Professional Documents
Culture Documents
What is management?
Management is the process of planning, organising, leading and controlling the
work of organisational members and of using all available organisational resources
to reach specific organisational goals.
Brief history of management theory
Pre-industrial management (prior to 1890)
Ruling of empires, kingdoms, tribes, clans, etc.
Gurus : Niccolo Machiavelli, Confucius , Sun Tzu
Scientific management (1890 – 1940)
Industrial revolution era – management based on routinised, mechanistic
processes. Famous example: Ford’s Model T.
Guru: Frederick Taylor
Bureaucratic management (1930-1950)
Hierarchical organisation management – line of work/authority/control
Guru: Max Weber
Human relations (1930-today)
Focus on managing human resource (e.g. motivation, needs)
Gurus : Frederick Herzberg, Abraham Maslow 1.4.6.2.
What is a project?
Project is a unique process, consist of a set of coordinated and controlled activities
with start and finish dates, undertaken to achieve an objective confirming to specific
requirements, including the constraints of time cost and resource.
Nature of projects
Goal-oriented: aims at a specific end result or deliverables
Somewhat unique: non-routine
Time- and resource-constrained: temporary (has a target completion date and target
cost)
Cross-functional: cross-disciplinary and cross-organisational
Somewhat unfamiliar and risky: involves something new or different
Something is at stake
Follows logical sequence or progression of phases or stages
Simply put, a project is a series of tasks that need to be completed in order to reach a specific
outcome. A project can also be defined as a set of inputs and outputs required to achieve a
particular goal. Projects can range from simple to complex and can be managed by one person or
a hundred. Projects are often described and delegated by a manager or executive. They go over
their expectations and goals and it's up to the team to manage logistics and execute the project in
a timely manner. Sometimes deadlines can be given or a time limitation. For good project
productivity, some teams break the project up into individual tasks so they can manage
accountability and utilize team strengths.
How I Choose Projects
1. Step One: Gather Interesting Ideas. The first phase of choosing a project comes from cultivating
interesting ideas. ...
2. Step Two: Incubate Those Ideas. The most successful projects I did, usually didn't start out as
perfect ideas. ...
3. Step Three: Uncover Flaws in Your Ideas. ...
4. Step Four: Commit to the Project. ...
5. Choosing Differently.
A project plan can be considered to have five key characteristics that have to be managed:
A project is typically defined as a set of interrelated activities having a specific beginning and
ending, and leading to a specific objective. Probably the most important concept in this definition
is that a project is intended as a temporary endeavor, unlike ongoing, steady state operations.
A project is planned, organized and goal- oriented.
A project has a purpose, certain benefits that are targeted. In order to achieve the benefits, certain
deliverables need to be produced during the project. Both these goals and objectives should be
defined early in the project.
Typology of projects
A project can be classified with respect to the levels of complexity and uncertainty involved
Figure 1-1: Typology of projects (Nicholas & Steyn, 2008)
A Project in general refers to a new endeavor with specific objective and varies so widely that it
is very difficult to precisely define it.
A program is a group of related projects managed in a coordinated way to obtain benefits and
control not available from managing them individually.