This document provides an overview of project management. It defines what a project is, common project terms, and what project management entails. It describes the typical roles and responsibilities of a project manager. It then outlines the standard steps in project management, including initiation, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing. It discusses why projects fail and how to measure project success. Finally, it notes some common project constraints.

1. TECHIEGHOSH
Project Management
Arnab Ghosh
19-May-20

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Table of Contents
What is a project?.........................................................................................................................................2
Common project terms.................................................................................................................................2
What is project management? .....................................................................................................................2
Who is a project manager?...........................................................................................................................3
Steps of project management.......................................................................................................................4
Initiation........................................................................................................................................................4
Planning ........................................................................................................................................................5
Executing.......................................................................................................................................................6
Project Documentation.................................................................................................................................6
Monitoring and controlling...........................................................................................................................6
Closing...........................................................................................................................................................7
Why do projects fail? ....................................................................................................................................8
Measuring project success............................................................................................................................8
Project constraints........................................................................................................................................9

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What is a project?
A project is an activity that:
 is temporary having a start and end date
 is unique
 brings about change
 has unknown elements, which therefore create risk
 Generally projects are formed to solve a problem or take advantage of an opportunity.
 Business as usual activities can often be mistaken for projects.
Common project terms
• Deliverables: Tangible ‘things’ that the project produces
• Milestones: Dates by which major activities are performed.
• Tasks: Also called Actions. Activities undertaken during the project
• Risks: Potential problems that may arise
• Issues: Risks that have happened
• Gantt Chart: A specific type of chart showing time and tasks. Usually created by a Project Management
program like MS Project.
• Stakeholder: Any person or group of people who may be affected by your project
What is project management?
Project management is the practice of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of
a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria at the specified time. The primary
challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals within the given constraints.
A successful Project Manager must simultaneously manage the four basic elements of a project:
resources, time, money, and most importantly, scope.

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All these elements are interrelated. Each must be managed
effectively. All must be managed together if the project is
to be a success. The resource that can be leveraged to the
greatest extent in all projects is the people involved.
Who is a project manager?
A person with a diverse set of skills –management,
leadership, technical, conflict management, and customer relationship who is responsible for:
– initiating,
– planning,
– executing,
– controlling,
– monitoring,
– and closing down a project
Project Managers are essentially jugglers. They must
make sure that everything keeps to task, that potential
issues are quickly eliminated and the project is delivered
on time, all the while making sure everyone knows what is happening and the project quality and
budget are acceptable.roject quality and budget are acceptable. Specifically they:
 direct all activities required to successfully meet the project objectives
 manage risk – scanning ahead for potential issues and resolving them before they become a
problem
 solve problems - recommending alternative approaches to problems that arise and providing
guidance to the Project Sponsor
 track and report project progress
 communicate to all stakeholders in the project

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Steps of project management
Traditionally (depending on what project management methodology is being used), project
management includes a number of elements: four to five project management process groups, and a
control system. Regardless of the methodology or terminology used, the same basic project
management processes or stages of development will be used. Major process groups generally include
 Initiation
 Planning
 Production or execution
 Monitoring and controlling
 Closing
Initiation
The initiating processes determine the nature and scope of the project. If this stage is not performed
well, it is unlikely that the project will be successful in meeting the business’ needs. The key project
controls needed here are an understanding of the business environment and making sure that all
necessary controls are incorporated into the project. Any deficiencies should be reported and a
recommendation should be made to fix them.

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The initiating stage should include a plan that encompasses the following areas. These areas can be
recorded in a series of documents called Project Initiation documents. Project Initiation documents are a
series of planned documents used to create order for the duration of the project. These tend to include:
1. project proposal (idea behind project, overall goal, duration)
2. project scope (project direction and track)
3. product breakdown structure (PBS) (a hierarchy of deliverables / outcomes and components
thereof)
4. work breakdown structure (WBS) (a hierarchy of the work to be done, down to daily tasks)
5. responsibility assignment matrix (RACI) (roles and responsibilities aligned to deliverables /
outcomes)
6. tentative project schedule (milestones, important dates, deadlines)
7. analysis of business needs and requirements against measurable goals
8. review of the current operations
9. financial analysis of the costs and benefits, including a budget
10. stakeholder analysis, including users and support personnel for the project
11. project charter including costs, tasks, deliverables, and schedules
12. SWOT analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to the business
Planning
After the initiation stage, the project is planned to an appropriate level of detail. The main purpose is to
plan time, cost and resources adequately to estimate the work needed and to effectively manage risk
during project execution. As with the Initiation process group, a failure to adequately plan greatly
reduces the project's chances of successfully accomplishing its goals.
Project planning generally consists of
1. determining the project management methodology to follow (e.g. whether the plan will be
defined wholly up front, iteratively, or in rolling waves);
2. developing the scope statement;
3. selecting the planning team;
4. identifying deliverables and creating the product and work breakdown structures;
5. identifying the activities needed to complete those deliverables and networking the activities in
their logical sequence;
6. estimating the resource requirements for the activities;
7. estimating time and cost for activities;
8. developing the schedule;
9. developing the budget;
10. risk planning;
11. developing quality assurance measures;

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12. gaining formal approval to begin work.
Executing
While executing we must know what are the planned terms that need to be executed. The
execution/implementation phase ensures that the project management plan's deliverables are executed
accordingly. This phase involves proper allocation, co-ordination and management of human resources
and any other resources such as material and budgets. The output of this phase is the project
deliverables.
Project Documentation
Documenting everything within a project is key to being successful. To maintain budget, scope,
effectiveness and pace a project must have physical documents pertaining to each specific task. With
correct documentation, it is easy to see whether or not a project's requirement has been met. To go
along with that, documentation provides information regarding what has already been completed for
that project. Documentation throughout a project provides a paper trail for anyone who needs to go
back and reference the work in the past. In most cases, documentation is the most successful way to
monitor and control the specific phases of a project. With the correct documentation, a project's
success can be tracked and observed as the project goes on. If performed correctly documentation can
be the backbone to a project's success.
Monitoring and controlling
Monitoring and controlling consists of those processes performed to observe project execution so that
potential problems can be identified in a timely manner and corrective action can be taken, when
necessary, to control the execution of the project. The key benefit is that project performance is
observed and measured regularly to identify variances from the project management plan.
Monitoring and controlling includes:
 Measuring the ongoing project activities ('where we are');
 Monitoring the project variables (cost, effort, scope, etc.) against the project management plan
and the project performance baseline (where we should be);
 Identifying corrective actions to address issues and risks properly (How can we get on track
again);

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 Influencing the factors that could circumvent integrated change control so only approved
changes are implemented.
Closing
Closing includes the formal acceptance of the project and the ending thereof. Administrative activities
include the archiving of the files and documenting lessons learned.
This phase consists of:
 Contract closure: Complete and settle each contract (including the resolution of any open items)
and close each contract applicable to the project or project phase.
 Project close: Finalize all activities across all of the process groups to formally close the project
or a project phase

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Why do projects fail?
1. Poor project and program
management discipline
2. Lack of executive-level support
3. Wrong team members
4. Poor communication
5. No measures for evaluating the
success of the project
6. No risk management
7. Inability to manage change
A project has a degree of UNCERTAINTY. In project planning many assumptions are made regarding:
• access to resources.
• resource capability.
• impact of environmental factors.
• These assumptions are not always accurate.
• Requires project managers to re-assess and trade-offs between requirements, costs, and time. Above
all, be PRO-ACTIVE.
Measuring project success
We measure the success of a project using 4 major project constraints, specifically:
– Scope.
– Cost.
– Schedule (Time).
– Customer satisfaction (quality and performance).

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Project constraints
• Project scope – Have all the project
requirements (i.e., deliverables) been
completed?
• Project cost – Is the cost of the project
close to the amount the customer has
agreed to pay?
• Schedule – Was the project completed
on time?
• Customer satisfaction – Is the customer
happy with the quality of the project?