Safety project management principles and practices

Project Management

The objective of this work is to discuss typical of professional environments and where one might expect to find project management techniques being used. Discussed will be the constraints within each of these environments that require project management; why some practitioners have called project management a carefully created illusion; why they argue that an organization can only barely exist in a complex project; the three lines of defense used to optimize the project plan; reasons for optimizing the project plan; the different kinds of charts from which a Project Manager can choose and their benefits and lastly why it is critical that goals be measured and discuss three critical dimensions of project goals.

Introduction

Project management may be defined as: "Technically, a project is a short-term endeavor to create a unique product or service. In practical terms, it is an assignment or undertaking to create a deliverable that satisfies the mission of the project customers. (Phillips, 2005)

I. Constraints within the Environment Requiring Project Management

Bob McGannon, PMP states in his article entitled: Corporate Culture: A Constraint On Your Project? that oftentimes "Project management professionals can face the same type of resistance to change if they are working with an organization that does not embrace change as part of its culture. As projects are intended to bring about some form of change -- a new product or improvement to an existing product, new processes, or enhanced tools -- projects are especially threatening to an organization whose culture won't embrace the transformation brought about by the project's product." (McGannon, 2002)

McGannon's advice states: "Project managers should create processes as part of their communication plan to make allies of these individuals. This step can help significantly as your projects move through requirements formulation to implementation." This is true but the generally referred to constraints are represented by (1) budgets; (2) deadlines; and (3) an agreed set of deliverables that the customer may either accept or reject. These are also referred to as (1) time; (2) scope; and (3) costs.

II. A Carefully Created Illusion

Whether referred to as an illusion or indeed a vision, the project manager is responsible to assist others involved in the project in their ability to see the project from the manager's view. In the earlier stages of the project this may be referred to as a 'carefully created illusion' however, without this vision the project will flounder and fail. As stated by Phillips (2005) in the work entitled: Real World Project Management: An Introduction: "Good photographers and good project managers have much in common: experience, a foundation in the fundamentals, and a willingness to learn. At the core, I believe, is an ability to capture a vision -- and then process that vision for others to see."

III. Organizations Can Only Exist in a Complex Project

Organizations may be either 'project-driven' organizations or 'project-dependent' organizations. The organization that is 'project-driven' is one whose primary business is made up of projects. The organization that is 'project-dependent' is the organization that that provides goods and services, and not primarily projects, as their mainstream business. Paraphrased (Archibald, 2004) This researcher agrees that in the 'project-driven' or 'project-dependent' organization that lack of a project would technically render the organization null and void because for these organizations lack of a project is translated to lack of work for the organization itself.

Cost estimation, time estimation and human resources allocation planning and assessment are three lines of defense in the optimization of the project plan from the view of the project manager. The reasons for optimization of the project plan are to save time, to save money and to save in over-allocation of human resources to the project. Management of people, processes, and performance is critical in project management success. According to the work entitled: Integrated Project Management Optimization:

"In this case the decision space is confined by the restricted human capacity and the candidate architectural solutions. The well-known limits are the development capacity, the available cost, the required quality, the dependability etc. The real task is to find the optimal scheduling of the work to keep the given time limits, or to realize the optimal allocation of the human capacity to reduce the cost of the project. Our aim is to trace this problem back to combinatorial optimization." (Doban, 2005)

The following illustration demonstrates the different aspects of project management that must be considered by the project manager:

Source: Project Management Online available at: http://www.bit.umkc.edu/burris/pl/project-management/

VI. Charts and Benefits

Organizational charts may be used by project managers so as to order the progression of processes within the project. Charts that may be utilized by the project management are listed as follows in the chart below labeled Figure 1.0:

Figure 1.0

Source: Archibald (2004) Online available at: http://www.maxwideman.com/guests/stateofart/models.htm

VII. Measurement of Goals and Three Critical Dimensions

Three parameters which the project manager will work with in measuring goals are the dimensions listed as follows in the chart below labeled Figure 2.0: