A concise overview Of Project Management and its history.

1. A Concise Over View of
Project Management
By Chris Mitchell

2. Contents
2
Definition of a Project Slide 3
Definition of Project Management Slide 5
Concise History of Project Management Slide 6
Emotions and human psychology Slide 14
Working with Emotions Slide 15
Widely used Project Management Software Slide 19
International Standards and Disciplines Slide 20
References Slide 21

3. What is a project?
• For as long as human beings have existed; projects
have existed in one form or another. Be it creating
a stone monolith or migrating a web site to
another server.
3
• Projects vary hugely in description, cost, scope
and output. However a project has a set of
defined generic characteristics.

4. 4
What is a project?
• Projects involve a task
or set of tasks to
deliver a specific
goal(s). Projects are
finite and not on
going. They have a set
beginning and end.
Whether this be over
the period of a day or
several years. This
stands in contrast with
business as usual or
operations.
• Projects introduce change and are created to deliver set goals that bring
about benefits and correct problems.

5. 5
Project Management
• Project management is the planning, delegating, monitoring,
control and implementation of a project(s).
Plan
Delegate
Monitor
Control
• The primary person in charge of
running a project is the project
manager. Although final accountability
falls or can fall to the project board or
senior executives responsible for the
project.
• Simply put project management is
getting things done.

6. 6
Project Management
• Project management should be regarded as controlling and managing the
project. Delivering benefits and making change.
• Ideally the project manager should not be involved in the actual work
processes defined within the project. The project managers role is to
manage the work (although this is not a set rule and depends on the
scope and budget of the project).
• E.g. If the project is a construction project. The project manager should
not do any of the building, decorating or construction. Him or herself
should manage the project and make sure everything is running smoothly.
Although in some cases it may be justifiable for the Project Manager to
take a hands on role.

7. 7
Concise History of Project Management
• Project management in one form or
another has existed for as long as human
beings have. Roman architects not only
designed structures, but were involved in
the management of getting the structures
built.
• It was not until the 1950s that project
management started to become
formalised and standard approaches and
techniques were applied to projects.
• These techniques were primarily developed in engineering, construction and
defence programs.
• As a pre-cursor to the 1950s, Henry Gantt developed processes for control and
planning techniques. He is most well known for developing the Gantt chart that
is used across the world today.

8. 8
Concise History of Project Management
• As project management became
recognised as a distinct discipline
several approaches were developed.
• These included the “Critical Path
Method” CPM, which was a joint
venture between DuPont Corporation
(original started as a gun powder mill in
1802) and Remington Rand Corporation
(original started as a typewriter
manufacturer). CPM was primarily
developed for managing plant
maintenance projects.

9. 9
Concise History of Project Management
• Booz Allen Hamilton developed the "Program Evaluation and Review Technique" or
PERT as part of the United States Navy (in conjunction with the Lockheed Corporation)
Polaris missile submarine program.
• These processes many of which were
developed in relation to defence
projects spread to many private
organisations.
• Recently project management
processes have been developed that
are adaptable to fast moving
environments and modern technology.
Such as Agile Project Management.

10. 10
Concise History of Project Management
• Note: PERT and CPM are very similar in their approach; however, two distinctions
are usually made. The first relates to the way in which activity duration is
estimated. In PERT, three estimates are used to form a weighted average of the
expected completion time.
• Therefore, PERT is considered a probabilistic tool. In CPM, there is only one
estimate of duration; that is, CPM is a deterministic tool. The second difference is
that CPM allows an explicit estimate of costs in addition to time. Thus, while PERT
is basically a tool for planning and control of time, CPM can be used to control
both the time and the cost of the project.

11. 11
Concise History of Project Management
• In project management it has been noted
the PERT based models were primarily
developed and aimed at large scale, one
off, engineering type projects. These
approaches are sometimes not practical in
applying them to fast moving, multi project
environments, as is the case with many
companies today.
• Using complex models and planning for tasks in projects that only last a few
weeks or a few days can cause unnecessary costs, time delays and paper work.
It has also been noted that schedules and tasks can change constantly so
planning out far in advance is often pointless as schedules can change so often
or at least will require being constantly updated.

12. 12
Concise History of Project Management
• Prince2 is a process based method; that
has been developed for application in a
tailored and flexible approach. Although
Prince2 details in-depth initiation and
planning at the start of each project. Its
management processes can be reduced to
just ‘Initiation’ and ‘The rest of the Project’
– as stated in the Prince2 manual and
processes.
• Although Prince2 can be regarded as having a more traditional approach to project
management and uses traditional planning approaches.

13. 13
Concise History of Project Management
• Agile project management methods that came out of
criticism of traditional project management, started to be
implemented and developed in the 1990s. Although
initially the roots of this development started in software
development as early as the 1950s.
• These flexible models (e.g. Agile Scrum, Agile Kanban)
have commonly become know as Agile project
management. Agile developed for fast paced
environments and also as a means for a more flexible and
efficient approach to project management.
• Agile was primarily developed for software development.
However it can be used in other environments and
involves working closely with the customer and not
planning to far a head as schedules can change so often,
that planning months or even weeks in advance can be
pointless.

14. Emotions and human Psychology
• One of the seemingly most over
looked and least understood parts of
project management as in many
other areas of business, is emotions,
ego and all the issues, conflicts and
benefits that derive from emotions.
14
• As of today there is no approach and set strategy in any project
management approach for emotions and dealing with the issues they
can cause.
• There is of course risk management, but no specific method or
project management knowledge base for working with emotions.

15. 15
Working with Emotions
• To disregard or ignore emotions is as dangerous as
disregarding proper planning and management
processes.
• One large issue in regards to the management of
emotions. Is that often people are not willing to
accept advice about a character trait because it can
hurt their ego. Emotions can be difficult to deal
with, but with an open mind set emotions can be
dealt with properly and used to better the out
come of a project.
• It is highly important and a good skill to be aware, that human character
can be developed and changed. It is not a criticism of a person to point out
an improvement they can make about themselves or how they apply
themselves to their work. It is merely feedback that can either be accepted
or rejected.

16. 16
Working with Emotions
• Human beings can be very bad at listening to or accepting unsolicited
advice. A good project manager and all people working on a project
should be open to feedback and advice. At least for the sake of the
project. The project work should remain a priority over any emotional
feelings.
• Projects should be approached with humility. People with large egos; that
make an assumption they are always correct and are not willing to listen
to others, can cause disastrous affects on a project. Large egos can create
blind sides, disharmony in the team and cut off any chance of correcting
badly made decisions.
• A person must have confidence in their abilities and have a willingness to
listen. A belief by an individual that their decisions are always correct and
they are themselves of high importance, so cannot possibly change or be
open to feedback, is a primitive, ego orientated type approach. That will
often lead to mistakes being made.

17. 17
Working with Emotions
• Transparency about the work being undertaken is also very important. It
creates confidence in staff members and limits gossip and
misinterpretations. The more staff know about a project and about the
company or organisation they work for. The more secure they will feel.
• The human brain evolved specifically to survive. This is our primary
instinct. The brain taking input from the past; creates opinions and stories
based on available data or made up data to fill in the gaps. This way to the
brain, the world is manageable and actions can be prepared.
• These opinions and stories are often incorrect and based on emotional
states or negativity. Transparency limits staff from creating such stories or
opinions based on nothing more than hear say or non-factual data.
• Finally a calm, mindful, awareness of the project, your own emotions and
people’s emotions around you. Will help to create success in projects.

18. 18
Great project management and being a great
project manager: Key characteristics.
• Be transparent and open in work where ever possible.
• Willing and able to decisively reverse decisions.
• Good and prompt communication.
• Hard work ethic.
• Stay factual.
• Good listener.
• Confidence.
• Awareness.
• Focused.
• Flexible.
• Positive.
• Humility.
• Dynamic.

19. 19
Widely used Project management software
• MS Projects & Project Server (Microsoft)
• Sharepoint (Microsoft)
• Basecamp (37 Signals)
• Huddle (Huddle)
• Open Project (Serena)
• Zoho Projects (Zoho)
• OmniFocus (Omni Group)
• Mingle (ThoughtWork studios)
• SAP RPM (SAP)
• Jira (atlassian)

20. 20
Project Management International Standards
and Disciplines.
• GAPPS. Global Alliance for Project Performance Standards - an open source standard describing
COMPETENCIES for project and program managers.
• PMI A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge
• HERMES method, Swiss general project management method, selected for use in Luxembourg and
international organizations.
• The ISO standards ISO 9000, a family of standards for quality management systems, and the ISO
10006:2003, for Quality management systems and guidelines for quality management in projects.
• PRINCE2, PRojects IN Controlled Environments.
• Team Software Process (TSP) from the Software Engineering Institute
• Capability Maturity Model from the Software Engineering Institute
• Total Cost Management Framework, AACE International's Methodology for Integrated Portfolio, Program
and Project Management)
• V-Model, an original systems development method.
• The Logical framework approach, which is popular in international development organizations.
• IAPPM, The International Association of Project & Program Management, guide to Project Auditing and
Rescuing Troubled Projects.
• Agile Manifesto

21. 21
Sources:
• Prince2 Manual. Managing Successful Projects with Prince 2. (OGC)
• Brilliant Project Management (Revised Edition): What the best project
managers know, do and say. (Stephen Baker and Rob Cole).
•Enterprise Risk Management & Governance. Advisory Service, Executive Update
Vol. 7, No. 3. Cutter Consortium. (Scott Stribrny.)
• Wherever You Go, There You are: Mindfulness Meditation for Everyday Life.
(Jon Kabat-Zinn).
• Wikipedia. (Wikimedia Foundation Inc)
Images:
• Wikimedia Commons.
• Istockphoto.