Characteristics of STEP-IT Project Management

Why project management?
Changes in society and organisations are becoming more and more interfering and appear more frequently than ever. The situation in which activities are planned on an ad hoc basis, is replaced for a large part by the situation in which activities appear in the form of a project.
Trouble is that once started, projects have the tendency to become less manageable as project time progresses, causing many projects to fail.

Projects distinguish themselves by their unique and temporary character, are started to meet a defined endresult and are contributing in this way to an objective of the organisation. When the result is met, the project is closed. Projects deliver results, tangible or less tangible.

Failure factors
For the failure of projects a wide array of reasons can be brought forward:

• Unclarity about the actual client having given the order;
• Inproper project plan regarding design and content;
• Unclear definition of the project result required, insufficient attention for documentation of what the project result will be and what it not will be;
• Bad planning of resources and activities; a too optimistic planning not taking into account possible disappointments;
• Original requirements and starting-points change during the project;
• Lack of progress control, resulting in detection of deviations in a stage too late for recovery;
• Unsufficient measuring and decision points;
• Lack of quality control, resulting in products delivered not meeting user requirements;
• Too limited usage of available time, related to higher priorities of other on-going work.

The existing organisation often is not equipped to manage projects in a controlled manner.
For this reason there is a need for professional project management and succesfull projects having added value for the organisation.

Professional project management
The usability of project results is affected regularly by changing specifications and requirements by clients. Looked at from this perspective project management can be defined as 'environment management'. In other words, the better projects can be founded in the changing environment, the better the project results will be.
Professional project management takes care that the project is managed properly and activities are undertaken in a such a manner that the required endresult will be met.

Projectmanagers from STEP-IT are able to independently and succesfully manage large and complex projects.
The IPMA (International Project Management Association) defines a project as complex when the project possesses the following characteristics:

• Many mutually dependent subsystems and elements with connections to the project environment;
• Several organisations and/or parts of organisations are involved;
• A number of different disciplines are involved;
• Different project stages of medium to long time periods;
• The majority of known project management methods is applied.

Process oriented approach
Project managers from STEP-IT take a process oriented approach to project management. Characteristic for this approach is the central position taken by the goal of the process, in which a process is defined by a goal and a collection of connected activities together pursuing the goal. Important building blocks playing a role in the process are, a.o.:

• Business case: the reason for initiation of the project with justification in terms of estimated costs and expected benefits;
• Organisation: description of the various roles that are being differentiated within the project organisation;
• Project plan: necessary for production of the right products at the right time;
• Controls: control mechanisms to reduce the risc that projects will exceed the planned time and costs without timely warning and adjustment;
• Management of risc: tools to carry out risc management and improve anticipation of threats and opportunities;
• Quality: specification of requirements that must lead to achievement of the quality level expected by the user;
• Configuration management: control of products and project documentation to be able to work efficiently;
• Change control: examination and priority setting of proposed modifications on basis of weighting of risc, time and money on one side and benefits on the other side.