Project Administration

2.1 Essentials of Project Administration

Project Administration focuses on two objectives. One is relieving the
project team from the burden of project management's
administrative responsibilities. The second objective is achieving
schedule control. It views project management as a process control
system. Once plans are ready and the project is executing, a feedback
loop is provided in the form of clear, easy to understand status
reports.

A Project Team
A project team plays the vital role of designing and implementing a
project. A project team consists of a specific group of individuals.
The following are different types of a project teams:
1. Initial project team.
2.Core project team.
3.Full project team.
4. Project advisors.
5. Project stakeholders.
6. Process facilitators.

1. Initial Project Team:

The initial project team consists of specific people who initially
conceive the idea of starting a project. The team members are

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responsible for the planning and execution of the project. One of the
team members will be designated as the project manager. The
project manager will be responsible for coordinating the activities
amongst the team members.
2. Core project team:
The core project team is a small group of people, typically 3 to 8
people who are ultimately responsible for designing and managing a
project. This team consists of sponsor, client leader, expert and
internal auditor.
3. Full project team:
This team consists of complete group of people involved in designing,
implementing, monitoring and controlling a project. This team
includes managers, stakeholders, researchers and other key
implementers of the project.
4. Project advisors:
Project advisors are the people who are not in the project team, but
finally to whom the team members can depend for honest feedback
and counselling. Project advisor is a person who anchor the cause of
the project.
5. Project stakeholders:
Project stakeholders are the individuals, groups or institutions who
have a special interest in the natural resources of the project area.
6. Process facilitators:
A process facilitator is a person who can help the project team
through the planning process. The process facilitator understands the
key elements of the process and has good facilitation skills.

The advantages of effective team are listed below:

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1. Clear objective of the project from the initiation to completion.
2. Good decision-making process, which speed up the activities.
3. Clear roles, responsibilities and leadership, without overlapping,
ensure smooth
progress.
4. Trust, co-operation, support and constructive conflict or feedback.
5.Individual and mutual accountability for performance results.

Team Formation:
Proper care is to be taken while forming a team. The appointment of
the team leader should be done after an in-depth analysis. While
selecting project team members, the following items may be kept in
mind.
1.Knowledge of political, social and economic factors.
2.Knowledge/experience of stakeholders and their concerns.
3.Experience in developing strategies.
4.Experience in communications and fund raising.
5. Experience in implementing strategies.
6. Experience in budgeting and risk assessment.
7.Should understand the psychology of the team.

Project design:
Project design is the first stage in the execution of the project. Project

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design is concerned with developing project scheduling techniques
and implementation of the project. It includes finding of location,
construction of buildings, procuring plant and machinery and finally
execution the project.

Significance of Project design (Advantages):

1. It gives a comprehensive idea about the entire project.

2. It is a diagrammatic representation of the work plan designed to
execute the project.
3. The various activities of the project are explained in sequence to
highlight the various phases of the project.
4. It helps entrepreneurs in coordinating project activities.
5. It serves as an effective tool of planning and implementation of a
project.
6. It helps managers to plan the project economically.

Work Breakdown Structure, WBS

Work breakdown structure, WBS in short, is a technique which
breaks down a work into its components and at the same time
establishes the connections between the components.
It is constructed by dividing the project into its major parts, with each
of these being further divided into sub-parts. This is continued till a
breakdown is done in terms of manageable units of work for which
responsibility can be defined.
The work breakdown structure defines what work is to be done in a
detailed manner. To assign responsibility for the tasks to be done, the

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work breakdown structure has to be integrated with the project
organization structure.
Work breakdown through the hardware approach is the only natural
and permanent way of breaking work. Performance target, schedule,
budget and accountability can similarly be fixed for any hardware
element.
Advantages of the work breakdown structure:
1. Effective planning by dividing the work into manageable elements
which can be planned, budgeted, and controlled.
2. Assignment of responsibility for work elements to project
personnel and outside agencies.
3. Development of control and information system.

Project Execution Plan

The Project Execution Plan is the governing document that
establishes the means to execute, monitor, and control projects.
Project execution plan includes four sub-plans. These are:
1.Contracting Plan
2.Work packing plan.
3.Organizational plan.
4.Systems and Procedure Plan.

Contracting Plan
This is the first step in the preparation of a project execution plan. To
develop self-regulating systems, it is necessary to contract out those
areas where the owner's company does not have inherent
competence.

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Which type of contract to choose, which type of reimbursement to
make, what conditions of contracts to stipulate, and what payment
terms to offer, are the issues that must be examined during this
phase of the project.
Work packing plan:
A work package is a group of related tasks within a project. Because
they look like projects themselves, they are often thought of as sub-
projects within a larger project. Work packages are the smallest unit
of work that a project can be broken down into when creating the
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).
Organization Plan:
An Organization Plan is basically a “to do” list for an organization. It
lists out the plan of work, programs, and organizational growth over
a period of time, the tasks involved, who is responsible for them, and
when they'll be done.
Systems and procedure plan:
More importance has to be given to routine systems and procedure
so that no intervention is required in the day-to-day operation of a
system. There are at least seven routine sub-systems of project
management for which appropriate procedures can be designed right
at the start of the project implementation.
These sub-systems are:
1.Contract management
2.Configuration management
3.Time management
4.Cost management
5.Fund management
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6.Materials management
7.Communication management.
Project procedure manual
A project procedure manual is to be prepared in such a way that the
interacting agencies are able to see their roles and mutual
relationships in achieving the common goal. Preparation of a project
procedure manual should start with each project management sub
system. A system break-up has to be carried out on each sub-system
to identify the need for procedure write-ups. While carrying out
system break-up the question to be asked is what the system must
achieve and what contributes to the effective functioning of each of
the elements. The project procedure manual gives a complete
picture about the system.

Project Diary
The Project Diary is a summation of all of the daily activities on a
project. This diary should be written so that it will represent the
status of the project each day to anyone reviewing it in future years.
A project manager would be holding several meetings with vendors,
contractors etc , many decisions are taken in these meetings and
many commitments are made. Information derived on these
meetings; decisions taken have to be properly recorded in the project
diary. Information noted in the diary will help to justify the decisions
at later date. All project managers have to maintain project diaries,
for efficient management of project.
Project Execution System
The Project Execution System consists of the processes performed to
complete the work defined in the project management plan to satisfy
the project specifications.

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The successful execution and administration of project requires,
direction, organization, co-ordination, communication and control all
at the same time but in varying proportion.
Project Direction
Project Direction is the process of implementing and carrying out of
those approved plans that are necessary to achieve objectives.
Project Direction involves steps as follows:
1. Staffing - Seeing that a professional person is chosen for every
position.
2. Training - Training individuals and groups on how to fulfil their
duties and responsibilities.
3. Supervising - Giving day-to-day instructions, guidance and
discipline as required so that they can fulfil their duties and
responsibilities.
4. Delegating - Assigning work, responsibility, and authority so that
others can make maximum utilization of their abilities.
5. Motivating - Encouraging others to put more effort into the
successful completion of the projects.
6. Counselling - Solve the personal problems and holding private
discussions about how he might do better work.
7. Coordinating - Bring synchronization between different activities.

Communications in a project
For a successful direction a two-way communications system is
essential. For that matter, the entire process of direction, co-
ordination and control in a project revolves around communication.
Communications has two dimensions physical and mental.

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Physical communication: Passing a memo, drawing, data, instruction,
information, etc. are the physical aspects of communication, which
can be easily achieved.
Mental communication: Understanding the role expectation,
empathy, language barriers, listening skills etc., are the mental
aspects of communication which may create barriers in
communication.

Effective communication is often the foundation of successful

projects. Good communication can unite team members and
stakeholders to a project’s strategy, objectives and budget. It can also
enable everyone involved in the project to understand his or her
roles, which may make them more likely to support the project.
Without effective communication, projects can incur more risk and
fail to meet desired outcomes.
Steps to be taken for effective communication:
1. Make communication a priority.
2. Don’t assume you know everything.
3. Keep things positive.
4. Switch up the communication channels.
5. Keep updates timely and coincise.

Project coordination
Project coordination is the day-to-day management of tasks within
the department. The purpose of coordinating projects is to
streamline the workflow of the tasks. A project manager informs
employees about who is responsible for each section of a project and
its deadlines.

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Co-ordination in a project is important because of the need for
simultaneous working of number of activities. Therefore, one cannot
proceed simply, with the execution of a project without proper co-
ordination.
Project Co-ordination Procedure:
Co-ordination basically addresses itself to two aspects of work.
1. Physical aspect would refer to what work is to be done, how much
work is to be done and who will do the work.
2. Timing aspect would refer to when the work will be done.

Pre-requisites for successful project implementation

In order to minimize time and cost over-runs during the
implementation of a project it is necessary to study about the
prerequisites for successful project implementation. Keeping checks
on these prerequisites help to improve prospects of successful
completion of projects.
Pre-requisites for Successful Project Implementation are...
1.Adequate formulation.
2.Sound project organization.
3.Proper implementation planning.
4.Advance action.
5.Timely availability of funds.
6. Effective monitoring.

1) Adequate Formulation: Often project formulation is deficient

because of one or more of the following shortcomings.

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1. Poor assessments of input requirements.
2.Improper field investigation.
3.Careless assessment of input requirements.
4.Improper methods used for estimating costs and benefits.
5.Omission of the project linkages.
6.Flawed judgements because of lack of experience and expertise.
7.Undue hurry to get started.

2) Sound Project Organization:

A sound organization for implementing the project is critical to its
success. The characteristics of such an organization are:
1. Itis led by a competent leader who is accountable for the project
performance.
2. The authority of the project leader and his team is corresponding
with their responsibility.
3. Adequate attention is paid to the human side of the project.
4. Systems and methods are clearly defined.
5. Rewards and penalties to individuals are related to performance.

3) Proper Implementation Planning:

Once the investment decision is taken, and during the formulation
and appraisal process, it is necessary to do the detailed
implementation planning before commencing the actual
implementation. Such planning should involve following steps:
1. Develop a comprehensive time plan for various activities.

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2. Estimate meticulously the resource requirements (manpower,
materials, money, methods etc.) for each period to realize the time
plan.
3. Define properly the inter-linkages between various activities of the
project.
4. Specify cost standards.

4) Advance Action:
When the project appears to be operational, advance action on the
following activities may be initiated:
1. Acquisition of land,
2.Securing essential clearances,
3.Identifying technical consultants,
4.Arranging for infrastructure facilities,
5.Preliminary design and engineering,
6.Calling of tenders.

5) Timely Availability of Funds:

Once a project is approved, adequate funds must be made available
to meet its requirements as per the plan of implementation.

6) Effective monitoring:
To keep a track on the progress of the project, a system of monitoring
must be established. This helps in:
1. Anticipating deviations from the implementation plan.

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 2. Analyzing emerging problems and resolving it at the earliest.
3. Taking corrective action.

Questions:

1.List the advantages of project design.

2.List the types of project team.
3.What are the advantages of effective team?
4.What is Project Execution Plan?
5.What is Project Diary? Why it is essential?
6.List the steps involved in Project Direction.
7. What is work breakdown structure?
8.What are the objectives of project administration?
9.What are the advantages of the work breakdown structure?
10.List the pre-requisites for Successful Project Implementation.
11. What do you mean by project execution plan?
12. List the steps to be taken for effective communication.

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