Hi Paul,
Just started going through the book etc and reading the various posts, noticed a lot of feedback regarding the content of the answers so would appreciate some feed back on the first sample question in the book from section 3.1, Contexts and Environments.
List and describe five key attributes of project and how they differ from business as usual?
Five key attributes of a project are:
- Projects seek to introduce change into an organisation.
- Projects are constrained by time.
- Projects produce one off, unique deliverables.
- Projects have a defined budget.
- Projects engage temporary specialist teams working with project specific plans and risks.
Differences between project attributes and how they differ from the business as usual operations would be.
- Projects seek to introduce change into an organisation to realise commercial benefits, this may be the building of a new airport terminal that is more energy efficient, has greater floor space than older terminals and better commercial opportunities. Business as usual seeks to maintain standard operational procedures to manage the day to day running of the new terminal such as maintenance and cleaning operations.
- Projects are constrained by time in so much that the product that they are delivering needs to be completed and put into service at some point to allow the benefits to be realised by the end user. Business as usual would then manage the new airport terminal through repetitive operational procedures continuously for the next 50 years.
- Projects produce a one off, unique deliverable such as the new airport terminal. Business as usual provides the same deliverable repeatedly on a daily basis throughout the life cycle of the building e.g. maintaining and cleaning the terminal.
- Projects have an agreed and defined budget to allow delivery of the unique product, business as usual have operational costs which may include staff wages, consumables, equipment and furniture which are all covered from a operational budgets and are all ongoing lifecycle costs.
- Projects engage temporary, specialist teams to deliver specific parts of the project which may include specialist trades people, schedulers, risk managers, costs managers and project managers, all who are only engaged as long as the project requires their specific skills. Business as usual employs specialist staff but on a permanent basis to allow them to manage a new airport terminal for the lifecycle of the building.
Paul,
Second question answers below, again would appreciate feedback.
All the best for the New Year.
List and describe five difficulties a project manager may encounter when running a project in a well established operational business.
Five difficulties could include those listed below:
1.An operational business would have a requirement to work to strict but slow operational processes.
2.Operational business teams not used to exposure and management of risks.
3.Operational business teams have fixed permanent teams with long term relationships not transient temporary teams.
4.Operation business used to delivering repetitive products, consistently with slow incremental change.
5.Operational business teams may well have other permanent roles within the business and other permanent line managers over and above the project manager.
Description of the difficulties the project manager could encounter may be:
1.An operational business may have strict standard operational processes that the project manager may be forced to adhere to such as HR policies on the hiring of people. This may work well operationally when hiring permanent long term personnel but the project may require specialists at short notice to react to a specific issue and require them quickly.
2.Projects due to their uniqueness and unknowns have an inherent high level of risk, this needs a team experienced in not only recognising risks but with the ability to manage them and react accordingly when they arise. Operational businesses delivering known deliverables, consistently regardless of the complexity of the deliverable will not have the experience and abilities to deal with the project risks.
3.Operational business teams will generally have been working together for some time and have built up relationships over this time period. They will be unused to the transient nature of the project teams with people appearing and disappearing after short periods, with very little notice and may struggle to build these short-term relationships and therefore struggle to work well together for the duration of the project.
4.Operational business are used to delivering the same product repeatedly, are comfortable with what they are expected to deliver, knowing their place in that process and what is expected from them. Projects deliver a one off, unique product with many unknowns, making quick changes as the project progresses with regard to both how they deliver and what the team members are expected to deliver.
5.Operational business teams may well have another permanent role within the business and be answerable to another line manager as well as any role they have in the project and the project manager. As their loyalty lies with their permanent line manager and those permanent deliverables they will give these priority over any requirement the project manager may have of them. This may be an HR manager who gives priority to the hiring of permanent staff over the project managers requirement for temporary staff, the project needs these team members at short notice for short periods which conflicts with the project needs.