Fill This Form To Receive Instant Help
Fill This Form To Receive Instant Help
Homework answers / question archive / Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling Twelfth Edition Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner
Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling Twelfth Edition Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Chapter Two Project Management Growth: Concepts and Definitions Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. When to Use Project Management • • • • • Are the jobs complex? Are there dynamic environmental considerations? Are the constraints tight? Are there several activities to be integrated? Are there several functional boundaries to be crossed? Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. History of Project Management • • • • 1940s – over-the fence management 1950s – Cold War 1960s – aerospace and defense 1970s – more formal PM due to size and complexity, construction, DOD and NASA requirements • 1980s – recessions in 1979-1983, 1989-1993 • 1990s – major implementation efforts • 2000s – housing market decline, economic slowdown Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. The Need For Restructuring • Accomplish tasks that could not be effectively handled by the traditional structure • Accomplish onetime activities with minimum disruption to routine business Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Imperatives • The time span between project initiation and completion appears to be increasing. • The capital committed to the project prior to the use of the end item appears to be increasing. • As technology increases, the commitment of time and money appears to become inflexible. Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Imperatives (Continued) • Technology requires more and more specialized manpower. • The inevitable counterpart of specialization is organization. • The above five “imperatives” identify the necessity for more effective planning, scheduling, and control. Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Project Management Growth • • • • Technology increasing at an astounding rate More money invested in R&D More information available Shortening of project life cycles • Program, Product, and Project Management Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Advantages • Easy adaptation to an ever-changing environment • Ability to handle a multidisciplinary activity within a specified period of time • Horizontal as well as vertical work flow • Better orientation toward customer problems • Easier identification of activity responsibilities • A multidisciplinary decision-making process • Innovation in organizational design Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Life Cycle Phases for Project Management Maturity Executive Embryonic Management Acceptance Line Management Acceptance Growth Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Maturity Life Cycle Phases for Level 2 Project Management Maturity Embryonic • Recognize need Executive Management • Recognize Acceptance benefits • Recognize applications Line • Recognize Growth what Management Maturity must be done Acceptance Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Life Cycle Phases for Level 2 Project Management Maturity Executive Management Embryonic Acceptance • Visible executive support Line Management Acceptance • Executive understanding of project management Maturity Growth • Project sponsorship • Willingness to change way of doing business Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Life Cycle Phases for Level 2 Project Management Maturity Line Management Acceptance • Line management support • Line management commitment Executive Management Acceptance • Line management Line education Management Growth • Willingness to release Acceptance employees for project management training Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Maturity Life Cycle Phases for Level 2 Project Management Maturity Growth Executive Embryonic • Development Management of a methodology Acceptance • Use of life cycle phases • Commitment to planning Line • Minimization of “creeping Managementscope”Growth Maturity Acceptance• Selection of a project tracking system Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Life Cycle Phases for Level 2 Project Management Maturity Maturity • Development of a management cost/ Embryonic schedule control system • Integrating cost and schedule control Line • Developing an Management Maturity Growth educational program to enhance Acceptance project management skills Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Driving Forces for Maturity • • • • • • Capital projects Customer expectations Competitiveness Executive understanding New product development Efficiency and effectiveness Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Industry Classification (by Project Management Utilization) Project -Driven • PM has P&L responsibility • PM is a recognized profession • Multiple career paths • Income comes from projects Project Management NonProject-Driven Hybrid • Production driven but with many projects • Emphasis on new product develop. • Short product life Present cycles • Marketing-orient. • Need for rapid develop. process Past Program Management Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. • Very few projects • Profitability from production • Large brick walls • Long life cycle products Product Management Evolution of Policies, Procedures and Guidelines Life Cycle Phases 1970s Policy and Procedure Manuals Early 1980s Guidelines per Life Cycle Phase Mid-1980s General Project Guidelines Late 1980s CONVENTIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT LEGEND Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Checklists with Periodic Review Points 1990s Project Management with Concurrent Engineering DEFINITION OF A PROJECT LIFE CYCLE PMO Resources Utilized TIME Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. CONVERSION OR TERMINATION PHASE * IMPLEMENTATION PHASE PMO DETAILED PLANNING PHASE RESOURCES CONCEPTUAL FEASIBILITY AND PHASE PRELIMINARY PLANNING PHASE Success • Definition of Success – Primary factors • • • • Within time Within cost Within quality Accepted by the customer Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Success Secondary factors: • • • • • • • • • • • Customer reference Follow-on work Financial success Technical superiority Strategic alignment Regulatory agency relations Health and safety Environmental protection Corporate reputation Employee alignment Ethical conduct Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Success • Critical Success Factors (CSFs) [Focuses on the deliverables] • Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) [Focuses on the execution metrics of the process] Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Key Performance Indicators These are shared learning topics that allow us to maximize what we do right and correct what we do wrong. Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Risk Planning Poor Risk Management Performance Technical Inability Time Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Mitigation Strategies Available Technical Risk Assessment and Forecasting Financial Risk Assessment Project Objectives Market Risk Assessment and Forecasting Numerous Project Planning Project Execution Schedule Risk Assessment Opportunities for Trade-offs Resulting from Risk Analyses Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Limited The starting point in the development of any project management methodology is the implementation of a stage-gate process. Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Stages • Groups of series or parallel activities (based upon the risks of the project) • Managed by cross-functional teams • To reach a predetermined deliverable established by management Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Gates • Structured decision points at the end of each stage • Number of gates must be limited Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Gatekeepers • Individuals (i.e., sponsors) or groups of individuals assigned by senior management • Empowered to enforce the structured process (including change management) • Authorized to evaluate performance and make decisions • And willing to provide the team necessary technical and business information Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Gatekeeper’s Decisions • Proceed to next gate with the original objectives • Proceed to the next gate with revised objectives • Delay making a gate decision until further information is obtained • Terminate the project Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Stage-Gate Failures • Assigning gatekeepers and not empowering them to make decisions • Assigning gatekeepers who are afraid to terminate a project • Failure to provide the team with information critical to gate reviews • Allowing the team to focus more on the gates than on the stages Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Types of Cultures • Cooperative • Noncooperative • Isolated (large companies) • Fragmented (multinational) Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Multiproject Management • Are the project objectives the same? – For the good of the project? – For the good of the company? • Is there a distinction between large and small projects? • How do we handle conflicting priorities? – Critical versus critical projects – Critical versus noncritical projects – Noncritical versus noncritical projects Excerpted from Project Management 12E by Harold Kerzner. Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. CASE STUDY CREATING A METHODOLOGY Background John Compton, the president of the company, expressed his feelings quite bluntly at the executive staff meeting: We are no longer competitive in the marketplace. Almost all of the Requests for Proposal (RFP) that we want to bid on have a requirement that we must identify in the proposal the pro- ject management methodology we will use on the contract should we be awarded the contract. We have no project management methodology. We have just a few templates we use based upon the PMBOK Guide. All of our competitors have methodologies, but not us. I have been asking for a methodology to be developed for more than a year now, and all I get are excuses. Some of you are obviously afraid that you might lose power and authority once the methodology is up and running. That may be true, but losing some power and authority is obviously better than losing your job. In six months I want to see a methodology in use on all projects or I will handle the situation myself. I simply cannot believe that my executive staff is afraid to develop a project management methodology. Critical issues The executive staff knew this day was inevitable; they had to take the initiative in the implementation of a project management methodology. Last year, a consultant was brought in to conduct a morning three-hour session on the ben- efits of project management and the value of an enterprise project management methodology (EPM). As part of the session, the consultant explained that the time needed to develop and implement an EPM system can be shortened if the company has a project management office (PMO) in place to take the lead role. The consultant also explained that whichever executive Case Study 87 gets control of the PMO may become more powerful than other executives because he or she now controls all of the project management intellectual property. The executive staff fully understood the implication of this and therefore became reluctant to visibly support project management until they could see how their organization would be affected. In the meantime, project management suffered. Reluctantly, a PMO was formed reporting to the chief information officer. The PMO com- prised a handful of experienced project managers who could hopefully take the lead in the de- velopment of a methodology. The PMO concluded that there were five steps that had to be done initially. After the five steps were done, the executive committee would receive a final briefing on what had been accomplished. The final briefing would be in addition to the monthly updates and progress reports. The PMO believed that getting executive support and sign-offs in a timely manner would be difficult. The first step that needed to be done was the establishment of the number of life-cycle phases. Some people interviewed wanted ten to twelve life-cycle phases. That meant that there would be ten to twelve gate review meetings and the project managers would spend a great deal of time preparing paperwork for the gate review meetings rather than managing the project. The decision was then made to have no more than six life-cycle phases. The second step was to decide whether the methodology should be designed around rigid policies and procedures or go the more informal route of using forms, guidelines, checklists, and templates. The PMO felt that project managers needed some degree of freedom in dealing with clients and therefore the more informal approach would work best. Also, clients were ask- ing to have the methodology designed around the client's business needs and the more informal approach would provide the flexibility to do this. The third step was to see what could be salvaged from the existing templates and check- lists. The company had a few templates and checklists but not all of the project managers used them. The decision was made to develop a standardized set of documents in accordance with the information in the PMBOK Guide. The project managers could then select whatever forms, guidelines, templates, and checklists were appropriate for a particular project and client. The fourth step would be to develop a means for capturing best practices using the EPM system. Clients were now requiring in their RFP that best practices on a project must be cap- tured and shared with the client prior to the closeout of the project. Most of the people in the PMO believed that this could be done using forms or checklists at the final project debriefing meeting. The fifth step involved education and training. The project managers and functional organi- zations that would staff the projects would need to be trained in the use of the new methodology. The PMO believed that a one-day training program would suffice and the functional organiza- tions could easily release their people for a one-day training session. QUESTIONS 1. What can you determine about the corporate culture from the fact that they waited this long to consider the development of an EPM system? 2. Can a PMO accelerate the implementation process? 3. Is it acceptable for the PMO to report to the chief information officer or to someone else? 4. Why is it best to have six or fewer life-cycle phases in an EPM system? 5. Is it best to design an EPM system around flexible or inflexible elements? Generally, when first developing an EPM system, do companies prefer to use formality or informality in the design? 6. Should an EPM system have the capability of capturing best practices?
Report
Considering that the executive staff in the case study took more than a year to consider the implementation of the Enterprise Project Management (EPM) system, the corporate culture of the organization may be perceived as less competitive because it lacks clear objectives that align with the vision and mission of the company. Notably, organizations that have explicit objectives tend to work toward achieving them, and they do so by implementing competitive strategies regardless of the downsides associated with them. Moreover, such organizations often have a project management office (PMO) with a dedicated team that accelerates project processes.
A PMO is an optimized department that has the resources and skilled workforce needed for project implementation. In a corporate environment, the PMO performs a range of responsibilities, including monitoring and controlling the performance of multiple projects, developing agile project management methodologies that can be reused to execute other projects, coordinating and assessing project portfolios, maximizing resource utilization, and developing collaborative work environments for project teams. Consequently, setting up a PMO in the organization will hasten the implementation process, and the company is most likely to recover some of the wasted time. If implemented, it is recommended that the PMO reports to the chief information officer (CIO).
Accountability is among the key pillars of a good organizational culture; hence in well-structured companies, all departments have an obligation of reporting their activities to a higher office. Similarly, in the case study, the PMO should report to the CIO to facilitate quality control operations which include assessing achieved and ongoing projects and ensure the appropriate use of allocated resources. Besides cultivating an accountability culture, communication in organizations is vital and significantly helps in decision making, assessing performance appraisal, and record-keeping. An effective PMO should ensure that implementation of the EPM system has few life-cycle phases.
The primary goal of organizations is to increase the output of processes by utilizing available resources in an efficient manner. Therefore, time management in project implementation is a concern that organizations attempt to resolve by modifying processes or reducing the duration taken by process cycles. In this regard, having five life cycle phases of the EPM in the case study will reduce the time taken by project managers and the executive staff in meetings; they will therefore spend more time in routine organization activities that support business continuity. Advancing to EPM design, it is generally recommended that elements of the system be flexible, and the organization should take an informal approach.
The flexibility of elements in an EPM system has several advantages, including the ability to change functionalities and removing modules without affecting other processes. Notably, these are characteristics of a robust and future-oriented EPM system, and for organizations, such a system is future-proof and saves on the costs required to implement new ones. Taking an informal approach is also commendable because it gives clients an opportunity to suggest functionalities that suit their needs rather than subjecting them to predefined features that result from using a formal, rigid design. Lastly, the EPM system should be able to capture best practices so that they can be recursively used to achieve optimal project results.
Recommended Organizational Structure
To ensure successful project management in the first year, the company should adopt the functional organization structure, which subdivides teams into specialized groups. The project manager then appoints a leader from each group who will be responsible for reporting the progress of their assigned duties. The rationale for selecting this structure is that it fosters accountability of individual project team members, increases the degree of performance, and reduces the chances of project failure.
Report Outline
Introduction
Considering that the executive staff in the case study took more than a year to consider the implementation of the Enterprise Project Management (EPM) system, the corporate culture of the organization may be perceived as less competitive because it lacks clear objectives that align with the vision and mission of the company.
Analysis
Pillars of EPM
Recommended Organizational Structure
To ensure successful project management in the first year, the company should adopt the functional organization structure, which subdivides teams into specialized groups.
