Exercise-5 (What is the best tool use in expert judgment?)

Weee!!.. We are in the last exercise in our project management subject. We are assigned to identify what are the best tool or tools that can used to expert judgment. In first place we discussed “Develop Project Charter” from the PMBOK 3rd edition it is the document that formally authorizes a project. The project charter provides the project manager with the authority to apply organizational resources to project activities. A project manager is identified and assigned as early in the project as is feasible. The project manager should always be assigned prior to the start of planning and preferably while the project charter is being developed. In this topic or phase it was process validates the decisions put together throughout a period either continuously the original chartering of the project. The Develop Project Charter composed of process like inputs, tools and techniques and outputs. But not only in the process of that phase it also used in other phases such as direct and manages project execution, perform integrated change control, define scope, estimate activity resources, estimating costs, identifying stakeholders, perform qualitative risk analysis, plan risk responses, conducting procurements and etc. The word that I am talking about is we called the “Expert Judgment”.

Expert judgment has defined or usually used from the phases I already discussed a while ago. The expert judgment has few meaning given from the Project Management Book of Knowledge but I have read it has same though from each other. Well so much for that what is expert judgment? Expert judgment is often used to assess the inputs needed to develop the project charter. In this area your expertise and such judgment can be applied in line of technical and management process due to their details. Such judgment and expertise is applied to any technical and management details during this process. Such expertise is provided by any group or individual with specialized knowledge or training, and is available from many sources: Other units within the organization, Consultants, Stakeholders, including customers or sponsors, Professional and technical associations and last but not the least industry groups. As stated from the above definition it used to examine something in order to judge or evaluate the inputs to develop the project charter. So therefore I conclude an “expert judgment” it is belong to the tolls and techniques section of Develop Project Charter but not only in that phase all the process of project management. The basic idea is rely on the specialists or subject matter experts either individual or groups who have proper knowledge and experience in the assessing areas of the project charter and collect their inputs.

Expert Judgment technique has also advantages in almost of the activity during in the estimating the period of time that can be lasts or exists. These are the advantages:

- Permitting something to do for different evaluation.
- Makes valuable use of prior knowledge and experience.
- To help or to provide some assistance to find a creative solutions.
- Helps you avoid re-inventing the wheel.

Same to the other things if there are advantages there are also disadvantages. According to the article that I have read, we are supposed to be careful when we are using the tools and technique like an expert judgment. The reason why it is a time consuming. In addition it also can tie up experienced staff for many hours to cause damage or disadvantages to other projects. Therefore expert judgment can be costly if you have to go outside your company to hire experts. Another disadvantage is that experts may tend to downplay the fact that an activity took longer than expected on past projects.

So we come up for the best tool or tools that can use to expert judgment. The best is the 'Delphi technique' is a commonly used tool to secure expert judgment while initiating a project. 'Peer review' is a project selection tool, 'Expected value' is a method quantitative risk analysis, and 'WBS' is a project-planning tool. The Delphi method was developed at the RAND Corporation in the early 1950s as a spin-off of an Air Force-sponsored research project, “Project Delphi”. According to my best friend wiki, in the standard version, the experts answer questionnaires in two or more rounds. After each round, a facilitator provides an anonymous summary of the experts’ forecasts from the previous round as well as the reasons they provided for their judgments. Thus, experts are encouraged to revise their earlier answers in light of the replies of other members of their panel. It is believed that during this process the range of the answers will decrease and the group will converge towards the "correct" answer.

Other tool or tools are stated by Iman Budi Setiawan. He is the writer who provides the other tools and technique that can be help to an expert judgment. Interviews. A meeting during somebody to ask questions. Interviews can be one-to-one one-to-many or any group of person to take this. It is conducted by asking series of question connected to the main concern of knowing something from that particular question. Brainstorming. To think quickly and creativity. Brainstorming is to generate creative ideas spontaneously usually for problem solving and especially in an intensive group discussion that does not allow time for reflection. Brainstorming works by getting a group to focus on a problem and then coming up with as many solutions as possible. Historical data. Relating to or involving a study of history or somewhat relating to past. Historical data uses the knowledge gained on a similar past project activity to obtain duration estimates for each activity associated with a current project. Other units or departments within the performing organization. Ideally, this is a good way to obtain expert judgment. This will not provide cost. For example you want to know how long to take the construct of automobile, you only need to ask someone working on the assembly line. Consultants. This would be sound expensive, in which the project team needs to hire someone from outside the company to serve as the expert of the project. Professional and technical associations. This can provide expert judgment when the information needed is very detailed or technical. Industry groups. The industry group can offer general information.

One thing we need to be considered is that the one who are in a successful path is the expert that can made some decisions and judgments in a simpler way through the project leader spirit.


references:

http://project-management-knowledge.com/definitions/e/expert-judgment/
http://www.pmtoolbox.com/project-management-news/expert-judgment.html
http://itpmpro.blogspot.com/2008/01/expert-judgment-and-project-activities.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi_method

Exercise-4 ( How is a project different to any other work? Is Project Management relevant to me? cite examples .)

Is project different to other work? But what is project means? The first exercise we define what is project means. If we talk about project we usually think that it was given by a boss or a teacher that has a deadline. You are given a wide span of time to have a plan. It is a task or assignment given that requires a large amount of time, effort and planning to complete that specific task or project. Those projects were given by group or individual. An employee or maybe a student generally requires a lot of amount of effort to think the possible scope and possible output of the detailed project. Constructing a project it also requires to begin to do something with their own fact finding and analysis, one or the other references from internet research, or even public library or maybe a survey research. Project also is a cycle or sequence of activities that must be completed in the set of deadlines, within a budget and also with the specifications, requirements, condition, measurement and pattern. While work is the duties or activities that are part of a job or occupation even in the households we can call it daily routine schedule work. If we elaborate it work can define as the a obligation that somebody is require to do for moral, legal or religious reasons or even a task or services allocated to somebody especially in the course of work. One model or simple example is the homework. Every human being has obligation in this spherical world that we need to pursue. It is just a making or creating such big project or small project and giving effort in our work or we always say a job.

For me there are some factors that project is different to the work. I can say that statement because project define as a task or work given a specific requirements like a large amount of time, effort and planning to complete that specific task or work. We need to reach the normal or expected end of duties or activities having all the necessary qualities or abilities for a particular role. We all know that a project with limit imposed on which some form of limit or restriction is imposed. Like the school project it has the range covered by any activity, subject or topic that needs to finish at specific time or we called it the deadline of the projects. Aiming the requirements for that project has schedule and limited cost so that we can produce or yield quality products. At school, educational institute and university, a project is a research assignment given to a student which generally requires a larger amount of effort and more independent work than is involved in a normal essay assignment. It requires students to undertake their own fact-finding and analysis, either from library/internet research or from gathering data empirically. The written report that comes from the project is usually in the form of a paper, which will contain sections on the project's inception, methods of inquiry, analysis, findings and conclusions. Like in our System Analysis and Design we are require to make a documentation study in one company about their existing Information System or Manual System. In line with that we need to make a Gantt chart for our scheduling in consulting to our professor. The Gant Chart composes with many deliverables with the help of FAST model. Every deliverables has time schedule and every deadline we need to go to our professor to have update of our output. In that example the project has a deadline but there was maintenance and updating of deliverables so the task are not discontinue. I conclude that in some projects has the end of process or deadline for the checking purposes but after passing there was a probability to have update or need to maintain the projects. Every certain projects has its end, may have updates, maintenance and testing to be consider so that it will determine and to make sure that the scope of the project will happen or be available the services that the project bring the quality into existing or we called it effect to “madlang people”. In addition we also consider the weaknesses and identify all the requirements so that we determine that the project had achieved. Another example is all about the routine task like in our house we have or our mother always doing the household task, as we all know household task are done almost every day which I conclude that it would not be appropriate to call it a project, for it is ongoing or continuous if we based it from a lifetime process. We can called it project if and only if the task have specific timeframe to be follow it has an ending and it has time schedule. In the process of housekeeping general cleaning activities are completed, such as disposing of rubbish, storing of belongings in regular places, cleaning dirty surfaces, dusting and vacuuming. It is also the care and control of property, ensuring its maintenance and proper use and appearance. In a hotel, "housekeeping" is also a term for the cleaning personnel. Work also refer to human labor, also in physics, in theology, in film or media, in law and etc.. The Wikipedia stated that “Work or Work Package in project management is the amount of effort applied to produce a deliverable or to accomplish a task or a group of related tasks defined at the same level in the WBS. Work packages, are unique within the same project, and they have a scheduled start date and end date. Work packages should not confuse with duration. A project is composed of several objectives, a project could be divided to several tasks which they termed as project decomposition or breakdown and the proponents must works on each of the refined tasks in order to reach their goals and the goal of the project. The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast to business operations, which are repetitive, continuous, permanent or semi-permanent functional work to present their products and services.

The nest question “Is Project Management Relevant to me?”. In the pass exercise we have defined Management that involves carefully dealing with all those activities, which are necessary as far as the successful completion of a product is concerned, is referred to as project management. Not an ongoing process, a project is a temporary job with defined time duration, within which it has to be finished. To make sure that it is finished before the deadline, and in accordance with specifications, project management is essential. Thus a project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools and technique to project activities to meet project requirements. The significance above definition about project and management something can create a good meaning if we combine the two words. A project management can define also as the framework of everything that we are doing in our daily life activity.

As a student project management has a big relevant in our daily routine in coming to the school and always given a big projects in our professor. Using the tools of project management can help us to discipline and eliminate some of the chances of the projects doing wrong, the subject of concern and surprises. However it will help to impart the standard processes and procedures to agree with them and help to avoid such things that can lead us to the failure. This are the following factors:

1. Projects finishing late, exceeding budget or not meeting customer expectations.
2. Inconsistency between the processes and procedures used by projects managers, leading to some being favored more than others.
3. Successful projects, despite a lack of planning, achieved through high stress levels, goodwill and significant amounts of overtime.
4. Project management seen as not adding value and as a waste of time and money.
5. Unforeseen internal and/or external events impacting the project.

It is all about creating a natural world and conditions in which have the definition of the goal and the objective of one project team that can help and lead them to achievement. To sum it up, project management plays a very vital part into our lives. Without proper understanding and knowledge about project management we won’t be able to become as successful project leaders we all wanted. After all, a real and successful project management is, above all, a practice where art, science, and craft meet for the benefit of sufficing other people’s needs as well as ours. With this, I am really looking forward to learn more new lessons in Project Management. But I hope it wouldn’t be hard for us. I know I’ll learn a lot and will be surely applied not only in my economic life, but also in my personal life. We must work on our own and bring out the leadership skills that are just keep inside us. Our powers are not in our strengths but in how we use our strengths.



References:

http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/introduction-to-project-management.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project

Exercise-3 (Is Project Management the best method of implementing change? )

Is managing the project very important for a change? For me change is important not only for project management. But what is project management is all about. Last exercises as I define project management it is management that involves carefully dealing with all those activities, which are necessary as far as the successful completion of a product is concerned, is referred to as project management. Not an ongoing process, a project is a temporary job with defined time duration, within which it has to be finished. To make sure that it is finished before the deadline, and in accordance with specifications, project management is essential. Thus a project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools and technique to project activities to meet project requirements. The significance above definition about project and management something can create a good meaning if we combine the two words. A project management can define also as the framework of everything that we are doing in our daily life activity.

So, a key word for that is a daily life activity. It means in everyday life is a project that can be manage. It was a milestone that we need to finish within a specific timeframe, according to the limitation or the scope or sometimes it is all about ourselves. Relating these to the main topic in implementing change is the best method. In our big projects and even the small projects has/have changes, but there are things to be consider if we implement changes in one of our projects. One of the best factor or solution we consider was the project management. It has also producing result if we use our strategic timeframe. Changes must meet in the start of the project or either during the production of projects. We all know it has the project scope, budget, time, and producing high quality. The biggest changes can be in the project scope because the span of the time can be extended and the cost of the project will grow according to the changed scope. Since project management can use to many Information Technology project, it also possible that the resources of the proposed project has changes especially the increasing price that can affect the cost management of the project or either the resources was face off in the market. The possible result if the project team can’t handle that circumstances the project will fail. When the changes come or we say implementing changes in one project one of the important is how you manage the time and also the team.

One project has a result, and we all know that one of the factors that the customer or client want and needs to the result was the quality of one project or product that would turns out in the end. Altering, changing and sometimes deleting were always in the present of expecting the standard outcomes. Knowing that a project has two faces either success or fail, so it is depending to the project team on how they handle the project or how they manage the project well. The project team has several things to be considered to meet the level of quality or excellence attained by somebody or something and the standard that the client wants. Implementing changes or updates are one of the milestones that the project team use the methodology of project management so that they can able to finish on time, because without this method the upshot or the end result maybe or may the project leads to the failure side. In addition it is the one tool or method that the project team uses to tracking the changes or mistakes of an ongoing project if changes occur. It is also employ something to put into action or service to determine the changes on the scope and manage the limited sources. Manipulating a project or managing the changes is not easy. Remember that one project has a scope especially the span of the time and the cost of the project as well. Let assume that the project team fail to apply the factors of project management on their project. What is the possible milestone or possible outcomes? Is the project has the quality that the clients wants? Are the clients meeting the standard they want? How can they meet the scope of the project? They can manage the time without managing well? Those are some questions that arise if the teams of the project you hire are not using a powerful tool or methodology like project management.

How important the project management is. They have a big different of not applying or not making use of something to achieve a possible outcomes with a high quality. Since using a project management tools and techniques it will surely help the project team to manage all of those changes and ensure you the quality of it. However meeting the quality needs of one client can give satisfactory comparing the functional quality only that not giving the satisfying quality. Then producing a quality product we also to consider the cost of that. Maybe you exceed or you are beyond the limited budget it can also lead to the project failure even you produce the quality standard of the client. One of the outcomes is the satisfactory not only to the customer or client but also to the team who manage the project. since the changes is done you are require to made or use the tools and technique that package in the project management. in addition for that the very big impact of implementing changes and having the standard quality of the client need is to change the characteristics of each of the member of the project team because each of the characteristic help to meet the time frame of a project. the character of one when it was combine to other one it produce a quality character that can help to their managing the changes of the project. Character of one person is powerful then added by two or more character is equal to the successful career if and only if the character is good.

Exercise-2 (Why do project(s) fail(s)?)

Project Management was focuses in the management of every project that we are going to make. But are we aware that in every project has “success” either it will “failure”? When we are met last meeting in our Project Management subject Sir Randy Gamboa gave an exciting activity that’s awaken the nerves of everybody because of one question.

Why do project fail? We are about to discuss the question in our one whole sheet of yellow paper and afterwards the sharing of ideas with the selected student. What I observed in their sharing they have almost the same reason why do project fail. They are stated the biggest factor why do project fails is the “time”. Somebody shares that he/she got the grade of 5.0 because he/she didn’t passed on time the project. Since project failure was a circumstance if a project given, which get through a human being, materials and financial resources, fails to deliver before the completion, no satisfactory product quality and even the beneficiaries can’t have their assistance. The project is considered “failed” when it does not produce results as proposed, exceeds its budget and time, and does not meet specifications. But there are many reasons why do we get fail in our projects especially taking the course of Bachelor of Science in Information Technology.

According to some reference it was conclude that a project fails when it does not meet the following criteria:
• It is delivered out of schedule (time constraint)
• It is delivered out of budget (cost constraint)
• It is delivered out of scope (scope constraint)
• The project product does not work as expected.

When I surfed and read some multiple websites and forums to examine project failure statistics and review project failure examples. I also looked through my own projects trying to ensure that if the projects did not meet any of the criteria they failed. My investigation has shown me that most projects, including my own projects, failed because one or several of the listed criteria were not met. So what are the project failure factors? What makes my project fail? Let’s list common causes of project failure.

Self- I can say that one of the considerable reason why do projects fail it is because by “ME” or by “YOU”. Just like in managing a particular project, then “YOU” who has the responsibility and the accountability to formulate and organize task should have to plan things not to fail. However, he is more certain that a project fail it is because person involved into it already has the plan to fail. I had read several site on why do project fail and the factors or reason result in break down. When projects begin to show signs of stress and failure, everyone looks to the project manager for answers. It may seem unfair that the burden of falls upon a single individual. But this is the reason why you chose to manage projects for a living! That’s why manager had been trained to recognize and deal with different types of situations. A project is considered a failure when it has not delivered what was required, in line with expectations. Therefore, in order to succeed, a project must deliver to cost, to quality, and on time; and it must deliver the benefits presented in the business case.

Plan- Large projects need to be planning even a small projects need it. Planning always be in the priority of making some projects. We all know that it is a method of doing something that is worked out in advance. The fundamental to a successful project is in the planning. So, creating a project plan is the first thing you should do when undertaking any kind of project. Often project planning is ignored in favor of getting on with the work. However, many people fail to realize the value of a project plan in saving time, money and many problems. Many factors will we guided before if the project have been plan well. In this factor you can experience on how can be a manager and or leader by both self and the group team members.

Time- Time is necessary step of all projects is estimating the time it will take. Not only does the client want to have an idea of how much money they will be spending, but they also need to plan around an estimated timeline. And you need to be able to ensure you have the time and resources necessary to complete the project. Depending on a number of factors, including how much experience you have with the type of work you’re doing, if you are using subcontractors, and the information you have from the client, estimating the time for a project can be difficult. Making a timeframe of a project can help also for the budgeting of the money you are planning to make.

Budget- How much the project cost? The company or the business has enough budget of the proposed project? How much have we spent on material resources versus labor resources? We can handle such cost data accurately on how to budget the project scope. Many easy ways out there that you can follow or get some ideas in budgeting the cost that proposed project.

The above factors are my own experience why does the project fail. But the following are the reason for the project failures which have been involved in our discussion last time.
• Poor estimates
• Scope changes -
• Work breakdown failures
• Not enough time/resources allocated
• Incompetent project manager
• Ineffective use of project management discipline and processes
• Lack of proper management support and
• Wrong use of technology

Those are the factors or justification for something your project why it was possible to be fail. Mr. Randy introduce those reason based of the sharing of our classmates and some are the experience of his self.

However project may as possibility fail it is because they were terminated with the reason of cost overruns, or reason why systems were launched with fundamental errors. Based on my understanding cost overruns is the dissemination quickly that becomes to overrun a place or site in large numbers and become threatening, harmful and unpleasant that big cost of amounts require which is not expected.

The different between success and failure is success of a project should be are clear and absolute – right? Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Things are not simple to obtain. Because the second part of definition of success is that the project must be delivered "in line with expectations." It is essential that most of the cases a project is fail when the client for instance, speak out because of the result of an expected project. If a stakeholder agreed to the new contract that a project had to exceed its initial budget, the project may still be considered a success. It might be happen when it is not been clearly budgeted during the planning stage. On the other hand, if a project delivered everything that was in the detailed project designs, it may still be considered a failure if it didn't include vital elements that the key stakeholders needed. So a certain project like constructing high ways must finish and end its requirements like the distance and cost, which consist of permit and fees on the workers. This doesn't seem fair, but project success and failure isn't just about the facts, nor is it simply about what was delivered. It's also, critical; about how the project is been observe. The management is very significant to have an expected result as the client wants.

I had visited one site that stated a six reasons why almost of the Information Technology student come up with a failure grades because of their project didn’t match with their proposed plan and some cases did not passed on time. In summary of it these are the following statement: Absence of some Users, Time Frame Scales, Materials Possessions or No Requirements, Scope Creep, No Change Control System and Poor Testing. So this are the few explanations of those reason based of my understanding first the absence of user participation is one of the difficulties of a project that is being fail because it may proved fatal or deadly for project. Without user involvement nobody in the business feels committed to a system, and can even be antagonist to it. If a project is to be a success senior management and users need to be involved from the start, and continuously throughout the development. This requires time and effort, and when the people in a business are already stretched, finding time for a new project is not high on their priorities. Therefore senior management need to continuously support the project to make it clear to staff it is a priority.

Unpredicted time frame usually happens when setting the time bounded from the start. Long time for a project has led to systems being delivered for products and services no longer in use by an organization. If the person behind the project set the estimated time for doing a project it should be follow in accordingly. If the stakeholders demand for new requirements the time is expected to extend. The key recommendation is that project timescales should be short, which means that larger systems should be split into separate projects. There are always problems with this approach, but the benefits of doing so are considerable. Managers on a project should be aware for fast delivery and some indication prior to the problem on time or unrealistic timescales. The recommendation to this reason of failure is to review and look over all the project plans if it is realistic.

Most of the project has unclear requirements due to lack of stakeholders’ involvement. That’s how important on what kind of technology is going to use for the project. This has led to cases where the developers, having no input from the users, build what they believe is needed, without having any real knowledge of the business. Inevitably when the system is delivered business users say it does not do what they need it to. This is closely linked to lack of user involvement, but goes beyond it. Users must know what it is they want, and be able to specify it precisely. As non-IT specialists this means normally they need skills training. In fact developers must have the right and proficiency of expertise to be competitive.

As I’ve learned about scope creep it is the uncontrolled of the system. Scope is the overall view of what a system will deliver. Scope creep is the insidious or the gradual harmful growth in the scale of a system during the life of a project. As an example for a system which will hold customer records, it is then decided it will also deal with customer bills, then these bills will be provided on the Internet, and so on and so forth. In this scenario it is harmful to have the access on the project. All the functionality will have to be delivered at one time, therefore affecting time scales, and all will have to have detailed requirements. This is a management issue closely related to change control. Management must be realistic about what is it they want and when, and stick to it.
It is a reason for project to fail when there is lack of control or difficulty. It may happen at a faster rate. Therefore, it is practical and reasonable to have changed while a project is being built. However uncontrolled changes might be damage with a system under development and have caused many project failures. This possible happen when this reason is the advantages of shorter time frame approach to building system.

During the development of a project, the developers will do the testing before the delivery happen. But eventually users are needed to run a system checking the requirements. However acceptance testing often fails to catch many faults before a system goes live because requirements are poor when tested, unplanned test system, inadequate trained users who doesn’t aware of the purpose of testing and adequate time to perform test of project. Users should allow themselves on learning and utilizing experience of the business, they should do the acceptance.

About the ultimate causes of failure of some IT projects have given by most of the stakeholders, consultants and project managers. They made their own conclusion by their area of expertise. Even with comprehensive experience they have but been exposed to a small sample of project failures as compared to the [sky high] number of projects that fail. Even very experienced project managers are confronted with unmet situations. There are no two identical combinations of IT project scope, objective and environment.

These are some example of project fail in IT projects.

The KPMG Canada Survey (1997)

This study, conducted by KPMG Canada, has been mentioned in the statistics over IT project failure rate.

Key Findings
The main causes of project failure that were identified were:
1. Poor project planning. Specifically, inadequate risk management and a weak project plan. Risk management becomes more important as the organization gets bigger, so larger organizations need to pay more attention to this area.
2. Weak business case. The need for the system should be justified in ways that relate directly to the organization's business needs.
3. Lack of top management involvement and support. This often dooms the project to failure before it starts. Securing buy-in from the top, often by a strong business case backed up with a realistic project plan, is an essential step.

Additional Findings
• Projects fail more often because of schedule overruns than budget overruns.
• Many projects fail because they use new or unproven technology.
• Poor estimates or weak definitions of requirements at the project planning stage also contribute to project failure.
• Projects can run into trouble due to the vendors’ inability to meet commitments.
• 60% of the failed projects were planned to take less than one year to complete.


The Chaos Report (1995)

The scope and approach of this landmark survey has been presented in our overview over the rate of IT project failure. It has been conducted among 365 IT managers from companies of various sizes and in various economic sectors.

Project Evaluation Criteria
The main IT project failure criteria considered were:
• Cost Overruns
• Time Overruns
• Content Deficiencies


How to avoid a failure of one project?

We always heard about projects failure -Scope Changes running out of control, Budget Overruns, Lack of System Adoption, Automation Failures, and Live Events with fundamental system errors. But how can we avoid project failure in coming projects even present projects today. According to my source a project to be successful, you need to manage to the outcomes and business benefits desired and assure the delivered solution is adopted and utilized by the stakeholders. It is not enough to be on time and on budget. Make sure you manage the change transformation along with the project execution. Success is deemed from the eyes of the stakeholder, so add in the tasks and steps to manage their expectations, market the solution, reinforce their support, and address their concerns.

For me to have a successful result for the projects, we don’t only stick on managing our project expertly and produce our best product to have customers. To keep away from failure, we need to make sure that we have recognized, categorized and classified the right project requirements, created an achievable project case, put strong project governance into place, managed a high-quality implementation, focused on benefits, and monitored your changing environment. So, not only those elements, the one of the element that we can avoid some instances about project failure are our self. Self is the biggest factors among those elements because if can’t manage our self like the time, budget and etc. the other elements are useless. Managing our self and give some effort to have characterize our own life. In addition if you have a high quality or standard characteristics and you have gain the trust and loyalty of the stakeholder then the stakeholders can be supportive with your all projects if you are working with them. However there are no other people can declare that your project is successful than yourself. Or otherwise you have your boss and stakeholders can declare your project was a successful one. Be happy always in the work you are in so that you can make sustain the criticism of others especially your client. When you are happy of what you are doing you can make the best of it. Know the importance of your work. Discipline on the proponents is needed in order for them to achieve their main objectives and ultimate goals. The proper use of project management could give them the opportunity of success. Planning each phases of the project and identifying the scope is some of the basic keys to start the project properly. A project also fails because of lack of self-discipline! Working disciplines. A competitive project must have a self-disciplined character. A good project s starts from a good project maker. A maker must be attentive and responsive to his project for him to reach the goal of success. A good project maker must also act the proper working disciplines. Like a boy scout the discipline was always implement because if you are in the jungle and you are group by a team then you must know your members and show some discipline towards the activity so that you can achieve something that you can never expected. It is a self mastery element in the model they called it SEED. Good manager and good leader must show object of enthusiasm and concern to his or her project.

"Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It's quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn't at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it, So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that?s where you will find success." - Thomas J. Watson


References:

http://www.umsl.edu/~sauterv/analysis/6840_f03_papers/frese/
http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/public-sector/2007/07/eight-reasons-for-failed-itbas-1.html
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/projectfailures/five-tips-to-learn-from-failure/11187?tag=mantle_skin;content
http://www.mymanagementguide.com/top-5-project-failure-reasons-or-why-my-project-fails/
http://www.it-cortex.com/Stat_Failure_Cause.htm

Exercise-1 (What is a project?..... What is management? .....What is project management?.....)

First meeting of the subject named “Project Management” with our very owned instructor Mr. Randy Gamboa and it was very crucial time for me. Well why I said crucial because if our instructor calls me and then he wants me to define “Project Management”, very how sad and how pity for me. I don’t know what is the meaning of project management was. But then and again he don’t call me on the other hand he give us 15 minutes to answer the three questions within fifteen lines in our clean one whole yellow paper. The following questions are:

What is a project?
What is management?
What is project management?

Shocks!. In a few words of discussion I finish the three questions but not that an ideal discussion one. Maybe some of the words I have written in my clean yellow paper was wrong. After those trailing time three to five students participate and share their answers. Almost of them have an idea what is project, management and project management. Some of them mention the meaning of project has a limited time, then in management one of the organizing some project and additional the project management was creating a project with organize plan and with a timeframe. So far their answer is quite the same from me.

What is a Project?

If we talk about project we usually think that it was given by a boss or a teacher that has a deadline. You are given a wide span of time to have a plan. It is a task or assignment given that requires a large amount of time, effort and planning to complete that specific task or project. Those projects were given by group or individual. An employee or maybe a student generally requires a lot of amount of effort to think the possible scope and possible output of the detailed project. Constructing a project it also requires to begin to do something with their own fact finding and analysis, one or the other references from internet research, or even public library or maybe a survey research. Project also is a cycle or sequence of activities that must be completed in the set of deadlines, within a budget and also with the specifications, requirements, condition, measurement and pattern.

According to PMBOK project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. For my own understanding temporary means that making or creating a project has scope both start and end. At first you set or you are planning to use or make this project with those raw materials or they say scope limitation of the project. Let us look for a good situation when one company propose a big projects with duration of five years then the times come that the materials you needed was short and you are proposing to buy again but suddenly no available materials the company force to buy a new product with an expensive one or not that the same quality to the older one. The Budget of the company in that project increase, possible decision of the company was to stop that project. May the objective will not meet to the end of the duration time. Since in the meaning of project in PMBOK has Uniqueness of the project, services or even result. Every project there are deliverables and the very important was the uniqueness of the project. But what that deliverables means? Deliverables serves as an overall term that to include a wide or comprehensive range of the requirements of a project. A deliverable may be something that can be uniquely seen, used in the greater scheme of the project. For example, in a project meant to upgrade a firm's technology, a deliverable may be a dozen new computers. Either instead of that, a deliverable may be a function or aspect of the overall project. For example, a software project may have a deliverable specifying that the computer program must be able to compute a company's financial statements. So, the uniqueness of the project, services or even the result may affect the project. Therefore making a larger project even the smaller one must be unique to the other project. Those characteristics of project were associated with the last characteristic of project in the PMBOK called progressive elaboration. Stating my own understanding it was a developing gradually over a period of time in such explanation. A project might see anywhere where it involves people or the source of a project. A project creates a unique deliverables, which are products, services and or results. Stated in Wikipedia that project comes from Latin word “projectum” which means “to throw something forwards”. A specified project consist also a strategy along with the gathering and developing the following information these are OBJECTIVES, ASSUMPTION, LIMITATION and SCOPE.

What is management?

Defining the word management as my own idea it was a group of administration of business who organizing and one controlling of the affairs of a business or a sector of a business. Not only in business but also in some company that has managers and employers considered collectively, especially the directors and executives of a establishment. I can define management too as the one or an individual who can manage the act of handling or controlling something that sooner can be successfully.

According to the online encyclopedia the Wikipedia management in all business areas and organizational activities are the acts of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives efficiently and effectively. As what I have define management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. To include a wide or comprehensive range the deployment and manipulation of human resources, financial resources, technological resources, and natural resources. Because organizations can be viewed as systems, management can also be defined as human action, including design, to facilitate the production of useful outcomes from a system. This view opens the opportunity to 'manage' oneself, a pre-requisite to attempting to manage others. Management can also refer to the person or people who perform the act(s) of management. By my own explanation management also involved a group of function commences to carry out or complete something task successfully. If we simplify a management is all about progressing something completed. In addition it is the way and the process how ones specific target or goals. The management is recently or early defined, but it is already existed in the time that the men knows how and learning in organizing, strategies or by simply planning. Just like you are going to develop a certain system for the school, in order to manage this project you have to know first the specification, estimated time frame and the budget or cost if it necessary. This is the very good example of mine because we experience and implementing some system in school. Since in the past world war the men undertake and strive for the winning battle, that time management already exists since they are start learning in formulating tactics on how to win a game. At the roots, management evolve the definition of knowledge became practically reasonable. However, I can also say that my father was handling some group of employee and he is the manager of the group who participate and made controlling the group.

Addition on the definition of management, it is the organization and the coordination of the activities in accordance with the policy. The basic task of a management is twofold: marketing and innovation. When we say marketing it is selling of product while innovation it is the act of producing or inventing something. In every making of project there should be the one who is supervising or managing the plans. Directors and managers who have the power and responsibility to make decisions to manage an enterprise. As a discipline, management comprises of the joining functions of formulating corporate-policy and organizing, planning, controlling, and directing resources to achieve certain goal. The size of a management is either a single or a group or even thousands of managers in multinational companies. Just like in a company, directors have the responsibility enough to formulate the implemented policy given by chief executive officer. Some business analysts and financiers accord the highest importance to the quality and experience of the managers in evaluating an organizations current and future worth.

The following are the characteristics of management:

• Organize activities. Arranging numerous activities wasn’t that easy. That’s why trained manager is important in leading such project. manager should have the right to supervise and direct every plan that is going to formulate by his team. Management is a process of organized activities. Groups of people cannot be involved in the performance of activities without organized activities. Management comes into existence where a group of people are involved in achieving a common objective. The organized activities may take a variety of forms ranging from a tightly structured organization to a loosely-join organization.

• Existence of objectives. Objective or the idea should be presently utilize when planning is going on. Since a project may result into two ways- succeed or fail, management has been acquainted in every problem or difficulties that might exist.

• Decision making. Management process involves decision making at all levels. Decision-making describes the process by which a course of action is selected as the way to deal with a specific problem. If there is only one alternative, the question of decision making does not arise. The quality of alternatives which a manger selects determines the organization’s performance, and the future of the organization. It is possible to happen when contingencies might exist.

• Relationship among resources. The essence of management is integration of various organizational resources. Resources include money, machine, materials, and people. Management is concerned with the proper utilization of human resources which, in turn, utilize other resources.

• Working with and through people. It is also essential that the relationship towards other people is satisfactorily. Management involves working with people and getting organizational objectives achieved through them. Working through people is interpreted in terms of assigning activities to subordinates.

What does a Project Manager need? It is good thing to know that the manager of certain project is well-oriented enough to patch up things when needed. General management skills are essential in managing projects. Varied expertise like financial skills to evaluate strategic management skills to plan, organizational skills to create teams, or human resource skills to supervise and motivate are all necessary requisites. These are same skills in managing corporations. Process is also the same. You start with a plan, organize according to the plan, and execute it. Then you monitor, and change the plan as you go along to make the requisite changes to accomplish the objectives in spite of the difficulties and risks. The final goal is to accomplish the objective, as desired by both the project team, the sponsors, and also its customers, as well as all other people ( called stakeholders) which have an interest and stake in the project’s outcome.

What is project management?

Management that involves carefully dealing with all those activities, which are necessary as far as the successful completion of a product is concerned, is referred to as project management. Not an ongoing process, a project is a temporary job with defined time duration, within which it has to be finished. To make sure that it is finished before the deadline, and in accordance with specifications, project management is essential. Thus a project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools and technique to project activities to meet project requirements. The significance above definition about project and management something can create a good meaning if we combine the two words. A project management can define also as the framework of everything that we are doing in our daily life activity. We can apply that powerful word not only for the successful of the project but also in the every steps of our daily life so that we can reach our goal and become a professional in any other things. However a project management has a big impact and has a big help for taking the course of Bachelor of Science in Information Technology because as the representative of that course we have difficult subjects and difficult projects and we need to manage everything so that we can sustain form they say terminators. We need to guarantee or ensure that our projects meet the deadline, within the acceptable budget and may fulfills the instructors expectations and specifications. One application to this was the following Gantt chart. My friend Wikipedia stated that a Gantt chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule. Gantt charts illustrate the start and finish dates of the terminal elements and summary elements of a project. The project management a method of doing something that is worked out in advance that describes how the project management system will be used. The project management system content will vary depending upon the area, organizational influence, complexity of a project and availability of existing systems. The organizational influences shape the system for executing projects within that organization. In formulating certain project, it is an essential element of project management, the project planning involves the development of action items and scheduling that will keep the project moving forward on a consistent basis. When executed properly, project planning will also include target dates for the act of finishing a project of each action item, making it possible to move forward with other pending items in an orderly the way in which one project is done or happens.
I had read some article in the internet. Fortunately there is a good context provided by the Project Management Institute (PMI). That framework breaks project management down into nine management areas.

1. Scope management. The establishment of the scope of the project is critical to the success of the project. There will always be changes along the way. The role of the Project Manager is to track those changes, seek approval where required, and adjust the time and cost to reflect the changes.

2. Time management. A schedule needs to be established at the start of the project. The impact of not producing a schedule is that the project will stumble from one stage to the next without any clear indication of where it is up to, or what resources are required in the coming days or weeks. Some tasks will take longer than expected and some less time. Resources need to be constantly redirected, and the overall time for the project monitored and adjusted.

3. Cost management. The cost needs to be estimated. Cost will consist of both resource costs, and capital costs. A budget needs to be allocated to the project so that money is not wasted on something that the organization cannot, or chooses not to fund.

4. Resource management. Resources have to be found and brought into the project. Their role has to be defined just as a Line Manager might draw up a position description. They have to be trained and inducted into the project. Management of resources requires constant attention. People need to be directed, recruited and their performance monitored. Teams have to be built and motivated under often difficult circumstances. There are always pressures of deadlines and changes of focus.

5. Communication management. There will be considerable informal communication to ensure information is not only disseminated but heard and understood. Feedback is also important and this can only occur if the Project Manager makes the effort to talk with people and seek their input.

6. Risks management. A project is about doing something new. Every new endeavor has risk. At the start of the project, a Project Manager should identify the risks and what can be done to lessen the risks. By taking action at the start, many of the risks can be lessened or removed. It is like a Line Manager having a disaster recovery plan. If it does go wrong, we know what to do.

7. Procurement management. If external services or materials need to be purchased, the process needs to be established before the project starts. In many cases the organization may well have a procurement process and this can be applied to the project.

8. Quality management. There is always the temptation to cut quality to meet deadlines. Before the project starts, the Project Manager needs to identify what quality checks will apply to the deliverables. A quality plan should be drawn up so that time can be built into the schedule to accommodate the quality activities.

9. Integration management. During the project, things will constantly need to be pulled together. Plans will need to be tweaked and unforeseen circumstances addressed. People will over achieve or under achieve their targets. Tasks will take longer or shorter than expected. Risks will come to fruition and need to be resolved. The PM will be constantly juggling things to achieve his or her ends.

Project Management like any other career requires years of experience and theory to practice well. So, we are practiced from school to be a professional and can be handle big projects that need to have management. The good example of this was our subject named SAD System Analysis and Design. We are given a chance to be a project manager. Now I am starting practicing how to manage myself to get the scope and have unique output of all my projects. But Mr. Gamboa our instructor differentiates the leadership and management. Leadership is directing and inspiring people without any position required while management was controlling and managing people for instance a worker instructed not to do something or pass something on time, the employee force to do it since he/she is under its management. if I have given a chance to choose between management either leadership I preferred to be a leader because I believe every person born to be a leader. It is up to them on how to handle their leadership towards other people. Now I get confused if it is Project Management or Project Leadership?

Reference:

http://www.ngkhai.net/bizdrivenlife/writings/project-management-handbook/
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deliverables.asp

Exercise-1 (What is a project? What is management? What is project management?