Workshop 1 Flashcards
What must employers do to ensure project health, safety and environmental management
- Assess what could harm employees in their jobs and create precautions to stop this (Risk Assessment)
- Explain how risks are controlled and who is responsible for this
- Consult and work with employees and health and safety reps to protect everyone
- Give employees free of charge health and safety training for their jobs
- Provide free equipment and protective clothing needed for the job, and ensure it is properly looked after
- Provide toilets, washing facilities, drinking water and first aid facilities
- Report injuries, diseases and dangerous incidents to the HSE
- Have insurance that covers employees in case of work accidents or work related illness.
What is the Health and Safety at Work Act (KSWA) 1974
The primary legislation that covers health and safety in the workplace. The HSE (Health and Safety Executive) is responsible for enforcing the act and providing relative guidance to employers and employees. Every employer must ensure the health, safety and welfare of all of their employees and members of the general public impacted by the organisations activities.
What are the primary objectives for the Health and Safety at Work Act
- Securing the health, safety and welfare of persons at work.
- Protecting people against risks to health and safety caused by the activities of persons at work
- Controlling the keeping and use of explosive, flammable or otherwise dangerous substances - preventing the unlawful acquisitions, possession and use of such substances
What must employees do to ensure project health, safety and environmental management
- Follow training received when using work items provided by the employer
- Take responsible care of their own and others health and safety
- Co-operate with their employer on health and safety
- Tell someone (employer, supervisor or health and safety rep) if they think the work or inadequate procedures may cause harm.
Who has an obligation to proactively manager risk on projects especially when team members can be affected
Project Managers
What are the stages to ensure health and safety
Set your Policy - The organisation should have a documented policy that states how hazards will be identified and managed and also who is responsible from managing health and safety
Organise yourself - A positive health and safety cultures must be developed within the organisation ensuring the effective implementation of the four C’s
- Competence
- Control
- Cooperation
- Communication
Plan and set standard - Plans will be heavily influenced by policies and should document objectives and the process for identifying, assessing and managing hazards on your project. Any standards must be measurable, achievable and realistic
Measure your performance - Ensure that health and safety is monitored on both a proactive and reactive basis. Meaning that relevant standards must first be understood with any variation between where you are and your goal being analysed and understood.
Learn from Experience - audit and review - Monitoring allows the team to decide how to improve performance later in the project and future project, this may involve, reviewing and updating policies so the actions can be communicated to the relevant parties.
What is the definition of Project
A unique, transient endeavour undertaken to achieve planned objectives
What are the common characteristics of a project irrespective of their complexity, scale, cost or duration
- Projects introduce change (which in turn involves uncertainty)
- They have an element of uniqueness
- They are temporary or transient in nature, each project having a defined start and finish point
- Projects create specific results, outputs or products with their objectives typically being measured in terms of time, cost and quality parameters/performance
- Projects have a specific aim or benefit
- They follow a life cycle made up of specific phases
- They comprise complex interrelationships and are often cross-functional in nature
- Costs are relatively low at the start, higher towards the end and drop rapidly towards completion
- The cost of changes and error correction increases as the project progresses
- The ability of stakeholders to influence the project’s outcome in highest at the start
- Risk and uncertainty are typically highest at the start
- The consumption of resources, including money, reaches a peak during the development phase
- The potential to add value to the project decreases as the project progresses
What are the differences between a project and business as usual
Project
- Defined time scale with a definite end
- Essentially non-repetitive in nature
- Specific aims and objectives to be satisfies
- Transient Team
- Complex inter-relationships
- Subject to high degrees of uncertainty
- Generally phases for ease of management
Business as usual
- Iterative in nature
- Continuous operation
- General Objectives
- Dedicated constant team
- Defined relationships (single discipline)
- Higher degree of certainty
- May be a phase in its own right
What is Project Management
The application of processes, methods, knowledge, skills and experience to achieve the project objectives.
What are the best ways to introduce change through the use of projects
- Prioritising scarce resources towards key objectives
- Focusing management skills on specific tasks
- Gaining formal commitments from Key stakeholders
- Allowing delegation and direction of multiple concurrent projects
- Ensuring issues such as quality and safety are formally designed into projects from the start
- Developing and training staff in the project environment
- Identifying and managing risks
What is programme management
The coordination management of projects and change management activities to achieve beneficial change
What are the management disciplines that must coordinate programme management
Projects
A programme will comprise a number of projects that will deliver outputs such as a building, website, a process or any number of specifiable products. These will all be project managed within the fundamental components of scope, schedule, finance, risk, quality and resource
Strategic Business Change
The outputs of projects must be used to support beneficial business change in line with corporate strategy. This does not happen automatically and may require change to working practices, culture or both. Programmes must encompass business change management and this may include taking temporary responsibility for some business as usual activities.
Benefits
Benefits accrue from the effective use of the projects. The purpose of a programme is to deliver these high-level benefits which will ultimately help satisfy the strategic objectives of the organisation. Effective benefits management helps ensure that the management of projects and the management of business change are both fit for purpose.
What are the challenges of using Programme Management within an organisation
Strategy not always clear
Programmes may not have a clear view of the end of the programme at the start. Therefore, programmes may need to develop their range of consistent projects as they proceed
Evolving business environment
Programmes may need to continually align the individual project business case with the overall strategic business case which is heavily influenced by a dynamic business climate
Multiple stakeholder
Programmes typically involve a much greater number of stakeholders, many of which are likely to have competing objectives
Competing priorities
Competing inter-project prioritise can cause significant conflict
Complex inter-dependencies
A programme will need to resolve complex inter-dependencies between its projects and business as usual
What are the differences between programmes, projects and portfolios
Programmes
- Temporary organisational structures
- Primarily focused on delivery of outcomes/benefits and outputs/products respectively
- Seeks to ensure successful delivery at the individual programme or project level
Projects
- Temporary organisational structures
- Primarily focused on delivery of outcomes/benefits and outputs/products respectively
- Seeks to ensure successful delivery at the individual programme or project level
Portfolios
- Permanent organisational structure
- Focused on the overall contribution of these outcomes, benefits and outputs to strategic objectives
- Portfolio management is concerned with:
- Ensuring the programmes and projects undertaken are the right ones in the context of the organisations strategic objectives
- Successful delivery at a collective level
- Benefits realisation is maximised
- Lessons learned are identified, disseminated and applied in the future
Portfolio Management definition
The selection, prioritisation and control of an organisation’s projects and programmes in line with its strategic objectives and capacity to deliver
Portfolio definition
A grouping of an organisations project and programmes. Portfolios can be managed at an organisational or functional level
What are the benefits of Portfolio Management
- More effective delivery of change
- Ability to respond to strategic initiatives
- Effective management of resources
- Management of risk in a wider business context
- Efficient coordination and control
- Integrated prioritisation, definition, planning, delivery and review of project and programmes
- Better management of scarce and limited resources an reduction of ‘capacity bottlenecks’
- Balance of risk and return when selecting organisational activities
- Improved project and programme governance across the portfolio
Environment definition
The circumstances and conditions within which the project, programme or portfolio must operate
What is SWOT
Strengths, - Elements that make the organisation stand out from the competition and allow the project to concentrate on these factors to enhance successful project delivery
Weaknesses - Identification of areas that the project needs to be outsourced or which will best be accomplished through a joint venture or partnership/alliancing approach
Opportunities - Gives rise to the potential for additional benefits to be realised from the projects initiatives
Threats - The threat should be seen as giving rise to an opportunity for improvement. In addition, understanding threats provides insight into the risks to which the project may be exposed
What is PESTLE
Political - Consider internal as well as external politics - why so some stakeholders support your project initiatives and others do not? what are hidden agendas?
Economic - Consider aspects such as exchange rates, inflation, procurement policies and procedures, commercial terms and conditions, type of contract, contract payment terms
Sociological - This includes elements such as stakeholder analysis, consideration of local culture; interaction with normal social order, the project team and the continued motivation of the team
Technical - Does the technology for the solution exist, or does it still have to be developed? Do we have the skill and capability to develop or implement the technology? Can the solution be built, operated and maintained? What are the technical interface requirements?
Legal/regulatory - Local laws, by-laws and regulations, including consideration or regional, national and international laws applicable to the project delivery
Ecological - Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) Heritage sites and aspects such as sustainability and the carbon footprint created by the project’s activities will also be key consideration
What are the responsibilities of the Sponsor?
- Define the business investment aims
- Produce the business case
- Define the projects success criteria
- Be the arbiter for user and stakeholder requirements
- Specify ‘musts’ and ‘wants’
- Determine the relative priority if the project constraints
- Justify funding
- Obtain approval for expenditure
- Initiate the project and ensure a project manager is appointed
- Monitor the project business environment
- Keep senior management informed
- Terminate the project if necessary
- Support the Project Manager
What does the project steering group provide?
overall strategic direction for the project.
What are the attributes of a Project Sponsor
Authority - The sponsor should be senior enough within the organisation to make strategic decisions about the programme or project. As the sponsor is accountable for the programme or project the person chosen must have sufficient authority to make these decisions
Credibility - The sponsor’s credibility within the organisation will affect his or her ability to lead and direct the programme or project
Ability to challenge - An effective Sponsor needs to challenge upwards as well as down to the delivery team
Ability to delegate - A key part of the sponsors role is to ensure that the programme or project manager is given enough ‘space’ to manage the programme or project by keeping Board activity at the right level
Availability - A sponsor who meets all of the other characteristics is of little value to the programme or project is he or she is not available to make decisions and provide direction to the programme or project manager
