Project and Project Failure?
Posted on October 31, 2009
Filed Under Program Management, Projecct Management Training, Project Management Events, Project Management News, Project Management Programs | Leave a Comment
What is Project?
Define: “Project”
Project is a set of activities which involves:
a) A definite goal in terms of specific final outputs referred to as “Deliverables”
b) Doing relevant work (activities) to achieve these goals
c) Utilization of resources for doing the above work
d) Operating within resource constraints
e) Completing tasks within a specific timeframe
You can relate any project with the five points stated above.
Categories of projects
Projects may be categorized on the basis of different criteria such as:
Nature of Deliverables:
Deliverables can be physical product or logical product. The end result of physical product is physical object. (e.g. a building, a piece of equipment) and end result of logical product does not have a physical existence (e.g. a plan, a set of recommendations).
Project Size:
Project size is defined in terms of the amount of resources consumed and the duration.
Typically larger the project, managing it becomes more crucial.
Nature of Resources:
The kind of resource required in the project can vary. Project may require large investments in capital items, machinery utilization or manpower. The nature of resources consumed has a bearing on the sophistication of project management required.
Common features for all projects
All projects have the following things in common:
a) A definite starting point and end deliverable
b) Firm completion date
c) Activities with precedence
d) Consumptions of resources
e) Resource constraints
f) Alternative activities
g) Alternative methods
h) Alternative resources
Typical resources used in projects are finance, manpower, time, machines and material. Normally, the project will face constraints in the resources used for that project. It is not ideally possible to get unlimited resources to complete project successfully. Hence once you are aware of the resources required, you should also be aware of the constraints faced in the projects. Other constraints the project may face are project priority conflicts and working facilities. Through effective management, a project manager should be able to manage the project within the resource constraints.
Project Failure
A project is a failure if:
a) The time to execute it exceeds the planned duration. This is referred to as a Time Overrun.
b) The cost of the budget exceeds the planned budget. This is referred to as Cost Overrun.
c) The end deliverable or product does not meet the specifications made.
Many projects fail. Why? How? You should be aware of these answers so that you can be more careful in managing you own projects.
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