INTRODUCTION

A project is composed of jobs, activities, functions or tasks that are related one to the other
in some manner, and all of these should be completed in order to complete the project.
Every project has one specific purpose : it starts at some specific moment and it is finished
when its objectives have been fulfilled. For completion of a project, two basic things are
required :
(i) material resources,

(ii) manpower resources.

Definition of a Project

A project is made up of a group of interrelated work activities constrained by a specific

scope, budget, and schedule to deliver capital assets needed to achieve the strategic
goals of an Agency.

- A defined goal or objective.

- Specific tasks to be performed.
- A defined beginning and end.
- Resources being consumed.
-Unique

Each project, has three objectives :

(i) The project should be completed with a minimum of elapsed time.
(ii) It should use available manpower and other resources as sparingly as possible, without
delay.
(iii) It should be completed with a minimum of capital invest- ment, without delay.

2 PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Project management is a highly specialised job, to achieve the above objectives. Project
management involves, the following three phases:
1. Project planning

2. Project scheduling

3. Project controlling.

Out of the above three phases of project management, the first two phases are
accomplished before the actual project starts. The third phase is operative during the
execution of the project, and its aim is to recognize the difficulties during the execution and
to apply measures to deal with these difficulties.
1.2, PROJECT PLANNING
Planning is the most important phase of project manage ment. Planning involves defining
objectives of the project, listing of tasks or jobs that must be performed, determining gross
require- ments for material, equipment and manpower and preparing estimates of costs
and durations for the various jobs or activities to bring about the satisfactory completion of
the project.
Planning is important because :
(i) It provides direction (ii) It provides unifying frame-work (iii) It helps to reveal future
opportunities and threats (iv) It provides performance standards.
In the planning phase, plan is made and strategies are set, taking into consideration the
company’s policies, procedures and rules.
Plan
It is a statement of intent, i.e., what is to be done. It is interpreted in terms of what has to be
done to resources to achieve the intent. The resources to be used may be: office staff,
tradesmen, labour, materials, plant and machinery, space and funds. Plans are detailed
methods, formulated before hand for doing or making © something. Plans simply list the
goals (target) and define the means
Strategies
Strategy is one important type of plan. It specifies the central concept or purpose of the
enterprise as well as the means by which it intend to carry that purpose.
Policies, procedures and rules
Policies, procedures and rules differ from each other in degree of specificity. Policies
usually set broad guide-lines for the enterprise. For example, it might be the policy of a
departmental store that if a customer is dissatisfied with any of its sale article, his/her
money will be refunded.
Procedure specify how to proceed in some situation. For example, ‘before refunding the
money of the customer, the salesman should carefully inspect the article to be returned and
then obtain approval from the manager for the refund’.
Arule is even more specific guide for action. For example, the departmental store may have
a rule that ‘under no conditions will the money be refunded to the customer if he/she
brings the defective article after 15 days of the purchase’.
Thus, plans should be finalised and strategies should be set only after taking into
considerations the company’s policies, proce- dures and rules.
Steps in project planning
Following eight steps are generally recognised in the plan-
ning process of a project :
1. DEFINE : the objectives of the project in definite words.

2. ESTABLISH : goals and stages intermediate to at- tain the final target.

3. DEVELOP : forecast and means of achieving

goals, i.e., activities.

4, EVALUATE : organization’s resources—finan- cial, managerial and operational— to
carry out activities and to determine what is feasible and what
is not.
5. DETERMINE . alternatives—individual courses of action that will allow to accomplish
goals.

6. TEST : for consistency with company’s

policy.
7. CHOOSE ‘an alternative which is not only con-
sistent with its goals and concept but also one that can be ac- complished with the
evaluated resources. :
8. DECIDE - ona plan.
During the planning phase, the information needed is about all those operations or
activities, which have to be carried out before the project is completed, their sequence and
their logical inter relationship.

Resources
In running a project, there is a basic need of resources. These resources can be classified as
under :
(i) Material resources (what) (including financial resources)
(iti) Equipment resources (how)
(ii) Space resources (where)
(iii) (iv) Effort or manpower resources (who)
(v) Time resources (when).
Resources are the starting point of many problems that have to be solved by the manager
in the planning phase, before proceeding for scheduling phase of the project.
1.3. SCHEDULING
Scheduling is the allocation of resources. These resources, in conceptual sense, are time
and energy, but in practical sense are time, space, equipment and effort applied to material.
More specifi- cally, scheduling is the mechanical process of formalising the
planned functions, assigning the starting and completion dates to each part (or activity) of
the work in such a manner that the whole work (or project) proceeds in a logical sequence
and in an orderly and systematic manner. In other words, scheduling is the laying out of the
actual activities of the project in time order in which they are to be performed, and
calculating the manpower and material requirements (or resources requirements, in
general) needed at each stage of production, along with the expected completion time of
each of the activity.
Steps in Project Scheduling Phase Scheduling is done in the following steps :
1. CALCULATE : detailed control information.

2. ASSIGN : timings to events and activities.

3. GIVE : consideration to the resources. The manager is generally concerned with those
resources hose

availability is limited and which thereby impose a constraint on the project. The important
ones are usually skilled, techrical and super- visory manpower and capital investment. /
4. ALLOCATE : the resources.
In traditional techniques, the term scheduling a project is some-what misleading because
actually some attempt at planning and scheduling are performed as one step.
1.4. CONTROLLING
As stated earlier, the planning and scheduling phases of a project are undertaken before the
actual project starts while the controlling phase is undertaken during the actual project
opera- tions. Controlling consists of reviewing the difference between the schedule and
actual performance once the project has begun. Project control is the formal mechanism
established to determine deviations _ from the basic plan, to determine the precise effect of
these deviations on the plan, and to replan and reschedule to compensate for the
deviations.
Steps in Control Process Controlling is accomplished in the following well recognised steps
:
1. ESTABLISH : standards or targets. These targets are generally expressed in terms of
time.

2. MEASURE : performance against the standards set down in the first step.
3. IDENTIFY : the deviations from the standards.

4. SUGGEST AND : correcting measures. This will in-

SELECT volve all the problems-identifying,

decision-making and organising and leadership skill of the decision- maker.
1.5. ROLE OF DECISION IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT
While planning, organising, staffing, leading, scheduling and controlling are the basic
functions of management, each of these clearly involve decisions—decision as to which
plan to implement, what goals to achieve, what ways to use, and so forth. The success or
failure of management is judged from the decisions it takes at various stages. A poor or
erroneous decision may lead to the failure of a project. Ifa poor decision is made and a
wrong road is choosen none but luckiest survive.
Steps in Decision-making Following are steps for a better decision-making :
1. IDENTIFY : the central problem.
2. DEVELOP : alternatives.
3. ANALYSE : the alternatives.
4. MAKE : final decision.

Introduction to Gantt chart

Gantt Chart is a visual aid used for scheduling. Its name is derived from Henry Gantt, who
developed it in the late 1800s. It is used to plan tasks.

• Bar charts are pictoral representations depicts the basic tasks of the project ie.
Activities in a “Bar” form, arranged in a time line in a sequence.
• Beginning and end of the Bar represents start and finish of the Activity. Hence,
length of the bar represents its duration.
Steps in Developing a Gantt Chart

• Breakdown - The project into well defined work units ie. Activities
• Decide – On the sequence those Activities to be performed
• Assign – Duration required for completion of each Activity
• Represent - the above information in the bar-chart against timeline

Merits & Demerits of a Bar Chart

Merits
• Easy to prepare
• Easily can be understood by everyone
• Enables Time management
Demerits
• Does not show the progress of the work, hence cant be used as a control tool.
• Does not gives the logical relationship between the activities
• Does not give the effect of delay in one activity in the entire project
Progress Chart

• Progress Chart helps to track the work progress at the time of execution. The actual
work progress is plotted against the original barchart to map the deviations.

Load Chart

Load chart helps to schedule the machineries meant for various activities. This captures
the times when the equipments are used, when they are idle, and when they are not usable
(under maintenance)