1 - Issues and Challenges in Project Management

Issues and Challenges in Project
Management
Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 1

Trying to manage a
project without project
management is like trying
to play a football game
without a game plan.

Agenda
1
• What is project management?
2
• What are the complexities in project management?
3
• Why projects fail and succeed?
4
• What is project life cycle?
5
• What is T-C-P relationship?
6
• What is the role of project manager?

What is a PROJECT?
PURPOSE
• An undertaking or venture to accomplish some
objective or goal
STRUCTURE
• A set of interrelated jobs whose accomplishment
leads to the completion of the project
COMPONENTS
• Jobs or activities consume time and resources and
are governed by precedence relations

PROJECTS AS
AGENTS OF CHANGE
State B
Alternative
Projects
State A (Paths)

INPUT(S) OUTPUT(S)
Transformation
-Men Useful
-Machines Economic/Social/Political Goods or
Environment Services
-Materials -dynamic
-Money -uncertain
-Information FEED BACK
-Energy
---------- Undesirable
outputs
(Effluents, Fumes etc.)
A PRODUCTION SYSTEM AS
AN INPUT-OUTPUT SYSTEM
A Project as a Production System
Mass production
Batch
Production
Job
Production
Q
Projects
Quantity
to be
Made
1
P (No. of Products or “VARIETY”)

Variety of Projects
• Projects at personal level

• Projects in local neighbourhood
• Organisational projects
• National projects
• Global projects

Personal Projects
• Preparing for an examination

• Writing a book
• Getting dressed
• Wedding in the house
• A birthday function
• A family vacation

Projects in Local Neighbourhood
• A school function
• Cleanliness drive
• Construction of clubs
• Tree plantation exercise
• Establishment of a park
• Welcoming a dignitary to the colony

Organizational Projects
• Construction of building, highway

• Planning & launching a new product
• A turnaround in a refinery
• A training for managers in the organization
• Conducting a marketing survey
• Completing a financial audit
• Disposal of dead stock

National Projects
• Launching a new satellite
• Literacy campaign
• Poverty removal drive
• Organizing general elections
• Preparation of annual budget

Global Projects
• Organising peace missions (UN)
• Space exploration
• Conducting World Trade
• Environment protection

What is not a project?
• Emergency response to operations problems
– Callouts
– Repairs and troubleshooting
• Routine operations support

– Maintenance of equipment
– Minor modifications and tuning of equipment

Why Projects Fail?
• Failure to align project with organizational objectives
• Poor scope
• Unrealistic expectations
• Lack of executive sponsorship
• Lack of project management skills and techniques
• Inability to move beyond individual and personality
conflicts
• Politics

30% of all project are
canceled mid-stream
and over half of
completed projects
came in up to 190
percent over budget
and 220 percent late

Tip-of-the-Iceberg Syndrome

Why Project Management is
needed?
• Complex project needs coordination of:
– Multiple people
– Multiple resources (labs, equipment, etc.)
– Multiple tasks – some must precede others
– Multiple decision points – approvals
– Phased expenditure of funds
– Matching of people/resources to tasks

Laws of Project Management
 No major project is ever installed on time, within budget,
or with the same staff that started it. Yours will not be the
first.
 Projects progress quickly until they become 90%

complete, then they remain at 90% complete forever.
 When things are going well, something will go wrong.
 When things just cannot get any worse, they will.

Project Lifecycle
• Understanding and planning for entire lifespan

of project
• Five basic stages

– Initiation
– Planning
– Controlling
– Execution
– Closure
DEFINITION OF A
PROJECT LIFE CYCLE
CONCEPTUAL FEASIBILITY AND DETAILED IMPLEMENTATION CONVERSION
PHASE PRELIMINARY PLANNING PHASE PHASE OR TERMINATION
PLANNING PHASE PHASE
RESOURCES
Resources
Utilized
PMO
PMO
*
TIME
Project Life Cycle

Project Life-Cycle (level of effort)

Potential to Add Value / Cost of Changes

Project Management
Knowledge Areas
1. Project Integration Management
2. Project Scope Management
3. Project Time Management
4. Project Cost Management
5. Project Quality Management
6. Project Human Resources Management
7. Project Communications Management
8. Project Risk Management
9. Project Procurement Management
THINK QUESTION

1. The growing demand for a broad range
of complex, sophisticated, customized
goods and services would have which
one of the following implications for
the management of projects in modern
organizations
a) Project managers are responsible for
making detailed technical decisions
b) Project managers should rely on the use of
teams to plan and execute projects
c) Most projects will be performed using
subcontractors
d) The design of a project solution should
always be frozen early in the planning
process
2. Identify the example that
would not usually be
considered a project.
a) Building a car
b) Developing a computer software
application program
c) Designing a new product
d) Installing new equipment in an
existing production line

3. According to the authors, the
prime objectives of project
management are cost, time
and
a) Schedule
b) Quality
c) Customer satisfaction
d) Performance

4. The term “program” refers to
an exceptionally large, long-
range objective that is broken
down into a set of ________.
a) Tasks
b) Projects
c) Subprojects
d) Campaigns

5. Five attributes that characterize a
project include:
a) Purpose, repetition,
interdependencies, consistency,
uncertainty
b) Lifecycle, schedule, cost,
uncertainty, independence
c) Performance, lifecycle, uniqueness,
conflict, interdependencies
d) Purpose, lifecycle, conflict,
certainty, independence
6. The mission of the _________ is to
foster the growth of project
management and build
professionalism in the field.
a) Project Management Institute
b) Manhattan Project
c) Project Management Book of
Knowledge
d) Advanced Research Projects Agency
Network (ARPAnet)

1–b
2–a
3–d
4–b
5–c
6-a
Project Budget
• Direct Costs
• Indirect Costs
• Ongoing costs

Time-Cost Tradeoff
Min total cost = optimal
project time
Total project cost
Indirect cost
Direct cost
time

Present Quality Pattern

Project Interfaces

Always Remember!
Projects seldom
fail because of
tools. They fail
because of
people!
PROJECT CHARTER

Project Charter
 What must be done?
What are the required resources?
What are the constraints?
What are the short and long term implications?
 Why do it?
 When must it be done?
 Where must it be done?
 Who does what?

Who is behind the project?
Who is funding the project?
Who is performing the work of the project?
Project Charter
• Project Goal & Objective  Decision making
• Sponsor  Assumptions
• Stakeholders  Risks
• Timeline  Business process
• Resources required changes
• Deliverables  Project manager
 Project team
 Budget
 Signatures

True or False
1. The pattern of progress observed in every project
lifecycle can be explained by the S-curve that
exhibits a cumulative pattern of slow-rapid-slow
progress.
2. The conventional project lifecycle can be
described as a pattern of cumulative progress that
is slow-rapid-slow progress.
3. In a conventional project lifecycle, as work
progresses uncertainty about the expected
outcome should increase.
4. Project management provides an organization with
powerful tools that improve its ability to plan,
implement, and control its activities
• Why is the life cycle curve often
“S” shaped?
• Describe a project whose life
cycle would be a straight line
from start to finish. Describe a
project with an inverse-S life
cycle.

The Role of the Project
Manager

Do functional managers live up to
commitments?

Issues in the life of Functional Managers
• Unscheduled changes in the project plan

• Unpredicted lack of progress
• Unplanned absence of resources
• Unplanned breakdown of resources
• Unplanned loss of resources
• Unplanned turnover of personnel

Project Managers v/s Project Champions
Project Managers Project Champions

• Prefer to work in groups • Prefer working individually
• Committed to their managerial • Committed to technology
and technical responsibilities • Committed to the profession
• Committed to the corporation • Seek to exceed the objective
• Seek to achieve the objective • Are unwilling to take risks, try to
• Are willing to take risks test everything
• Seek what is possible • Seek perfection
• Think in terms of short time spans • Think in terms of long term spans
• Manage people • Manage things
• Are committed to and pursue • Are committed to and pursue
material values intellectual values
The project
champions might
function best as a
project engineer
rather than the
project manager
Effective project management: no pressure

Effective project: good home life

Effective project management: limited travel

Point to PONDER!
• Definition and examples of projects
• Project performance, time and cost are the major
watchwords in monitoring and control.
• Key features of projects
• Life cycle of a project
Project Selection
Project Planning and Scheduling
Project Implementation
Project Completion

Case Study

• Bharti, B.K. and Thakkar, J.J. (2013) “SWOT of Central
Public Works Department India: a case study”, Journal of
Advances in Management Research, Vol. 10 No. 1, pp.
100-121.
• Source:
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1108/0972
7981311327794
Indicate TEN complexities

involved in managing projects in
Government Organizations.

Tutorial 1
Instructions:
1. Student will send the scanned copy of handwritten solution of
the tutorial to e-mail ID: jtiitkgp@gmail.com
2. To be submitted in a Group of THREE STUDENTS.
3. Indicate Name and Roll No. of the students in the group on
the first page of your tutorial solution sheet.
4. Submission Deadline: 21/3/2018
5. LATE SUBMISSION WILL NOT RECEIVE ANY
CREDIT.
6. Weightage of Tutorial (in Final Evaluation/ Grading): 15%

1. How do you define control in project?
2. What is meant by the scope of a project?
3. Why can you not dictate values for all four project
objectives (P, C, T, and S)?
4. How can you reduce time and cost simultaneously in a
project?
5. What are the three factors that contribute to the cost of
poor quality?
6. Why is it not enough to define success as meeting the
7. PCTS targets for a project?
8. Why is the human component at the base of the pyramid
that shows the elements of a project management system?
Thank you
60

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Issues and Challenges in Project

Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 1

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 2

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 3

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 4

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 5

P (No. of Products or “VARIETY”)

• Projects at personal level

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 8

• Preparing for an examination

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 9

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 10

• Construction of building, highway

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 11

• Launching a new satellite

• Poverty removal drive

• Organizing general elections

• Preparation of annual budget

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 12

• Organising peace missions (UN)

• Conducting World Trade

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 13

• Routine operations support

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 14

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 15

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 16

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 19

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 20

 Projects progress quickly until they become 90%

 When things are going well, something will go wrong.

 When things just cannot get any worse, they will.

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 21

• Understanding and planning for entire lifespan

• Five basic stages

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 24

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 25

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 26

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 28

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 30

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 31

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 32

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 34

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 36

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 37

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 38

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 40

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 42

 When must it be done?

 Where must it be done?

 Who does what?

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 44

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 46

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 47

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 48

• Unscheduled changes in the project plan

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 49

Project Managers Project Champions

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 52

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 53

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 54

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 55

Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur 56