Basics of project management , General studies ,Project Management, UPSC ESE

• Non routine
• Non repetitive
• One off
• Goal

Program :

• Group of related projects
• Coordinated together for more benefits

Portfolio:

• Related or not related projects and programs
• They may not be directly relaxed

Project constraints:

• Triple constraints : time , cost , scope
• Diamond constraints : TCS + quality
• PMBOK's constraints : identifies diamond constraints + risk resources , there may be more than six constraints in a projects
• Among all constraints , only two are considered independent

Constraints and objective

Project tries to achieve an expected level of  performance by spending a limited funds and time are agreed in scope of projects.

Management : cost of getting together efficiently and effectively.

Project management : 

Product management : management of aspects of products

Venture management : focus on creative , innovative and challenging business ideas.

Stakeholders:

• Impacted by over project
• Exist influence over project
• Successful people must acheive goals and expectations of its stakeholders.

Important stakeholders:

• Project sponser
• Project manager
• Pm team 
• Business partner
• User/consumer
• BOD / shareholder
• Society

Project sponser:

• Holds pm accountable
• Will be involved in taking decision for high risk stages
• Provides statement of work to PM . statement of work is detailed description of objectives of project.

Project manager:

• Authority one project
• Responsibility for achieving goal
• Attributes and duties : all positive

Project team:

• Should be self directed and cross functioned.

Tuckmanis model:

• Team effectiveness initially decreases from forming to storming.

Conflict resolution:

• Confronting / colabrating leads to a win win situation as a person shows both assertiveness and cooperation.

PMO

• Office for managing project
• Control of PMO increases from supportive , controlling to directive PMO style.

Organisation structure:

Functional manager:

• Expert in fuctional area.
• Supervises over department
• Responsible for skills development and employee annual appraisal
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Functional organisational structure:

• Grouping by specialisation
• Team member reports to both PM and FM
• Most suitable when long line of communicating
• Organisation offers limited range of prodcts 
• Person can work on many projects + upgrade his skills

Disadvantage:

• Response to customer is slow
• Difficult to fix accountability on project
• Unsuitable for geographically scattered organisation

Projectised structure

• Resources report to PM only
• PM has full authority

Advantage: centralised authority - faster completion

Disadvantage : may become arrogant , may suffer communication , employee's skill upgradation suffers

Matrix structure

• Blend of projectised and functional
• Member spends time on project as well as fuctional area
• It balances performane on project as well as skill upgradation

Project process group and knowledge area 

Life cycle:

• Sequence of project phases
• Not cyclical in nature
• No two projects are exactly same as they vary in details , but all projects follow similar life cycles.
• PMBOK identifies 49 processes for project completion which are grouped into 5 process group and 10 knowledge areas.

Process groups:

• Process is series of activities
• I-P-E-C-C
• Project groups are not group phases generally
• Every project of phase will have all the process groups in it

Knowledge area

• Skill set
• Project character , project management plan - integration
• Creating work breakdown structure - scope
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Note:

• Project feasibility , appraised and selection must be completed before starting negotiation
• Project character is developed by project sponsor based on business case development.
• Project management plan , also called integrated base line contains management plans of all knowledge areas. It is comprehensive plan based on which entire project is executed.
• Detailed project report is a planning phase outcome document.
• Desirable - it is tangible / intangible good or service to be handled over which form part of project outcome.

Analysis of project phases:

Product life cycle : after project we move to operation phase where product sees market.

Prototyping : several working models of intended products are developed and tested under real life condition.

Phase to phase relation:

• Sequential
• Overlapping / parallel
• Iterative

Concurrent engineering:

• Simultaneously engineering
• Stages run in parallel
• Decreases product development time

Types of software development:

• Predictive life cycle / waterfall model
• Iterative / increamental life cycle
• Agile / adaptive life cycle

Waterfall model:

• TCS determined in detail early stage
• Has comprehensive plan which is not expected to change

Incremental/ iterative:

• Scope not defined in detail at initial stages
• Used where changes are expected

Agile/adaptive:

• Used when changes are rapid
• There is review of work after every iteration

Project initiation

• Also called as conception / selection phase
• Initial scope is defined , stakeholders are identified and project charter is prepared
• Outlines aim of project
• Should be smart
• Project charter translates project sponser business case into project objective.
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• Business case contains justification for the project

Opportunity study:

• Indicative
• Used to generate new ideas
• Can use techniques like SWOT analysis , brainstorming

Pre feasibility study:

• It is screening of ideas 
• Recommended when formulation is costly
• Should not take more than 3 months
• Able to decide regarding investment
• Analyse as many factors as possible

Feasibility study:

• More rigorous
• Specialised skills
• Requires highly reliable data

Project appraisal

• Evaluation of overall project

Project selection

• Can be selected using numeric or well as non numeric model

Note: comparitive benefit model is non numeric selection.

Technical feasibility

• Consideration of technology and its effect on production system
• Factors like location , plant size , plant layout , construction , equipments , infrastructure, etc.
• Location cost index (LCI) should be < 100

Factors considered for selecting technology:

• Affordability
• Compatibility
• Accessible
• Operation safety
• Gestation period