Concept and Attributes of Project
What is a Project?
The Project Management Institute defines a project as: “A project is a temporary endeavour
undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.”
Its features are:
1. An established objective: Example: Constructing an apartment by Jan, 2026 or launching
a new mobile app.
2. A defined life span with a beginning and an end: As it has a specific objective, projects
have a defined endpoint, which is contrary to the ongoing duties and responsibilities of
traditional jobs.
3. Usually involves several departments and professionals: Projects typically require the
combined efforts of a variety of specialists. Instead of working in separate offices under
separate managers, in projects, engineers, financial analysts, marketing professionals, or
quality control specialists and others, work under the guidance of a project manager to
complete a project.
4. Non-Routine: It has unique elements. For example, sending a rover to Mars requires
unique and new technology, while a new construction project uses established procedures but
has uniqueness that requires customization. Maybe it’s been done in a very similar fashion
before but never exactly in this way
5. Specific time, cost, and performance requirements: Projects are evaluated according to
accomplishment, cost, and time spent.
Note: Projects should not be confused with everyday work. A project is not routine, repetitive
work! Ordinary daily work typically requires doing the same or similar work over and over,
while a project is done only once; a new product or service exists when the project is
completed.
Difference between Routine Work and Projects:
Project Attributes
A project has distinctive attributes that distinguish it from ongoing work or business
operations.
1. Objective: A project has a clear objective that establishes what is to be accomplished
The project objective is usually defined in terms of end product(deliverable),
schedule, and budget.
2. Activities: A project is carried out through a set of interdependent activities(tasks)
carried out in a sequence.
3. Resources: A project utilizes various resources to carry out the activities. Example:
People, materials and facilities etc.
4. Time frame: A project has specific time frame or finite life span.
5. Unique or One-Time Endeavor: A project may be a unique or one-time endeavor.
6. Sponsor or customer: A project has a sponsor/customer is the entity that provides the
funds necessary to accomplish the project.
7. Uncertainty: Projects have some uncertainty and requires some assumptions.
Project Constraint
◦ The successful accomplishment of the project objective could be constrained by many
factors, including scope, quality, schedule, budget, resources, risks, customer
satisfaction, and stakeholder support.
◦ Once a project is started, unforeseen circumstances may jeopardize the achievement
of the project objective with respect to scope, budget, or schedule
◦ The Triple Constraint, traditionally consists of time, cost, and scope.
◦ These are the primary competing project constraints. These constraints are all
dependent on each other.
◦ Each represents one of the constraints (or related constraints) where any changes to
any one side cause a change in the other sides.
◦ For example, if scope increases, cost and time may increase disproportionately.
Alternatively, if the amount of money you have for your project decreases, you may
be able to do as much, but your time may increase.
Project Management Information System
- See Reading
Project Management Process (See Reading for details)
◦ Project management is planning, organizing, coordinating, leading, and control
ling resources to accomplish the project objective
◦ The planning process determines what needs to be done (scope, deliverables), how it
will get done (activities, sequence), who will do it (resources, responsibility), how
long it will take (durations, schedule), and how much it will cost (budget).
◦ Once the project schedule and budget are developed, it must be determined whether
the project can be completed within the required time, with the allotted funds, and
with the available resources
◦ The result of the planning process is a baseline plan.
Once a baseline plan has been established, the plan must be executed. The executing
process involves performing the work according to the plan, monitoring and controlling
the work, and managing changes so that the project scope is achieved within the budget
and schedule, to the customer’s satisfaction
Role of Project Manager
Project managers perform the same functions as other managers. However, what makes them
unique is that they manage temporary, nonrepetitive activities, to complete a fixed life
project. Unlike functional managers, who take over existing operations, project managers
create a project team and organization where none existed before. They must decide what and
how things should be done instead of simply managing set processes. They must meet the
challenges of each phase of the project life cycle, and even oversee the dissolution of their
operation when the project is completed.
Project Managers work with a diverse group of part-time participants in the project team as
they deal with a wide variety of specialist Finance, Marketing, Engineers etc who are from
various functional departments.
Relationship between Project Manager and Line Manager
Figure: Pure Line organisation
Line managers (functional managers) oversee entire departments, whereas project
managers oversee individual projects.
The line manager is responsible for their functional department (Example: Finance
Department), but project manager is responsible for the project.
Depending on the form of organisation, the project manager may not be the line
manager.
In the above case of a matrix organisation, a person working in the organisation is
responsible to both the Project Manager and the Line (Functional manager) and they have
to coordinate. However, this may result in complexity and conflicts.
Project Stakeholder Analysis
◦ Project stakeholders are individuals or entities involved in, or who may influence, or
may be affected by a project, such as the customer/sponsor; project team, including
the project manager, subcontractors, and consultants; end users or consumers; and
advocacy groups.
◦ It is important to identify a project’s stakeholders as early as possible in the project
life cycle.
◦ Otherwise, if a certain group finds out about a particular issue with a project, and they
were not informed about it before or included, it can create an confrontational
situation and make it more difficult to build trust.
How to Identify Stakeholders?
◦ The project manager can have a brainstorming session, with the project team to
identify stake holders, or create advisory groups to provide input and guidance to the
project or portions of a project.
What is the purpose of Stakeholder Analysis?
◦ As potential stakeholders are identified, a list should be created that includes key
contact information, role or specific topics of interest, expectations, any known issues,
and areas of potential influence for each stakeholder. (This is called a Stakeholder
register).
◦ During the performance of the project, information about stakeholders may change or
additional stakeholders may be identified.
◦ The project team needs to be proactive and take the initiative to contact and engage
each stakeholder, listen to their interests, needs, expectations and concerns, rather than
waiting for the stakeholders to approach and then be in a reactive or defensive mode
◦ Stakeholder’s concerns should be addressed early, positively, and in a timely manner;
and not confrontationally, put off, ignored, or dismissed.
◦ Stakeholder engagement and support are important to the successful performance of a
project and accomplishment of the project objective.
Identification of Investment Opportunities (Refer to Chapter 3 in Prasanna Chandra
for details)
There are several tools that can help find a good investment opportunity. These include:
1. Porter’s Five Forces Model:
1. Porter's five forces are used to identify and analyze an industry's competitive forces.
2. Porter's Five Forces include: Competitive Rivalry, Supplier Power, Buyer Power,
Threat of Substitution, and Threat of New Entry.
3. The model encourages organizations to look beyond direct competitors when
assessing strategy and, instead, consider broader environmental forces that help it find
investment opportunities.
2. Life Cycle Approach
This Theory states that every product goes through 4 stages: Introduction, Growth,
Maturity and Decline.
When a new product is first introduced, then its sales are low it later reaches a stage of
growth when sales rapidly rise. Later the sales stabilise at maturity stage after which it
declines.
At Introduction stage there is investment opportunities, that may have negative NPV,
but still create opportunities to participate in growth stage with positive NPV. At
maturity NPV may be average. NPV may again go negative in Decline stage
3. Experience Curve
How to get project ideas:
1. Analyse Performance of Existing Industries to find profitable opportunities.
2. Examine Outputs and Inputs of other Industries: For example, if more value can be
added to existing output or a difficult to obtain input could be provided by a business
for profit.
3. Review Imports and Exports
4. Search for suggestions by financial institutions.
5. Analyse changes in economic and social trends.
6. See ideas from international markets and explore scope to use ideas in home market.
7. Identity unfulfilled needs of people
8. Attend Trade Fairs
Once, these ideas are found then preliminary screening may be done to see if they are
suitable.
Project Life Cycle
See Reading in Unit 1 Google Drive Folder
Planning
See Planning PPT in Unit 1 Drive Folder
Monitoring and Controlling:
◦ While the project work is being performed, it is necessary to monitor and control the
progress of the project work to ensure that everything is going according to plan and
the project objective will be accomplished.
◦ This involves measuring actual progress and comparing it to planned progress
according to the baseline plan.
◦ To measure actual progress, it is important to keep track of:
◦ Which tasks have actually been started and completed
◦ When they were started and completed
◦ The earned value of the work completed,
◦ If the project deliverables are meeting the expected quality criteria,
◦ How much money has been spent or committed.
◦ If, at any time during the project, comparison of actual progress to planned progress
reveals that the project is behind schedule, overrunning the budget, or not meeting the
technical specifications, corrective action must be taken to get the project back on
track.
◦ During the performance of the project work, changes may occur for a variety of
unexpected reasons, such as some activities taking longer than expected to complete.
◦ It is important to manage and control changes to minimize any negative impact on the
successful accomplishment of the project objective.
◦ A change control system needs to be established for the process and procedures that
define how changes will be documented, approved, and communicated.
Pre-feasibility Study
See PPT & Reading for details in Unit 1 folder
Identity Common Sources of Conflict within a Project Environment:
Disagreements and conflicts naturally emerge within a project team during the life of the
project. This conflict is to be managed to avoid negative effects.
The sources of conflict change as projects progress along the project life cycle.
In the Initiation Stage common sources of conflict are:
1. Disagreement on relative importance of the project compared with other activities of
an organisation.
2. Form of organisational structure of Project(Including extent of power of Project
Manager)
3. The personnel to be assigned
4. The scheduling of the project into existing workloads.
In the Planning Stage common sources of conflict are:
This is the phase where the project moves from a general concept to a detailed set of plans.
Disagreements often emerge over the final schedule, the availability of resources,
communication and decision-making procedures, and technical requirements for the project.
In the Implementation Stage sources of Conflict are:
During the execution phase, conflict arises over not meeting expected schedule and delays,
technical problems, and staff issues.
During Closure Stage sources of conflict are:
Pressures to meet objectives coupled with growing anxiety over future assignments increases
interpersonal tensions
