Projects can have many different definitions. A formal definition is supplied by the Project Management Institute (PMI) who defines a project as a temporary endeavour to create a unique product, service or result.
This definition of a project can be broken down to give further insight:
Temporary - so has a start and finish, and distinguished from on-going long term business operations, so project management is different to operations management.
Unique - every project is different in some way from other projects, and so needs specific planning. For example, you may have done an email server upgrade before, but any future email server upgrades will still have some unique aspects to the project.
Product, service or result - the benefits of the project, or at least the output of the project that will deliver the benefits. PRINCE2 uses the term products to have a similar meaning.
There are some very good standards and project management approaches.
Arguably the most globally recognised standard is the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) published by the Project Management Institute (PMI).
Another widely recognised approach is PRINCE2, a project method developed by the UK Government and also used in many other countries including New Zealand.
Within New Zealand projects, both PMI's PMBOK and PRINCE2 are used for guidance and development of project systems.
Projects nearly always operate within an environment of constraints - it would be a rare project that had unlimited budget, unlimited time, and unlimited resources - arguably impossible. Some of these constraints can be more important than others, and an understanding of the relative importance of the various constraints is vital to project success when planning the project and when making decisions around project change. <Read more>.
Both PMBOK and PRINCE2 are plan driven project approaches - where a plan is developed and then the project managed according to the plan - and this plan based approach is often referred to as traditional project management.
A variation to this thinking is an agile approach, where alternative measures are applied to control the project ahead of detailed plans. The values behind agile projects are defined in the Agile manifesto:
Individuals and interactions over Processes and tools
Working software over Comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over Contract negotiation
Responding to change over Following a plan
This doesn't mean that Agile projects don't have planning, but instead the approach to planning is different with other priorities. As an example, "responding to change over following a plan" is not new - traditional projects have always had a change control process. However, the emphasis on responding to change is brought to the fore. This also doesn't mean that Agile project responds freely to every possible change as uncontrolled change often goes under other names...like chaos or waste (does the change add value).
The Agile manifesto was originally developed with software development in mind, but can be equally useful in other projects types that are hard to fully plan in advance, such as research projects and documentation projects, or where the requirements can be hard to fully define in advance. In software projects, having some early working software, even without all the features implemented, enables an opportunity to understand whether the software will work and deliver the expected outcomes.
One of the issues with Agile is its difficulty in a contracting environment, where often a client wants traditional project requirements including a predefined scope, cost and delivery timeframe. A common approach to cater for this requirement is to use Agile product development within a traditionally management project. In effect, looking to harvest the best out of both approaches.
There are many different Agile approaches. Within New Zealand, SCRUM is an approached often used. The term scrum comes from the game of rugby, which happens to be very popular in New Zealand. (more to come on SCRUM soon).
Projects are done for a reason, and that is to deliver some benefit. For a project to proceed, the value of that benefit should be more than the cost of doing the project, and this value should remain valid throughout the duration of the project. The start point for a project is often a business case that establishes this value. <Read more>.
A common trend in modern project management thinking is to separate the total management of an organisations projects into 3 areas of management; portfolio management, programme management and project management. <Read more>.
Delivery of business strategy.
Benefits management.
Metrics.
Governance Processes and Assurance (and the NZ Gateway process).
Investment Logic Mapping (ILM).
Copyright 2014 Edward Hall. All rights reserved.
Last revised 29 June 2014.