Examples of Projects in History

Examples of Projects in History

One way to gain perspective on projects of today is to compare them with
projects of the past. In some ways, projects remain the same as they have
always been, and in some ways, project management has evolved over the
ages. Let us review a few projects from history where enough evidence has
been gained through research and historical records to make some project
management comparisons.
Project: Building the Egyptian Great Pyramid at Giza
One of the first major undertakings that project managers clearly identify
as a project is the construction of the great pyramid at Giza. There is some
historical evidence—we could call it project history—that gives us insight
into its scope and effort.
Project records exist in the writings of Greek philosophers, Egyptian
hieroglyphics, and archeological findings. High-level estimates of time and
effort “in the press” during that period were apparently inaccurate.
Herodotus wrote that the pyramid took 100,000 people 30 years to complete.
Archeological research and records pare those estimates to 20,000
people and 20 years to complete. Hieroglyphics in the tombs reveal some
of the methods (technical approaches and tools) used to construct the pyramid:
Stone blocks were carved from a quarry by hand using stone hammers
and chisels. Then the stones were slid on pallets of wood over wet sand, and
workers used wooden beams as levers to heft them into the desired position.
The team, according to research, was not 100,000 people, as originally
recorded by Herodotus; that would have been approximately 10 percent
of the entire population of Egypt—and more than 3 million effort-years. It
was more likely 20,000 people, 2,000 of whom were continuous in their
service (the core team) and 18,000 of whom were tracked by DNA evidence
in bones on the site to villages all over Egypt. If we were to translate their
structure into a modern context, this would correspond to a core team (the
ancient group of continuous service) with various team members temporarily
assigned as resources from the departments (the ancient villages)
in the sponsor’s organization (the ancient dynasty). The work shift was long
in those days; the team rotation was about 12 weeks. At that point the workers
on loan to the project went home and were replaced by new workers.
The power of the project sponsor was very helpful in getting such a
huge project done. The project sponsor was executive management (the
pharaoh also was viewed as “god”—making it easier to get permission to
leave the family and village job to work on the assignment). The work was hard, there were occupational hazards (bone damage), and the pay was low
(including fresh onions for lunch). People who died on the project were
buried on the project site (hence the DNA evidence to trace their villages).3

Project Management’s Underlying Assumptions

Project Management’s Underlying Assumptions

There are a few fundamental concepts that, once accepted, make many of
the unique practices and processes in project management more logical.
■ Risk. Organizations need to believe the risks inherent in a project to
provide adequate management backing and support, and the team
needs accurate and timely risk information. When doing something
new for the first time, there are many unknowns that have a potential
to affect the project in some way, positive or negative. One goal
is to “flush out” as many of those unknowns as possible—like a
bird dog flushes birds out of the bushes—so that they may be managed,
and the project’s energy can be redirected to managing the
surprises that inevitably arise when the work is unfamiliar.
■ Authority. Because the project has a start and an end and specified
resources, there is a need to balance the competing requirements of
time, cost, and performance. The authority to balance these competing
requirements is delegated to the project manager and the
team.
■ Autonomy. The risks associated with the project must be managed
so that they do not obstruct progress. As risks mature into real
issues or problems, the project manager and team need autonomy
and flexibility to resolve some and ignore others based on their
potential to hurt the project.
■ Project control. To anticipate and predict needed change, the project
manager and team need ways to determine where they are in
relation to the projected time, cost, and performance goals. They
use this status information to make needed adjustments to the plan
and to refine its execution strategy.
■ Sponsorship. The project manager and team need the backing of
management, or a sponsor and champion, to ensure that the project is aligned properly with executive goals, to protect against external
interference, and to provide resource backing

General Rules for Project Management

General Rules for Project Management

In sports, whether one is participating or simply watching the game, one
needs to understand not just the sport itself but also the rules associated
with it. There are different rules and roles in team sports such as football or
soccer, and cricket. Automobile racing has different rules and roles from
horse racing and ski racing. Applying experience and knowledge associated
with one sport while watching a different sport would lead to frustration,
discouragement, and eventually rejection. Similarly, applying rules that
apply to routine business operations in a project context would lead to similar
frustration, discouragement, and rejection. As obvious as this concept
seems, the application of operations management concepts to projects
occurs regularly on a daily basis. In many organizations, both the project
team and the sponsoring management share this negative experience but do
not realize why it is occurring.
What makes a project temporary and unique also makes it unsuited to
the rules and roles of operations management.
Roles in project management are different from those in operations.
In operations, a manager in finance will have a different job from a manager
in human resources or product development, but a project manager
will have a very similar job whether the project is a finance project, a
human resources project, or a product development project. While a line
manager can push a problem “upstairs” to a higher level manager, or evendelay its resolution, the project manager is expected to manage the risks,
problems, and resolutions within the project itself, with the help of the
team, the sponsor or the customer, to keep the project moving forward.
Project manager is a clearly a role; the project manager is the person
responsible for the management and results of the project. Some organizations
with established project management functions (such as a project
management office) will have a job description and position classification
for project manager, and some even deploy project managers to other divisions
when that expertise and role are needed. But the position is not just a
manager role with a different title on it. The performance expectations are
as different from each other as offensive or defensive positions on a sports
team. Project management roles are always “offensive”

PROJECT MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS

PROJECT MANAGEMENT
CONCEPTS

OVERVIEW AND GOALS

This chapter provides a general overview of the role projects have played in
the world and how projects in history, as well as projects today, share fundamental
elements. It defines the project life cycle, the product life cycle,
and the process of project design that integrates and aligns the two into one
or more projects.
The triple constraint is introduced as important in defining and managing
projects. How project management evolved helps to explain how it is
applied in different settings today, and why those differences developed.
And while the standard life cycle for projects applies “as is” uniformly
across industries, it requires developing different levels and types of detail
on projects. Tailoring general project management approaches is proposed
based on the types of projects being managed.
WHAT IS A PROJECT?
In Chapter 1 we distinguished projects, which are temporary and unique,
from operations, which are ongoing and repetitive.1 Projects have little, if
any, precedent for what they are creating, the project work is new, and work-

ers are unfamiliar with expectations. On the other hand, operations are
repetitive, routine business activities. They are familiar and documented.
They have benefited by improvements over time, and worker expectations
are written into job descriptions.
Thousands of project management professionals have agreed that a
project has a clear beginning and a clear end, as well as a resulting product
or service that is different in some significant way from those created
before. The unique product or service in a project management setting is
often called a deliverable, a generic term that allows discussion about the
result without getting specific about its characteristics. The project’s deliverable
may be the ultimate product or service, or it may be a clearer definition
needed for the next consecutive project, such as a design or a plan. In
some cases it may be just one part of the final deliverable, consisting of outputs
of multiple projects.2
The reason the distinction is important that projects have “a clear
beginning, a clear end, and a unique product or service” is that the “rules”
for managing projects are different than the “rules” for managing operations.
The roles of the people in relation to the project are different as well.
To better understand the distinction, we can compare it with how the rules
and roles differ in sports.

BENEFITS OF ADOPTING PROJECT MANAGEMENT APPROACHES

BENEFITS OF ADOPTING PROJECT
MANAGEMENT APPROACHES


Recent research and publications help in quantifying the benefits of project
management, including executive surveys of what they consider to be its
benefits.22 However, continuous improvement should be the norm; good
performance “on average” is not sufficient (see Figure 1-6).
The negative impact of not practicing effective methods of project
management includes the escalating costs of high-profile projects. The risk
is that the sponsoring organization does not achieve its desired goals despite
its investment in the project. Some analysts have suggested that a company’s
stock price can drop if a failed project becomes public news.23
Taking a systematic approach to managing projects creates a number
of benefits, regardless of the host organization’s particular emphasis on outcomes.
These benefits are:
■ Quicker completion. Quicker time-to-market delivery of rapid
development can make all the difference in the profitability of a
commercial product. It is said that one-third of the market goes to
the first entrant when a breakthrough product is introduced. In
some sectors, delays enact penalties.
■ More effective execution. When projects are formed to create a
desired product first, the project that delivers results on schedule
simultaneously may deliver large profits to the host company.
Other projects must meet exact requirements.

■ More reliable cost and schedule estimates. Making adequate
resources available when they are needed increases the likelihood
that a project will deliver benefits or services within budget and
resource constraints. Resources can be leveraged.
■ Reduced risk. For highly visible projects, such as shuttle launches
and space exploration, the potential loss of life is an unacceptable
political downside to a project that does not deliver. In not-for-profit
organizations, the losses associated with a failed project may
consume the resource contingencies of the whole organization or
make its reputation unacceptable to its member customers. The
organization’s actual existence—continuation of a whole organization—
can be at risk if losses exceed the organization’s capital
reserve.
■ Reduced cost. Maximizing schedules, linking dependent tasks, and
leveraging resources ultimately reduce waste, including wasted
time and effort on the part of the project team’s highly skilled and
trained staff.
A major benefit of adopting project management is that it raises
awareness of costs, complexities, risks, and benefits early in the process of
development, enabling sponsors to know where they stand in proceeding
with a given commitment and allowing action to reduce negative influences
so that the investment pays dividends and delivers on its promises.
The end result is that society gets benefits with the expenditure of fewer
resources.
What is ultimately needed is an environment where systems and
processes work together with knowledgeable and skilled professionals to
deliver on the promises of project management. While mature integration
has not yet been achieved, this new direction is well on its way.

THE VALUE-ADDED PROPOSITION: DECLARING AND REVALIDATING PROJECT VALUE

THE VALUE-ADDED PROPOSITION:
DECLARING AND REVALIDATING
PROJECT VALUE

Usually the selection of a project for funding and authorization includes a
careful analysis of the value it is to provide its intended audiences.
However, changes occur in the environment, regulations, social interests,
and market opportunities while a project is under way. Sometimes the outcome
of another project, or even reorganization, can make the outcome of
a current project obsolete. It is important not only to communicate the value
of a project at its inception but also to revalidate the effort and expenditure
at key intervals, especially for lengthy projects.
It would be ideal if a project’s value could be established in practical
terms so that the project’s management, sponsor, customers, and users
could agree that it had delivered on its promises. Some of the ways to gain
agreement on objective measures are addressed in Chapters 6 and 12. Those
familiar with the benefits of project management do not need “objective”
reasons; they feel that the reduced ambiguity, managed risk, shortened time
frames, and product existence are benefits enough.
William Ibbs and Justin Reginato, in their research study entitled
Quantifying the Value of Project Management,20 cited a number of dimensions
where organizations reaped tangible benefits. But some sectors discount
project management’s contributions or diminish its overall scope.
Most of these are low on the scale of organizational project management
maturity because the higher the maturity level, the greater are the realized
benefits. Companies with more mature project management practices have
better project performance.21
Spending a little time defining the different benefits of project management
according to the primary values of its own economic sector will
help an organization to clarify how value can be delivered by a project in
its own context. Some sectors will benefit from a focus on resource leverage
or efficiency; others, from a focus on maturity. After such an analysis
is complete, the strategic objectives of the organization and its
management, customers, and user groups need to be considered. Success
criteria built into the plan ensures that all know what the goals of the project
entail.

How Different Organizations Define the Value of Projects

How Different Organizations Define the Value of Projects

The value produced by the practice of project management is not the
same in every sector of the economy (see Figure 1-5). With the risk of oversimplifying,
■ Corporate projects need to make money, and projects are judged by
their contribution to increasing revenue or cutting unnecessary
cost.
■ Not-for-profit organizations are charged with providing benefits to
a broader society, and projects considered successful have broad or
conspicuous contributions.
■ Government projects must provide needed services or benefits to
groups defined by law. Projects that provide those services or benefits
to the stakeholders of public programs and services, and do so
within the regulations, are considered successful.

FIGURE 1-5 Benefits of adopting project management approaches. Different sectors derive significant value from project management by achieving strategic goals.

■ Academia organizes knowledge into curricula and courses of study, and projects that push knowledge into new areas or advance human understanding are recognized as valuable. Project management must be sufficiently challenging intellectually to warrant attention from leading scholarly institutions