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Until 1900 civil engineering projects were generally managed by creative 

architects, engineers, and master builders themselves, for example

Vitruvius (first century BC), Christopher Wren (1632-1723), Thomas

Telford and Isambard Kingdom.

 

It was in the 1950s that organizations started to systematically apply 

project management tools and techniques to complex engineering 

projects.

 

As a discipline, project management developed from several fields of 

application including civil construction, engineering, and heavy

defense activity. 

 

Two forefathers of project management are Henry Gantt, called the 

father of planning and control techniques, who is famous for his use of 

the Gantt Chart as a project management tool and Henri Fayol for his 

creation of the five management functions that form the foundation of 

the body of knowledge associated with project and program 

management. 

 

Both Gantt and Fayol were students of Frederick Winslow Taylor's 

theories of scientific management. His work is the forerunner to 

modern project management tools including work breakdown structure

(WBS) and resource allocation.

 

The 1950s marked the beginning of the modern project management 

era where core engineering fields come together to work as one. 

 

Project management became recognized as a distinct discipline arising

 from the management discipline with engineering model. 

 

In the United States, prior to the 1950s, projects were managed on 

an ad-hoc basis, using mostly Gantt Charts and formal tecniques

and tools. 



At that time, two mathematical project-sheduling models were develop.

 

The "critical path method" (CPM) was developed as a joint venture 

between DuPont corporation and Remignton Rand for managing 

plant maintenance projects. 

 

And the "Program Evaluation and Review Technique" or PERT, was 

developed by Booz Allen hamilton as part of the United States Navy's  

(in conjunction with the Lockheed Corporation) Polaris missile

submarine program;

 

PERT and CPM are very similar in their approach but still present some 

differences. CPM is used for projects that assume deterministic activity

times; the times at which each activity will be carried out are known. 

 

PERT, on the other hand, allows for stochastic activity times; the times

at which each activity will be carried out are uncertain or varied. 

 

Because of this core difference, CPM and PERT are used in different 

contexts. These mathematical techniques quickly spread into many 

private enterprises.

 

At the same time, as project-scheduling were developed , thecnology

for project cost estimating, cost management, and engineering economics 

was evolving, with pioneering work by Hans Lang and others. 

 

In 1956, the American Association of Cost Engineers (now AACE

International; the Association for Total Cost Management) was formed

by early practitioners of project management and the associated 

specialties of planning and scheduling, cost estimating, and cost/schedule 

control (project control). 

 

AACE continued its pioneering work and in 2006 released the first 

integrated process for portfolio, program and project management 

(Total Cost Management Framework).

 

The International Project Management Associatin (IPMA) was founded

 in Europe in 1967, as a federation of several national project management 

associations. IPMA maintains its federal structure today and now 

includes member associations on every continent except Antarctica. 

IPMA offers a Four Level Certification program based on the IPMA 

Competence Baseline (ICB). The ICB covers technical, contextual, 

and behavioral competencies.

 

In 1969, the Project management Institute (PMI) was formed in the 

USA. PMI publishes A Guide to the Project Management Body of

Knowledge (PMBOK Guide), which describes project management 

practices that are common to "most projects, most of the time." 

PMI also offers multiple certifications.

 

PM Approaches

 

There are a number of approaches to managing project activities including

lean, iterative, incremental, and phased approaches.

 

Regardless of the methodology employed, careful consideration must 

be given to the overall project objectives, timeline, and cost, as well 

as the roles and responsibilities of all participants and stakeholders.

 

The traditional approach

A traditional phased approach identifies a sequence of steps to be completed.

 

In the "traditional approach", five developmental components of a project 

can be distinguished (four stages plus control):

 

Typical development phases of an engineering project

1. Initiation

2. Planning and design

3. Execution and construction

4. Monitoring and controlling systems

5. Completion

 

Not all projects will have every stage, as projects can be terminated before 

they reach completion. Some projects do not follow a structured planning 

and/or monitoring process. And some projects will go through steps 2, 

3 and 4 multiple times.

 

Many industries use variations of these project stages. For example, when 

working on a brick and working on mortar design and construction,

projects will typically progress through stages like pre-planning,

conceptual design, schematic design, design development, construction

drawings (or contract documents), and construction administration. 

 

In software development, this approach is often known as the

waterfall model,

i.e., one series of tasks after another in linear sequence. In software 

development many organizations have adapted the Rational Unified

Process (RUP) to fit this methodology, although RUP does not require 

or explicitly recommend this practice. Waterfall development works 

well for small, well defined projects, but often fails in larger projects 

of undefined and ambiguous nature. 

 

The Cone of Uncertainty explains some of this as the planning made 

on the initial phase of the project suffers from a high degree of uncertainty. 

This becomes especially true as software development is often the 

realization of a new or novel product. In projects where requirements 

have not been finalized and can change, requirements management is 

used to develop an accurate and complete definition of the behavior of

software that can serve as the basis for software development. 

 

While the terms may differ from industry to industry, the actual stages

typically follow common steps to problem solving defining the problem

weighing options, choosing a path, implementation and evaluation."

 

PRINCE2

PRINCE2 is a structured approach to project management released in 

1996 as a generic project management method. It combines the 

original PROMPT methodology (which evolved into the PRINCE 

methodology) with IBM's MITP (managing the implementation of the 

total project) methodology. PRINCE2 provides a method for managing

projects within a clearly defined framework.

 

PRINCE2 focuses on the definition and delivery of products, in particular

their quality requirements. As such, it defines a successful project as being 

ouput-oriented not activity or task-oriented through creating an

agreed set of products that define the scope of the project and 

provides the basis for planning and control, that is, how then to 

coordinate people and activities, how to design and supervise product 

delivery, and what to do if products and therefore the scope of the 

project has to be adjusted if it does not develop as planned.

 

In the method, each process is specified with its key inputs and outputs

and with specific goals and activities to be carried out to deliver a project's 

outcomes as defined by its Business Case. This allows for continuous assessment 

and adjustment when deviation from the Business Case is required.

 

PRINCE2 provides a common language for all participants in the project.

 

The governance framework of PRINCE2 - its roles and responsibilities - are 

fully described and require tailoring to suit the complexity of the project 

and skills of the organisation.

 

Critical chain project management

 

Critical chain project management (CCPM) is a method of planning and

managing project execution designed to deal with uncertainties inherent 

in managing projects, while taking into consideration limited availability

 of resources (physical, human skills, as well as management & support

 capacity) needed to execute projects.

 

CCPM is an application of the theory of constraints (TOC) to projects. 

The goal is to increase the flow of projects in an organization (throughput). 

Applying the first three of the five focusing steps of TOC, the system 

constraint for all projects is identified as are the resources. 

 

To exploit the constraint, tasks on the critical chain are given priority 

over all other activities. Finally, projects are planned and managed to 

ensure that the resources are ready when the critical chain tasks must 

start, subordinating all other resources to the critical chain.

 

The project plan should typically undergo resource leveling and the 

 longest sequence of resource-constrained tasks should be identified as 

the critical chain. In some cases, such as managing contracted sub-

projects, it is advisable to use a simplified approach without resource 

leveling.

 

In multi-purpose nvironments, resource leveling should be 

performed across projects. However, it is often enough to identify 

(or simply select) a single "drum". The drum can be a resource that 

acts as a constraint across projects, which are staggered based on the 

availability of that single resource.

 

One can also use a "virtual drum" by selecting a task or group of tasks 

(typically integration points) and limiting the number of projects in 

execution at that stage.

 

Event chain methodology

 

Event chain methodology is another method that complements critical path method

and critical chain project management methodologies.  

 

Event chain methodology is an uncertainty modeling and schedule 

network analysis technique that is focused on identifying and managing 

events and event chains that affect project schedules. 

 

Event chain methodology helps to mitigate the negative impact of psychological heuristics 

and biases, as well as to allow for easy 

modeling of uncertainties in the project schedules. Event chain methodology is based on the following principles.

 

- Probabilistic moment of risk: Anactivity(task) in mostreal-life processes

is not a continuous uniform process.

Tasks are affected by external events, which can occur at some point

in the middle of the task.

- Event chains: Events can cause other events, whichwill create event chains.

These event chains can significantly affect the course of the project.

Quantitative analysis is used to determine a cumulative effect of

these event chains on the project schedule.

- Critical events or event chains: The single events or the event chains that

have the most potential to affectt he projects are the "critical events" or "critical chains of events".

 

Project tracking with events:

- Even if a project is partially completed and data about the project duration,

cost, and event so ccurred is available, it is still possible to refine

information about future potential events and helps to forecast future project performance.

- Event chain visualization: Events and event chains can be visualized using event chain diagrams on a Ganttcharts.

 

Process-based management

 

Also furthering the concept of project control 

is the incorporation of process-based management.

This area has been driven by the use of Maturity 

models such as the CMMI

(capability maturity model integration; see this example of a predecessor) 

and ISO/IEC15504 

(SPICE - software process improvement and capability estimation).

 

Agile project management

 

Agile project management approaches, based on the principles of human interaction management, are founded 

on a process view of human collaboration. It is "most typically used in software, website, technology, creative 

and marketing industries. 

 

This contrasts sharply with the traditional approach. 

 

In the agile software   development or flexible product development approach, 

the project is seen as a series of relatively small tasks conceived and executed to

conclusion as the situation demands in an adaptive manner, rather than as a completely

pre-planned process.

 

Advocates of this technique claim that:

 

- It is the most consistent project management techniques involves

frequent testing of the project under development.


- It is the only technique in which the client will be actively involved in the project development.

The only disadvantage with this technique is that it should be used only

if the client has enough time to be actively involved in the project every now and then.

 

Examples of Agile Project Management tools and techniques include:

 

- Scrum (software development)-A holistic approach to development that

focuses on iterative goals set by the Product Owner through a backlog,

which is developed by the Delivery Team through the facilitation of the Scrum Master.

 

- Extreme Programming (XP)-Alsocalled Pair Programming this method

uses small groups and has a highly prescriptive nature

 

- Test driven Development (TDD) model. eXtreme Manufacturing (XM)

An agile methodology based on Scrum, Kanban and Kaizen that

facilitates rapid engineering and prototyping.

 

- Crystal Clear (software development) - An agile or lightweight methodology

that focuses on collocation and osmotic communication.


- Kanban(かんばん(看板))-A lean framework for process improvement that is

frequently used to manage WIP within agile projects.

 

The Kanban process improvement framework has been specifically applied to software development, as Kanban (development).

 

Lean project management

 

Lean project management uses the principles from lean manufacturing to focus on delivering value with less 

waste and reduced time.

 

Extreme project management

 

Planning and feedback loops in Extreme programming (XP) with the time frames of the multiple loops.

 

In critical studies of project management it has been noted 

that several PERT based models are not well suited for the 

multi-project company environment these days. 

 

Most of them are aimed at very large-scale, one-time, non- routine  projects, and currently all kinds of management are expressed in terms of projects.


Using complex models for "projects" (or rather "tasks") spanning a few weeks has been 

proven to cause unnecessary costs and low maneuverability in several cases. 

 

The generalization of Extreme Programming to other kinds of projects  is extreme project

management, which may be used in combination with the process modeling and 

management principles of human interaction management.

 

Benefits realization management

 

Benefits realization management (BRM) enhances normal project management 

techniques through a focus on outcomes (the benefits) 

of a project rather than products or outputs, and then measuring the degree 

to which that is happening to keep a project on track. This can 

help to reduce the risk of a completed project being a failure by delivering agreed 

upon requirements/outputs but failing to deliver the 

benefits of those requirements.

 

An example of delivering a project to requirements might be agreeing 

to deliver a computer system that will process staff data and manage 

payroll, holiday and staff personnel records. Under BRM the agreement

 might be to achieve a specified reduction in staff hours required to 

process and maintain staff data.


MASTER TEAMWORK BY PRACITICING PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Last update: January, 2014



 
   
 

THE TRUTH IS RARELY PURE AND NEVER SIMPLE