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Q1. What do you understand by a project? Describe

January 10, 2013 By: Meliza Category: 1st SEM

Answer :  Projects have become important instruments of development i.e. social and economic change and growth in the quality of life of a targeted population.

Projects are principle means of mobilizing resources for development, since most donors frustrated with the bureaucratic structures, corruption, wastage of time through endless meetings, Paperwork, have turned to project so that they tie resources to specific time.

Projects are effective means of translating plans and policies into specific courses of action. They can be used to channel development to specific beneficiaries and to particular locations.

Projects are popular among political leaders who are anxious to have something visible to show to their electorate to win their support.

According to Cleland (1998), a Project is a mutual effort using a collection of resources in an orchestrated way to achieve a joint goal.

 

Projects have got the following characteristics:

They consume resources such as money, people, and equipment.

Each project must have a well-defined objective for example, constructing a 5 story Apartment complex by December 2007 at Maker ere University.

Projects have defined beginning and end points. That’s to say, people involved in project management in most cases move from one project to the next as opposed to staying in one job. For example after wiring a health facility, an electrical engineer can be assigned another project of wiring a manufacturing facility.

Projects involve several professionals, i.e. combined efforts of a variety of specialists. Instead of working in separate offices under separate managers, Project participants work closely together under the guidance of a Project manager to complete a project.

Each project is unique because it’s carried out only once, is temporary and (in almost every instance) involves a different group of people. Projects start when the first person goes to work and end when the last person’s work is finished.

Specific time, cost and performance requirements bind projects. Projects are evaluated according to what they accomplished, at what cost and how much time they took. These three aspects highlight one of the primary functions of project management: balancing the trade- offs between time, cost and performance while ultimately satisfying the customer.

Project work consists of several stages commonly referred to as Project cycle. According to Forsberg et al (1996), A Project cycle is an orderly sequence of integrated activities performed in phases, leading to success. This cycle recognizes that projects have a limited life span and that there are predictable changes in level of effort and focus over the life of a project. A number of project cycle models exist and are unique to a specific industry or project for example, a new software development project may consist of five phases which include, definition, design, code, integration /test and maintenance. A standard Project cycle has five stages which include; project Identification, Preparation, Appraisal, Implementation and Monitoring and Evaluation and are discussed in detail below:

The project identification stage ultimately provides the justification for the birth of a project. It is at this stage that fundamental questions are answered. Is there a real requirement for the project? What is the need? Is it worth?

At the project identification stage, the conceived idea or the identified need is subjected to further research. The project team generally must engage in considerable analysis and negotiation in order to determine the appropriate requirements.

Project preparation stage: Here the project idea is turned into a properly prepared plan or proposal. Also the problem which the project is intended to solve is clearly defined and the objectives both broad development goals and specific objectives are outlined. Project goals must be specific, measurable and attainable. This provides the rationale for the project which puts a persuasive argument for selecting the project.

Appraisal stage: This is the process of analyzing the project proposal in a way that enables making decision whether to go ahead or abandon it.

Cleland and king (1998) call this the definition phase. In this phase the cost, schedule, performance, resource requirements and whether all elements and sub systems will fit together economically and technically are assessed and determined. The definition stage dictates that one stops and takes time to look around to see if this is really what is wanted and how best to achieve it before resources are committed to the implementation of the project.

 

Implementation stage: This is the phase where the plan to meet the customer’s needs is put into operation. At this stage funds are disbursed to get the project set up and running. A major priority during this stage is to ensure that the project is carried out in a way and within the period that was planned.

 

Monitoring and evaluation stage: This entails determining whether the project is on course considering the objectives it is meant to achieve and making adjustments where necessary. The purpose of monitoring a project is to learn as much as possible about what is happening in the project’s environment now.

Monitoring and evaluation of projects provides the project team or any interested stakeholder with a clear picture of the project status. This enables them to act on their options and opportunities.

 

MANAGEMENT

According to Cusworth and Franks (1993), Management is the process of getting work done through other people by use of human resources, material and time to achieve objectives. Project managers are concerned to achieve specific objectives through the efforts of other people making up the project team.

 

According to Cerner (1984), Project management is the planning, organizing, directing and controlling of company resources for a relatively short-term objective that has been established to complete specific goals objectives.

Project management involves other items such as: definition of work requirements, quality of work, and definition of resources needed; project monitoring, tracking progress, comparing actual to predicted, analyzing impact and making adjustments.

Successful project management can be defined as having achieved the project objective with in time, cost, at desired performance /technology, and utilizing the assigned resources effectively and efficiently.

The project management process has two dimensions which include technical and social dimensions. The technical dimension consists of the formal, disciplined, pure logic parts of the process and this dimension includes planning, scheduling and controlling projects.

The socio-cultural dimension centres on creating a temporary social system within a large organizational environment to combine the talents of a divergent set of professionals working to complete the project.

This is aimed at stimulating team work and high levels of personal motivation as well as capacity to quickly identify and resolve problems that threaten project work.

The project management process consists of five — steps which include:

 

Project’s Goals Definition;

Planning how the project manager and his/her team will satisfy the triple constraints (goal) of performance specification, time schedule and money budget.

Leading- Providing managerial guidance to human resource, subordinates and others that will result in their doing effective, timely work.

Monitoring — measuring the project work to find out how progress differs from plan in time to initiate corrective action. (This often leads to re-planning which may force a goal definition or change, with a consequent need to change resources).

Completing —making sure that the job that’s finally done conforms to the current definition of what was to be done and wrapping up all the loose ends such as documentation.

Project managers have many responsibilities in the execution of projects such as planning, scheduling, monitoring and controlling. However they are unique because they manage temporary non repetitive activities and frequently act independently of the formal organization. In this regard, their functions include the following:

 

They are expected to marshal resources to complete a defined project on time, on budget and within specifications.

They are the direct link to the customer and must fulfil the customer’s expectations while staying within the project specifications.

They direct, co-ordinate and integrate the project team which is often made up of part-time participants loyal to their functional departments.

They are responsible for performance (frequently with too little authority). They must ensure that appropriate trade —off are made between the time, cost and performance requirement of the project.

Unlike their functional counterparts, project managers generally posses only a small proportion of the technical knowledge to make decisions instead, they must orchestrate the completion of the project by including the right people at the right time to address the right issues and to make the right decisions.

 

Q2. a. Describe how you can enter tasks in MS Project.

b. Describe different ways of Task Reporting

 

Q3. Describe how you can allocate resources to different tasks in MS Project.

 

Q4. Describe the capabilities of the MS Project to display project data.

Q5. Describe how you can track progress of a project

 

Q. 6 Describe the process of setting up of a common resource

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