Objective: What do you want? |
By Prof B.P. Nansi, Monday, September 15, 2008, 14:47 Hrs [IST] |  |
0 Remark(s)
|
|
Category: Miscellaneous | Tags: customer satisfaction, residential complex, Estimating the project cost | Share:  |
|
 Remember the 5C’s
A Project can be represented by the famous Classical Triangle: the triangle that shows the 5 Characteristics of a project. One characteristic is ‘Customer Satisfaction’. That says ‘how’ you should execute a project. Satisfy the customer. The other four tell about ‘what’ and ‘when’ of the project; that is: what has to go in the final result and by what time. A project must have these 4 characteristics. If you can not define these 4 characteristics, then it is not a project.
 So, what is special about a project? The 5 C’s:
The 5’C’s are the characteristics of a Project:
1. A defined objeCtive
2. A defined Cost
3. sChedule -A defined start date and a defined end date
4. Within given resourCes and
5. All with good Customer relation
The First ‘C’ is ‘Defined ObjeCtive’
For a project to be successful, you must know what you want as the final result. Remember: If you start implementing a project, without first defining the end result, things will work out reverse. Things will be what you do not want. Define the end result first. There is a general tendency to start doing as soon as the idea comes. That does not work in projects.
That is where Project Management principles succeed. The ‘Project Management’ says: First define what you want to achieve in the end and then do. Make the ‘definition’ as complete as you can. The more complete the definition, the stronger the chances of success.
 What do you see?
An artiste playing music? Or a woman’s face? Or both?
This is what happens when a project installation begins, before finalizing the end result. You think that you are doing one- but hidden behind that is the ‘other’. And the other will happen if you do not decide first.
So the concept is: Final result: First: This OR This
Example: Say; you want to build a road: from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’. Do not start building the road. That is: Hire contractors immediately, buy cement, buy steel, buy wooden planks etc, tell the contractors to start construction. Then you go along ‘some implementation’, decide whether tar surface or concrete surface. Do not start that way. Do not take all those actions. If you did that, then, as you go along in implementing, you will come to the defining of the parameters of the road: i.e. what surface, how wide, how long, what route, etc.
So, define first the ‘what': that is: what do you want in the end? The various parameters that decide your road are: From which point – to which point, what route, what width, what strength of the road (Light vehicles? Heavy vehicles?), what surface? (Concrete? Tar?), what level, how will the slopes be? What will go underground (water pipes, cables, sewage lines, telephone lines, gas lines?), how many manholes? Where? Whether there will be dividers? (If yes, at what frequency?), light poles, other poles and sign boards etc. What will be the painting? What quality of the paint and what color?
Define first these parameters of the road. Then make a clear-cut objective document. Detail out the parameters. These parameters have to be adhered to,
Objective, also called ‘scope’, ‘quality’, ‘result, needs to be fixed on Day One.
Another example: that of a residential complex. That will show the need of ‘Objective’. There is a project to build a residential complex. Then on ‘Day One’, know the final result; viz: what portion of the plot will accommodate the complex, entry, exit, how big, how many buildings, how many floors, sizes and layouts of the apartments, gardens, water fountains, children’s park, mini-mall, mini – market, internal roads (paved with tar, concrete, interlocking concrete blocks), telephone lines, intercoms, stairs/elevators, school building . . . etc. These are to be known on ‘Day One’.
‘Definition Objective First’ has another reason: Estimating the project cost.
One Useful Hint
If you start ‘doing’, before knowing ‘what’,
You will go back to the first step you skipped:
What is to be done in the end?
|
| |
|