SERVICES : Project management

Project management

Should focus on organizing and managing appropriate resources to ensure the required objectives are achieved within the defined scope, quality, time, cost and risk management constraints. Many traditional approaches to Project Management target just “scope, time & cost” - however we extend this to also emphasise the importance of the quality produced and the risks managed.

The five key project constraints

We view the primary challenge of project management as ensuring delivery within five key constraints. 'Scope' covers what must be done. 'Quality' refers to the effectiveness/strength of what is delivered. 'Time' is naturally the amount available/allocated for completion. 'Cost' is the budgeted amount available. 'Risk management' refers to what must/can be done to avoid adverse consequences for the project.

These constraints are often competing with one another:

increased scope typically means increased time, risk management, cost and can reduce quality.
a tight time constraint could mean increased costs and risk management whilst reducing the scope and quality.
a reduced budget whilst lowering costs could also lower the scope and quality, whilst increasing time and risk management. Etc

We can deliver using a range of adaptable, flexible and proven working methods - these may be Agile in nature or more structured. In the absence of an organisation having their own preferred method we adopt a pragmatic, “best-fit”, approach to delivering the project. We accommodate our clients' strengths and complement their weaknesses with our knowledge and experience.

As each project is a temporary and one-time endeavour undertaken to meet a requirement or set of requirements its management is different from managing every-day organisational business. This property of being a temporary and a one-time undertaking contrasts with business processes, or operations, which are more permanent or ongoing functional work to continually meet a demand over-and-over again. The management of these two areas is very different and often requires a different skill-set - hence the development of project management as a discipline. Overall, it's about providing the tools, environment and techniques that enable the project team to organize their work to meet the five constraints.

In order to properly control a project or program a good project manager has to have a depth of knowledge and experience in these five key areas (time, cost, scope, quality and risk management). In addition there are a number of on-going supporting skills/strengths that he/she will possess - such as: resource management, issue management, communication, documentation and procurement.

We can use our experience and knowledge to assist you in:

planning/devising a new project to meet a new requirement
confirming/managing an agreed project that needs doing
auditing or reviewing an existing project which is in trouble or, from which, lessons need to be learned
coaching, mentoring or training your staff to do achieve the same