Project Life Cycle

Simpler ideas suggest only a smaller number of vague phases, such as

Initiation
Planning
Execution
Closure

Whereas more complex one (Such as 9/10 phases from notes) and other include
more phases.
Unique nature of projects means that a strict structure is not definable as there
will always be differences. Anderson 2002 - life cycle models favour
optimisation over adaptability.
For repetitive or ongoing operations such a strict cycle is not applicable and can
be seen more as a spiral, whereby iterations of production or development feed
info, data and learning (or maybe a prototype) into the next iteration of the
cycle, where the product is improved until eventually it is released. - particularly
relevant in software or technology. However, research (Cooper, 1993) shows that
even construction projects iterate by 1.5 to 2.5 cycles before completion.

Important to have project life cycle model suited to product sector.

3From Management Briefs Collison:

Since Adam Smiths Wealth of Nations in 1776 first documented the division of
labour in a pin-making factory, it has been commonly accepted that a team of
people each working on a specific task (a sub-division of the greater project) can
achieve greater than what could be achieved by one member alone. They are
greater than the sum of their parts. It is also clear that without leadership this
process will not be efficient. Smith goes on to cite this as the basis of project
management - leading a team of people towards a well defined goal, to do so
effectively (in terms of time, cost and quality). The lost on the moon activity is
also a good example, in which the performance of the group exceeds that of an
individual.
Smith noticed a huge increase in productivity of the team compared to each
member working alone, due to the division of labour into a small number of
specific tasks per member. When physical tasks are completed repeatedly, the
body learns to perform the motions with minimal concentration or effort. This is
concurrent with organisation, rationalisation and commodification in Lefebvres
space theory in Production of Space, 1991, whereby acts are learnt through the
organisation of space in ones mind, rationalisation to simplify a task in relation
to the space in which it is performed, leading to commodification, when the act
no longer requires concentration or effort, as noticed by Smith in the pin workers.
This is the concept of Learning from Experience and plays a role in engineering
project management, particularly relating to the work of the on-site contractor
and tradesmen during construction and physical takss, but also in relation to
adapting the way projects are managed, based on past experience or
information, in order to improve efficiency.
However beneficial learning from experience is to a project or a company, the
issue of motivation crops up again. Repeating the same task can become
monotonous and hence decreased motivation can lead to detriment to quality,
and hence additional costs. There needs to be a balance between LFE and the
improvements it can bring to schedule, with the negative effect that repetitive
tasks can have. In the 1920s and 30s the importance of human needs and
making workers feel valued was recognised in the Hawthorne Tests. Allowing
workers slightly longer breaks, chance to socialise and input into management
decisions increased productivity in all tests. This was not predicted at the time,
as it is essentially like switching off the machine for part of the time, but getting
more out at the end. The value of people was recognised. A similar story arose
on Henry Fords production lines. Those who forget history are doomed to
repeat it.
Just as effective management can maximise LFE for the benefit of the project.
LFE can positively affect management styles in return. Hersey and Blanchards
situational leadership model splits a team into leaders and followers. As followers
mature, i.e. as they learn from experience and become more efficient, the
leadership style can develop from telling or selling (high levels of supervision) to
participative or delegative (collaborative).
Managers and Team Roles
Managers are planners and organizers, who foresee difficulties and risk that
might prevent the team from achieving its objectives, and either avoid this or
develop contingency plans to keep the project on track.

Effective Captains lead effective ships they prepare, they manage and they get
the job done.
A manager has position power, whereas someone who holds personal power
alone is only an informal leader (Amitai Etzioni). Edwin Hollanders theory of
idiosyncracy credits describes the accumulation of influence credits by a leader
through demonstrated competence, making followers more amiable to follow. It
is important that if performance drops a leader can react (leader-member
exchange LMX).
LEADERSHIP STYLES
Bruce Tuckman and Mary Ann Jenses defined the formative stages of a group or
team as:

Forming - group comes together, objectives define

Storming - chaotic stage - interpersonal conflict, lack of structure
Norming - rigid structure and rules, roles defined
Performing - rules relaxed = good work

Groupthink - tendency to not want to break the paradigm. The Abeline Paradox a family all got into their unairconditioned car and drove the 106 mile round trip
to Abeline for a fairly unsatisfactory Sunday dinner, because they all though the
others wanted to go. Turns out noone wanted to. Groupthink must be recognised
and managed by managers to get the best from a team.

Autocratic - leader makes all decisions and their view has more weight than
everyone elses.
Democratic - leader poses the problem, everyone has input but manager makes
decision.
Participative - everyone is weighted equal, leader just gets the best out of
people.
Kenneth Blanshard - the key to successful leadership is influence not authority.

Apply leadership type to the situation - there is no best type (eg autocratic in a
crisis, or with untrained or unskilled employees, participative for greater
creativity and trusted/experienced employees)
Machiavellianism - in a pamphlet written for the medici family on how to gain
and hold power, he suggests that the ends justify the means and that although
it is desirable to be noble and honest etc. sometimes ruthlessness and
deviousness are required to achieve success. He suggested that even though a
leader must play this roles sometimes, it is important that followers still perceive
them as honest and noble and so forth. Centuries earlier, Plato disagreed, writing
in The Republic that in order for the world to be put right, the leaders and the
nice guys must become one.

MOTIVATION
David McLellands Learned Needs Theory - when presented the task of throwing
a ball into a box, those with a higher need for achievement will carry out the task
in a more challenging way, but also have a high chance of success. This also
relates to the need for power, whereby those with a need to control other people
will tend towards management roles. Power needs can be personalised (own
gratification) or socialised, and socialised is preferable for leaders. Learned
needs come from learning as children.
Intrinsic or extrinsic - i.e. personal or imposed motivation
Manager needs to understand what motivates people in order to get the most
out of them.
Maslows Hierarchy of Needs - physiological, security, social, esteem, self
actualization
Herzbergs Two Factor Theory - hygiene and satisfaction factors, cant have
motivation is hygiene factors not in place, satisfiers are cumulative (see
hierarchy of needs)
Victor Vroom 1964 Expectation theory - will performance be rewarded and is this
adequate? LINKS TO:
Steven Kerrs 1975 Effective Rewards System - on the folly of rewarding A, when
hoping for B.
AND TO: Equity theory - internal and external (does reward line up with
performance, does reward line up with other people?)

MacGregors X and Y theory, whereby if you subscribe to one theory of leadership

(people will work if they want/people need to be controlled), it is a self fulfilling
prophecy that the other will come true.
Project Management
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PROJECT SUCCESS (project objectives) AND PM SUCCESS
(how well the PM has achieved the projects goals). Cannot define an overarching
set of success factors for all projects. But can we define success criteria against
which project management should be judged? And can we define success factors
which will lead to successful projects or PM (corporate success)?
Definitions of PM include
Any human activity that achieves a clear objective against a time scale - Reiss

The planning, organisation, monitoring and control of all aspects of a project and
the motivation of all involved to achieve the project objectives safely and within
agreed time, cost and performance criteria. The project manager is the single
point of responsibility for achieving this. -UK Association of Project Management
Planning, monitoring and control of activities intended to achieve clearly defined
objectives on time, at the right cost and required quality. - me
While the distinguishing feature of many professions is a strong foundation in a
well established body of theory, distinguishing them from crafts, a report by
Kloppenborg and Opfer (2000) on 40 years of research into project management
included no mention of theory at all. Does this mean theory is not important in
PM, or that there is no PM theory? There is now the Proj Man Body of Knowledge
(PMBOK), to try to put this anomaly right, but it is still pretty lean.
Feedback loop:

project and PM hard to define for every project due to uniqueness

therefore lack of single well defined theory
therefore lack of clarity across the board
therefore poor efficiency
Therefore hard to establish status as a profession in the same sense as
law, engineering, medicine etc.
Therefore less work on theories

Oilsen suggested time, cost and quality over 50 years ago as THE project
management success criteria.
However, in terms of success criteria, there has been little deviation from the
iron triangle of project management - cost, time, quality, linked with success of
projects. This is not surprising as Cost and Time have grown to become part of
the very definition of project management itself. Quality, however, is a
phenomenon that is emergent from the conditions of the project.
Why only the iron triangle as the accepted success criteria? The suggestion is
that these factors limit the success of projects, especially given that you can
only have 2.
Do new success criteria need to be defined as an alternative to the iron triangle?
But who decides these; top management, client, project manager or team
workers?
One such proposal is the square root method of understanding PM success. This
includes the iron triangle (or golden triangle) alongside three new categories;
Information
(quality
and
future
use),
organisational
benefits
and
stakeholder/client benefits.
Omission vs. Commission. Type 1 and type 2 errors. Type 1=getting something
wrong, type 2 = not doing something as well as it could be done. Error by
commission vs error by omission. This links to LFE, where a project or task within
a project may be completed wrongly (or not to the correct spec/quality) in which
case money is directly lost, or may be to spec but not done in the optimum
manner, whereby the project indirectly loses money.

So are omissions of such criteria and example of type 2 errors? They certainly
could be - if a project loses money due to delays in schedule, but is delivered to
the right quality and the finished product is satisfactory to the client, then what
value is placed on the clients long term happiness with the product? And how is
this weighed against the contractors losses due to delivering the quality but
taking longer to do so?
Meyer suggests that measurement of levels of performance is essential and that
a success criteria for any multifunctional team working on a project should be to
achieve a certain level of performance. Thereby, time and costs become
secondary criteria, which are intrinsically achieved by project success. And
furthermore, what about post-implementation criteria such as successful
performance of the completed product, impact of the product on future projects
(LFE), user satisfaction or wider organisation or discipline impact? Such criteria
as not as close-minded as did we lose money?, were we on time? or is it
good enough? but are also much harder to quantify, measure and control. There
is also the issue that these occure post-implementation and are therefore not
useful as measurements of project success within the timeframe of payments.
Turners definition of a project - the conversion of vision into reality - while, more
vague than some, does not include and is not limited by inclusion of the iron
triangle of success criteria within its definition. (adapted from Roger Atkinson,
journal of project man. 1999)
Prof Harold Jones suggested that the stories we read or children affect the nation
in years to come, basing a lot of his research on Learned Needs Theory. The
little engine that could, a children book by Watty Piper, teaches children the
benefits of optimisation and achieving big goals.
Project:
The art and science of converting vision into reality. - Turner
A project is unique. Is continuous change a factor in the success of businesses?
Yes. So no project can ever be identical to one before it.
Other definitions include mention of the project manager himself, motivation of
those involved and other aspects.
Uniqueness - By human nature, human activity is inherently situated - it is a
response to a situation. Therefore, as every project is unique, the processes by
which it is delivered will be unique. Therefore, is it valid to try to fit a theory to
such a fluid concept as a project?
Commencement of a project is when a need or demand is identified or defined
for the solution to a problem. This links to the definition of Engineering itself;
scientific or technological approach to solving problems
An engineer very hazily skilfully arranges for something to occur.
The difference between these definitions and that of itself as the realisation of a
vision almost suggest that all engineers are to extent project managers, as they
are all involved in the realisation of a vision to solve problems.
A SOLUTION

As seen, we cannot define an overarching set of project success criteria that

apply to all projects due to their intrinsic uniquieness.
We can provide guidelines on project management success against the Golden
Triangle and other criteria.
We can learn from experience - information and data feed back to inform future
project management success. Companies may use Performance criteria
(school=grades, manufacture=production rates etc). So why not use for PM over
long period of time. Measure project success by the criteria used on individual
projects, see what works, let this inform in the future. The solution may not be
one overarching set of project success criteria but maybe divided by type of
project?
TURNS OUT YES WE CAN - Project Evaluation Scheme PEVS

70 statements, scored from 1-6 against fulfilment in various categories

Do this for diff stages of project development
Good idea of what factors have lead to success
= step towards success criteria of the future - DATABASE

Corporate Context (repeated project and PM success)

Systems Theory
Systems Theory - view projects as a system, in which failure to complete one
part can have an effect on another. In the 1950s Kenneth Boulding categorised
systems in order of complexity:

Framework
Clockwork
Control
Cell...
Human
Social (teams or groups)

He identified that social groups or teams are one of the most complicated types
of system.
The 12 Real PM success factors, Terry Crooke-Davis, 2002

Adequacy of risk management education

Maturity of risk allocation processes
Visibility of risk register
Risk man plan
Documented organisational responsibilities
Keep project <3 years (TIME)
Mature scope change process
Maintain performance baseline (quality, thermostatic)
Business benefits approach (the long run)
Source projects that match businesss PM abilities
Info and data feedback
LFE

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11

Estimating - Cost Change

Uncertainty = threats + opportunities

Cashflow - annotate this to show key points (cashflow neg/pos etc)

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Risk Management

Identification
Analysis
Response
Control

Identification - sources/types of risk, foresee rather than react preferably

Analysis - Quantification (against targets) and consideration (value), matrix
severity v likelihood
Response - avoid (dont enter contract), transfer (insurance), share
(subs/specialists, contractual terms), retain (acceptable risk).
Control - see CONTROL below

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MONITORING
Projects are the process of bringing about something new. They are unique.
Therefore project managing is about managing change. Need to measure
progress. MEASURE WHAT MATTERS.
1 - Milestone Monitoring

Milestones set and fixed at design stage

Measurements made of time and cost to completion of these milestones
Milestone either achieved or not achieved
Therefore progress is either behind or ahead or schedule and on or off
budget at each milestone.
Simple to implement as lines up with WBS
Not so suitable for ongoing processes such as IT project where definition of
milestones more difficult

2 -Earned Value Analysis (EVA)

US department of defence - progress.

On schedule or budget?
Prediction of likely end cost and duration
Measurements at any point, not just on milestones

MP=measurement point
Budgeted Cost of Work Performed BCWP - for work complete at MP, what was
planned cost?
Budgeted cost of work scheduled BCWS - planned cost of work that should be
complete at MP.
Actual cost of work performed ACWP - actual cost of what has been done up to
MP
Budget at Completion BAC (if MP is end date, BCWS=BAC)
Percentage Complete at measurement point PC - different to Milestone
monitoring, not yes or no
Proportion scheduled to measurement point PS

BCWP = PC x total budget

BCWS = PS x total budget
Schedule Variance SV = BCWP-BCWS (effectively PC-PS, positive=ahead
of schedule)
Cost Variance CV = BCWP-ACWP (note positive = below budget)
Schedule Performance Index SPI = BCWP/BCWS (PC/PS, <1=ahead)
[unitless]
Cost Performance Index CPI = BCWP/ACWP (note <1=overbudget)
[unitless]

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Duration at completion DAC = Original Schedule/SPI [obvious]

Estimate at Completion EAC=
1. BAC/CPI - assumes cost of performance up to MP will continue
2. ACWP + (BAC-BCWP) - cost so far + original estimate minus what has
already been done
3. ACWP+new estimate - if original cost plan was defective
[NOTE both milestone and thermostatic monitoring are measurements of
completion relating to time and cost. But need to ensure the definition of
complete - does this mean complete to the right quality? Could be complete
but wrong or defective.]
CONTROL
Control refers to control of change within a project.
Thermostatic Control Method (Design Freeze)
Hofstede 1978 - Thermostatic model of control OR Feedback Control (Oggunaike
and Ray, 1990s)

Performance baseline set out

Measurements of output compared against baseline
Variance of measured value against baseline used to bring project back on
track

Disadvantages:
-

Resources already employed are used to bring project back to a

predefined standard
No measure of why things went wrong, and no implicit LFE.
Control is to bring back to a baseline that is fixed before the project even
begins, rather than one relating to the current status of the project.

Alternative - Hypothesis Testing Method

Utilised on Toyota production lines. Consider every activity/package of work as a
scientific experiment.

Formulate a hypothesis (specification)

Carry out the experiment (production/construction)
Test the hypothesis (inspection/monitoring)

This allows the method of improvement to be adapted based on the nature of

any problems, rather than simply bringing a project back to a baseline standard.
Again, perhaps more applicable to an ongoing process than a linear construction
project. However, research (Cooper, 1993) shows that even construction projects
iterate by 1.5 to 2.5 cycles before completion.

Control related to the current status

Ensures changes are beneficial
Changes are made as and when they occur

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Reasons for changes are identified

Change Management
Generally good idea to have plans and guidance of what to do when change
occurs, as change will undoubtedly occur - Change management plan.
Managing change not just physically reacting to on site stuff - also getting the
right info to the right people at the right time. Keeping stakeholders on side (they
dont want to be surprised!).
Types of change:

Scope creep -incremental divergence from original plan

Additional work
Schedule improvements to avoid risk
Personnel changes (Holyrood Donald Dewer died, PM resigned)
Mandatory - third party statutory stuff

Change Management

Identify (predict if possible, if not react)

What are the effects?
What can be done - response?
What is the effect of the response?
Communicate info to the right people

Project Scope Management:

Identify or foresee changes and turn them to a benefit, ie adopt the scope
change
Again, key is making sure right people are informed

$26m oops - Example of poor change management

Raleigh North Carolina sports arena - many delays, blamed on various things.
Then the project requested 26m extra from the council.
The lawyer said the cost adapting a round basketball stadium to accommodate
ice hockey means everything changes.
The addition of extra seating added too much load for foundations. - oops.
Political committee of part-timers (similar to Holyrood) had difficulty managing
disputes (trams).
Massive miscalculation of redesign cost - rough guesses. Taxpayer money.
(Holyrood).
$72000 claim for idle machinery (resource levelling).
Design changes to accommodate hockey too. Construction started before design
changes fully understood and additional loading on foundations not known.
Constructed to a stage where change caused extreme cost increase.

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Work started July, preliminary drawings of changes not on site until September.
Tender evaluation
Ruskin quote etc

17

Contract Documents:

Contract types

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EMOTIONAL INTELIGENCE

Negative effects of poor emotional state on performance and ability to achieve

goals.
High levels of EI are good for managers to get most out of people.

The ability to perceive, interpret, use and manage emotions.

Cognitive and non-cognitive intelligence.
Howard Gardner 1983:
Intrapersonal - self awareness
Interpersonal - recognise others emotions

Links to Herzberg two factor theory, Maslows hierarchy of needs and Vrooms
expectation theory.
Emotions have a physical basis in the brain.

=irrational thoughts = potentially not efficient.

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Emotional and cognitive intelligence are physically linked in the brain,

so EI must be taken into account in successful PM.

High levels of EI lead to:

Compare to traits of a successful team - exactly the same!!!

ALSO build relationships, help others and self develop, improve work
processes etc...

This suggests that before the Hierarchy of Needs or expectation theory,

we first need EI in order to derive our motivational requirements of
these models.
Also self awareness, impartiality etc link into monitoring and control, dispute
reolution and contract management.
Accept feedback and learn from it rather than biting back = less disputes.

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