Project Analysis and Management
Chapter One
General Introduction
Meaning and definition of Project
• According to Gittinger(1982),
– a project is defined as a complex set of activities where
resources are used in expectation of returns and which
lends itself to planning, financing, and implementing as a
unit.
• Project usually has
– a specific starting point and a specific ending point
intending to achieve specific objectives.
– a well-defined sequence of investment and production
activities and a specific group of beneficiaries that can be
identified, quantified, and valued, either socially or
monetarily.
Defining Project Management
• Project management is application of
knowledge, skill, tools, and techniques to
project activities to achieve project
requirements.
– accomplished through the application and
integration of the project management processes
of initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and
controlling, and closing.
Features of a Project
• A project constitutes the whole complex of activities in the
undertaking that uses resources to gain benefits that exceed the
costs of the resources.
• Projects involve the commitment of scarce resources to a specific
line of action, which prevents the use of those resources elsewhere.
• Project resources are committed for a long period to produce
benefits,
• Their effects are usually gradual and lasting, but involve waiting for
results. This waiting obviously has a cost.
• Subject of special arrangements and procedures for their planning,
appraisal, and involve special financial arrangements, including
loans from overseas, development banks, and other agencies.
Features of a Project…Cont’d
• The pattern of resources commitment in projects is usually
for capital investments to be made to establish productive
capacity or physical works, which then have a long life of
operation or use.
Project Format
• A tool which provides an analytical framework for a proposed
investment in which the cost and benefit accounts are prepared
year by year in the form of a project cost and benefit stream.
– Information from a wide range of sources feed into the framework.
• Since a good plan depends on accurate information, the framework
enables various specialists to judge accuracy of the information
provided, and the appropriateness of the assumptions.
Project Format…Cont’d
• The administrative and organizational problems likely to be
encountered during implementation are also detailed in the
project format.
• Project format facilitates systematic and objective examination
of results of alternatives.
Projects and Plans
• Planning can be defined as a “continuous process that involves
decisions or choices about alternative ways of using available
resources with the aim of achieving a particular goal or set of goals
at some time in the future.”
• Projects provide an important means by which investment and
other development expenditures foreseen in the plans can be
clarified, justified, and realized.
Hierarchy of Projects and Plans…Cont’d
Development plans:
• Most forward looking (futuristic)
• Broad and require systematic thinking, preparation and appraisal
• Attempts to bring welfare in the society
Programs:
• Derived from development plans
• Exceptionally large with long term objectives
• Explores specific area with broader scope
Projects:
• Derived from a program
• Unique investigative tool
• A development activity with specific objectives
• Funded by a program
• An implementation element (entity)
Projects and Plans…Cont’d
Tasks:
• Work elements under a project
• Specific approaches for doing things
• Set of activities comprising a project
Work packages:
• Sub elements of a given task (or undertaking)
• Something accomplished stage by stage
• Collection of work packages defines a given task
Projects versus Programs
• A project,
– refers to an investment activity where resources
are used to create capital assets that produce
benefits over time, having a beginning and an end,
and specific objectives pursued; whereas
• A program
– is an on-going development effort or plan.
– Therefore, a wider concept than a project.
– It may include one or several projects at various
times whose specific objectives are linked to
achievement of higher level of common
objectives.
Projects versus Programs…Cont’d
Similarities:
– Projects and programs have similar characteristics
in a way that both are:
– Having objectives;
– Requiring financial, human, material, etc inputs
(or resources);
– Generating outputs, (goods/services), of value;
– Serving as instruments for the execution of
development plans in order to boost the national
economy
Project Parameters
