Project Management

Dennis Lock

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781351908474
• Edition: 10
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Dennis Lock's masterly exposition of the principles and practice of project management has been pre-eminent in its field for 45 years and was among the first books to treat project management as a holistic subject. But Project Management has been kept completely up to date by regular and sensitive revisions to ensure that it remains fresh and totally relevant. Project Management explains the entire project management process in great detail, demonstrating techniques from simple charts to detailed computer applications. Everything is reinforced with clear diagrams and case examples, many new for this edition. The author has expanded discussion of topics such as supply chain management and the project management office (PMO), and there are new chapters about implementing change management projects and the role of senior managers in supporting projects. Obsolescent or less frequently used methods have been stripped out, but readers of the hardback Tutor's Edition will find that this deleted material lives on as new chapters on the accompanying downloadable resources, which have been thoroughly revised. Importantly, that disc includes comprehensive Power Point presentations with hundreds of well designed slides that tutors can use directly as a valuable resource for their lectures. Students have always commented on this book's reader-friendly style, which is free of unnecessary jargon, with clear diagrams and a construction that is logically organized, well indexed and simple to navigate. This Tenth Edition is certain to maintain the book's acclaimed status as the standard work for managers and students alike.

1 Introduction to Project Management

The principal characteristic of a project is its novelty. It is often a step into the unknown, fraught with risk and uncertainty. No two projects are ever exactly alike: even a repeated project will differ from its predecessor in one or more commercial, administrative or physical aspects. Examples abound of projects that have exceeded their costs by enormous amounts, finishing late or even being abandoned before completion. Such failures are too common, in industry, commerce and (especially, it seems) the public sector.

Project management is the management discipline that plans, organizes and controls people, money and cash so that projects are completed successfully in spite of all the risks. This process begins before any resource is committed, and must continue until work is finished. The aim of the project manager is for the outcome to satisfy the project investor and all the other stakeholders. That means finishing the project on time, within budget and delighting everyone.

A Brief History of Project Management

Clearly, man-made projects are not new. Monuments surviving from the earliest civilizations testify to the incredible achievements of our forebears and still evoke our wonder and admiration. Modern projects, for all their technological sophistication, are not always greater in scale than some of those early mammoth works. But advances in technology, economic pressures of the industrialized world, competition between rival organizations, and greater respect for the value, well-being and hence the employment costs of working people have all fed the demand for new project management ideas and techniques.

Figure 1.1 is a cursory romp through the history of project management. It makes sweeping generalizations and the dates are approximate, but the story is interesting and an appropriate introduction to the fascinating subject of project management. Those with the time available to study a more authoritative account of project management history should read Morris (1994).

PROJECTS FROM PREHISTORY TO VICTOREN TIMES

Projects from ancient times have left impressive legacies on our architectural and industrial culture. We wonder how some of those early masters managed without the technology that is readily available today. However, with the exception of a few notable philanthropic employers, concern for the welfare and safety of workers was generally lacking and many early project workers actually lost their lives through injuries, disease and sheer physical exhaustion. People were often regarded as a cheap and expendable resource.

Figure 1.1 A whistle-stop journey through project management history

Formal management organization structures have existed from early times, but these flourished in military, church and civil administrations rather than in industry. Industrial organization came much later. I have an organization chart showing a Chinese bridge building team that is reputed to date back to the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) but that was an army team.

Projects before 1900 were generally managed by the creative architects and engineers themselves. Many of us are familiar with stories of the giants who flourished in the latter part of this historical period; people such as Sir Christopher Wren (1632–1723), Thomas Telford (1757–1834) and Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–1859). You can read about Brunel in Vaughan (1991). There was no separately recognized profession of project management until comparatively recently. Common sense, determination, hard work (sometimes at the cost of neglecting personal health) usually got the job done. The time had not yet come for the industrial engineers and behavioural scientists who would eventually study working practices, organization theory and people at work.

1900 TO 1949

Rapid industrialization and the demands of munitions production in World War 1 saw the emergence of management scientists and industrial engineers such as Elton Mayo and Frederick Winslow Taylor, who studied people and productivity in factories (Kanigel, 1997). Henry Ford made production line manufacture famous with his Model T automobile and, specially important for project managers, Henry Gantt (1861–1919), who worked for Taylor, developed his now-famous charts which are still popular and used universally today. Most of those people worked in the US.

Crude critical path networks were developed before 1950, although their value was not widely appreciated at the time. Without the existence of computers, they were inflexible to change, tedious to translate into working schedules and thus impracticable and difficult to use. Henry Gantt’s bar charts were generally preferred, often set up on proprietary wall board charts that allowed rescheduling using movable magnetic or plugin strips or cards. Everything from the allocation of work to people and machines to holiday schedules was controlled by charts, usually prominently displayed on office walls.

1950 TO 1969

Critical path networks were exploited during this period and the emergence of mainframe digital computers made their processing and updating faster and easier. The American ‘defense’ industry and Du Pont were among the organizations quick to develop and exploit this powerful planning and scheduling tool in the 1950s. Other manufacturing and construction industries also recognized the benefits of these new methods.

Computers were extremely expensive and most required their own dedicated air-conditioned clean rooms. Their capital and operating costs were beyond the budgets of all but the biggest organizations, so small firms bought computing time from bureaux, where data (including project schedules) were processed in batch mode. These bureau facilities were provided both by computer manufacturers and by large companies whose own computers had free time. It was at this time that I cut my project management teeth. I have fond memories of being able to produce multi-project schedules very successfully, although processing times were measured in days rather than in today’s nanoseconds.

Project management became a recognized job description, if not yet a respected profession. Companies were showing more genuine concern for the welfare of people at work, although discrimination because of race, sex and age was still far too common.

1970 to 1979

This period saw rapid growth in information technology, or ‘IT’ (as it soon became known). Industrial project management continued as before, but with more project management software available and wider recognition of the role. However, the spread of IT brought another, different kind of project manager on the scene. These were the IT project managers: people who had no project planning or scheduling experience and no interest or desire to learn those methods. They possessed instead the technical and mental skills needed to lead teams developing IT projects. These IT project managers were usually senior systems analysts, and one of their characteristics was their scarcity. High demand for their services led them to make frequent career jumps, moving rapidly up a generous salary scale.

Development of the professional project management associations grew during this period, which also saw the development of legislation to protect workers’ health and safety. Other new laws were intended to discourage unfair discrimination of people because of their race, religious beliefs or sex.

Although project management software became more widely available, processing continued to be carried out on expensive mainframe computers in batch mode. Graphics were primitive. Data input still involved copying data from network diagrams on to handwritten coding sheets from which cards had to be punched and verified and sorted. Some software needed two punched cards for every network activity. These punched cards, filed in long cardboard boxes, had to be taken to trained computer operators, who worked in clean air-conditioned rooms where entry was usually forbidden to people like us. On one occasion a box of cards was dropped in a London taxicab, and they all had to be retrieved and resorted.

The first processing results always seemed to produce a large pile of printouts listing a crop of errors that needed considerable detective work before the mistakes could be identified and corrected.

The output reports in those early computing days came from line printers. A typical machine printed 132 columns of alphanumeric characters at 600 lines per minute. The paper was sprocket fed from fan-folded stacks. Consequently graphics such as bar charts were crude. Yet the process was stimulating, exciting and fun. We had our mishaps, but we got our schedules, managed our projects and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves in the process.

1980 TO 1989

During this decade project managers became far less dependent upon IT experts. They now had their own desktop computers that could run most project management software. Graphics were greatly improved, with printers available locally in the office that could produce complex and coloured charts.

However, productivity did not match this growth in technology as quickly as one might have expected because managers became more interested in the technology itself than in the work that it was intended to manage. People were frequently seen grouped round each other’s screens asking questions such as ‘What happens if you do this?’ and ‘Have you tried that?’ or ‘Why has it crashed and lost all my data?’ In other words, project managers were learning to become ‘computer literate’ and be far less dependent on IT experts.

Software that could run activity-on-arrow networks became almost obsolete. All planners have since had to use activity-on-node (precedence) networks in their computers and adapt to the relatively small areas of network visible on the small screen. For that reason I have removed most discussion of activity-on-arrow networks from this text, but those who are still interested can find the deleted material on the CD-ROM included with the hardback tutor’s edition of this book.

Data processing times were cut dramatically, so that schedules could be up and running much faster for new projects. Schedules could now be updated almost immediately from the planner’s own keyboard to cope with progress information and project changes. The use of external computer bureaux fell away.

1990 TO THE PRESENT DAY

All software suppliers eventually recognized the need to make their products compatible with Microsoft Windows. Microsoft themselves introduced Microsoft Project into their Office suite of programs. Some irritating faults in very early versions of Microsoft Project were eliminated in later versions, and the program is now by far the most widely used, especially among students who appreciate its user-friendly features (www.microsoft.com/office/project). However, many professional project managers (myself included) continue to prefer programs at the ‘high end’ of the software market because of their greater versatility and adaptability for particular projects and organizations.

People pay more attention now to predicting risk events so that contingencies and risk mitigation strategies can be planned.

Of immense importance is the power of communication made possible by satellites and the Internet, effectively shrinking our world and making it possible to transmit speech, reports, drawings, schedules and other documents almost instantaneously from almost anywhere to almost anywhere. That’s very different from the days before communications satellites, when I worked in the mining industry. Then a small party of prospectors would journey into a wilderness with donkey carts or rugged vehicles loaded with provisions and equipment, not to be heard of again for months until they returned with their results and samples.

Project management is no longer considered as two separate branches (one for industrial projects and another for IT projects). There is wide and welcome acceptance that project management can enhance planned company changes to achieve the expected benefits.

Many good books dealing comprehensively with all aspects of project management (except purchasing and resource scheduling) are now available in most languages, and there is no shortage of training courses. Well-regarded professional qualifications awarded by universities, management schools and the professional organizations can be won by those who follow the appropriate training and are able to demonstrate competence.

With this wealth of knowledge and experience we might ask why so many modern projects fail so dramatically. Eurotunnel, for example, operated for years with an unmanageable debt burden exceeding £6.5 billion. The new Wembley Stadium pr...