Process Vs Project

Project Vs Process management

Many of us try to figure out the differences and similarities between “Process” and “Project” management. Sometime we tend to feel that that all Field operations are “Projects” we should be creating organization that are led by “project management” and sometimes purport that all work is a “Process” and we should be creating organizations that are led by “process management”. Quality environments are formed to support either one.

Let’s discuss some definitions before we settle this argument.

Projects:

The Project Management Institute’s Body of Knowledge defines a Project as, "A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result." Temporary means that every project has a definite beginning and a definite end date. Unique means that the product or service is different in some distinguishing way from similar products or services. By examining this definition we understand that projects are:

v  Time-bound

v  Have clear beginning and end states. Project duration can vary from several hours to several years. Longer projects may be broken down to phases and each phase becoming a project onto itself.

v  Follow a specific cycle of Initiation, Definition, Planning, Execution and Close

v  All projects are managed.

Project Management is the application of knowledge and expertise to the development of Project Scope and a Project Plan, which meets or exceeds stakeholder requirements.

Processes:

By examining this definition we understand that processes are:

v  On-going with no clearly defined beginning and end states.

v  Customer driven.

v  Repeatable.

v  All processes are continuously analyzed for improvement or re-engineering.

Process Improvement is the examination of a business process in order to better meet customer & quality requirements. Business Process Re-engineering is the fundamental re-thinking and re-designing of a business process in order to exceed customer and quality requirements.

Discussion:

As per Project management definition, Management of a project is a process. The Project management of follows a consistent series of process steps that ensures it is successfully managed and meets the project’s customer requirements. However, the Project is not subject to an improvement process. If the project management methodology (or series of process steps) is followed, it is assumed that the project will successfully meet its defined deliverables.

As per Process improvement & Business Process Re-engineering definitions, we find that all work is a process and can be improved or re-engineered in order to meet the continuously changing needs of the customers (internal or external) for whom the process has been designed.

Many of us know profoundly through our work in Quality Management and Project Management that all work is a “process”. It can be flowcharted, measured and improved. Quality driven organizations do map all the work processes. It then becomes easy to determine who does what and when they have to do it, in order to ensure customer requirements are met.

But at the same time we also know and many of us have experienced that to oversee the projects and ensuring that they are properly resourced and prioritized, we require Project Management Offices (PMOs). These PMOs also help to lead the way towards creation of a Project Management Environment within the organization.

More current approaches and albeit, there are few examples so far as it is very leading edge in it’s thinking, is to merge “Process management” with “Project management” and create a strategic “Change Management”. This would oversee all “Process management” (process improvement, re-engineering, ISO-9001, Six Sigma Initiatives, etc.) with “Project management” (timelines, scope, deliverable etc.). Because individuals are assigned to teams and these teams are either involved in some form of process management and/or project management. Change Management also oversees the link of Project and/or Process management to the organization’s strategic direction.

It becomes apparent that the correct thinking is that all work is a process and that projects fit into the framework of process management. Dr. Edwards Deming, the Quality Management Guru, to whom Japan owe their economic transformation, once said, “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you are doing”.

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Walking

Walking

Since you are reading these lines, you certainly have interest in walking. The benefits of walking, a moderate physical exercise, to general health and well-being are not hidden. It is recommended that people should engage in 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity level physical activity. This translates to 30 minutes daily on a five day week basis. But can a leisurely walk or a stroll be considered?

Various people walk at different pace and may cover anything between 1 Km to 5 Km in this duration depending upon their intensity of walking. Researchers have determined a new method of measurement which is not based on duration or distance but on the number of steps. On a rough estimate about 100 steps per minute achieves moderate intensity activity. Therefore 3000 steps in 30 minutes can get people started on a meaningful exercise regime.

Not to worry if your current steps per minute is lower than 100. Make a start from whatever is your current level and slowly increase it by 20-30 steps per minutes every week. After having reached to thus level, do not get complacent and keep walking. The upper limit is 160-180 steps per minutes depending upon your physical and cardiac condition.

Here are equivalent of Steps per minutes of various activities for reference. You may choose alternate exercise regime in case you find walking boring or otherwise are interested in these activities.

Sitting – 30	Cooking - 61	Shopping - 70
Yoga - 76	House cleaning - 91	Table tennis - 121
Volleyball - 121	Bicycling under 10 mph - 121	Badminton - 136
Ballroom dancing (fast) - 167	Aerobic dance - 197	Roller skating - 212
Tennis (Table or lawn) - 212	Swimming (moderate) - 212	Hockey – 242
Football - 242	Basketball game - 242	Squash - 364

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Organisational inefficiency

Organizational inefficiency

Smaller organizations including start-ups are generally perceived to be more efficient compared to the large organizations. But still world over, the organizations, when become successful, tend to grow bigger. This would certainly be making them less efficient. But how much inefficiency market can withstand till the big beast start revamping itself through change management or demergers / bifurcations. What is the optimum level of efficiency for a group of people working together as an organization?

A study was done on Standard & Poor's S&P-500 index of leading companies in leading industries of the U.S. economy.  Profit per employee is taken as a measure of employee productivity and the same is plotted as a scatter plot wrt number employees for about 450 companies. It is found that for every tripling of the employee count, productivity becomes half, known as 3/2 rule of employee productivity. So if we have a starting count of 1000 employees and the profit per person is say Rs 100,000. The profit per person would become Rs 50,000 when the employee count becomes 3000! The ratio might vary for specific industry sector but the concept is proven that productivity drops when we increase the employee count.

To understand this in another way is to find out an efficiency of a system. It is known that if a system consists of a two sequential components each having efficiency of 90%, the overall efficiency of the system would be only 81%. If there are three components in sequence, system efficiency would be 73%.

The question now is how much is the acceptable productivity per person for a small, medium or a large organization? To answer this one needs to understand the variation in efficiency of a human being over a large duration say month. No human being can work with 100% efficiency for such a long duration given all the favorable conditions available and constant. Second consideration is the variation of efficiency among individuals also. Given these variations, let us assume an average of efficiency level of 90% for all the employees.

It is not very difficult to understand than that more the command and communication level, lesser would be the overall system efficiency.

But what is the optimum level of efficiency an organization must work within? What should be the measure of efficiency which can be used as a indication and what should be the corrective actions?

Once the great Dhirubhai Ambani mentioned to a banker that when I visit the suppliers and look at the level of inefficiency, I tend to get invigorated to move faster on the backward integration of the business knowing well that I can get the same work with higher efficiency and bring the price down for the end product.

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Aspirations

Aspirations

Ramu is boy studying in a typical Hindi medium government school in a small town in Uttar Pradesh. Kids of all strata were studying in the same school, being the only school in the town. His father being a school teacher commended a good respect in society though had very limited resources like any other lower middle income family.

Ramu and his friends used to discuss about their aspirations of becoming Engineer, Doctor and Charted Accountant, and few dreamed of becoming IAS officers. Ramu also had the aspiration of becoming Engineer. His parents always encouraged him to qualify for entrance test, as they also wanted to see him as an Engineer when he grows up. Internally both parents always discussed their plans to expand the earnings & savings to fund the future expenditures their son’s engineering education.

Ramu was excited when the results got declared and was juggling to get better branch in a good college and he finally settled for a good REC west. He passed out from the college and got a good job in a private company in UP and got married also. Later they shifted to Mumbai for career growth in a bigger organization at higher salaries. He was today thrilled as it was first day of school of his twin daughters. Soon his parents joined him after his father’s retirement in his newly purchased spacious flat in a good locality.

Life was looking good and he was able to instill the good values in his kids as he received during his childhood. His daughters were doing well in school and expressed their desire to go to US for higher studies. Ramu and his wife were bit concerned as they knew of about monetary requirements of higher studies in US. With the increased home loan EMI, higher expenditures of Metro and rising inflation had started pinching on his lifestyle. His savings also got looking thinner, which he was accumulating for her daughters.

On one fine day while he was sharing his quality time with his wife and talking about the future of their daughters, soon they started doing detailed planning to fund their daughters higher education, which definitely is going to have a impact on other expenditures they had earlier planned. He suddenly started remembering his good old days of his childhood. He went back into flash back mode and started re-visiting his own dreams while he was in school in that small town of UP. He recollected his dreams of studying in a good engineering college and the commitment of his parents to see him becoming good Engineer.

He realized that as the resources now are not sufficient enough for their daughters higher education, but still they are committed to do whatsoever they can do to fund it, the same was actually happened when he was about the get admission in engineering college and the days when his parents used to detailed planning to fund his education without making it known to him.

He was now wondering how the message of fulfilling kids aspirations gets communicated from one generation to another without uttering a single word. His wife was speechless having sparkle in her eyes and drops in corners of her eyes which she failed to hide.
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