Chapter:2

Project Management Functions

 OUTLINE
• Controlling
• Directing
• Project authority
• Responsibility
• Accountability
• Interpersonal influences & standard communication
• Project reviews
• Project Planning
• Project Scheduling
• Life project engineering & management cycle phases
• The Statement Of Work(SOW)
• Project Specification
• Bar charts
• Milestones, schedules
• Work breakdown structure
• Cost breakdown structure and planning cycle
 Introductions

Management responsibility & skills:

• Planning
• Organizing
• Staffing
• Controlling
• Directing
 Controlling

• Controlling is a three-step process of

1) Measuring progress toward an objective,
2) Evaluating what remains to be done, and
3) Taking the necessary corrective action to achieve or exceed the objectives.
● Measuring: determining through formal and informal reports the degree to
which progress toward objectives is being made.
● Evaluating: determining cause of and possible ways to act on significant
deviations from planned performance.
● Correcting: taking control action to correct an unfavorable trend or to take
advantage of an unusually favorable trend.
 Directing

• The directing function centers on the leadership style of a project. This

directing activity includes instructing, mentoring, and training team
communication in order to achieve the project goals.
 Project Authority
• Project authority is defined as the right of the project manager to act or to
direct the action of others in the attainment of the proper objectives.
• A project manager must know their team's strengths and weaknesses. This
knowledge allows the PM to assign tasks and make decisions for team
members, improving overall efficiency.
Types of authority:
Three types of authority are,
1)Traditional authority,
2)Charismatic authority and
3)Legal-rational authority
1)Activity and resource planning
• Planning is instrumental in meeting project deadlines, and many projects fail due to poor
planning. First and foremost, good project managers define the project’s scope and
determine available resources.
2) Organizing and motivating a project team
• Good PM develop clear, straightforward plans that stimulate their teams to reach their
full potential.
3) Controlling time management
• Clients usually judge a project’s success or failure on whether it has been delivered on
time. Therefore, meeting deadlines are non-negotiable.
4) Cost estimating and developing the budget
• Good project managers know how to keep a project within its set budget. Even if a
project meets a client’s expectations and is delivered on time, it will still be a failure if it
goes wildly over budget. Good project managers frequently review the budget and plan
ahead to avoid massive budget overruns.
5)Ensuring customer satisfaction
• In the end, a project is only a success if the customer is happy. One of the key
responsibilities of every project manager is to minimize uncertainty, avoid any
unwanted surprises, and involve their clients in the project as much as is reasonably
possible. Good project managers know how to maintain effective communication and
keep the company’s clients up-to-date.
6) Analyzing and managing project risk
• Good project managers know how to identify and evaluate potential risks before the
project begins. They know how to then avoid risks or at least minimize their impact.
7) Monitoring progress
• A project manager needs to monitor and analyze both expenditures and team
performance and to always efficiently take corrective measures.
8) Managing reports and necessary documentation
• Good project managers can present comprehensive reports documenting that all project
requirements were fulfilled, as well as the projects’ history, including what was done,
who was involved, and what could be done better in the future.
 Accountability

• Accountability is about the ownership of outcomes. It is the obligation for

an individual or organization to account for its activities, take responsibility
for them, and be transparent about the results.
• When team members make commitments, the entire team must be able to rely
on the task being completed. Writing down those commitments is great, but
the tasks need to be completed. As tasks are assigned, the project manager
should follow up to ensure team members stick to their word or them, and be
transparent about the results.
• An accountability structure is the organizational framework that depicts the
different groups within the partnership and includes an outline of the roles and
responsibilities of each group, describing the processes, people, and supports
necessary to function effectively.
 Interpersonal influences & standard communication
• Interpersonal skills, in project management, is defined as not only the ability to
establish a relationship with others but also to maintain it. Efficient project
managers are faced with the challenge of ensuring that all the schedules are followed
and maintaining good communication with their project team.
• There are five such interpersonal influences:
• 1)Legitimate power: the ability to gain support because project personnel perceive the
project manager as being officially empowered to issue orders.
• 2)Reward power: the ability to gain support because project personnel perceive the
project manager as capable of directly or indirectly dispensing valued organizational
rewards (i.e., salary, promotion, bonus, future work assignments).
• 3)Penalty power: the ability to gain support because the project personnel perceive the
project manager as capable of directly or indirectly dispensing penalties that they wish
to avoid.
• 4)Expert power: the ability to gain support because personnel perceive the project
manager as possessing special knowledge or expertise (that functional personnel
consider as important).
• 5)Referent power: the ability to gain support because project personnel feel personally
attracted to the project manager or his project.
The following six situations are examples of referent power (the first two are also
reward power):
• The employee might be able to get personal favors from the project manager.
• The employee feels that the project manager is a winner and the rewards will
be passed down to the employee.
• The employee and the project manager have strong ties, such as the same
foursome for golf.
• The employee likes the project manager's manner of treating people.
• The employee wants identification with a specific product or product line.
• The employee has personal problems and believes that he can get empathy or
understanding from the project manager.
 Interpersonal communication
• Interpersonal communication is often defined as communication that takes place
between people who are interdependent and have some knowledge of each other:
for example, communication between a son and his father, an employer and an
employee, two sisters, a teacher and a student, two friends, and so on.
• Four types of interpersonal communication
1)Verbal.
2)Listening.
3)Written Communication.
4)Non-Verbal Communication.
• There are three main communication techniques we can use for effective project
management:
1)Interactive communication.
2)Push communication.
3)Pull communication.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n3iAuGyyrI
 Project review

• A project review is a process that a business uses to evaluate the success of a

particular project and decide whether it should continue to receive resources. A
project review can mean both a meeting with the project team to assess the status of a
current project or a review at the end of a project.
• Why?
• Project reviews are an excellent way to help organizations learn from experience. They
help project teams see what is really happening and hence learn immediate lessons about
what is and isn't working.
• A standard review process will consist of three phases: Initiation, Research, and
Report. Two standard reviews are planned for each project. A special review maybe
held if the project is non-compliant or at the request of a stakeholder.
 Project Planning and Scheduling
• The process of planning primarily deals with selecting the appropriate policies and
procedures in order to achieve the objectives of the project. Scheduling converts the
project action plans for scope, time cost and quality into an operating timetable.
• ‘Project Planning and Scheduling’, though separate, are two sides of the same coin in
project management. Fundamentally, ‘Project planning’ is all about choosing and
designing effective policies and methodologies to attain project objectives. While
‘Project scheduling’ is a procedure of assigning tasks to get them completed by
allocating appropriate resources within an estimated budget and time-frame.
• The basis of project planning is the entire project. Unlikely, project scheduling focuses
only on the project-related tasks, the project start/end dates and project dependencies.
Thus, a ‘project plan’ is a comprehensive document that contains the project aims,
scope, costing, risks, and schedule and a project schedule includes the estimated dates
and sequential project tasks to be executed.
 The Statement Of Work(SOW)
• A statement of work (SOW) is a document that provides a description of a
given project's requirements. It defines the scope of work being provided,
project deliverables, timelines, work location, and payment terms and
conditions.
Common elements of an SOW include:
• ● The SOW says that you are to conduct a minimum of fifteen tests to
determine the material properties of a new substance. You price out twenty
tests just to “play it safe.” At the end of the fifteenth test, the customer says
that the results are inconclusive and that you must run another fifteen tests.
The cost overrun is $40,000.
• ● The Navy gives you a contract in which the SOW states that the prototype
must be tested in “water.” You drop the prototype into a swimming pool to test
it. Unfortunately, the Navy’s definition of “water” is the Atlantic Ocean, and it
costs you $1 million to transport all of your test engineers and test equipment
to the Atlantic Ocean.
• ● You receive a contract in which the SOW says that you must transport
goods across the country using “aerated” boxcars. You select boxcars that
have open tops so that air can flow in. During the trip, the train goes through
an area of torrential rains, and the goods are ruined.
• These three examples show that misinterpretations of the SOW can result in
losses of hundreds of millions of dollars. Common causes of misinterpretation
are:

• ● Mixing tasks, specifications, approvals, and special instructions

• ● Using imprecise language (“nearly,” “optimum,” “approximately,” etc.)
• ● No pattern, structure, or chronological order
• ● Wide variation in size of tasks
• ● Wide variation in how to describe details of the work
• ● Failing to get third-party review
 Project Specification
• A project specification is a document, used for successful project management, that
defines the management plan of a project as a whole. It lists the needs, objectives,
constraints, expected features, deadlines and budget as accurately as possible.
 Difference between statement of work and project
specifications
• In common government usage, the term statement of work refers to a contractual
description of services, while specification refers to a contractual description of
supplies (hardware).
• The specification provides clear instructions on project intent, performance and
construction. It can reference the quality and standards which should be applied.
Materials and manufacturers' products can be clearly defined. Installation, testing and
handover requirements can be identified.
 Bar chart (Gantt chart)
• The bar chart (Gantt chart) is used for the representation of a project in which
the activities are represented by horizontal segments, of which the length is
proportional to the time necessary to conclude the task in question. The bar
chart is an effective tool for the management of work in a project.
• The pictorial representation of data, in the form of vertical or horizontal
rectangular bars, where the length of bars are proportional to the measure of
data.
Three types:
1. Vertical Bar Graph
2. Horizontal Bar Graph.
3. Grouped Bar Graph.
4. Stacked Bar Graph.
 Stacked Bar Graph
• A stacked chart is a form of bar chart that shows the composition and comparison of a
few variables, either relative or absolute, over time. Also called a stacked bar or column
chart, they look like a series of columns or bars that are stacked on top of each other.
• A stacked graph is useful for looking at changes in, for example, expenditures added up
over time, across several products or services.
Bar/Gantt chart benefits:
• Provides a high-level overview of a timeline.
• Assists in time tracking, monitoring activities, targets, and the entire project.
• Allows for resource management.
• Simplifies juggling complex projects simultaneously.
• Helps to set realistic deadlines.
• Facilitates realistic expectations because it reflects the hierarchy of tasks that
need to be completed.
• Allows teams to see what’s happening and what isn’t.
• Makes difficult information manageable.
 Milestones

• A milestone is a specific point within a project's life cycle used to measure

the progress toward the ultimate goal. Milestones in project management
are used as signal posts for a project's start or end date, external reviews or
input, budget checks, submission of a major deliverable, etc.
Here are a few common project milestone examples:
• Completing key project deliverables like the first version of your app.
• The start date or end date of an important project phase like the 'planning
phase' or 'designing phase'
• An important event that green lights the project like project sponsor approval.
• A milestone schedule, or milestone chart, is simply a timeline that uses
milestones to divide a project schedule into major phases. Due to its
simplicity, it’s used when project managers or sponsors need to share an
overview of the project schedule with stakeholders or team members without
going over every detail.
 Work breakdown structure
• A work breakdown structure (WBS) is a project management tool that takes
a step-by-step approach to complete large projects with several moving
pieces. By breaking down the project into smaller components, a WBS can
integrate scope, cost and deliverables into a single tool.
• The WBS is the single most important element because it provides a common
framework from which:
• ● The total program can be described as a summation of subdivided elements.
• ● Planning can be performed.
• ● Costs and budgets can be established.
• ● Time, cost, and performance can be tracked.
• ● Objectives can be linked to company resources in a logical manner.
• ● Schedules and status-reporting procedures can be established.
• ● Network construction and control planning can be initiated.
• ● The responsibility assignments for each element can be established
• There is a common misconception that WBS decomposition is an easy
task to perform. In the development of the WBS, the top three levels or
management levels are usually rollup levels. Preparing templates at these
levels is becoming common practice. However, at levels 4–6 of the WBS,
templates may not be appropriate. There are reasons for this.
• ● Breaking the work down to extremely small and detailed work packages
may require the creation of hundreds or even thousands of cost accounts
and charge numbers. This could increase the management, control, and
reporting costs of these small packages to a point where the costs exceed
the benefits. Although a typical work package may be 200–300 hours and
approximately two weeks in duration, consider the impact on a large
project, which may have more than one million direct labor hours.
• ● Breaking the work down to small work packages can provide accurate
cost control if, and only if, the line managers can determine the costs at
this level of detail. Line managers must be given the right to tell project
managers that costs cannot be determined at the requested level of detail.
● The work breakdown structure is the basis for scheduling techniques
such as the Arrow Diagramming Method and the Precedence Diagramming
Method. At low levels of the WBS, the interdependencies between
activities can become so complex that meaningful networks cannot be
constructed.
 Cost breakdown structure
A cost breakdown structure (CBS) is a document that details all the costs
incurred in a project. Each line or row in a CBS stands for a cost type or item,
work or organizing activity.
 The Planning Cycle
• Management cost and control system (MCCS).
• No program or project can be efficiently organized and managed without some
form of management cost and control system. Figure shows the five phases of
a management cost and control system. The first phase constitutes the planning
cycle, and the next four phases identify the operating cycle.
• The WBS acts as a vital artery for communications and operations in all
phases.
The planning cycle of a management cost and control system.
 WHY DO PLANS FAIL?
• Corporate goals are not understood at the lower organizational levels.
• Plans encompass too much in too little time.
• Financial estimates are poor.
• Plans are based on insufficient data.
• No attempt is being made to systematize the planning process.
• Planning is performed by a planning group.
• No one knows the ultimate objective.
• No one knows the staffing requirements.
• No one knows the major milestone dates, including written reports.
• Project estimates are best guesses, and are not based on standards or
history.
• Not enough time has been given for proper estimating.
• No one has bothered to see if there will be personnel available with the
necessary skills.
• People are not working toward the same specifications.
Fig: Iterations for the planning process
• The project plan is more than just a set of instructions. It is an attempt to
eliminate crisis by preventing anything from “falling through the cracks.” The
plan is documented and approved by both the customer and the contractor to
determine what data, if any, are missing and the probable resulting effect. As
the project matures, the project plan is revised to account for new or missing
data.
• The most common reasons for revising a plan are:
• “Crashing” activities to meet end dates
• Trade-off decisions involving manpower, scheduling, and performance
• Adjusting and leveling manpower requests
TYPES OF PLANS