项目管理的新发展

Traditional Project Management
　　People have been undertaking projects for a long time. Evidence of their ability to carry out major projects is found throughout the world in places like China, Egypt and Rome. In China one example of a major project is the Great Wall, the principal parts of which were built in the third century BC. The Egyptians build the Pyramids in about 2,500 BC, while the Romans carried out their dramatic engineering feats more than two thousand years ago.
　　While humans have been undertaking projects for many years, they have only engaged in project management since the time of World War II. The most famous project of this time was the American Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb. This project was so complex and urgent that the US military had to develop a conscious approach to managing schedules, the allocation of resources, and budgets.
　　The Americans were not alone in inventing the foundations of project management. In Germany, for example, management techniques were developed to implement major weapons development efforts, such as the building of rockets, while in Japan project management methods arose to build large capital ships. Project management and an explicit discipline was, then, a child of the Second World War.
　　After the war, the defense sector continued to play a leading role in project management with the onset of the Cold War. During this time, the US Navy developed the most famous technique of project management - PERT, or Program Evaluation and Review Technique - to schedule the Polaris Missile submarine program. A little later, the US Department of Defense created other basic methodologies such as Work Breakdown Structures (WBSs) and the earned value method to deal with the complexities of building large and complex weapons systems.
　　During the 1950s, the construction sector also played a leading role in promoting project management. So from the 1950s through the 1980s, project management was seen to lie in the domain of the military and construction sectors. During this time, the project manager's job was seen to be straight forward - to implement solutions developed by other people (e.g., designers, engineers, architects). Project managers were like dependable soldiers, and held the following view: "Give me my orders, and I will march to them."
　　During this time, the key competencies of project management focused on the following four areas:
　· Scope management - a focus on "big picture" issues of concern to the project overall 　　(e.g., managing changing requirements, creating the WBS)
　· Time management - a focus on scheduling project efforts with techniques such as Gantt 　　charts, PERT/CPM networks, and earned value techniques
　· Cost management - a focus on a wide range of cost-related issues, including cost 　　estimating, accounting, capital budgeting techniques, and standard budgeting
　· Human resource management - a focus on the human aspect of managing projects, 　　dealing with topics such as personnel policy, conflict management, motivation, and 　　managing in the matrix environment.

The New Project Management
　　In the 1980s, interest in project management spread to other industries, including telecommunications, computer, software, pharmaceuticals, finance, investment banking, and energy. Companies such as AT&T, NCR, IBM, Motorola, Phillip Morris, Citibank, Morgan Stanley, and Federal Express began consciously investing time, money and training to develop project management capabilities.
　　In this new environment, project managers were seen to be more than mere implementers. They were expected to act as business people and to have the wide range of capabilities that enabled them to run a business. The project management competencies they were required to master were broadened to include five additional sets of capabilities:
　· Risk management - recognition that all projects face risk and that effective project 　　management requires mastering the risk management process (which includes risk 　　identification, risk quantification, risk response planning, and risk response control)
　· Quality management - a focus on carrying out projects in ways that lead to maximum 　　customer satisfaction
　· Procurement management - understanding and employing procurement and contracting 　　skills (e.g., negotiation, understanding risk implications of different contract structures, 　　resolving disputes, monitoring contractor behavior)
　· Communication management - recognizing the central role of communication in carrying 　　out projects and developing the skills needed to communicate more effectively with 　　management, employees, and customers
　· Integration management - recognizing that mastery of the individual competencies will not 　　be helpful if project managers can integrate them and make them work together
　　The new project management thus incorporates a broader range of competencies than traditional management, and a review of the added competencies shows that today's project manager must be an effective business person. The total of nine competencies covered here represent the knowledge-based competencies captured by the world's standard of project management practice, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK).

Some Driving Forces Leading to Changes in Perspectives on Project Management
　　The new project management has emerged as a response to a number of forces facing organizations in the 1980s and 1990s. Included here are:
　 · Increases in competitive pressure - Today's business environment is brutally competitive. 　　To survive, organizations and individuals must produce solutions to business problems 　　faster, cheaper, better. Traditional "silo" organizations are not nimble. They are 　　bureaucratic and unable to respond to customer demands quickly. Traditional approaches 　　to project management are also not effective because they tend to focus on only 　　technical issues and ignore business realities.
　· Increases in the complexity of business and products - A dramatic trait of today's world is 　　that complexity is increasing at a rapid rate. This means that work should be carried out by 　　means of cross-functional teams that have the range of knowledge and skills needed to 　　handle the complexity they encounter on their projects. Project management employs 　　precisely this type of approach to conducting work efforts. Historically, projects have been 　　carried out by means of cross-functional teams.
　· Globalization of business - As business becomes globalized, the traditional functional 　　organization structure appears inadequate to deal with the new challenges that emerge. 　　Even traditional project management is not up to the task. For example, workers in a global 　　company may find that their headquarters is in Paris, their marketing department in 　　Atlanta, their design shop in San Diego, and their manufacturing facilities in Singapore. In 　　such an organization, work must often be carried out through virtual project teams that 　　communicate through teleconferences, videoconferences, e-mail, and the Internet.
　· Rapid change and shortened product life-cycles - The reality of rapid change means that 　　organizations must be lean (i.e., non-bureaucratic) and flexible. The new project 　　management enables them to be this way.

The Reality of Project Failure
　　The move away from traditional management was accelerated in the 1990s as it became apparent that people and organizations were not doing a very good job in carrying out projects using traditional ways. This reality was brought to the fore with the publication of a research study by the Standish Group in 1994. The study examined more than 8,400 information technology projects whose dollar value was greater than $25 billion. Its findings were shocking. Of all the projects studied, only 16 percent were clear-cut successes. That means that 84 percent encountered some measure of failure! Of that 84 percent, 34 percent of the examined projects were outright failures and 50 percent were in "recovery" (i.e., their deficiencies were being fixed).
　　In 1997, Frame carried out a study to validate the Standish Group findings. He asked 438 project managers to describe their budget, specification, and schedule performance on their last project. These managers came from a variety of industries including information technology, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, retailing, and construction. Results of the study are found in tables 1, 2, and 3.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Table 1
　　Please describe the cost performance you encountered on your last project

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Table 2
　　To what extent did you meet the desired specifications on your last project?

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Table 3
　　To what extent did you meet your schedule target on your last project?

　　These tables roughly confirm the Standish Group study. They show that for each of the three areas examined - costs, specifications, and schedules - the projects examined encountered some measure of difficulty. Problems were least significant in the area of specifications (see table 2): 71 percent of the respondents reported that they either met or did better than the specifications on their last project.
　　Problems were more significant in the cost management area (table 1): 55 percent of the respondents reported having either major or minor cost overruns on their projects.
Problems were most serious in the schedule management area (table 3): here 69 percent of respondents reported having either serious or modest schedule slippage. This result leads us to conclude that these days time is the "killer constraint."
　　With project failure rates as high as those suggested by the Standish Group and Frame studies, it is obvious that organizations cannot afford to continue carrying out their projects in the same old way. An internal study of project failure at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter found that just a 1 percent improvement in project performance could save the company an estimated $10 million per day! Clearly, organizations must change the way they manage projects and adopt a new project management approach.

The Project Office Solution
　　One approach organizations have taken to adopting a new project management outlook is to create project support offices. As their name suggests, these offices are configured to provide organizations with the support they need to carry out projects effectively. The services provided by such offices include:
　· Administrative support - In this case, the support office helps with administrative chores, 　　such as filling out time sheets and processing cost data
　· Project management consulting - Here, project management experts in the support office 　　are made available to help different groups deal with project problems on a case-by-case 　　basis
　· Project management mentoring - This is an important way to get senior managers up-to-　　speed on project management issues. In this case, the project office may send a project 　　management expert to help a senior manager deal with project management issues, 　　coaching the senior manager on good practice.
　· Establishing methods and standards - An effective project office will develop methods and 　　standards for good project management practice in the organization. They develop 　　templates to guide project management activities in such areas as progress reports, 　　change control, and issues logs.
　· Training - The project office can help the organization develop a project management 　　training curriculum and can identify vendors who provide pertinent courses. Its experts can 　　even conduct limited training efforts themselves.
　· Maintaining a cadre of project managers - Some project offices maintain a cadre of 　　project managers who can be assigned to run projects in the organization.

The New Emphasis on Project Management Competence
　　It is clear that an important way to improve project failure rates is to stress project management competence. Competence can be viewed as operating at three levels:
　· Individual competence - Individuals engaged in project work must be competent if projects 　　are to be implemented effectively. This individual competence is comprised of three parts:
　　　　o Knowledge-based competence. E.g., Are team members familiar with basic 　　　　　scheduling, budgeting and resource allocation techniques? Are the knowledgeable 　　　　　about　good contracting practice? (Note: One way to assess an individual's 　　　　　knowledge-based competence is to have him/her sit for the Project Management 　　　　　Institute's certification examination.)
　　　　o People skills. E.g., Do team leaders have good empathy skills? Are they good 　　　　　communicators? Can they motivate team members to do a good job?
　　　　o Business sense. E.g., Are team leaders cost conscious? Do they know how to weigh 　　　　　the benefits of a possible decision against its costs?
　· Organizational competence - It is not enough simply to have competent people assigned 　　to carry out project work. These people must be supported properly by their organization, 　　e.g., Do they have the tools they need? Cost data? Decent working conditions? 　　Organizational competence is commonly assessed using the EISA approach, where E stands 　　for assessments by players external to the organization, I stands for assessments by 　　players internal to the organization but outside the team, and SA stands for self-　　assessment by the team members.
　· Team competence - Even competent people who are properly supported by their 　　organizations can fail on projects, if they do not work together as a team. Teams operate 　　competently when team members have a common agreement about what performance 　　objectives should be, when individuals agree to subsume their personal desires to the 　　interest of the overall team, and so on.

Conclusion
　　Project management is substantially different today from what it was a few years ago. In its early years, it was viewed narrowly as an implementation effort to achieve defined technical goals. In this environment, project managers were mere implementers of other people's solutions. However, as the world experienced dramatic changes - in the competitive environment, in technology, in complexity - it became clear that project management would need to adjust itself to reflect the new realities. This is where project management is today. Today, project management is business management, and effective project managers are people with a good business perspective on how work should be carried out in the organization.