The first step in making project management work is a complete definition of the boundaries across which the project manager must interact.
by Jane Shannahan (BA; PG Dips Event Management/Business & Administration; MMgt)
Introduction
Project management (PMM) is a temporary process in which an agreed upon optimising and unique deliverable is produced - that is planned, executed, monitored, controlled and closed in line with financial, resource, stakeholder and/or peculiar constraints - to a predetermined schedule (Shannahan, 2012). Projects are often massive endeavours and it would not be prudent to say that one aspect is more important than all the others. It would also be unwise to suggest that if a particular area of the project has been well-devised, then the project is definitely going to succeed.
Traditionally, projects within companies were administered by, for example, engineers who might not have had the pertinent PMM skills. A more recent case of this was reported by Britz and Buys (2007) who found that companies’ strategic management plans were not implemented because the in-house executives (e.g., marketing or R and D specialists) who had developed a strategy in facilitated workshops, were not equipped to progress the plan. Even though PMM has become a field of its own, projects still often fail. The following discussion will examine one aspect in particular that stands out as a source of project boundaries, enabling the viability both of day-to-day practical execution of a project and its eventual success.
Constraints
Authors speak of projects having to operate in line with the triple constraints of time, money/resources, and quality (Kleim & Ludin, 1998; Heldman, 2004; Waddell, 2005). In the past, if a project was completed within these parameters, the task was said to have succeeded. Over time, considerations such as customer satisfaction have been added to the formula, what Cooke-Davies (2002) call the difference between “project... [continues]
by Jane Shannahan (BA; PG Dips Event Management/Business & Administration; MMgt)
Introduction
Project management (PMM) is a temporary process in which an agreed upon optimising and unique deliverable is produced - that is planned, executed, monitored, controlled and closed in line with financial, resource, stakeholder and/or peculiar constraints - to a predetermined schedule (Shannahan, 2012). Projects are often massive endeavours and it would not be prudent to say that one aspect is more important than all the others. It would also be unwise to suggest that if a particular area of the project has been well-devised, then the project is definitely going to succeed.
Traditionally, projects within companies were administered by, for example, engineers who might not have had the pertinent PMM skills. A more recent case of this was reported by Britz and Buys (2007) who found that companies’ strategic management plans were not implemented because the in-house executives (e.g., marketing or R and D specialists) who had developed a strategy in facilitated workshops, were not equipped to progress the plan. Even though PMM has become a field of its own, projects still often fail. The following discussion will examine one aspect in particular that stands out as a source of project boundaries, enabling the viability both of day-to-day practical execution of a project and its eventual success.
Constraints
Authors speak of projects having to operate in line with the triple constraints of time, money/resources, and quality (Kleim & Ludin, 1998; Heldman, 2004; Waddell, 2005). In the past, if a project was completed within these parameters, the task was said to have succeeded. Over time, considerations such as customer satisfaction have been added to the formula, what Cooke-Davies (2002) call the difference between “project... [continues]
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