimes costly) improvements.
PMBoK defines quality as „the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfill
the requirements‟. PMBoK also emphasizes that product quality measures and
techniques are specific to the particular type of product, while project quality
management must address both the
Quality management concepts:
As we noted in the previous section, „Quality‟ is relative, and different definitions of
quality are given by different professionals. Earlier, project firms as well as
manufacturing firms believed that higher quality increased project costs or product /
service costs. Today, all established and reputed companies realize that improved
quality increases business as well as profitability of business. The growing competition
in all markets as well as the growing size and complexity of projects has forced firms to
concentrate on quality at every stage.
Evidently, the cumulative effect of defects in every stage leads to a considerable
reduction in the quality of the project deliverables or end products / services.
Typically for a manufacturing firm, the figure hereunder shows that improvement
in quality help firms increase sales and reduce costs, both of which can increase
profitability. Increase in sales often occurs as firms speed response, lower selling prices
as a result of economies of scale, and improve their reputation for quality products.
Similarly, improved quality allows costs to drop as firms increase productivity and lower
rework, scrap and warranty costs.
Q5. Write down the nine steps pertaining to the new horizons of project management .
Ans 5:
Project processes are performed by the project team and generally fall into one of two
major categories:
Q6. Read the following case and answer the question given below:
The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Board approved last week
additional funding for 10 foreign-assisted projects with P8.2 billion in cost overruns.
However, release of the funds is still subject to the results of a reevaluation of the
projects, NEDA director for project monitoring Rolando Tungpalan said. The
reevaluation will determine if the foreign-assisted projects remain viable and identify the
cause of the cost overruns. The NEDA official said funding is needed since the projects
are official development assistance (ODA) commitments. Additional ODA funding for
new projects could be hampered if the cost overruns are not addressed, he added.
Cost overruns are additional expenses incurred by a project in the course of its
implementation. Mr. Tungpalan said the 10 foreign- assisted projects had cost overruns
ranging from 29% to 131% of their original cost.In last week's NEDA Board meeting,
• Bottom up approach:-
The factors mentioned above may play a vital role in a project’s failure, and
this is the reason why numerous organizations have turned to a bottom-up
management style or at least some of its elements. The New York Times is
one of the good examples. The bottom-up approach implies proactive team
input in the project executing process. Team members are invited to
participate in every step of the management process. The decision on a
course of action is taken by the whole team. Bottom-up style allows
managers to communicate goals and value, e.g. through milestone planning.
Then team members are encouraged to develop personal to-do lists with the
steps necessary to reach the milestones on their own. The choice of
methods and ways to perform their tasks is up to the team. The advantage
of this approach is that it empowers team members to think more
creatively. They feel involved into the project development and know that
their initiatives are appreciated. The team members’ motivation to work and
make the project a success is doubled. Individual members of the team get
an opportunity to come up with project solutions that are focused more on
practical requirements than on abstract notions. The planning process is
facilitated by a number of people, which makes it flow significantly faster.
The to-do lists of all the team members are collected into the detailed
general project plan. Schedules, budgets and results are transparent. Issues
are made clear by the project manager to avoid as many surprises as
possible. Bottom-up project management can also be viewed as a way of
However, despite all it the advantages, the bottom-up style alone will not
make your projects flourish. According to many experts, the bottom-up
approach is not the perfect solution, as sometimes it lacks clarity and
control. The best way is to find a balance between the two opposite
approaches and take the best practices from both of them.
Perfect balance
manager then has to collect all the data and put the information manually
into the project plan. After that, he or she has to communicate the changes
to the corporate executives. All these routine procedures lead to a situation
where the project manager's talents often are buried by the routine work.
The huge amount of mechanical control/synchronization work often leaves
little very time for leadership from the project manager. The good news is
the situation is changing thanks to the transformations going on in how
people share and receive information. More methods for the successful
implementation of the bottom-up management best practices have emerged.
These methods include are Enterprise 2.0 technologies – wikis, blogs,
social networks, collaboration tools, etc. They come into organizations and
change the original way of executing projects. They turn traditional project
management into Project Management 2.0 and bring new patterns of
collaboration, which are based on collective intelligence. Collective
Estimation tools:-
The project manager has several tools or techniques available for estimating
activity duration, project costs, and preparing the project plan.
There are also several tools available for use by the project manager and
team to provide the required estimates. These include project management
software, commercial data bases, and internal organization check sheets and
estimating models.
Estimation Concerns
Three sets of electronic templates are available to assist project staff in the
preparation of the IT Project Management Review briefings: First-Time
Reviews, Ongoing Reviews, and Samples. The Samples templates include
slides from actual DOE projects and references for completing the First
Time and Ongoing review slides. The Samples slides will continue to be
updated with examples from subsequent IT Project Management Quarterly
Reviews.
This slide provides accountability and closure for issues or action items that
were raised during the prior review. Issues and action items are listed in the
Review report that are distributed after the Review by the OCIO staff. The
project manager is expected to check this list in preparation for the current
review, include all listed items on the slide, and provide the status of each
item. Issues and action items that are closed during the period from the
prior review to the current review should be reported in addition to any
items that remain open.
The project plan and project schedule should demonstrate the inclusion of
plans to address known or likely obstacles, and identified points where
decisions or involvement by the CIO or the project manager=s management
is necessary. It should include expected achievement dates for the
item/activity performance metrics (overall project performance metrics),
requirements, and review times.
If any portion of the project moves into production while modules are still
under development, the slide should also include funding status for the
maintenance costs.
This slide is used to identify the maintenance costs and funding sources for
the project. The intent of the slide is to help in forecasting, planning and
justifying expenditures for maintenance of new systems. Maintenance
funding needs to be documented and issues or concerns raised as quickly as
possible. Display projected maintenance costs beyond development
completion. Record the project maintenance funding by source for the next
seven years of the project.
Exclusions
• Reduction/redirection of labor
• Ability to more cost effectively upgrade all sites with one standard
upgrade package
In each case above, identify the specific site, systems, and labor involved in
determining the cited benefit. Identify any costs or dollar savings that are
known or have been estimated. The memorandum will be used as a tool for
responding to any future IG or GAO audit inquiries on project ROI.
The product status section focuses on the technical approach, e.g., system
architecture, project methodology and processes, product quality, and risks
and issues. Product measurements are used in quality assurance processes
to project and measure product quality. These include defect reporting,
testing status, and customer satisfaction measurements.
1.5.2 Risks/Issues
This slide is used to identify project risks and issues that do not require
OCIO support at the present time, but still may impact the outcome of the
project as mandated by OMB Circular A-130.
This slide (or set of slides) is used to provide any project information that
the program manager or project manager would like to present to
management or senior management, e.g., the CIO.
This is the last slide in the set. Its purpose is to communicate a visually-
oriented "thumbnail" view of the project's status. The status will be reported
as either Green, Yellow, or Red, using the criteria documented below. Refer
to the notes section of the slide template for detailed guidance on
completing other sections of the slide.
The OCIO staff supporting the CIO Quarterly Reviews will prepare a
summary report after each IT Project Management Review. The Summary
report will include the following information:
• Summary Status
• Open Issues/Items
• Status of Schedule/Cost
One of the most common tasks is to schedule a series of events, and the
complexity of this task can vary considerably depending on how the tool is
used. Some common challenges include:
• Scheduling people to work on, and resources required by, the various
tasks commonly termed resource scheduling
• Evidence
Desktop
Desktop applications typically store their data in a file, although some have
the ability to collaborate with other users (see below), or to store their data
in a central database. Even a file-based project plan can be shared between
users if it's on a networked drive and only one user accesses it at a time.
Web-based
This has all the usual advantages and disadvantages of web applications:
• Ease of access-control
• Naturally multi-user
• Project information not available when the user (or server) is offline.
Personal
Single user
Collaborative
Integrated
SUPPORT SOFTWARE:-
ARROW overview
The initial goal of the project is best expressed in this quote from the
original proposal:
The ARROW project will identify and test software or solutions to support
best practice institutional digital repositories comprising e-prints, digital
theses and electronic publishing. The project has met, and exceeded this
basic goal, by producing not only a test version of the software, but a
working repository solution that is currently in use at a number of
Australian universities, with more to come online shortly.
Since the beginning of 2006, several other Australian universities have also
signed up to use the ARROW solution for institutional repositories. These
ARROW members are also working on development projects to develop
and enhance the software.
From the beginning of the project there was a recognition that ARROW
needed to be able to deal with more than just open access materials, and
that some things stored in repositories need to be restricted for a variety of
important reasons, such as copyright, confidentiality or ethical
considerations, or because it is work in progress. Therefore the project had
done considerable work on the access and authentication issues related to
research outputs in digital repositories, often in partnership with the MAMS
The Australian Government has had a system of reporting research for the
purpose of tracking the output of universities. At the time the project was
conceived, this took the form of reporting eligible research publications.
This included the retention of copies at the reporting institution for the
purposes of audit. It was envisaged that a repository could be used to help
manage this process and to retain the audit copies. Since then there has
been a change in direction to a proposed Research Quality Framework
(RQF) system
(www.dest.gov.au/sectors/research_sector/policies_issues_reviews/key_iss
ues/research_quality_framework/default.htm), which will involve the
review of research outputs by experts from outside Australia. DEST have
identified that repositories offer the potential for widespread access to these
outputs in a less labour intensive fashion, and ARROW has been working
with them on how this might be achieved.
• installation support;
Building ARROW
ARROW requirements
ARROW wanted:
Fedora
After a careful analysis of the candidates available at the time[1], it was felt
that only Fedora provided the right combination of attributes. Fedora™ can
best be thought of as services-mediation infrastructure, rather than an off-
the-shelf application. It can use web services technology
(www.w3.org/2002/ws/) to draw on services provided by other systems as
well as expose its own functionality using web services standards. Key to
the Fedora™ architecture is its underlying object-based model. Fedora™
stores digital content objects, either as datastreams contained within the
repository or as links to external resources. It also stores what Fedora™
Since the beginning of the project ARROW has worked actively and
closely with Fedora™ and the Fedora Community. The ARROW Project
Technical Architect is a member of the Fedora Advisory Board, which
provides long term guidance for the project. This commitment to Fedora is
reinforced by VTLS Inc. The VTLS President is a member of the Fedora
Advisory Board, and the VITAL Lead Developer is part of the Fedora
Development Group.
Open source
• SRU/SRW;
• HANDLES;
• LDAP authentication;
• administrative reporting;
• metadata synchronisation.
ARROW decided that they needed to partner with a developer who could
not only produce the software but could also provide ongoing user support
and development after December 31, 2006. VTLS were identified by the
project team as a suitable partner in the process, and they were interested in
working in this area as well. They had already begun work on a repository
solution using Fedora, they were familiar with the library sector because of
their many years experience in developing an integrated library
management system (VIRTUA) and they were willing to produce a
combination of a proprietary solution, Fedora and other open source
software.
• Batch loader tool – tool for ingesting multiple similar objects into the
repository in bulk.
Implementation decisions
During the start-up phase of the project, it was necessary to make a number
of decisions about how to construct the ARROW solution. The requirement
for many of these implementation decisions was inherent in the repository
solution that was chosen. The F in Fedora stands for Flexible. Fedora
provides few constraints, but this requires deliberate decisions.
The sort of process the ARROW went through in making this decision can
be illustrated by the diagram taken from a whiteboard shown in Figure 2.
• journal articles;
• conference papers;
• working papers;
• books;
• book chapters;
• theses.
Descriptive metadata
Early in the project ARROW spent some months examining the idea that a
single descriptive metadata schema for all the objects in the ARROW
repositories would be a sensible goal. After looking at the strengths and
weaknesses of numerous metadata schemas, and on considering the
diversity of object types ARROW repositories could be required to store, it
was decided that it was more realistic to accept that the project would need
to support multiple descriptive metadata schemas. As a result, ARROW has
decided to support the metadata generated by communities of practice to
accompany their digital objects. This implies that an ARROW repository
will contain a range of different metadata schemas attached to different
objects. The VITAL software currently transforms MARCXML and ETD-
MS metadata into Dublin Core for OAI-PMH and internal purposes. In the
longer term, and to support other schemas, ARROW is investigating the
possibility of using OCLC's interoperable metadata core (Godby et al.,
2003). It is also possible that ARROW may need to write something itself.
One of the project's aims was to develop a discovery service for Australian
institutional repositories. This service, which is called the ARROW
National Research Discovery Service (http://search.arrow.edu.au/) has been
one of the key work areas undertaken by the National Library. It provides a
national resource discovery service including:
A number of valuable lessons have been learnt during the course of the
project, even beyond solving the many technical challenges. For instance,
working with multiple partners has been very beneficial for the sharing of
information and experiences, the sharing of development work and the
multiple perspectives on issues of note. The multiple perspectives on issues,
however, have also led to scope creep and difficulty in managing
expectations across the group. This has put pressure on the project
management team who have acted as intermediaries between the project
and the developers. Software development feels slow, both commercial and
open source, but this is more a function of being trapped in the middle of it
than any failings by the developers or partners. Development with a
commercial partner can be tricky as well, as the priorities and needs of
commercial and educational partners can occasionally conflict. The nature
of standards in this area remain an ongoing problem, as the standards that
are in place leave a fair amount of leeway, which has forced the project to
spend large amounts of time discussing and trying to refine them for actual
use. The debate over open versus closed repositories, or information
management versus accessibility is an ongoing issue, with much work to be
done. The key finding is that there is no single rule that will work for all
Project Outputs
1. Best practice and policy guides for the use of persistent identifiers in
Australian e-learning, e-research, and e-science communities.