Project Management

Project Management

1.         Explain the triple constraint and its importance in project management.

The triple constraint ‘involves making tradeoffs between scope, time and cost for a project. It is inevitable in a project life cycle that there will be changes to the scope, time or cost of the project.’

The triple constraint’s importance in project management is its use when planning and managing projects. You cannot change one of these aspects without changing the other two. For example, by tightening the budget a company will be increasing its time but reducing its scope. While increasing the scope will also increase both the cost and time of the project. Also shortening the time for the project will increase the costs and tighten the scope.

2.        Describe the two primary diagrams most frequently used in project planning.

The two primary diagrams used most frequently in project planning are the PERT chart and the Gantt chart.

·         PERT Chart - Program Evaluation and Review Technique This chart is a ‘graphical network model that depicts a project’s tasks and the relationships between those tasks.’
Dependencies and critical paths are found in PERT charts.

·         Gantt ChartA Gantt Chart is a ‘simple bar chart that depicts project tasks against a calendar.’
This is the most common tool used by project managers.

3.        Identify the three primary areas a project manager must focus on managing to ensure success.

The three primary areas a project manager must focus on managing in order to ensure success are:

·      Managing people

·      Managing communication

·      Managing change

4.        Outline 2 reasons why projects fail and two reasons why projects succeed.

Two reasons why projects fail are:

·         Unrealistic expectationsIf a company were to have unrealistic expectations from the beginning of their project, for example a new product being introduced into an already saturated market with the goal of gaining  a 50%+ market share, it isn’t likely that their project will succeed.

·         Lack of project managementIf a new project isn’t managed properly, it is more likely to fail. This is because when groups aren’t managing effectively they are more likely to do their own thing and not go along with the others.

            Two reasons why projects succeed are:

•  Good project charterBy having a good project charter a project is more likely to succeed as it has a specific plan that maps out where its going. The project charter includes the project scope, the project objectives, the project constraints and the project’s assumptions.
• Good communicationBy having good communication in a project there is less room for failure as the people involved in the project are all in the same mind space as they know what is going on in every aspect of the project.