1. What’s a Project?
Any outcome that’s going to require more than one action item, in some sequence of events in
order to be able to get to that outcome. People have been undertaking projects since the earliest
days of organized human activity. A project plan can be considered to have five key attributes
that have to be managed:
Scope: defines what will be covered in a project.
Resource: what can be used to meet the scope?
Time: what tasks are to be undertaken and when.
Quality: the spread or deviation allowed from a desired standard.
Risk: defines in advance what may happen to drive the plan off course, and what will be
done to recover the situation.
What are the attributes of an effective project

2. 1. Building confidence within the whole project team.
Without confidence, a project can very quickly lose its way. The Project Manager should
therefore regularly check the health of ‘project confidence’ by reviewing the following
questions:
o Is there confidence that the project is on track?
o Are roles and responsibilities clearly defined and understood?
o Is everyone happy?
2. Managing change
Requirements that were specified, costed and signed off at the outset of a project will often need
to adjust to fit the changing business context. Project teams usually uncover unexpected
additional complexities, or indeed opportunities, along the way. Either way, it is sensible to plan
for change.
3. Planning
One could say that a Project Manager is like the conductor of an orchestra. Without necessarily
being proficient on any particular instrument, the conductor coordinates the intricate timings and
dependencies within a piece of music. He is responsible for each detail and also for the overall
quality of the final piece.
In reality, a Project Manager is perhaps more like a bus conductor – handing out tickets and
coordinating at what points people get off and on. However, it is crucially important to plan the
route the bus is going to take. As such, a Project Manager needs to agree ‘smart targets’ with the
production team and to track progress carefully. Without this the passengers would have no idea
as to where they were going or indeed when they were going to arrive.
4. Communication
Project Managers must ask themselves:
o Does each team member know all that is necessary to do their job?

3. o Are project requirements well documented?
o Is the business case for the project well defined and understood?
o Are the key stakeholders being given the appropriate opportunities to review progress?
o Is there an audit trail of project decisions, issues, risks, changes?
5. Risk analysis
The Project Manager is ultimately responsible for ensuring the health of the project. Regular risk
analysis is an essential part of this. The process starts with identifying possible risks so that they
can be logged, evaluated (scored according to impact and probability) and assigned to ‘risk
owners’. Naturally, logging them is not enough, it is also important to make a decision about
how best to manage each risk. This will sometimes take the form of deciding on a contingency
plan. However, it is preferable, where possible, to mitigate the risks in the short term by taking
actions to reduce the probability or impact.
6. Problem solving
Even with the best planning, communication and risk analysis, you can still encounter tricky
times in a project. Here the Project Manager must do their best to identify win-win outcomes. I
believe that the best way to do this is to remember to focus on ‘interests’ as opposed to particular
‘positions’.
7. Quality control
Quality is defined in ISO 9000:2000 as ‘The totality of features and characteristics of a product
or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs’.
It is difficult to deliver ‘implied needs’ with precision – but it is important to try! The unspoken,
undocumented requirements can be very important. It is likewise essential to manage even the
smallest details that crop up. Project Managers know from bitter experience exactly where the
devil is – and by paying close attention to the detail they help to ensure that small problems don’t
become diabolical ones!

4. How is a project different from what most people do in their day-to-day jobs?
A project has distinctive attributes, which distinguish it from ongoing work or business
operations. Projects are temporary in nature. They are not an everyday business process
and have definitive start dates and end dates. Projects exist to bring about a product or
service that hasn’t existed before. In this sense, a project is unique. Unique means that this
is new, this has never been done before. Maybe it’s been done in a very similar fashion
before but never exactly in this way. In contrast with projects, operations are ongoing and
repetitive. They involve work that is continuous without an ending date and you often
repeat the same processes and produce the same results. The purpose of operations is to
keep the organization functioning while the purpose of a project is to meet its goals and to
conclude. Therefore, operations are ongoing while projects are unique and temporary. The
project is completed when its goals and objectives are accomplished. It is these goals that
drive the project and all the planning and implementation efforts are undertaken to
achieve them.
Tasks and projects
A project is meant to stand for an undertaking with a limited time frame and a defined
goal. The time frame of a project may be given by start date and completion date. Projects
may be further split up in phases. Projects themselves are always contained in normal
folders.
A task stands for an activity that has to be done. A task has one or more persons
responsible for carrying out the task or supervising its execution. Usually tasks are part of
a superior process (phase or project), but may also exist on their own. Task execution may
lead to the provision of results. Tasks may have an estimated duration and a deadline when
the task is due.

5. Other factors affect a project
o Defined beginning, end, schedule, and approach
o Use resources specifically allocated to the work
o End results have specific goals (time, cost, performance/quality)
o Follows planned, organized approach
o Usually involves a team of people
o Organized, well planned approach
o Project Team Commitment
o Balance among
o Time
o Resources
o Results
o Customer Satisfaction