Project

Management
Presented by:
Muhammad Ali Siddique
Muhammad Ali Mukhtar
Zohaib Hassan
Over View

What is project management

Why projects fail?

How they become successful

What is project Management?
• In our article Rodger Atkins tries to define what project management is
and the criteria for its success and failure. He gives several definitions to
clarify what project management is.
• An Author Richard Paul Olsen defines project management as “The
application of a collection of tools and techniques to direct use of
the diverse resources to accomplish unique and complex tasks”.
• This means that project management focuses on technical aspects of a
desired project.
• There are many techniques to hold and start a project with power.
1:Matrix Organization

• In Matrix Organization the individuals report to more than one

supervisor or leader.
• Different types of matrix management are:
 Strong
 weak
 balanced.
• It enables the employees to enhance and maintain their skills while
working with multidisciplinary projects.
• Once the project is completed they remain sharp on their skills in their
discipline and return to their home functions.
2: Critical Path Method
o The critical path method is an algorithm for scheduling a set of projects.

o It is similar to the Program and Review technique, also called the PERT.
However the PERT method is in less use nowadays.

o CPM consists of seven simple steps:

 Specify each activity  Sequence the activities

 draw the network diagrams  Estimate how long each activity will take

 Identify the critical path  Identify the critical path

 Show progress
Criteria for PM
• The Olsen’s definition sets three criteria for project management.
 Time
 Cost
 Quality
• The British Standard for project management defines project
management as planning, motivation and monitoring of the project
and the those involved.
• The UK Association of Project management further extends this
definition to safety and also sets the criteria of cost, time and Quality.
• Project management is a onetime task dependent on cost, time and
quality.
Why Projects Fail?

• There is not always win-win situation. A lot of projects fail due to

certain reasons.
• In project management failure is not an option. A lot of projects fail due
to errors in the criteria.
• Atkinson gives two reasons for failure:

 Personal error or when something is done wrong.

 If something could have been done better but is not done so.
Analogy
• Atkinson gives a brilliant analogy to demonstrate these failures.
• A mature musician will practice until he plays a right note, whereas a
professional musician will practice until he plays the music so good that no
one can play it better than that. The amateur musician is trying to avoid the
first failure, whereas the professional musician is trying to avoid the second
the failure.
• The difference between the two failures is the
 commission  omission
• To avoid the first failure, you are trying to commit, that is you are doing
everything right. While in the second failure, you are trying to omit errors.
• If we compare the two errors, we can see that the second error is more
difficult to recognize.
Communication Breakdown
• Another cause of failure according to Atkinson is the communication
breakdown.

• These breakdowns are called performance gaps.

• One of the biggest gaps is between the actual project outcome needed by
the customer and the desired project outcome as desired by the customer.

• Sometimes there is a misunderstanding of what the customer wants and

what the project manager thinks that the customer wants.
Success Criteria of A Project
• Many lists of success criteria have been introduced in the previous
decades by various researchers
• The most famous criteria in the project management is The Iron Triangle.
• Which sets three factors as the criteria
Cost
• The concept of Iron Triangle is the mutual
dependency of the three criteria
• By increasing quality of a product, the time
needed, and the cost of the product will be
increased. Similarly, low quality products will
require less time and will be cheaper.
Time Quality
Other Aspects and Criterias
• When people generally talk about projects, they have rough estimates of:
 Time
 Money
• Some other criteria include the short-term measurement which is usually
carried out as a method of control.

• It involves using the earned value method.

• Which indicates that when the earned value is less than cost, the project is
going off the track.
A New Criteria for Project Management?
• Atkinson continues that "as a discipline, project management has not
really changed or developed the success measurement criteria in
almost 50 years".

• Moreover the Iron Triangle can result in type 2 error.

• Atkinson suggests “The Square Root” as the success criteria instead of

The Iron Triangle
The Square Route
• The main change is the addition of qualitative The Iron
Triangle
objectives rather than quantitative, namely the
benefits that different group of people can receive Benefits The
from the project. (organizatio
nal)
information
system

• These benefits are seen from two perspectives

Benefits
(Stakeholder
Community)

 Organizational View  Stakeholder View

• It is critical for a project manager to understand what the stakeholders

consider as a successful project. In order to avoid any surprises at the
end of the project
Conclusions
 It is important to identify the different perspectives of what
success means before the project goes live.
 It is also vital to remember that success criteria are the
standards by which a project will be judged.
 while success factors are the facts that shape the result of
projects.

 Success criteria have changed considerably through time

from the classic iron triangle’s view of time, cost and quality
to satisfaction of both organization and the stakeholder
Thank You
Q&A