What is a Project?
PMBOK Guide (6th Ed) Part 1, Sec. 1.2.1.
‘A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique
product, service or result’
• Software Development
• Systems Engineering
• Aerospace, Defence
• Nuclear Engineering
• Civil Engineering,
Construction
• Demolition
• Media, Film, Advertising
• New Business Systems And
Processes
• Events
• Research And Development
• Company Restructuring
• Change Management
The project economy
Project as driver of change
Change is as relentless as it is pervasive.
Organizations that stick with the status quo risk not just
treading water, but sinking. Now an essential business
asset, change happens through projects. Organizations
are undergoing a fundamental paradigm shift in which
projects are primary to how work gets done and
problems get solved. In today’s C-suite— and
tomorrow’s—it is the portfolio that disrupts, that
innovates, that expands and thrives. In many ways, the
organization is its projects. Yet: managing change is one of
the most challenging aspects of
being PM!
PMI Pulse of the Profession Report 2020 Link
The Project lifecycle
Starting the
project
Organizing &
Preparing
Carrying out
the work
Ending
the
Project
PMBOK Guide (6th Ed) Part 2, Sec. 1.5 – 1.9
(Figure 1-5)
Initiation
Weeks 1-2 in this course
• Defining a new project or phase of a project
• Translate organisational strategy to project
deliverables
• Defining the project’s scope
• Developing the project objectives
• Identifying stakeholders
• Aligning scope with stakeholders expectations
• Appointing a PM
• Developing the Project Charter
• Authorizing the project
• Committing resources
PMBOK Guide (6th Ed) Part 2, Sec. 2.
Deciding what you are going to do, showing why this is
beneficial, and seeking authorization to get started
Planning
Weeks 2-6 in this course (most of the course)
• Carefully define the project’s objectives
• Solicit all requirements
• Gather information
• Formulate project scope
• Select project management methods
• Analyse uncertainly, risk and opportunity
• Analyse options and make decisions
• Make decisions about how to proceed
• Integrate and justify project plans
• Plan work, resources and communications
• Develop the Project Management Plan
PMBOK Guide (6th Ed) Part 2, Sec. 3.
Deciding how you are going to achieve the objectives
and designing the project that will do this for you.
Executing
(less important in this course)
• Directing project work
• Completing work
• Coordinating resources
• Managing stakeholders
• Integrating activities
• Conduct Procurements
• Manage and develop the team
PMBOK Guide (6th Ed) Part 2, Sec. 4.
Managing people and work, directly using up resources
to create the product.
Monitoring & Controlling
Weeks 7-8 in this course
• Evaluate progress
• Control change
• Report progress
• Analyse performance
• Validate scope
• Control schedule, cost quality
• Monitor risks
• Control procurements
• Monitor stakeholder engagement
PMBOK Guide (6th Ed) Part 2, Sec. 5.
Monitoring, Evaluating and correcting project
activities.
Closing
(week 9 in this course)
• Interpret success
• Identify lessons learned
• Manage and record project knowledge
• Measure stakeholder satisfaction
• Finalise costs
• Formally close out project activities
• Give recognition for achievements
PMBOK Guide (6th Ed) Part 1, Sec. 4.7.
Finalizing project activities, but also evaluating success
and celebrating achievements
What is the PMBOK Guide?
PMBOK Guide (6th Ed) Part 1, Sec. 1.1.
‘PMBOK’ stands for the ‘Project Management Body of Knowledge’.
The textbook for this course is the ‘Guide to the PMBOK’
‘This PMBOK Guide identifies a subset of the project management body of
knowledge that is generally recognized* as good practice**.’
*Applicable to most projects most of the time.
**General agreement that application of these methods can
enhance the chances of success.
PMBOK Vocabulary
• Methodology. A system of practices, techniques, procedures, and rules used by those who work
in a discipline
• Technique. A defined systematic procedure employed by a human resource to perform an
activity to produce a product or result or deliver a service, and that may employ one or
more tools.
• Tool. Something tangible, such as a template or software program, used in
performing an activity to produce a product or result.
PMBOK Guide (6th Ed) Part 1, Sec. 1.1
PMBOK Guide (6th Ed), Glossary. PMBOK Guide (6th Ed), Appendix X6 ‘Tools &
Techniques
Because there is often overlap in the meaning between a Tool and a Technique,
in this course, I have used ‘Methods’ to mean the same as ‘Tools & Techniques’
in The PMBOK Guide.
Example of a Technique
Earned Value Analysis (EVA) is a technique
for comparing the expected progress of a
project against the actual progress. Plotting
the Planned Value (PV) of project work
against time periods, and comparing this to a
plot of Actual Cost (AC) of project work over
the same time periods, allows identification of
variance against the plan.
As a Technique, EVA includes several Tools,
including charting, variance analysis and
forecasting, often implemented in a software
Tool like Microsoft Project.
PMBOK Guide (6th Ed), Sec. 7.4.2.2
Lukas, J. A. (2012). How to make earned value work on your project. Paper presented
at PMI® Global Congress 2012—North America, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.
Example of a Tool
Multicriteria Decision Analysis is a tool to assist decision-making. Criteria are prioritized and
weighted before being applied to all available alternatives to calculate a numerical score for each
one. The alternatives are then ranked by their score.
PMBOK Guide (6th Ed), Sec. 8.1.2.4
Ch. 6 “Chapter 6 Multi-criteria decision analysis” in “Multi-
criteria analysis: a manual” 2009 Department for
Communities and Local Government: London
Letting the preference score for option i on criterion j be represented
by sij and the weight for each criterion by wj , then n criteria the overall
score for each option, Si , is given by:
Example of a Methodology
You will come across many different project management Methodologies. Some larger
organisations document their own methodology and make standard procedures so it is applied to all
the projects conducted inside the organisation.
When I worked as an R&D engineer at Alstom A.G. (a large engineering company) we used a
methodology for all the corporate research projects and later on as a nuclear engineer at ANSTO (a
government agency) we had a methodology that had to be applied to all the nuclear engineering
projects.
It was very long and had most of The PMBOK Guide inside…
How about for GSOE9820? Let’s make our own methodology called Coursework Project Plan for
Postgraduate Engineers (C3PE) Methodology
PMBOK Guide (6th Ed), Part 1, Sec. 1.2.5
subsidiary plans
plan
Resource plan
C3PE Methodology
1.Stakeholders
1. Project
objectives
1.Requirement
s & constraints
2.Project
benefits
2.Scope
statement
3, 9. WBS
3, 9. Work
packages
4, 10.Duration
4, 10.Cost
5, 11. Network
diagram
6.Risk register
7.Risk
responses
8.Communicatio
n plan
PMBOK Guide (6th Ed) Part 2, Sec. 1.9 Table 1-1
subsidiary plans
plan
Resource plan
C3PE and PMBOK Knowledge Areas
Stakeholders
Project
Deliverables
Requirements
& constraints
Project
benefits
Scope
statement
WBS Work packages
Duration
Cost
Network
diagram
Risk register Risk responses
Communication
plan
PMBOK Guide (6th Ed) Part 2, Sec. 1.9 Table 1-1
Risk (Part 1, Sec 11)
Scope (Part 1, Sec. 5)
Schedule (Part 1, Sec. 6)
Cost (Part 1, Sec. 7)
Stakeholders
(Part 1, Sec. 13)
Communications
(Part 1, Sec. 10)
Resources
(Part 1, Sec.9)
The C3PE Methodology as a list
Project charter
Scope Statement
Stakeholder analysis
High level requirements
Constraints
Budget authorization
Scope
Deliverables
Scope statement
WBS
Work packages
Cost
Cost estimates
Resource estimates
Time
Duration estimates
Dependencies
Project schedule
Resource planning
Risk
Risk register
Contingency plans
Resource plan
Communication plan
Quality plan
Project Baseline
GO!!
Start Here
Keep Going
The need to iterate:
Contingency,
Quality, and Communi
cation plans must
all become part of
Scope, and therefore
cost and schedule
also.
Some other
methodologies
Biafore, B. “Course Project Management Foundations: Small Projects accessed
16/02/2021, LinkedIn Learning accessed through UNSW
Gaekwad, K. “Agile Methodologies: Scrum and Kanban” in course “DevOps Foundations:
Lean and Agile” accessed 16/02/2021, LinkedIn Learning accessed through UNSW
Agile Practice Guide, Annex A3. Overview of
Agile and Lean Frameworks
Course
overview T2
2021:
Topics Assignment hand-ins
Week 1 Intro/ Scope
Week 2 Project in organisations
Project Charter
Week 3 Design Thinking PMP Task 1 (WBS and
Scope)
Week 4 Scheduling
Risk management
Estimating and budget
Week 5 Agile
Week 6
Week 7 Project Controls PMP Task 2 (baselines)
Week 8 Project controls TBL exercise
Week 9 Project success and
interview preparation
PMP Task 3
(integration)
Interviews
Week 10 Revision Revision quiz, interviews
Project 1- UNSW Parking App
Students and staff are coming back to uni. However, difficulty
finding parking lots or not being aware of the parking cost
causes inconvenience for students and staff.
Plan a project that provides a parking system where users can
pay online, check for vacancies and costs based on the
different roles of the users, and register or buy a parking
permit online.
The project should demonstrate alignment with the UNSW
2025 Strategy, and offer significant improvement over current
system.
The scope of this project include stakeholder engagement
and feedback during this process, any further work required to
commission and operate it, and consideration of how to
facilitate its integration with other existing platforms.
Duration: 1 year
Budget: $250,000
Scope: optimize
Sponsor: Tong Ju
Project 2 – Sydney Trains IoT
Plan a project which provides a
solution to count occupancy on all
train platforms in Central Station
– Sydney, plus software
infrastructure to securely store
data and serve as an API
endpoint, and data visualisation
for users.
Duration: 3 year
Budget: $1,200,00
Scope: optimize
Sponsor: Dylan Sanusi-Goh
Project 3 – Blockchain Contact tracer
Plan university based project that will build a proof of concept
contact tracing solution that works on blockchain technology.
Pay particular attention to the stakeholder engagement and
communication strategy that is going to make sure your solution is
adopted for future travel bubbles between Australia and other
countries.
Budget: $300k
Duration: 6 months
Sponsor: Joel Braganza
UNSW Strategic priorities
• Academic Excellence
• Research quality
• Educational excellence
• Student experience
• Innovation ad Engagement
• Entrepreneurship
• Partnerships
• Knowledge exchange
• Social Impact
• Equity, diversity and inclusion
• Thought leadership
• Sustainable development
See the 2025 Strategy document
Project 4 – Craft Brewery
Plan a project to build a craft brewery in an existing building,
complying with environmental and licensing regulations.
Sponsor: Bipul Bhusal
Teamwork
• Set shared
goals.
• Make a plan
• Agree on tools
• Encourage
innovation
• Allow different
roles
• Picture success,
and include a
part for everyone
How we facilitate teamwork
Pick a project
Assignment Task 1 is individual
Meet your team week 2
Weekly check-in with your demonstrator, with planned
activities
Assignment Task 2 is group based, incorporating your
individual work
Stage assignment with opportunities to refine your work
Lot’s of peer review and feedback opportunities.
Learning outcomes
• Translate from organisational strategy into project deliverables
• Formulate project scope
• Select and apply project management methods
• Integrate and justify project plans
• Evaluate progress and interpret success in projects