1 Managing Projects Introduction to Project Management

2 Introduction Project Set of activities that: 1)aims to produce a deliverable, and 2)is time and cost bound

3 Project Management Getting a project to deliver on time an on budget requires 1)planning and 2)structuring work planning + structuring = management

4 Benefits of Project Management Predictability Effective use of resources Minimizing development time Reducing risk Some companies organize themselves around a set of major projects instead of organizing their activities around conventional departments

5 Risk Management Part of project management that attempts to anticipate and plan for what can go wrong Plans must be sufficiently flexible to accommodate for surprises. Contingency plans are developed to deal with risks If plans and schedules become untouchable problems are swept under the rug and individuals who sound the alarm are ignored or cast out Murphy’s Law If anything can go wrong, it will

6 Basics of Project Management (1) 1)Project management processes and techniques 2)Team work  The team component of project management is of critical importance, yet is too often overlooked  Establish norms of behavior, such as meeting attendance, how to give and receive feedback and so forth  Unless people understand how to work as a team success is unlikely  Everyone must work toward the same goals 3)Project take-off  Goal of the project, time frame, resources, deliverables

7 4) Work breakdown and scheduling  Decomposes the project into a set of manageable, bite-sized tasks, with an estimate of the time and money needed to complete each  Understand the dependencies between the tasks defined (serial tasks, parallel tasks, critical path) 5) Risk Management  Identify risks, take actions to minimize their impact and develop contingency plans 6) Project closedown  Thanks, celebrations, document work done, lessons learned Basics of Project Management (2)