ENGR405:

Lesson 1: Introduction and Fundamental Project Managment Concepts

Balancing Project Constraints (With Journal Entry L1-2)

Your textbook discusses the importance of balancing project constraints and how critical each of the constraints shown are to the success of your project, shown in Figure 1.2 here.

Take a brief look at these constraints and consider the impact on the success of a project:

• Quality and Scope: Obviously, poor quality is an issue, as is not achieving the agreed upon scope, but often the level of acceptance is debatable or negotiable. You must identify and agree upon these early in the project, as you develop the scope and management plans. Disagreement on or inability to achieve the agreed-upon project quality or scope can turn an otherwise successful project into a failure.
• Stakeholders and Customer Satisfaction: It is important to know who reports to whom, who has controlling interests, who benefits, who invests, and so on. Basically, whom do you need to satisfy? Understanding the stakeholders' and customers' expectations or requirements is essential to achieving a satisfactory project outcome.
• Schedule: Again, you identify and agree upon this early in the project as you develop the scope and management plans. When defining the schedule, you must consider both the work as well as the needs of the stakeholders. Often, there are penalties for late completion, and on occasion, awards for early completion.
• Budget and Resources: Key items are definition and tracking of the income and expenditures—the budget. Again, this is interrelated to the quality and schedule, with a strong connection to the resources—what is needed and what is available for the project. In fact, there is often an analogy to a three-legged stool, where any of the three legs (quality, schedule, budget), if not completed well, can cause the project to tip and fall.
• Risk: With overt recognition of risks, whether to the scope, quality, costs, resources, schedule, customer satisfaction, and so on, the project manager can institute preventive measures and plan on reactive actions if (and when) things do not go according to expectations. Lacking a risk management plan is an invitation for uncontrolled deviations.

Stop, Think, and Reflect—Journal Entry L1-2

• Once you get going on a project, unforeseen circumstances can jeopardize your ability to achieve your project’s objective, as it relates to the project’s scope, cost, or schedule. What are some unforeseen circumstances that could impact each of these: scope, cost, or schedule? Give a different example for each, NOT the same example that impacts all three.
• What preventive actions should you take now to preclude their occurrence? What reactive actions can you plan on in case they occur?

Before continuing with this lesson, think about what you just covered, and reflect on these questions. Then write down your answers or reactions, and submit them in the text box of the Journal Entry L1-2.