BASICS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT

1. Introduction

What is a Project?

A project is defined as “a unique endeavor to produce a set of deliverables within clearly

specified time, cost and quality constraints”. Projects are different from standard business
operational activities as they:

 Are unique in nature. They do not involve repetitive processes. Every project undertaken
is different from the last, whereas operational activities often involve undertaking
repetitive (identical) processes.
 Have a defined timescale. Projects have a clearly specified start and end date within
which the deliverables must be produced to meet a specified customer requirement.
 Have an approved budget. Projects are allocated a level of financial expenditure within
which the deliverables must be produced to meet a specified customer requirement.
 Have limited resources. At the start of a project, an agreed amount of labor, equipment,
and materials, is allocated to the project.
 Involve an element of risk. Projects entail a level of uncertainty and therefore carry
business risk.
 Achieve beneficial change. The purpose of a project, typically, is to improve an
organization through the implementation of business change.

And what is Project Management?

Project Management is all the skills, tools and management processes required to undertake a
project successfully. Project Management comprises:

 A set of skills. Specialist knowledge, skills, and experience are required to reduce the
level of risk within a project and thereby enhance its likelihood of success.
 A suite of tools. Various types of tools are used by project managers to improve their
chances of success. Examples include document templates, registers, planning software,
modeling software, audit checklists, and review forms.
 A series of processes. Various management techniques and processes are required to
monitor and control time, cost, quality and scope on projects. Examples include time
management, cost management, quality management, change management, risk
management and issue management.

Project Management contains all the skills, tools and management processes required to
undertake a project successfully.

2. Project Life Cycle

Page 1 of 18
A project typically has four major phases. Taken together, these phases represent the path a
project takes from the beginning to its end and are generally referred to as the project “life-
cycle.” The following diagram outlines the four phases of the project life cycle:

1. Initiation Phase

The first phase in the project is the Initiation Phase. In this phase, a business problem (or
opportunity) is identified and a business case, which provides various solution options, is
defined. A feasibility study investigates the likelihood of each solution option and a final
recommended solution is put forward. Once the recommended solution is approved, a project is
initiated to deliver the approved solution. The Project Manager begins setting up a project team
and a project office.

2. Planning Phase

Once the scope of the project has been defined, the project enters the detailed planning phase.
This involves the creation of a Project Plan (outlining the activities, tasks, dependencies, and
timeframes), a Resource Plan (listing the labor, equipment, and materials required), a Financial
Plan (identifying the labor, equipment and materials costs), Quality & Risk Analyses, and a
Communication Plan. At this point, the project has been planned in detail and is ready to be
executed.

3. Execution Phase

This phase involves the execution of each activity and task listed in the Project Plan. While the
activities and tasks are being executed, a series of management processes are undertaken to
monitor and control the deliverables being output by the project. Once all of the deliverables
have been produced and the customer has accepted the final solution, the project is ready for
closure.

Page 2 of 18
4. Closure Phase

Project Closure involves releasing the final deliverables to the customer, handing over project
documentation, terminating supplier contracts, releasing project resources and communicating
the closure of the project to all stakeholders. The last remaining step is to undertake a review to
quantify the overall success of the project.

A project typically features the following four major phases:

1. Initiation > 2. Planning > 3. Implementation > 4. Closure

The following sections provide a more detailed description of each phase and list tools which
provide the Project Manager with guidance on how to complete each phase successfully.

3. The Initiation Phase

The Initiation Phase is the first phase within the life cycle, as it involves starting up a new
project.

Within the initiation phase, the business problem or opportunity is identified, a solution is
defined, and a project team is appointed to build and deliver the solution to the customer. A
business case is created to define the problem and identify a preferred solution.

Business Case & Feasibility

Once a business problem or opportunity has been identified, a Business Case is prepared. This
includes an executive summary, a detailed definition of the challenge or goal and an analysis of
the potential solution options available. For each option, the potential costs, benefits, risks, and
issues are documented. The Business Case also includes the recommended solution and a generic
execution timeline. The Business Case is approved by the Project Sponsor and the required
funding is allocated to proceed with the project.

Page 3 of 18
At any stage during (or after) the development of a Business Case, a formal Feasibility
Study may be commissioned. The purpose is to assess the likelihood of a particular solution
option’s achieving the benefits outlined in the Business Case. The Feasibility Study will also
investigate whether the forecast costs are reasonable, the solution is achievable, the risks are
acceptable and/or any likely issues are avoidable.

After the solution has been agreed and funding allocated, a project is formed. The Terms of
Reference defines the vision, objectives, scope, and deliverables for the project. It also provides
the organization structure (roles and responsibilities) and a summarized plan of the activities,
resources, and funding required to undertake the project. Finally, any risks, issues, planning
assumptions, and constraints are listed.

Team & Office

At this point, the scope of the project has been defined in detail and the Project Team is ready to
be appointed. Although a Project Manager can be appointed at any stage of the project, he/she
will need to be appointed prior to the establishment of the project team. The Project Manager
documents a detailed Job Description for each project role and appoints a human resource to
each role based on his/her relevant skills and experience. Once the team members are ‘fully
resourced’, the Project Office is ready to be set-up.

The Project Office is the physical environment within which the team will be based. Although it
is usual to have one central project office, it is possible to have a ‘virtual project office’
environment, with project team members in various locations around the world. Regardless of
the physical location, a successful project office environment will comprise the following
components:

Page 4 of 18
  Location (either physical or virtual)
 Communications (telephones, computer network, file storage, database storage)
 Documentation (methodology, processes, forms, and registers)
 Tools (for accounting, project planning, and risk modeling)

4. The Planning Phase

The Planning Phase is the second phase of the project life cycle. It involves creating a set of
plans to help guide your team through the next phases of the project.

The plans created during this phase will help you to manage time, cost, quality, change, risk, and
issues. They will also help you manage staff and external suppliers, to ensure that you deliver the
project on time and within budget.

Project Plan & Resources

The first step is to document the Project Plan. In most cases a Work Breakdown
Structure (WBS)is identified, which includes a hierarchical set of phases, activities, and tasks to
be undertaken on the project:

Page 5 of 18
After the WBS has been agreed upon, an assessment of the effort required to undertake the
activities and tasks is made. The activities and tasks are sequenced, resources are allocated and a
detailed project schedule is formed. This project schedule will become the primary tool for the
Project Manager to assess the progress of the project.

A work breakdown structure (WBS) is a deliverable-oriented breakdown of a project into smaller

components.

Immediately after the Project Plan is formed, it is necessary to develop a Resource Plan to
allocate the resources required to undertake each of the activities and tasks within the Project
Plan. Although general groups of resources may have already been allocated to the Project Plan,
a detailed resource assessment is required to identify the:

 Types of resources (labor, equipment, and materials)

 Total quantities of each resource type
 Roles, responsibilities, and skill-sets of all human resources
 Items, purposes, and specifications of all equipment resource
 Items and quantities of material resource

Similar to the Resource Plan, a Financial Plan is prepared to identify the quantity of money
required for each stage in the project. The total cost of labor, equipment, and materials is
quantified and an expense schedule is defined which provides the Project Manager with an

Page 6 of 18
understanding of the forecast spending vs. the actual spending throughout the project. Preparing
a detailed Financial Plan is extremely important as the project’s success will depend on whether
or not it is delivered within the ‘time, cost and quality’ estimates for this project.

Quality & Risk

Meeting the quality expectations of the customer is critical to the success of the project. To
ensure that the quality expectations are clearly defined and can reasonably be achieved,
a Quality Plan is documented. The Quality Plan defines what quality means in terms of this
project, lists clear quality targets for each deliverable, and identifies the techniques used to
control the actual level of quality.

Finally, it is important to review the quality not only of the deliverables produced by the project
but also of the management processes which produce them. A summary of each of
the management processes undertaken during the execution phase is identified, including Time,
Cost, Quality, Change, Risk, Issue, Procurement, Acceptance and Communications
Management.

A project quality & controls plan needs to be developed in a project to define a set of project
controls rules and guidelines for members of the project control team to promote a common
understanding of duties, project controls work-flows, processes & procedures, and applications.
Ensuring quality, efficiency, and consistency is another benefit.

The foreseeable project risks are then documented within a Risk Plan and a set of actions to be
taken formulated to both prevent each risk from occurring and reduce the impact of the risk
should it eventuate. Developing a clear Risk Plan is an important activity within the planning
phase as it is necessary to mitigate all critical project risks prior to entering the Execution Phase
of the project.

A simple risk plan for hiring a moving company could look like this:

Communication

Prior to the Execution phase, it is necessary to identify how each of the stakeholders will be kept
informed of the progress of the project. The Communications Plan identifies the types of

Page 7 of 18
information to be distributed, the methods of distributing information to stakeholders, the
frequency of distribution and responsibilities of each person in the project team for distributing
information regularly to stakeholders.

A simple communications plan can look like this:

The last planning activity within the Planning phase is to identify the elements of the Project
which will be acquired from external suppliers to the project. The Procurement Plan provides a
detailed description of:

 the Products (i.e. goods and services) to be procured from suppliers, 

 the justification for procuring each product externally, as opposed to from within the
business,
 and the schedule for procurement.
 It also references the process for the selection of a preferred supplier (“Tender Process”)
and the process for the actual order and delivery of the procured products (“Procurement
Process”).

At the end of the Planning phase, a Phase Review is performed. This is basically a checkpoint to
ensure that the project has achieved its stated objectives as planned.

5. The Execution Phase

Page 8 of 18
The Execution Phase is usually the longest phase in the project life cycle and it typically
consumes the most energy and the most resources.

In this phase, you will build the physical project deliverables and present them to your customer
for acceptance. The Project Manager monitors and controls the activities, resources, and
expenditure required to build each deliverable.

Build Deliverables

This phase requires the physical construction of each deliverable for acceptance by the
customer. The actual activities undertaken to construct each deliverable will vary, depending on
the type of project (e.g. engineering, building development, computer infrastructure or business
process re-engineering projects).

Deliverables may be constructed in:

 a waterfall fashion (where each activity is undertaken in sequence until the deliverable is

finished) or
 an iterative/agile fashion (where iterations of each deliverable are constructed until the
deliverable meets the requirements of the customer).

Page 9 of 18
Most software projects use an iterative approach in order to reduce risk and include more
customer feedback. Regular iterations of work, which includes the testing and reviews by
stakeholders every two weeks (often referred to as “sprints”) do help to keep a project on track.

Regardless of the method used to construct each deliverable, careful monitoring and control
processes should be employed to ensure that the quality of the final deliverable meets the
acceptance criteria set by the customer.

Building deliverables is an essential part of the execution phase.

Monitor and Control

Whilst the Project Team is physically producing each deliverable, the Project Manager
implements a series of management processes to monitor and control the activities being
undertaken. An overview of each management process follows:

 Time Management is the process within which time spent by staff undertaking project
tasks is recorded against the project. As time is a scarce resource on projects, it is
important to record the time spent by each member of the team on a timesheet to enable
the Project Manager to control the level of resource allocated to a particular activity.

Page 10 of 18
  Cost Management is the process by which costs (or expenses) incurred on the project
are formally identified, approved and paid. Expense Forms are completed for each set of
related project expenses such as labor, equipment and materials costs.
 Quality Management is the process by which the quality of the deliverables is assured
and controlled for the project, using Quality Assurance and Quality Control techniques.
Quality reviews are frequently undertaken.
 Change Management is the process by which changes to the project’s scope,
deliverables, timescales or resources are formally defined, evaluated and approved prior
to implementation. A core aspect of the Project Manager’s role is to manage change
within the project successfully. This is achieved by understanding the business and
system drivers requiring the change, documenting the benefits and costs of adopting the
change and formulating a structured plan for implementing the change.
 Risk Management is the process by which risks to the project (e.g. to the scope,
deliverables, timescales or resources) are identified, quantified and managed at any time
during the project.
 Procurement Management is the process by which a product is sourced from an
external supplier. To request the delivery of a product from a supplier, a Purchase Order
must be approved by the Project Manager and sent to the supplier for confirmation.
 Communications Management is the process by which formal communications
messages are identified, created, reviewed and communicated within a project. The most
common method of communicating the status of the project is via a Project Status Report.

At the end of the Execution Phase, a Phase Review is performed. This is basically a checkpoint
to ensure that the project has achieved its stated objectives as planned.

6. The Closure Phase

The Closure Phase is the last phase of the project life cycle. In this phase, you will formally
close your project and then report its overall level of success to your sponsor.

Project Closure involves handing over the deliverables to your customer, passing the
documentation to the business, canceling supplier contracts, releasing staff and equipment, and
informing stakeholders of the closure of the project.

Page 11 of 18
 Project Closure

The project closure phase is the last phase in the project lifecycle, and it officially puts an end to
the project. When you have worked long and hard on a project and it’s finally completed, it’s
hard to find time to really close it down properly. However, it is definitely in your best interests
to have a closure procedure so that you cover every base and can safely archive it.

Project Closure involves undertaking a series of activities to wind up the project, including:

 Assessing whether the project completion criteria have been met

 Identifying any outstanding items (activities, risks or issues)
 Producing a hand-over plan to transfer the deliverables to the customer environment
 Communicating closure to all stakeholders and interested parties

A Project Closure Report is submitted to the Customer and/or Project Sponsor for approval.
The Project Manager is then responsible for undertaking each of the activities identified within
the Project Closure Report on time and according to budget. The project is closed only when all
activities identified in the Project Closure Report have been completed.

Project documents are usually archived so that they can be referred to if the organization takes on
a similar project where the experience gained and the lessons learned in the current project
would prove useful.

During the last phase of the project life cycle, meaning the project closure, everything should be
detailed in order to measure if the project went as planned and if the outcome is done as required.

Completion Review

The final activity undertaken on any project is a review of its overall success by an independent
resource. Success is determined by how well it performed against the defined objectives and
conformed to the management processes outlined in the planning phase. To determine
performance a number of questions are posed. For example:

 Did the project result in the benefits defined in the Business Case?
 Did it achieve the objectives outlined in the Terms of Reference?
 Did the deliverables meet the criteria defined in the Quality Plan?
 Was it delivered within the schedule outlined in the Project Plan?
 Was it delivered within the budget outlined in the Financial Plan?

To determine conformance, a review is undertaken of the level of conformity of the project

activities to the management processes outlined in the Quality Plan. The above results, key
achievements, and lessons learned are documented within a Post Implementation Review report
and presented to the Project Sponsor for approval.

7. Book Example

Page 12 of 18
Now that we know the project life cycle and the four major project management phases, it is time
to take a look at a concrete real-life example. We will keep it simple and assume that you and
your team intend to create and publish a new textbook.

1. Project Initiation
In the initiation phase, we need to get a rough idea of how long it will take to make, how much it
will cost, and the effect it will have. If the CEO of the publishing company decides that the value
is worth the perceived difficulty, it’s time to move onto planning.

2. Project Planning
The planning stage would involve meeting with the marketing team and stamping out a
timeframe for each chapter of the book to be completed. Once the topic has been set and assessed
(for the difficulty of writing), these dates will become more solid.

The person responsible for writing each chapter will be assigned, along with the task of
designing and creating the book itself. Furthermore, risks such as hidden topic depth or difficulty
in securing a designer for the book would be assessed.

3. Project Execution
The execution stage would involve figuring out what each chapter will consist of, assigning
various team members to complete said chapters, giving a deadline for each chapter, and carving
out a regular meeting time during which your team’s progress and problems will be relayed.
Everyone should know what they are working on, why they are working on it, when it should be
completed by, and what everyone else is responsible for.

For our book, let’s say that you’ve set out a two-month deadline for the final product, and you
meet twice a week with your marketing team to check on their progress.

If problems arise, such as a chapter being more complex than originally thought or team
members having to take time off for one reason or another, you may have to bring in someone
who wasn’t already working on the project, or shift the responsibilities of the current workforce
on the project to better suit the new situation.

Page 13 of 18
4. Project Closure
The project closing step would be after the book’s public launch. Once complete, the benefits
would be tracked (eg, increased conversion rates), any expenses on items such as the design of
the book would be totaled, and contracts with freelancers terminated.

Whether you’re working on a small project with modest business goals or a large, multi-
departmental initiative with sweeping corporate implications, understanding the project
management life cycle is essential. Every project has essential milestones at the beginning, in the
middle, and at the end, following a path from initiation to completion to evaluation. Working
with an understanding of the project management cycle helps you keep your project organized
and on track from ideation to completion.

8. Successful Managing

To manage complex projects successfully, it is important to understand the different project

management roles along with their responsibilities. The last lessons of this course will
introduce the Project Management Triangle, the derived Triple Constraint, and the Gantt Chart.

PM Roles

Irrespective of how the organization is structured, there are certain roles and responsibilities that
are required in all projects. Different organizations may use different names for these roles but
the responsibilities of each one will be the same.

1. The Project Stakeholders

Stakeholders are individuals and organizations that are actively involved in the project, or whose
interests may be positively or negatively affected by the execution of the project. They may also
exert influence over the project and its deliverables. The project management team must identify
the stakeholders, determine their requirements and expectations, and manage their influence in
relation to the requirements to ensure a successful project.

2. The Project Sponsor

The project sponsor is responsible for securing the financing and overall resource budget
approval and owns the opportunities and risks related to the financial outcome of the project. An
effective sponsor will be someone with the authority and personal drive to overcome major
obstacles to completing the project. The role of the project sponsor is to approve and fund the
project, but not to get involved in day-to-day management.

3. The Project Manager

The project manager is the person assigned by the performing organization to achieve the project
objectives. The project manager has the authority to use cash and other resources up to the limit
set in the project charter. A project manager should have experience in the project domain and
should also be familiar with the processes that make up project management.

Page 14 of 18
There are typically three different project management roles:
1. Project stakeholders – 2. Project sponsor – 3. Project manager

PM Triangle

The Project Management Triangle (PM Triangle) is used by managers to analyze or

understand the difficulties that may arise due to implementing and executing a project. 

All projects irrespective of their size will have many constraints. There are three main
interdependent constraints for every project: time, cost and scope. This is also known as the
Project Management Triangle.

1. Time
A project’s activities can either take a shorter or longer amount of time to complete. Completion
of tasks depends on a number of factors such as the number of people working on the project,
experience, skills, etc. Time is a crucial factor which is uncontrollable. On the other hand, failure
to meet the deadlines in a project can create adverse effects. Most often, the main reason for
organizations to fail in terms of time is due to a lack of resources.

2. Cost
It’s imperative for both the project manager and the organization to have an estimated cost when
undertaking a project. Budgets will ensure that the project is developed or implemented below a
certain cost. Sometimes, project managers have to allocate additional resources in order to meet
the deadlines with a penalty of additional project costs.

3. Scope
The scope looks at the outcome of the project undertaken. This consists of a list of deliverables,
which need to be addressed by the project team. A successful project manager will know to
manage both the scope of the project and any change in scope which impacts time and cost.

What about Quality?

Quality is not one of the three corners of the project management triangle, but it is the ultimate
objective of every delivery. Hence, the project management triangle implies quality.

Page 15 of 18
The major takeaway from the Triple Constraint, being that it is a triangle, is that one cannot
adjust or alter one side of it without in effect, altering the other sides. So for example, if there is a
request for a scope change mid-way through the execution of the project, the other two attributes
(cost and time) will be affected in some manner. How much or how little is dictated by the nature
and complexity of the scope change. As an added example, if the schedule appears to be tight
and the project manager determines that the scoped requirements cannot be accomplished within
the allotted time, both cost and time are affected.

PM Triple Constraint

Example: “Pick Two”

To provide an easy example, we changed the dimensions of the triangle into the options of Fast,
Good, and Cheap, and ask you to pick any two. Here, Fast refers to the time required to deliver
the product, Good is the quality of the final product, and Cheap refers to the total cost of
designing and building the product.

This triangle reflects the fact that the three properties of a project are interrelated, and it is not
possible to optimize all three – one will always suffer. In other words, you have three options:

 Design something quickly and to a high standard, but then it will not be cheap.
 Design something quickly and cheaply, but it will not be of high quality.
 Design something with high quality and cheaply, but it will take a relatively long time.

As the project manager, making sure that you stay on top of all the key attributes of the triple
constraint will make the likelihood of project success that much higher. So be cognizant of any
fluctuations to the key attributes, whether they be unexpected or requested. Never assume that
other attributes can be left unchanged if one attribute is known to be changing or fluctuating. As
noted earlier, one cannot simply dismiss a change to one without being fully aware of the fact
that it will affect the other two.

The Triple Constraint is one of the most known and well-respected mechanisms for signifying
the interaction of the key attributes of a project. Being fully aware of its function and
implications is an important aspect of the project manager’s role and responsibility. The triple
constraint is meant to be an asset to the project manager’s arsenal and should not be viewed as a
hindrance.
Page 16 of 18
The project triangle expresses the “triple constraint” of time, cost, and scope.

The Gantt Chart

A Gantt chart, commonly used in project management, is one of the most popular and useful
ways of showing activities (tasks or events) displayed against time. On the left of the chart is a
list of the activities and along the top is a suitable time scale. Each activity is represented by a
bar; the position and length of the bar reflect the start date, duration and end date of the activity.

This allows you to see at a glance:

 What the various activities are

 When each activity begins and ends
 How long each activity is scheduled to last
 Where activities overlap with other activities, and by how much
 The start and end date of the whole project

The following picture shows a Gantt chart for building a house. Note that two activities (the
plumbing and electrical work) can be executed simultaneously.

 A Gantt chart shows what has to be done (activities) and when (schedule).

9. Conclusion

Project management is the practice of initiating, planning, executing, and closing the work of a
team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria at the specified time. It can be
somewhat complicated, and to do it well requires delving into what needs to be done from the
very beginning. 

Although the practice of project management has been around for centuries, scholars and project
management professionals are still studying how to make project management better. The value
of face-to-face interaction does not deteriorate, even with the deployment of virtual project

Page 17 of 18
management teams. Projects require leaders who are trained in both business and technology and
have teams with qualified project management professionals when possible.

There are various preferences and cultural values that weigh different communication techniques
and interpersonal skills differently. Perceptions of communication techniques will have an
impact on the end-user and the end result of the project, so it is important to clarify preferences
at the beginning.

Page 18 of 18