ARM 305 PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Lecture 1: Project –Definition, Importance and Characteristics

When you travel, you happened to see bridges being built, roads being laid, buildings being
constructed and a lot of other activities, which are unique in nature and which deliver physical outputs.
The same way, you might come across several activities, which deliver services like marriage contract,
software development, health camp, literacy camp, etc. If you look at the above activities, they are
unique in nature and they require defined time and resources. We can call these activities as projects
and managing these projects has become more critical with the limited time and resources at our
disposal. Thus, project management has become an important area and its application is found in almost
all the business and non-business activities.
Concept of Project
Project is a temporary but interrelated task undertaken to give a unique product or service or
result. Projects are different from other ongoing operations in an organization, because unlike
operations, projects have a definite beginning and an end - they have a limited duration. Projects are
critical to the realization of performing organization’s business strategy because projects are a means by
which the strategy of the company is implemented.
A project is any sort of planned undertaking. A project is known to be unique whereby it is not a
regular, routine process or operation. There are specific set of tasks designed to fulfill defined outcomes
and deliverables. A project team consists of people who don’t usually work together and they come
from different organisations and across multiple locations. It also has certain scope, limited by budget
and resources.
Definition:
“A Project is a temporary endeavour with a set or sequence of tasks planned from beginning to
end that are interrelated and to be implemented within a fixed time and limited by budget and
resources.”
“A project is a (temporary) sequence of unique, complex and connected activities having one
goal or purpose and that must be completed by specific time, within budget, and according to
specification.”
Characteristics of Projects
1. Temporary: Projects are temporary in nature. Every project has a beginning and end. The word
‘temporary’ here may refer to an hour, a day or a year. Operational work is an ongoing effort which
is executed to sustain the business. But projects are not ongoing efforts. A project is considered to
end when the project’s objectives have been achieved or the project is completed or discontinued.
Only projects are temporary in characteristic and not the project’s outcomes. It will not generally be
applied to the product, service or result created by the project. Projects also may often have
intended and unintended social, economic and environmental impacts that long last. E.g. Pamban
Bridge was a project. The structure was built between 1911 and 1914. Pamban Bridge ended on
1914. But still the outcome of the project exists as one of the longest sea bridge in India.
 ARM 305 PROJECT MANAGEMENT

2. Definite Beginning and Completion: Project is said to be completed when the project’s objectives
have been achieved. When it is clear that the project objectives will not or cannot be met the need
for the project no longer exists and the project is terminated. Thus, projects are not ongoing efforts.
Thus, every project has a definite beginning and end.
3. Definite Objective/Scope and Unique: All the projects have their own defined scopes/objectives for
which they are carried out. Every Project is undertaken to create a unique product, service, or
result. Eg. Hundreds of house buildings may have been built by a builder, but each individual
building is unique in itself like they have different owner, different design, different structure,
different location, different sub-contractors, and so on. Thus, each house building is to be
considered as a Project and each Project produces unique outcome.
4. Defined Time and Resources: As the projects have definite beginning and end, they are to be carried
out within the time and resources constraints. Each project will have defined time and resources for
its execution.
5. Multiple Talents: As projects involve many interrelated tasks done by many specialists, the
involvement of people from several departments is very much essential. Thus, the use of multiple
talents from various departments (sometimes from different organizations and across multiple
geographies) becomes the key for successful project management. For example, take the
construction of house building; the expertise of very many professionals and skills of various people
from various fields like architect, engineers, carpenters, painters, plumber, electrician, interior
decorator, etc, are being coordinated to complete the house project.
Importance of Projects
Projects are usually chartered and authorized external to the project organization by an enterprise,
a government agency, a company, a program organization, or a portfolio organization, as a result of one
or more of the following features:
 A market demand (e.g. a consumer product company authorizing a project to develop a new fruit
drink for kids with less sugar in response to an increased health awareness)
 A business need (e.g. a publisher authorizing a project to write a new book to increase its
revenues)
 A customer request (e.g. an amusement park authorizing a company to develop a new roller
coaster)
 A technological advance (e.g. an electronics firm authorizing a new project to develop a faster,
cheaper and a smaller netbook)
 New legislation or a legal requirement (e.g. Indian government authorizes a project to establish
laws for controlling the home loan system
 A social need (e.g. a NGO authorizes a project to raise the awareness of donating blood)
 Competition (e.g. Nokio launched a new smart mobile as a comeback strategy)
 ARM 305 PROJECT MANAGEMENT

 Environment (e.g. a NGO or Indian government authorizes a project for planting tree saplings to
preserve environment)
 To reduce poverty (e.g. poverty alleviation programmes by Indian government)
 Globalization (e.g. projects by corporate firms capturing new markets overseas)
 Security (e.g. a new antivirus for computer protection from malware, Trojans, spyware etc)
Causes of Project Failure
 Failure to establish upper-management commitment to the project
 Lack of organization’s commitment to the system development methodology
 Taking shortcuts through or around the system development methodology
 Poor expectations management
 Premature commitment to a fixed budget and schedule
 Poor estimating techniques
 Over-optimism
 Inadequate people management skills
 Failure to adapt to business change
 Insufficient resources
 Failure to “manage to the plan”
Measures of Project Success
– The resulting information system is acceptable to the customer.
– The system was delivered “on time.”
– The system was delivered “within budget.”
– The system development process had a minimal impact on ongoing business operations.