Projects And Organisations Flashcards
whats a project
- A project is ‘a unique, transient endeavour to bring about change and to achieve planned objectives’
o A defined start-point and endpoint
o Specific objectives
o Specific resources assigned to perform the work
what project shaping
- Project shaping is done by a sponsor in the conceptual phase, often by writing a business case
characteristic of a project
- Characteristics of a project
o Creates specific outputs / products
o Objectives measured in time / cost / performance (quality)
o Phased lifecycle
o Complex interrelationships (often cross-functional)
o Cost of changing objectives gets more expensive closer to completion
o Uncertainty, risk, and stakeholder influence are highest at the startB
BaU vs project
o Operations performs and manages routine and ongoing activities
o Produces core products or repetitive services
o Fulfils strategic mission of the organisation
Project constraints
project management is an efficient and effective way to manage such a change, ensuring delivery within constraints of time, cost, and quality, without compromising benefit realisation
o Changing one constraint can compromise others (e.g., v fast delivery means higher cost and lower quality)
o Project sponsor decides relative importance of each
whats a programme
a unique, transient strategic endeavour undertaken to achieve beneficial change and incorporating a group of related and business-as-usual (steady-state) activities
characteristic of a programme
o Single business case, aligned to individual project business cases
o Focus on iterative delivery of outcomes
o Manage transition from project output to BaU
o Aligned to wider strategy
o Longer duration than projects within it
project vs programme
- The benefits of completing a project are only completed after it is completed but programme lifespans cover the realisation of these benefits
- Managing a programme requires managing projects and BaU
- Programmes often deal with high uncertainty in objectives and scope, especially larger initiatives.
- Programme managers define governance structures and coordinates the programme, not the running of individual projects
whats a portfolio
a collection of projects and/or programmes used to structure and manage investments at an organisational or functional level to optimise strategic benefits or operational efficiency
whats portfolio management
- Portfolio management is the selection, prioritisation, and control of an organisation’s projects and programmes in line with its strategic objectives and delivery capacity.
- Project prioritisation is important for portfolio managers, often using categorisation by legal necessity, issue resolution, ROI, or other preferential projects.
- Benefits of portfolio management
o Aligning and prioritising projects and programmes with corporate goals
o Balancing qualitative and quantitative benefits
o Focusing and balancing short- and long-term goals
o Adapting project and programme delivery to external market changes
o Efficient resource utilizationit see
o Keeping project level risk in line with organisational risk appetite
relationship between organisational environment and organisational strategy
- Organisation environment is ever changing, so change is necessary within the organisation to keep up. Decisions on which changes to make is the organisational strategy
whats PESTLe
- These are conceptualised with PESTLE
o Political – government changes, such as legislation, taxes, and funding
o Economic – Exchange rates, inflation, resource etc
o Sociological – culture, income demographics, customer behaviour
o Technological – software infrastructure changes, skill availability
o Legislative – local and national laws, e.g., employment or environmental laws
o Environmental – carbon footprint, weather, energy costs - Internal politics can also be important, especially for stakeholder engagement
- These help to conceptualise threats and opportunities to the organisation, which is useful in prioritising and shaping projects and programmes.
whats a project life cycle
- There are many ways to carry out a project. Life cycles provide a structured set of steps in each project, each separated by deciding whether to continue to the next one.
4 life cycle types:
Linear, Incremental, Iterative, and Evolutionary
whats a linear life cycle
- Linear life cycles
o Require early detailed planning, and each element is delivered step by step before moving onto the next.
o Usable products are only created at the end, so useful for very set projects that cannot change much but have low risk.
o Require stopping between each stage to conduct a gate review, where whether to continue or stop will be determined
stages of a linear life cycle
o These stages are different project phases
Concept – developing the idea into a proposition (writing a business case)
Definition – design and plan the proposition in more detail, analysis risks, costs, and timescales.
Deployment – building the product, following designs
* Any changes at this stage require a change control to consider diverging from the plans
Transition – handover of product to users
whats an incremental life cycle
o Similar to linear, planned in detail upfront, but each step produces a usable product and then slowly refines it in following steps
o Useful for ‘quick wins,’ useful for customer maintaining customer engagement
o Deployment stage may have multiple handovers in it, culminating in a final transition
whats an iterative life cycle
o Overall idea of end product is known, but each step feeds back in, allowing each iteration to adapt
o Iterative life cycles have the same stages as linear, but are repeated multiple times as each iteration develops the project further
Pre-project phase selects the project and clarifies objective
Feasibility phase identifies high-level foundations of the project
Many smaller ‘sprints’ where a small part of the assets are assembled, reviewed, and deployed
Each iteration finds more info, which feed future iterations
Deployment phase brings baselined solution into operational use
Post-project phase checks if expected benefits have been achieved
o Often called Agile approach
example hybrid life cycles
- Hybrid life cycles combine multiple of the above, such as the following examples
o Having an agile approach for initial definition phases of a project to refine requirements, then adopting a linear approach for deployment and design
o The deployment phase could be broken into tranches (portions of work resulting in a product usable by stakeholders). Here, only the deployment phase is incremental.
o Adding an adoption phase to linear or iterative life cycles to ensure accountability stays with change teams until it is embedded.
how can life cycle stages be extended
- All types of life cycle complete one the product is delivered. Some life cycles are extended to add an adoption and benefit realisation stage.
o Adoption is the implementation of the product, but keeping accountability with the change team until the product is fully embedded
o Benefit realisation is where benefits from adoption are measured
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why are reviews important
- To govern a project effectively, it must be reviewed against the deliverables of the project, the business case and project management processes in reviews.
list some review types
decision gates
gate reviews
stage reviews
post project reviews
benefits reviews
project audits
whats a decision gate
- Decision gates review and confirm viability of the work across the chosen life cycle. These are at the end of a phase of work in linear projects, and time bound in iterative ones, although many projects combine both, with gate reviews at the end of a phase, and stage reviews held monthly to supplement
