Week 4 Flashcards
Disruptive innovation
New offering that disrupts an existing market eventually making older products obsolete
Radical innovation
Big change to previous products as opposed to incremental innovation
Iron triangle
Interdependence between cost, time and scope
Impacts workload you can generated -> effect on tasks -> process -> competencies -> people -> equipment you use
Impacts the whole project process
Waterfall model
Traditional approach to project management
Good for repeatable projects
Design -> Build -> Test -> Release
Agile process
For projects with an element of innovation
Develop a minimum viable product (MVP)
Improved through continuous improvement
Design -> Build -> Release -> Design
Agile life cycle
Envisioning, speculating, exploring, adapting and closing
Envisioning and closing only occurse once, the rest are iterative
Project champion benefits
Having someone fight for the project
Easier to gain access to resources
Comminicate across areas of a firm easily
Project champion disadvantages
Role of champion may cloud judgement
Others may fear challenging your decisions
Project champion definition
Usually a senior executive who makes the case for a project
Harder to argue for something new and innovative because of the risk that the project could fail as opposed to something established
Innovative projects require a form of commitment from everyone involved
Other ways to gain commitment for an innovative project
Customers (best placed to identify requirements, some may be gate-keepers e.g. B2C companies)
Suppliers (can improve design, efficiency, costs et al.)
Project definition
Temporary endeavour to create a unique product, service or result
Complex, one-time proceses; they’re not ad-hoc nor do they have a clear life cycle
Limited by their budget/schedule and aim to resolve customer-focused goals
Tied to your strategic direction, and cross organisational boundaries
Processes definition
Processes are different from projects
Processes are repeatable, ongoing, well-established and encompass several objects.
Projects are the opposite
Projects can be related to process example
Toyota Lean Manufacturing Project
Project life cycle
Conceptualisation -> Planning -> Execution -> Termination
Man hours of work increases as the project develops but drops during termination
Project manager responsibilities
Select a team to complete the project
Develop project objectives and a plan for execution
Perform risk assessment activities, and estimate costs/time
Schedule people and manage project resources
Project stakeholders definition
All individuals or groups who have an active stake in the project and can potentially impact its development
Internal or external
e.g. management, accountants, team members, clients, competitors, suppliers, activist groups et al.
Organisational culture impact on project management
Autocratic vs democratic
Telling vs participating vs delegating
Motivation
Screening projects
Risk (technical, financial, safety, quality, legal)
Commercial (expected return, payback method, NPV, outlay) (Payback method and NPV used to look at expected profits instead of return on investment)
Internal operating requirements (training employees, workforce size, operations)
Additional (patent protection, impact on image, strategic fit)
Leader manager difference
Leader does the right thing, inspires trust, innovates and focuses on long-term potential
Manager does things right, demands respect, administers and focuses on the short-term bottom line
Project Management Institute’s “Code of Ethics” for project managers
Responsibility
Respect
Fairness
Ethics
WBS
At the start of the project, manager should produce a scope statement, leading to a WBS (Work breakdown structure)
Hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the project deliverables
WBS purposes
Echoes your objectives
Acts as an organisation chart
Creates logic for tackling costs/scheduling
Communicates the status of the project to stakeholders
Improves communication
Demonstrates a control structure
WBS work packages
Work packages form the lowest part of a WBS
Usually are a deliverable result with 1 owner
Expressed in terms of labour hours, time, cost, risk et al.
Tuckman 4 phases of team formation
Forming, storming, norming, performing (and adjourning with increasing maturity)
