March 9, 2011






What is a project?
What is a project manager?
What does a project manager do?
Who are stakeholders?
How do you know when a project is successful?

You are asked by the mother of the bride if you would make sure the cake gets made and delivered for her daughter’s wedding reception.
You don’t bake; your knowledge of the kitchen is limited to heating food in the microwave and brewing a pot of coffee. But you’re a good sport and agree to take on the responsibility.

(cont)





Who is the sponsor?
Who is the project manager?
What does the project manager need to do?
Who are the stakeholders?
How do you know when the project is successful?

 A project is an organized set of activities to reach a measurable outcome within a specified duration.
Defining a specific project is a process of selection and reduction of the ideas and perspectives of those involved into a set of clearly defined objectives, key success criteria and evaluated risks.

 A project manager is the person with overall responsibility for managing and controlling the project activities (defined and undefined) to achieve a measurable outcome within a specified duration and budget.
Who does the project manager “work for?” Is that person the same the project manager’s boss?

What

A project manager needs to oversee the processes of initiating, planning, executing, monitoring & controlling and closing a project.
Is that all? :- ) … believe me, that’s enough!

What does a project manager do?
(cont)
A project manager needs also needs to be knowledgeable of the following:









Project Integration Management
Project Scope Management
Project Time Management
Project Cost Management
Project Quality Management
Project Human Resource Management
Project Communications Management
Project Risk Management
Project Procurement Management



Stakeholders are individuals and organizations interested in the project.
Some key stakeholders are:


Management (e.g. your boss)
Sponsor



Project Team
Customers
Individuals with ‘veto’ power, e.g. government regulators

How do you know when a project is successful?
 Every project has constraints. The primary ones are the trade off between Time, Resources and Performance Criteria.
 A successful project meets or exceeds performance criteria on time and using allocated resources.






Project Charter
Statement of Work
Communications Plan
Risk Assessment
Project Management Tools