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Before you start to think too deeply about running a project, check whether it really is one. Consider these three things:

✓ Is it a one-off job or something that’s ongoing? If the job is continuous, then it’s business as usual, not a project.

✓ Does the job justify project controls? Project management means incurring some overheads, but some jobs are so straightforward they just don’t need that degree of control.

✓ This last one may sound a little weird, and it certainly doesn’t fit with the formal definitions; it’s the question, ‘Do you want to handle the job as a project?’ You may choose to deal with a block of work as a project, but we wouldn’t – sometimes you have a choice.

Grasping the four control areas

Projects, large or small, involve four areas of control:

✓ Scope: What the project will deliver

✓ Time: When the project will deliver

✓ Quality: So often forgotten, but an essential dimension

✓ Resource: Necessary amounts of people, funds and other resources, such as equipment, that the project needs

You need to balance these four control areas for each project. Many projects get into difficulties when these areas don’t gel. For example, say you look at a project, think about the four control factors and think to yourself, ‘They want that scope, to that quality level, with just that resource and by then? They’ve got to be joking!’ Strangely, organisational managers often commit projects to failure by insisting on unachievable deadlines or unrealistic resources. What’s even stranger is that those same managers are surprised and even angry when the projects get into difficulties and fail.

Although many other considerations may affect a project’s performance, the four areas of control are the basis of a project’s definition for the following reasons:

✓ The only reason a project exists is to produce the results specified in its scope.

✓ The project’s end date is usually an essential part of defining what constitutes successful performance.

✓ The quality requirement is a vital part of the balance and may be the most important element. What’s the point of delivering an unusable heap of garbage on time and within budget?

✓ The availability of resources can affect which products the project can produce and the timescale in which it can produce them.

Recognising project diversity

Projects come in a wide assortment of shapes and sizes. For example, projects can:

✓ Be large or small:

• Building a new railway link to the airport in Melbourne, which will cost around $11 billion and take years to complete, is a project, perhaps linked to other projects to form a programme.

• Preparing the annual report for the department, which may take you six days to complete, may also be a project.

✓ Involve many people or just you:

• Training all 10,000 of your company’s sales staff worldwide in using a new product is a project.

• Redecorating an office and rearranging the furniture and equipment is also a project.

✓ Be defined by a legal contract or by an informal agreement:

• A signed contract between you and a customer that requires you to build a house defines a project.

• An informal agreement by the IT department to install a new software package in a business area defines a project.

✓ Be business related or personal:

• Conducting your organisation’s five-yearly strategy review is a project.

• Preparing for a family wedding is also a project – and a much more pleasant one than the five-yearly strategy review.