EC410505

Project Management

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering

Indus Institute of Technology and Engineering
Indus University
 What is a Project?
 How is a project carried out successfully?
 Who is a project manager?
 Describe project management
 Learn key elements of the project management framework,
including project stakeholders, the project management
knowledge areas, common tools and techniques, and project
success factors
 Understand the role of project manager by describing what
project managers do, what skills they need, and what the
career field is like for IT project managers
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  A project is “a temporary endeavor undertaken
to create a unique product, service, or result”*
 A project creates a new product, system or brings
in change in the existing system or process
 Operation is work done to sustain the business
 A project ends when its objectives have been
reached, or the project has been terminated
 Projects can be large or small and take a short or
long time to complete
*PMI, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge
R.N.Mutagi PM 2014 (PMBOK® Guide) (2013), p. 3. 3
A project:
 Has a unique purpose
 Is temporary
 Is developed using progressive elaboration
 Requires resources, often from various areas
 Should have a primary customer or sponsor
 The project sponsor usually provides the
direction and funding for the project.
 Involves uncertainty

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 Building a House
 Planning a Wedding
 Designing and building a Satellite
 Hosting a Birthday Party / Going on a Vacation Trip
 Writing a Book/Article
 Obtaining PMP certification
 Conducting a Seminar/Conference/Workshop
 Starting a new Business
 Developing a new System/Product (5G/6G/…)
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 Think of a project
 Identify the tasks- what needs to be done to
successfully complete your project

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 Start

 Initiation Plan
 Planning
 Execution
Control
 Control
 Closing
Execute

Close

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 by the Ancient Egyptians in building the Pyramids?
 by the Chinese in building the Great Wall?
 by the Moghuls in building the Taj Mahal?

 by NASA in sending Apollo space crafts to moon?

 by Boeing in building Boeing 787 Dreamliner?
 by ISRO in sending the Mars Orbiter?

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  Better control of financial, physical, and human
resources.
 Improved customer relations.
 Shorter development times.
 Lower costs.
 Higher quality and increased reliability.
 Higher profit margins.
 Improved productivity.
 Better internal coordination.
 Higher worker morale (less stress).

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 Project managers work with project sponsors,
project teams, and other people involved in
projects to meet project goals
 Program: “A group of related projects managed in
a coordinated way to obtain benefits and control
not available from managing them individually”*
 Program managers oversee programs and often
act as bosses for project managers
*PMI, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge
(PMBOK® Guide) (2013), p. 16.
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 Every project is constrained in different ways
by its:
 Scope goals: What work will be done?

 Time goals: How long should it take to complete?

 Cost goals: What should it cost?

 It is the project manager’s duty to balance

these three often-competing goals.

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 Quality

Quality

Better

Decisions

Cheaper Faster
Cost Time
• A project manager must strive to meet the quality requirements within
the cost and time constraints.
• Trade-off is possible between quality, cost and time. PM has to make
many decisions to keep a balance between the three.
• Pulling an arrow in one direction towards its target affects the other
two, moving them away from their targets
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 Project management is “the application of
knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to
project activities to meet project
requirements.”*

*PMI, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge

(PMBOK® Guide) (2013)
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  Stakeholders are the people involved in or
affected by project activities
 Stakeholders include:
 Project sponsor
 Project manager
 Project team
 Support staff
 Customers
 Users
 Suppliers
 Opponents to the project
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 Knowledge areas describe the key competencies
that project managers must develop.
 Four core knowledge areas lead to specific project
objectives (scope, time, cost, and quality).
 Four facilitating knowledge areas are the means
through which the project objectives are achieved
(human resources, communication, risk, and
procurement management).
 One knowledge area (project integration management)
affects and is affected by all of the other knowledge
areas.
 All knowledge areas are important!
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 Project management tools and techniques assist
project managers and their teams in various
aspects of project management.
 Specific tools and techniques include:
 Project charters, scope statements, and WBS (scope).
 Gantt charts, network diagrams, critical path analyses,
critical chain scheduling (time).
 Cost estimates and earned value management (cost).

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1. Executive support
2. User involvement
3. Experienced project manager
4. Clear business objectives
5. Minimized scope
6. Standard software infrastructure
7. Firm basic requirements
8. Formal methodology
9. Reliable estimates
10. Other criteria, such as small milestones, proper
planning, competent staff, and ownership

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 To plan, schedule, coordinate, and work with
people to achieve project goals

 97 % of successful projects are led by

experienced project managers

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 Define scope of project
 Identify stakeholders, decision-makers, and escalation procedures
 Develop detailed task list (work breakdown structures)
 Estimate time requirements
 Develop initial project management flow chart
 Identify required resources and budget. Evaluate project
requirements
 Identify and evaluate risks
 Prepare contingency plan
 Identify interdependencies
 Identify and track critical milestones
 Participate in project phase review
 Secure needed resources
 Manage the change control process
 Report project status
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  Project managers need both “hard” and
“soft” skills

 Hard skills include product knowledge and

knowing how to use various project
management tools and techniques

 Soft skills include being able to work with

various types of people
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 Communication skills: Listens, persuades
 Organizational skills: Plans, sets goals, analyzes
 Team-building skills: Shows empathy, motivates,
promotes Team Spirit
 Leadership skills: Sets examples, provides vision
(big picture), delegates, positive, energetic
 Coping skills: Flexible, creative, patient, persistent
 Technology skills: Experience, project knowledge

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 Leadership and professionalism are crucial.
 Know what your sponsor expects from the project, and
learn from your mistakes.
 Trust your team and delegate decisions.
 Know the business.
 Stand up for yourself.
 Be a team player.
 Stay organized and don’t be overly emotional.
 Work on projects and for people you believe in.
 Think outside the box.
 There is some luck involved in project management, and
you should always aim high.
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Effective Project Managers Ineffective Project Managers
• Leadership by example • Sets bad example
• Visionary • Not self-assured
• Technically competent • Lacks technical expertise
• Decisive • Poor communicator
• Good communicator • Poor motivator
• Good motivator
• Stands up to upper
management when
necessary
• Supports team members
• Encourages new ideas
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“The need to be right all the time is the biggest
bar to new ideas. It is better to have enough
ideas for some of them to be wrong than to be
always right by having no ideas”

Edward de Bono

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 A project is “a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a
unique product, service, or result”
 A project is carried out in four phases; Initiation, planning,
execution and closure
 Project manager works with project sponsors, project teams,
and other people involved in projects to meet project goals
managing the available resources
 Projects are constrained by cost, time and scope and the PM
balances these to achieve desired quality
 Project management is “the application of knowledge, skills,
tools and techniques to project activities to meet project
requirements”

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 A project has four phases; initiation, planning, execution and
closing
 The project management framework has 9 knowledge areas;
4 core, 4 facilitating and integration management
 The PM has tools and techniques to assist him/her in
managing the resources effectively
 A PM should have both hard and soft skills for successful
completion of a project
 The skill set for the PM includes Communication,
Organization, Team building, Leadership, Coping and
Technology

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1. What is a project?
2. What are the constraints in a project?
3. What is the role of a project manager?
4. What skills a PM should have?
5. What are the advantages of using project management?
6. What are the project phases?
7. Which are the project knowledge areas?
8. What factors contribute to the success of a project?
9. Which are the PM job functions?

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