Introduction To Project Management

PROMISE (PROject Management In Software Environments) is the process to be applied for all software projects within an organisation. Although the immediate use of PROMISE is software biased , it can very easily be adapted to other project areas, e.g. purchase of property for Headquarters, removals etc. It builds upon industry standard methodologies, but is adapted for individual organisation needs.

Why use a Project Management Methodology?

Quite simply to prevent projects from failure. Projects fail for a wide variety of reasons, but some common causes are:

 

Lack of communication with interested parties resulting in products being delivered which are not what the customer wanted

 

Lack of co-ordination of resources and activities

 

Poor estimation of

 

            schedule and 

 

            costs.

PROMISE does not assume that an exact estimate can be made at the beginning of a project, but that at every point of the project the best estimates can be made. The concept of stages means that an initial overall estimate will be refined as more data and experience is gathered.

 

Inadequate planning of

 

            Resources, 

 

            activities and, 

 

            Scheduling

Time spent planning is absolutely vital, and is not lost time. It is essential that the execution of a project is not instigated until the planning phase has been

 

Lack of control over progress so that projects do not reveal their exact status until too late

PROMISE Provides not only the structure, (or organisation) to ensure that correct reporting is performed, but also the mechanisms. The rule of the day is ‘report by exception’, but checkpoints are inbuilt to ensure that the project does not go too long without the necessary sanity checks.

 

Lack of quality control, resulting in the delivery of products that are unacceptable or unusable.

Quality is a fundamental building block of PROMISE, and the Organisation and processes needed are included.

 

PROMISE adopts the principles of good project management to avoid the problems identified above and so helps to achieve successful projects. These principles are:

 

A project is a finite process with a definite start and end

 

Projects always need to be managed in order to be successful

 

For genuine commitment to the project, all parties must be clear about

 

            why the project is needed,

 

            what it is intended to achieve,

 

            how the outcome is to be achieved, and

 

            what their responsibilities are in that achievement.