Project Management (LGT4103)

Lecture 1
Introduction and organizational
strategy

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 Lecture outline
• Introduction
• Project life cycle
• Project managers
• Integrated management of projects
• Portfolio management

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Overview of project management

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 Why study project management?

https://www.pmi.org/about/leadership-governance/ceo-
corner/unplugged-episode-33

https://youtu.be/2jE57CLgIdI
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Why study project management?

2015

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Why study project management?

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 COVID-19
• Work from home
• Supply chain relocation
• Face-to-face/online/hybrid mode
• Vaccine supply chain
• Vaccination
• COVID-19 virus testing
• Quarantine
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 Project examples
• Project Assistant- Store Development
• Responsibilities
• Assist in supporting new store design process
• Assist in supporting new store construction project
• Keep all documentation and applications in order for new stores
• Communicate with vendors and contractors to arrange delivery
of materials
• Assist in supporting project management for the new store
process
• Assist in budgeting and expenses tracking for new stores
• Perform ad hoc assignments
• Directly report to Store Development Manager
• Requirements
• Experience in F&B industry is preferred
• Self-motivated, able to work independently and perform multi-
task
• Willing to work under pressure and embrace a wide range of
responsibilities
• Experience working in a project team is preferred but not
essential
• Well organized and good time management skills
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Immediate available is highly preferred
• Administration Assistant- Operation Department
• Responsibilities
• Assist in support operations activities
• Respond for all the documentary in order
• Work closely with operation team and shop staff teams on all
front line activities and program execution
• Assist to draft, maintain and update the Operation and Training
Manual
• Assist in preparing sales report, supporting material for shops
and staff etc.
• Assist in operation support of new shop open
• Support all shop operational matters
• Take minutes of attended meetings, accurately transcribe and
circulate to appropriate personnel
• Perform ad hoc assignments
• Direct report to Operations Manager
• Requirements
• Experience in F&B industry is preferred
• Self-motivated, able to work independently and perform multi-
task
• Willing to work under pressure and embrace a wide range of
responsibilities
• Strong PC skill in MS office
• Well organized and good time management skills
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Immediate available is highly preferred
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 Project examples
• Which one is more interesting? Why?
• Which one can stand you out easier? Why?

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 All of mankind’s greatest accomplishments –
from building the great pyramids to putting a
man on the moon – began as a project.

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 Gantt chart
• By Henry Gantt (1861-1919)
• A bar chart showing both the amount of time involved and
the sequence in which activities can be performed

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 Critical path scheduling

Critical 21 28 28 36
Path:
ACFG C(7) F(8)

21 28 28 36
0 21 36 38

A(21) G(2)

0 21 36 38
21 25 25 27 28 33

B(4) D(2) E(5)

22 26 26 28 31 36 12
 What is a project?
• Project defined
– A complex, nonroutine, one-time effort limited by time,
budget, resources, and performance specifications
designed to meet customer needs
• Major characteristics of a project
– Has an established objective
– Has a defined life span with a beginning and an end
– Requires across-the-organizational participation
– Involves doing something never been done before
– Has specific time, cost, and performance requirements
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Why learning project management is important?
• Project uniqueness
– Limited possibility of learning from economies of scale
• Concurrent performed activities
– Resources management
– Constraints
• Existence of precedence relations
• Risk
– External resources such as subcontractors
– Not foreseeable

HALL, N.G. 2016. Research and teaching opportunities in project management. Tutorials in Operations Research.
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Why project management is important in business?

• Control change
• Project complexity
• Cross-functional teams
• Applications
• Companies are using project management to
develop and test their future leaders

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 Routine work and project
Routine, repetitive work
• Taking class notes
• Daily entering sales receipts into
the accounting ledger
• Responding to a supply-chain
request
• Practicing scales on the piano
• Routine manufacture of an iPad
• Attaching tags on a manufactured
product
Projects
• Writing a term paper
• Setting up a sales kiosk for a
professional accounting meeting
• Developing a supply-chain
information system
• Writing a new piano piece
• Designing a new iPad
• Wire-tag projects for GE and
Wal-Mart
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Project attributes

How can you

describe a project?
Project examples

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Project examples

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 Project examples
• Capstone project

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Project logistics

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Project examples (in life)

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Project life cycle

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 Execution example 1
HIT Project

• https://www.hit.com.hk/en/Media-Centre/Video-Gallery.html
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Executive example 2
KFC and DHL 2018

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 Current drivers of project management

• Factors leading to the increased use of project

management
– Compression of the product life cycle
– Small projects represent big problems
– Triple bottom line (planet, people, profit)
– Increased customer focus
– Corporate downsizing
– Knowledge explosion

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Compression of the product life cycle
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Small projects represent big problems
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Triple bottom line (planet, people, profit)
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Increased customer focus

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Knowledge explosion
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Technical and sociocultural dimensions
of the project management process

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• Technical dimension (The “science”)
– Consists of the formal, disciplined, purely logical parts
of the process
– Includes planning, scheduling, and controlling projects
• Sociocultural dimension (The “art”)
– Involves contradictory and paradoxical world of
implementation
– Centers on creating a temporary social system within
a larger organizational environment that combines the
talents of a divergent set of professionals working to
complete the project
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Stages of small-group development

Forming Storming Norming Performing Adjourning

Source: Tuckman & Jensen (1977)

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Integrated management of projects

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Poorly integrated system

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 Integrative approach
• Integration (or centralization) of project
management provides senior management with
– An overview of all project management activities
– A big picture of how organizational resources are used
– A risk assessment of the portfolio of projects
– A rough metric of the firm’s improvement in managing
projects relative to others in the industry
– Linkages of senior management with actual project
execution management
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Changes in the organization’s mission and strategy

• Project managers must respond to changes with appropriate

decisions about future projects and adjustments to current
projects (e.g., OT or not?)
• Project managers who understand their organization’s
strategy can become effective advocates of projects aligned
with the firm’s mission

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 Projects and strategy
• Mistakes caused by not understanding the role of projects in
accomplishing strategy
– Trying to solve customer issues with a product or service rather than
focusing on the 20% with 80% of the value (Pareto’s Law)
– Overemphasizing technology that results in projects that pursue exotic
technology that does not fit the strategy or customer need
– Focusing on problems or solutions with low strategic priority
– Focusing on the immediate customer rather than the whole market
place and value chain
– Engaging in a never-ending search for perfection only the project team
really cares about
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 Portfolio management
• Create a total organization perspective that goes beyond silo
thinking
• Builds discipline into the project selection process
• Links project selection to strategic metrics
• Prioritizes project proposals across a common set of criteria, rather
than on politics or emotion
• Allocates resources to projects that align with strategic direction
• Balances risk across all projects
• Justifies killing projects that do not support strategy
• Improves communication and supports agreement on project goals
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 Portfolio management: why?
• Resource conflicts and multitasking
– Multiproject environment creates interdependency relationships of shared
resources which results in the starting, stopping, and restarting projects
• Organization politics
– Project selection is based on the persuasiveness and power of people
advocating the projects
• Implementation gap
– The lack of understanding and consensus on strategy among top
management and middle-level (functional) managers who independently
implement the projects
– E.g., top management has 20 projects without priorities, which one is the
most important to implement?

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 Portfolio management system
• Design of a project portfolio system
– Classification of a project
– Selection criteria depending upon classification
– Sources of proposals
– Evaluating proposals
– Managing the portfolio of projects

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Project portfolio by type

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 Project portfolio by type example
You manage a hotel resort located on the South Beach on the Island of Kauai in
Hawaii. You are shifting the focus of your resort from a traditional fun-in-the-sun
destination to eco-tourism. Eco-tourism focuses on environmental awareness and
education. How would you classify the following projects in terms of compliance,
strategic, and operational?

a. Convert the pool heating system from electrical to solar power

b. Build a 4-mile nature hiking trail
c. Renovate the horse barn
d. Launch a new promotional campaign with Hawaii Airlines
e. Convert 12 adjacent acres into a wildlife preserve
f. Update all the bathrooms in condos that are 10 years or older
g. Change hotel brochures to reflect eco-tourism image
h. Test and revise disaster response plan
i. Introduce wireless Internet service in café and lounge areas 46