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PROJECT & PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Definition and Important Concepts:

Project Management is the art of managing all the aspects of a project from inception to closure
using a scientific and structured methodology.
The term Project may be used to define any endeavor that is temporary in nature and with a
beginning or an end. The project must create something unique whether it is a product, service or
result and must be progressively elaborated. As the definition implies, not every task can be
considered a project. It would be worthwhile to keep this definition in mind when categorizing
projects and studying their role in the success of the organization. With the above definition of
the project, one gets a clear idea on what a project is.
The role of a project manager is akin to that of a conductor in a symphony. Individually each of
the artists knows what has to be done for his or her role. But, there needs to be a person who has
the overall “big picture” or the collective vision to make the performance a success. Similarly,
the project manager drives the entire project team in pursuit of common goals.
The Project Manager’s role is to ensure that the overall objectives of the project are achieved
with the participation of each individual member. The project manager is like the Prima Donna
and his or her acumen depends on how well he or she can leverage the strengths of the individual
members while minimizing the impact of their weaknesses.
What is a Project?
A PROJECT is defined as a “temporary endeavor with a beginning and an end and it must be
used to create a unique product, service or result”. What this definition of a project means is that
projects are those activities that cannot go on indefinitely and must have a defined purpose.

 A project is an activity to meet the creation of a unique product or service and thus
activities that are undertaken to accomplish routine activities cannot be considered
projects. It has to be remembered that the term temporary does not apply to the result or
service that is generated by the project. The project may be finite but not the result. For
instance, a project to build a monument would be of fixed duration whereas the result that
is the monument may be for an indefinite period in time.
 A project is an activity to create something unique. Of course, many of the office
buildings that are built are similar in many respects but each individual facility is unique
in its own way.
 Finally, a project must be progressively elaborated. This means that the project
progresses in steps and continues by increments. This also means that the definition of
the project is refined at each step and ultimately the purpose of the progress is
enunciated. This means that a project is first defined initially and then as the project
progresses, the definition is revisited and more clarity is added to the scope of the
project as well as the underlying assumptions about the project.
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Project Characteristics

A project is not normal day to day activity undertaken by organization rather it is specific, non-
routine activity of varying time frame and impact viability of the business in the long run. A
typical project has following characteristics:

 Timeline: A project has a definite timeline with measurable starting and end point.
 Resources: A project has limited resource of capital and manpower.
 Tools: Special type of tools and techniques are used for project management (Gantt
Charts, etc.)
 Team: Project management requires diverse team stretching across departments and
functions.

Project Life Cycle

A typical project is divided into following phases. Each phase of the project has its own
importance and impact on overall success of the project.

 Initiation Phase: In this phase of the project, feedback received from customers is
analyzed and brainstorming is done as to develop new product or modify existing product
to meet the new demands.
 Project Definition Phase: In this phase of the project efforts are made to define the
solution for the problem posed by customers.
 Feasibility Study: In this phase, planning of the project is made and definite milestones
are established.
 Project Execution: In this phase all activities and milestones established in the earlier
phase are executed in a timely and orderly manner. This phase utilizes maximum of all
resources.
 Project Conclusion: This is the last phase of the project. In this phase, final product or
service is handed over to the operations team for commercial production.

What are the basic phases of a project and their purposes?

The phases of a project make up the project life cycle. It is convenient for the project managers
to divide the project into phases for control and tracking purposes. Each milestone at each stage
is then elaborated and tracked for completion. The basic phases of a project are dependent on the
kind of project that is being carried out. For instance, a software project may have requirement,
design, build, test, implementation phases whereas a project to build a metro or a building may
have different names for each phase.
The purpose of each phase of the project is a set of deliverables that are agreed upon before the
project starts. For instance, in a software project, the requirement phase needs to generate the
requirement documents, the design phase the design document etc. The build phase in a project
delivers the completed code whereas the test phase is about the completed testing for the
deliverables.
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Each phase of the project is associated with a certain milestone and the set of deliverables that
each phase is expected to deliver is then tracked for compliance and closure. The Project Life
Cycle consists of the initiating, executing, controlling and closing processes. Each of these
processes is necessary to ensure that the project stays on track and is completed according to the
specifications.

What is Project Management?

A project in any organization is collaboration across departments to achieve a single well defined
objective. The process of planning, organizing and managing resources to achieve the
organizational objective is called Project Management.

Project management is very important in production of goods and services. Idea generation to
final production of product or service, each step can be categorized as individual projects. Any
project requires a project manager, who leads the project to its logical conclusion. Project
manager is responsible for appointing team members with different background but essential in
completion of the project.

Project Management Activities

Project management activities are mainly divided into three main categories Planning,
Scheduling and Controlling.

1. Planning: Planning activities include defining project objective, resource planning, etc.

2. Scheduling: Scheduling activities include developing detailed milestones and guidelines
for the project. These activities are performed typically before actual initiation of the
project.
3. Controlling: Controlling activities include developing budget and finance control points,
measuring of scheduled tasks are performed.

Project Management Techniques

There are several techniques utilized for project management. Some of the techniques are as
follows, and they are mainly used for project scheduling.

 Gantt Charts: These charts are used to depict the project tasks against time. It monitors
progress of individual project tasks and also highlights dependency if any between those
project tasks.
 Network Planning Techniques: These techniques show the relationship between project
activities, project duration, critical path, constraints of non-critical activities and resource
utilization. There are two types of network planning techniques Critical Path Method
(CPM) and Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT).
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Components of Project Management and Stakeholder Management

There are several components of project management that encompass the spectrum of project
management. Right from the initial setting up of the project to the closure, each phase brings a
new set of challenges and components to the art of project management. Specifically, the project
manager has to manage the team and take bottom-line responsibility for the deliverables along
with managing the stakeholders of the project.
If we take each of these components individually, the initial setting up of the project involves
establishing procedures and processes for subsequent phases and defining the roles of the
team members. In organizations that lay emphasis on processes, this phase is crucial to the
success of the project.
Role of the Project Manager

There has been much debate about what the Project Manager can or cannot do. And the
argument is also centered around on whether to take a proactive or a subdued approach
towards the issues surrounding the management of the project.
The proactive approach favors an interventionist and hands on approach that includes
intervening in day to day affairs of the project. This approach is manifested in the IT industry
where the Project Manager is called upon to involve themselves in the technical aspects of the
project that would include participating in design, coding and other activities. This phenomenon
cannot be said to be restricted to the IT industry alone as there are several instances in the other
sectors where the Project Manager has to get their hands dirty, literally and metaphorically.
There are organizations that define the role of the project manager clearly and delineate the roles
and responsibilities. This usually happens in Matrix organizations where the structure of the
organization is such that there is lot of emphasis on clarity of the role.
Thus, after a review of the literature, it would seem that there is no single answer to the question
of whether the project manager has to be at the centre of the universe or like a conductor
directing the symphony.
Stakeholder Management

In this section, we look at the specifics of managing the stakeholders for the project. Any project
has multiple stakeholders that need to be taken care. A stakeholder is someone who has either
invested in the project and derives value from the outcome or a third party who contributes to the
success and conversely to the failure of the project.
The first task before the Project Manager is to ensure that the stakeholders are clearly identified
and then their roles and responsibilities demarcated and delineated. The task of identifying the
stakeholders assumes importance as there should not be any confusion over who is a stakeholder
and who is not. For instance, an IT project would have the stakeholders listed right from the
systems and the network administrators to the client and the project sponsor. But, there might be
other stakeholders like the staffing team who flit in and out of the project phases as and when
they are required.
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Thus, the need is to establish boundaries and identify the roles of the different stakeholders
appropriately. Apart from this, the project manager must make it a point to ensure that
stakeholders are categorised according to their importance and relevance to the project and the
start of each phase accordingly.
Stakeholder satisfaction should be the bottom-line goal towards which the project
managers must work to. Customer satisfaction and customer delight are some of the
phrases that are used as an adjunct to good project management and its practice. Customer
delight is achieved when one measures up to the needs of the customer and takes appropriate
steps to ensure that they are met.

Team Management during a Project

Team member selection is a process that involves mapping of skills and strengths of each
individual member with that of the role and the job description for which they are being hired or
taken into the team. The process should take into account the perceptions of the team member
regarding the role for him or her and ensure that it is in line with the expectations from them.
Only this would ensure a right “fit” between the individual members and the role for which they
are being taken.
Team selection should not be an ad hoc process and should involve commitment and patience
from the project team. The manager has to give enough thought to the selection criterion and
how they must be applied to the selection of team members.
Team-Building Strategies

Team building is a never ending process though more attention must be given to the task early on
in the project lifecycle. The effective team building strategies call for increased co-operation and
understanding between the team members. The objective must to be foster a spirit of mutual
reinforcement in the tasks that they perform and that which they accomplish.
The verbal as well as the non-verbal communication must be encouraged and built up with a
view to get the team to bond together. Effective team building also requires the team members to
trust each other implicitly and explicitly. This involves a process of building rapport and cueing
from each other with regards to doing the tasks together and achieve greater co-operation and
build good will among the team.
Conflict Management in Diverse Teams

The following can be taken as potential sources of conflict within a diverse team:
Groups working on the project may have different goals and expectations. In this case the
bottom line expectations for the project must be laid down and the project manager must ensure
that the team members stick to the expectations of the project and learn to subordinate individual
goals and aspirations to that of the team goals. Some conflicts reflect the fact that the day-to-day
work on projects is usually carried out by many different units of the organization, units that
often differ in their objectives and technical judgments. The result is that these units have
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different expectations about the project, its costs and rewards, its relative importance, and its
timing.
There is considerable uncertainty about who has the authority to make decisions. There is
nothing like a vacuum to create conflict and hence the project manager must be empowered to
take decisions and he or she must be the deciding authority for the project. Uncertainty about
who has the authority to make decisions on resource allocation, on administrative procedures, on
communication, on technological choices, and on all the other matters affecting the project
produces conflict between the PM and the other parties. Conflicts about schedules, intra and
inter-project priorities, cost estimates, and staff time tend to fall into this category.
There are interpersonal conflicts between people who are parties-at-interest in the project.
This is the most common cause of conflict and effective steps must be taken to ensure that team
spirit remains intact and the morale of the team members remains high. The minimum
requirement is that team members learn to work with each other and for the common project
objectives.

Behavioral Models for Project Managers

There are several models of behaviour that the project manager can draw upon in his or her
work. These include Maslow’s need hierarchy theory, Herzberg’s Hygiene theory and
McGregor’s theory X and theory Y as applied to project management. All these behavioural
models point to the ability of the project manager to motivate the people in the team
towards the common goal of ensuring the success of the project.
Maslow’s need hierarchy theory postulates that people do not work for money or security alone.
According to this theory, once a person fulfils the basic needs of money and security, he or she
tends to seek actualization of their potential and engage in what he called “self-actualization”.
Thus, this theory holds that once an individual reaches a certain stage in life or a position, the
pay and other benefits matter less to him or her than the quality of the work that they are doing.
When we apply this theory to the real world issues of management, we find that the Project
Manager has to ensure that he or she does not concentrate on raising the perks alone to achieve
optimal performance from his team members but also keeps giving challenging work to the team
members to fulfill their potential. According to our experience and from talking to seasoned
project managers, we have found that most team members take great pride in their work and
hence challenging assignments are one way of motivating them.
Of course, there has been much criticism of this theory in recent years and experts have pointed
to several inconsistencies in this theory and application. The most notable example is that of the
skyrocketing executive compensation that belies the hypothesis of Maslow’s theory. This is one
clear instance of the fact that pay matters more than other variables and job satisfaction alone
does not motivate people. In my opinion, it is a fact that people tend to get motivated by perks as
well as promise of rewards, monetary and otherwise. So, it is up to the Project Manager to use
the notion of reward judiciously without compromising quality or alienating other team
members.
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If we take a look at Herzberg’s theory of hygiene, the factors that contribute to the success of the
individual can be divided into presence and absence of hygiene factors. The definition is that the
presence of good working conditions and salary are things that do not motivate people by
themselves. The absence of such factors de-motivates the individual. Thus, the idea here is that
hygiene factors are those that do not contribute by their presence but contribute negatively by
their absence.
Thus, the project manager cannot be complacent with the fact that he or she has provided optimal
working conditions for the team members and expect them to perform at their full potential. The
manager also needs to understand that it is his responsibility to take the lead in motivating the
team members by holding regular one-one meetings and ensuring that their grievances are heard
and accepted.
The Theory X and Theory Y holds that people need to be supervised and told what to do (X) and
people would work with little supervision and thus do not need to be told what to do (Y). These
are the opposing views of the theory of motivation and behaviour. Thus these conflicting and
competing views reflect human nature and model the behaviour accordingly.
As we discussed, the underlying theory behind the motivation models is the approach that the
project manager must take to ensure that the team members and the team as a whole is motivated
enough to take action and contribute meaningfully to the project. There is nothing more
troublesome than a team that is de-motivated and unable to function cohesively and as a team.
Thus, the primary responsibility before the project manager is to ensure a professional approach
towards people management.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SOFT SKILLS FOR PROJECT MANAGERS

Project Management is both an Art and a Science

Project Management is both an art and a science. It is a science because project managers need to
estimate budgets, draw up schedules, and manage costs and earn profits. It is an art because they
have to ensure that the team gets along well and the extra edge that contributes to the success of
the project is achieved through efficiencies and synergies. In this context, it is very important for
project managers to have good soft skills like communication, people management, and
personality. 
The project manager is like a conductor in an opera who provides the direction to the
individual performers in the team. Hence, he or she has to have exceptional people skills as
they are tasked with the objective of carrying the team along with them. Further, project
managers need to communicate with different stakeholders including their superiors, the support
functions like HR and Admin, and the other interfaces like customers, vendors, and members of
other project teams with which their team is interacting. All these aspects call for a superior
display of people skills from the project manager. We shall discuss each of these skills in the
following sections.
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Essential Soft Skills for the Project Manager

The first essential skill that the project manager must have is exceptional communication
abilities. Since project managers have to interact with the customers, the team members, and
associated stakeholders, he or she has to get the point across without communication gaps. There
are many projects where the project managers because of limited communication skills often find
themselves unable to articulate the problems and the objectives to the stakeholders. It is an axiom
in contemporary organizational behavior theory and practice that the project managers must have
excellent written and spoken English skills as he or she has to communicate in writing as well as
during oral speech about the project imperatives and the project objectives. Apart from
communication skills, the project managers have to have superior people management skills.
Since the project manager is tasked with the duty of ensuring excellent teamwork and team
bonding, he or she must provide the leadership by example and leadership by people
management from which the team members can draw inspiration and perform at their full
potential. In some multinationals, it is the practice that the people manager is different from the
project manager and that this division takes some responsibility off the project manager.
However, even in this case, the project manager still has the overall responsibility for teamwork
and team cohesion and hence, his or her people skills must be exceptional.
People Management and People Enabling

The other soft skills that the project manager must have concern the conflict resolution, team
development, and mentoring skills. Conflicts are inevitable in teams as well as with other
stakeholders. Hence, the project manager has to be a skilled negotiator and an astute
troubleshooter. Further, the project manager has to inculcate teamwork and team bonding and
hence, the team development skills must be exemplary. Apart from this, the project manager has
to mentor new recruits and those employees who show high potential and pass on some of the
tips and the strategies that made the project manager grow to the present position with the
objective that the employees with potential would also grow in a similar manner.
Closing Thoughts

One of the skills that we have touched upon briefly was the customer interfacing skills. Without
this skill, project managers might as well find another role for themselves as customer
interfacing is one of the key areas of project management. Including the internal stakeholder
management, customer interfacing is all about how well the project manager handles customer
complaints, proactively prevents customer complaints, and achieves customer delight and
customer wow that go beyond customer satisfaction.

Bidding as an Essential Skill for Project Managers

Bidding is an essential and vital aspect of project management. Not only do the organizations
and the project managers have to engage with the prospective clients by specifying at what rates
they would undertake the project but also would need to be aware of how much their competitors
are bidding though they might not have the exact information in this regard.
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Indeed, it is a cat and mouse game as far as bidding for projects is concerned since project
managers have to both bid at a rate that is acceptable to the client and at the same time would
result in profits to their organizations but they would also have to ensure that they do not lose out
on lucrative projects because they either bid too high or too low. Therefore, bidding is
considered an important and vital skill that project managers have to possess.
Continuing on the same theme, upcoming projects usually entail initial tendering and procuring
offering documents wherein the vendors either receive the project information from the
prospective clients or are sent the same because they have worked together in the past and hence,
are part of the clients’ vendor list.
In any case, the process of bidding starts with obtaining the relevant information from the
clients and then proceeds to understanding the project requirements, the likely time for
completion as well as the expectations from the clients about the delivery schedules.
In addition, feasibility analysis is usually done to gauge whether the vendors can indeed
undertake the project and whether they have the necessary technical expertise and human
resources to complete the project.
In all these phases, the project manager has to do a balancing act wherein they balance the
need of the clients with that of the internal capabilities of their organization.
Once the tendering and information stage is completed, then the project managers have to get
down to the task of preparing bid documents and offer documents which can be considered as the
“meat” of the entire process since their costing and the respective bids would determine how
much they bid for as well as whether they would be considered for the project and ultimately
whether they would bag the project.
In this stage, the project managers have to as accurate and as skillful in determining the “fair
value” or the “fair cost” at which they can undertake the project since their bid should not result
in losses for them and at the same time, their bids should be competitive meaning that they must
match or beat the bids made by their rivals.
As mentioned earlier, in this stage, the project managers are essentially working on incomplete
information since they do not yet know the offers by their rivals. Therefore, it is advisable that
organizations entrust the bidding stage to project managers who are especially skillful and adroit
and more importantly, experienced since bidding is a skill that is refined with experience.
In recent years, clients are increasingly preferring fixed cost bids wherein they expect the
vendors to bid on their projects on a total cost basis rather than billing them hourly or
sequentially for the work done.
Indeed, with the recession and the resultant cost cutting measures, clients want the vendors to bid
as aggressively as possible so that they (the clients) end up with the best possible terms and
conditions. Indeed, with the time and material costing almost discarded, the vendor project
managers have to very careful when bidding for fixed cost projects since delays and cost
overruns are not covered by the clients.
This is the reason why many project managers create “buffers” in their cost estimates since they
need these “cushions” for any possible delays and overruns so that they do not incur losses.
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Having said that, it is also the case that many project managers under pressure to show results
often bid unrealistically which can create problems for them down the road later since they have
to stick to the bid even if it means that they “squeeze” the employees to the maximum.
Talking about aggressive bidding, it has also become the norm for project managers to involve
senior management and leadership as well as executive personnel in the bidding process so that
the “credibility” of their bids is enhanced.
Indeed, given the fact that personal relationships between the decision makers in the client
organizations and the senior leadership in the vendors often “swing” the bids in their favor.
While not commenting on the appropriates of this method, we nonetheless want to note that as
long as the lower ranks do not have to pay the price for such aggressive bidding, then everything
is fair as the business landscape is extremely competitive.
However, bidding is also about the match between external competitive drivers and internal
capabilities. Therefore, project managers have to ensure that they do not overpromise and under
deliver and at the same time, do not lose out to competition.
It is for these reasons that we note that bidding is both an art and a science wherein the fine art of
balancing competing needs has to go hand in hand with the science of estimating and costing
how much the bid amount is.
In addition, bidding is also about ensuring fairness to all stakeholders and resulting in a win-win
situation where neither the client nor the vendor takes a hit. In conclusion, as wine tastes better
with age, similarly, the practice of bidding is something that matures with experience.

COSTS IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT

- Costs associated with the Projects
Costs

The following are the costs associated with the projects.

1. Direct costs: Any costs that are directly attributable to the work on the project. These can
include the salaries paid to the resources, the billing rate of the resources and costs of the
software and hardware that are used for building the website
2. Indirect Costs: These costs are spread out against many projects and cannot be linked to
one project alone. These costs include those incurred in shared services like cost of office
space, taxes paid by the organization and other services like secretarial and janitorial staff
3. Variable Costs: Costs that change in proportion to the amount of time and material that
are spent on produced in the project.
4. Fixed Costs: Costs that do not change with the timeline or progress of the project.
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A cost be either Fixed or Variable; Direct or Indirect

The overhead costs for this project are the office setup and shared services. While the costs
incurred in setting up the office space can be general overhead cost as it is a one-time cost and is
borne by all the projects in the organization. The project overhead costs are the costs incurred in
the shared services such as secretarial staff and other services provide to the project and can be
directly billable as such.
Time phased budget

A time phased budget would include the costs incurred at each interval or milestone of the
project. The milestones for this project would be requirements, design, coding, testing and
implementation. The budget for the same would be the costs at each stage of the project.
The budget at completion or BAC should have all the components of the costs included like
direct and indirect costs, fixed and variable costs etc along with the cost at each phase or
milestone of the project. The cost variance should be measured using Earned Value technique
and this tool allows the manager to assess the completion of the project at each milestone
according to the cost incurred and the value accrued till then. Variance between these two
measures gives an accurate estimate of the health of the project.
Cumulative costs

The cumulative costs of the project are the ones that are incurred up to a specific phase or
milestone of the project. It can be measured by using a Cost Performance Index or CPI which
measures the ratio of the Earned value with regards to the Actual cost incurred on the project. As
outlined above, all the costs that accumulate up to a particular phase can be called the cumulative
costs of the project.
Cost control

The cost management plan should include the plan for controlling the costs of the project. There
should be a measurement of the costs involved and their variances tracked, if any. Any variance
to the budget must be controlled by the controlling the impact of the cost changes. Further, cost
control can be done in the area of overhead costs and general and administrative expenses.

COMPONENTS OF A PROJECT PLAN

This article details the high level project plan and the components of the same. A project is a
success if it meets the objectives of time, cost, technical and business. Project objectives are
defined in the preliminary project scope statement. As mentioned above, a project is deemed
complete if the project objectives have been met. The objectives should be clear and achievable.
Project Objectives

The objectives for this project have been summarized as:

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1. Time: The project plan must contain the time taken to complete the project end-end from
requirements to implementation. A detailed analysis of each stage and the time taken for
the same must be outlined upfront and milestones for each stage defined.
2. Cost: The cost for completion of the project as defined by the time taken to complete and
the technical and business objectives being met is to be defined. All the project objectives
are linked to each other and any change in one variable affects the others as well. For e.g.
a change in the technical requirements would mean that more time would be required to
complete the project and this in turn affects the cost. Thus there are cascading affects on
each of the variables.
3. Business: The business objectives have to be clearly spelt out by your company in terms
of the sales generated, the cost benefit analysis of building a website and consequent
revenue generation etc.
4. Technical: The technical requirements can be stated in terms of the quality of the
deliverables and the number of defects found during each of the testing phases and the
turnaround time for implementation etc.
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