UNDERSTANDING OF BASIC PROJECT MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS
Before you can effectively manage a project, there needs to be a shared understanding of that project - its purpose, objectives, scope, sponsorship, funding and mandate. In the real world, projects often need to get moving while at least some of these questions remain imperfectly answered.
People have been implementing projects for millennia. The most common involve construction—buildings, fortifications, roads, aqueducts, bridges, railways, etc. But projects can also result in provision of services—education, health, agriculture, finance, etc. A common feature of a project is the use of human labor to convert materials and funds into a completed product according to a schedule and agreed specifications.
WHAT IS A PROJECT?
Projects are temporary interventions resulting in positive change in performance of an institution, organization, or sector, and/or behavior of beneficiaries. When the expected results have been achieved, the project will be closed.
KEY CONSTRAINTS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT
The quality of design and implementation of all projects is influenced by three key constraints—scope, budget, and schedule (time). These can be presented as a ‘project triangle’.
SCOPE
The scope of a project is described by the outputs (physical goods, works and/or services) delivered to achieve the outcome (the change, resulting from achieving all outputs by project completion). The project’s scope is summarized in the design and monitoring framework (DMF).
Result Based Management
- A broad management strategy aimed at achieving important changes in the way government agencies operate, with improving performance (achieving better results) as the central orientation.
- A results-oriented approach ... aims at improving management effectiveness and accountability by defining realistic expected results, monitoring progress toward the achievement of expected results, integrating lessons learned into management decisions and reporting on performance.
SCHEDULE
Almost everyone involved in a project knows its ‘deadline’ or the completion date. The project schedule is the time period within which all project activities will be completed and the outputs delivered. Many projects are not completed on time due to poor planning and management of risks. Often, as a project manager develops a better understanding of both the internal and external environments which influence project implementation, the project schedule is adjusted to be more realistic.
BUDGET
These are the funds that have been approved to implement project activities including the costs to procure the goods, civil works and services needed to deliver the project scope within the agreed time period.
PROJECT QUALITY
Quality refers to the agreed standards identified in the project plan and the expectations of stakeholders, particularly beneficiaries and financing partners. Quality standards can be found in a number of project documents—e.g. the performance indicators of the DMF, covenants in project legal agreements, policies and procedures, specifications and terms of references in procurement documents.
A project manager has to be able to manage these interrelated constraints in a coordinated and integrated manner. For example, poor planning or management of the budget may necessitate a change in scope, which in turn, will impact on the project schedule. The project manager needs to have a good understanding of the internal and external environment in which the project is implemented and the risks that may arise in order to evaluate their potential impact and take action accordingly.
COMPONENT OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT
People: The people involved in managing a project need to have the skills to manage the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the project and meet the requirements of the regulatory processes. This is influenced by organizational culture as well as access to suitably competent staff, consulting firms and contractors. People also include the project beneficiaries and how their expectations are addressed.
Process: This includes the policies, procedures and working practices of ADB, as well as those of the borrowing country where the project is taking place. Processes determine the work that needs to take place and identifies the tools and control systems that will be used and the skills that will be required. The processes followed by ADB in ‘administering’ a project are different from those of the executing and implementing agencies, which are responsible to manage implementing the project, including consultants and contractors in accordance with relevant policies and procedures of both ADB and government.
Tools: These are techniques, methods, and in some cases procedures that are used to support the management of the project through the project cycle, e.g. stakeholder and problem analysis; the design and monitoring framework, economic internal rate of return, environmental impact assessment, feasibility study, surveys, annual or mid-term reviews, e-Operations performance reports, project completion reports, etc. These tools support decision making through management of information for analysis.
