Unit 1 Project Management Concept

Musical Superstars Put on Projects for Charity

Over the last decade or so, numerous musical projects have raised millions of dollars for

charity. The one that seems to have initiated this trend is Live Aid, which was put together in

the 1980s by rock musician Bob Geldolf. This massive musical undertaking, which involved

dozens of musical acts, harnessed the strong, effective component of music and created a

solidarity between American and British youth and the starving people of Ethiopia. Geldolf’s

successful planning and organization of this monument famine relief effort created awareness

and helped initiate global action for starvation relief. Since that very successful project,

numerous musical superstars have stepped forward and joined in charitable causes.

In October of 1996, the Farm Aid IX mega concert was held at Williams-Brice Stadium

on the University of South Carolina campus. This event featured Willie nelson, jewel, John

Mellencamp, and over fifty other musical acts. “Both musically and financially this project

was a resounding success,” said Glenda Yoder, associate director of Farm Aid. “It is a real

challenge to pull off a project like this wish with so many bands and long hours, ” Yoder said.

“I give a lot of credit to the team of people who organized, planned, and orchestrated this

event.”

Each of these projects required serious planning, scheduling, organization, teamwork,

communications, and leadership—all of which will be discussed in detail in our course.

Attributes of A Project

A project is an endeavor to accomplish a specific objective through a unique set of

interrelated tasks and the effective utilization of resources. The following attributes help

define a project:

A project has a well-defined objective—an expected result or product. The objective of

a project is usually defined in terms of scope, schedule, and cost.

A project is carried out through a series of interdependent tasks.

A project utilizes various resources to carry out the tasks.

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Project Success

A project has a specific time frame, or finite life span.

A project may be a unique or one-time endeavor.

A project has a customer. The customer is the entity that provides the funds necessary

to accomplish the project.

Finally, a project involves a degree of uncertainty.

Factors Constraining Project Success

Project Life Cycle

The first phase of the project life cycle involves the identification of a need from the

customer. The need and requirements are usually written up by the customer in a document

called a request for proposal (RFP).

The second phase of the project life cycle is the development of a proposed solution to

the need or problem. This phase results in the submission of a proposal to the customer by

one or more individuals or organizations that (contractors) would like to have the customer

pay them implement the proposed solution.

The third phase of the project life cycle is the implementation of the proposed solution.

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Cost

Scope

Schedule

CustomerSatisfaction

This phase begins after the customer decides which of the proposed solutions will best fulfill

the need and an agreement is reached between the customer and the individual or contractor

who submitted the proposal.

The final phase of the project life cycle is terminating the project. When a project is

completed, certain close-out activities need to be provided, such as confirming that all

deliverables have been provided to and accepted by the customer, that all payments have been

collected, and that all invoices have been paid.

Benefits of Project Management

The ultimate benefit of implementing project management techniques is having a satisfied

customer—whether you are the customer of your own project, such as remodeling your

basement, or a business being paid by a customer to perform a project. Completing the full

project scope in a quality manner, and within budget provides a great felling of satisfaction.

For a contractor, it could lead to additional business from the same customer in the future or

to business from new customers referred previously satisfied customer.

“Hey! Great for the customer, but what about me? What’s in it for me?” If you are the

project manager, you have the satisfaction of knowing you led a successful project effort. You

also have enhanced your reputation as a project manager and positioned yourself for

expanded career opportunities. If you are a member of a project team that successfully

accomplished a project, you feel the satisfaction of being on a winning team. You not only

contribute to the project’s success, but also probably expanded your knowledge and enhanced

your skills along the way. If you choose to remain an individual contributor, you will be able

to make a greater contribution to future, more complicated projects. If you are interested in

eventually managing projects, you will be a position to take on additional project

responsibilities.

When projects are successful, everybody wins!

Case Study

The Board of Directors of a local not-for-profit organization that collects and buys food and

distributes it to people in need is having its February board meeting. Setting in a conference

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room are Beth Smith, the board chairperson, and two board members, Rosemary Olsen and

Steve Andrews. Beth announces, “Our funds are almost exhausted. The demands on the food

bank and soup kitchen have been increasing. We need to figure out how to get more funds.”

“We have to have a fund-raising project,” responds Rosemary.

Steve suggests, “can’t we ask the country government if they can increase their

allocation to us?”

“They are strained. They may even cut our allocation next year,” replies Beth.

“How much do we need to get us through this year?” asks Rosemary.

“About ten thousand dollars,” answer Beth, “an we are going to start needing that

money in about two months.”

“We need a lot of things besides money. We need more volunteers, more space for

storage, and another refrigerator for the kitchen,” says Steve.

“Well, I guess we can make that part of the fund-raising project. This is going to be

fun!” says Rosemary excitedly.

“This project is growing. We’ll never get it done in time,” Beth says.

Rosemary responds, “We’ll figure it out and get it done. We always do.”

“Is a project what we need? What are we going to do next year—another project?” asks

Steve. “Besides, we’re having a hard time getting volunteers anyway. Maybe we need to think

about how we can operate with less funds. For example, how can we get more food donations

on a regular basis so we won’t have to buy much food?”

Rosemary jumps in, “Great ideas, you can work on that while we also try to raise

funds. We can’t leave any stone unturned.”

“Time out,” says Beth. “These are all very good ideas, but we have limited funds and

volunteers and a growing demand. We need to do something now to make sure we don’t have

to close our doors in two months. I think we all agree we need to undertake some type of

initiative. But I’m not sure we all agree on the objective.”

Case Questions

1. What are the needs that have been identified?

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2. What is the project objective?

3. What assumptions, if any, should be made regarding the project to be undertaken?

4. What are the risks involved in the project?

Reading Materials 1

What is Project Managementhttp://www.pmtoday.co.uk/what_is_pm.asp (20040415 adapted)

Almost any human activity that involves carrying out a non-repetitive task can be a project.

So we are all project managers! We all practice project management (PM).

But there is a big difference between carrying out a very simple project involving one or

two people and one involving a complex mix of people, organizations and tasks.

This has been true for millennia, but large-scale projects like the Pyramids often used rather

simple control and resource techniques including brute force to 'motivate' the workforce!

The art of planning for the future has always been a human trait. In essence a project can be

captured on paper with a few simple elements: a start date, an end date, the tasks that have to

be carried out and when they should be finished, and some idea of the resources (people,

machines etc) that will be needed during the course of the project.

When the plan starts to involve different things happening at different times, some of which

are dependent on each other, plus resources required at different times and in different

quantities and perhaps working at different rates, the paper plan could start to cover a vast

area and be unreadable.

This was a problem facing the US Navy in the development of the Polaris missile system.

There were so many aspects to the project that a new technique had to be invented to cope

with it: the PERT technique. This and later developments led to mathematical techniques that

can be used to find the critical path through a series of planned tasks that interconnect during

the life of a project.

You could begin the story of modern project management from this time. But that would be

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unfair as project management is not only about planning but also about human attributes like

leadership and motivation.

Nevertheless, the idea that complex plans could be analyzed by a computer to allow

someone to control a project is the basis of much of the development in technology that now

allow projects of any size and complexity not only to be planned but also modeled to answer

'what if?' questions.

The original programs and computers tended to produce answers long after an event had

taken place. Now, there are many project planning and scheduling programs that can provide

real time information, as well as linking to risk analysis, time recording, costing, estimating

and other aspects of project control.

But computer programs are not project management: they are tools for project managers to

use. Project management is all that mix of components of control, leadership, teamwork,

resource management etc, that goes into a successful project.

Project managers can be found in all industries. Their numbers have grown rapidly as

industry and commerce has realized that much of what it does is project work. And as project-

based organizations have started to emerge, project management is becoming established as

both a professional career path and a way of controlling business.

So opportunities in project management now exist not only in being a project manager, but

also as part of the support team in a project or program office or as a team leader for part of a

project. There are also qualifications that can be attained through the professional

associations.

One reason for the rapid growth is the need to understand how to look after complex

projects, often in high tech areas, which are critical to business success but also have to use

scarce resources efficiently.

Most people still want their projects to be on time, meet quality objectives, and not cost

more than the budget. These form the classic time, quality, cost triangle.

In fact if you have an unlimited budget and unlimited time, project management becomes

rather easy. For most people, however, time and money are critical and that is what makes

project management so important today.

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Reference

Jack Gido; James P. Clements: Successful Project Management, South-Western College

Publishing, A Division of Thompson Learning, 1999; 机 械 工 业 出 版 社 2002年 。

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