Success in project management

1. Success in project management • In one way or another you will all have some experience of managing projects. You will most certainly have been doing this since Year 10, if not before. However, you may not have put that much thought into what it all actually involves, you would have just got on with it in the timescale given. Sometimes you may have been successful other times not so, the fact that you are doing this Qualification means that you must have had some success.

2. What, therefore, is a project? • A project is simply a task or series of tasks which combine together to form some kind of outcome. There are three key questions we should consider when dealing with projects: • What characteristics do projects have in common? • What are the critical success factors that make a project a success? • What are the reasons some projects fail?

3. Managing a project, even one as simple as getting your assignments in on time, is not an easy business. Get it wrong here and it could cost you your qualification, get it wrong in business and it could cost you your job and the company millions! Good project managers are worth their weight in gold. • Read case study 1 – The 2012 Olympic Games

4. What makes a successful project? • The 2012 Olympics project will have to have been successful. What then makes a successful project? Let us look at a few projects… • Read case study 2 – The London Stock Exchange Taurus Project and then read case study 3 – The London Ambulance Service Computer Aided Dispatch System • Read case study 4 – Swanwick Air Traffic Control Centre

5. What characteristics do all projects have in common? • All projects produce a product of some kind • A project must achieve something that has a function. There will be one or more objectives of that function, all of which need to be met. • All projects have a customer • You will always be trying to achieve something on behalf of someone, even if that someone is yourself. Often you will have many customers, not all with the same objectives. Pleasing them all is not easy.

6. All projects are constrained in some way by time • There will be a target date by which the project must be complete, because that is when the customer needs the product. By definition, therefore, all projects have an end time. • All projects will have a budget • If costs are allowed to spiral there will eventually come a point where the costs are perceived to outweigh the potential benefits of the project.

7. What are the critical factors which make a project a success? • Whether something is a success or failure is often a subjective decision. Essentially though, if a project delivers a high-quality product within the specified timescale and budget allowed for development, then it is undoubtedly a success.

8. Why do some projects fail? • On the face of it this question is easy to answer. Projects are failures or part failures when they do not deliver a quality product, or do not do so on time, or do not do so within budget. Before we can settle on this definition, take a look at one more project: this one a little closer to home. • Read case study 5 – The New Network Project

9. Conclusion • To round this section off, we can conclude that a successful project is a project that has been managed well. Such a project will demonstrate the following characteristics: • The tasks have been undertaken in as efficient a manner as possible • The resources required to undertake the various tasks have been made available when needed

10. The product has been produced to a standard acceptable to the customer, within the required time frame, and within the required budget • The customer has been involved every step of the way and has been kept informed at all times about the project’s progress