• Project initiation stage – defines and authorizes the project;
• Project planning or design stage – shapes the outcomes/goals for the project by knowledge area;
• Project execution or production stage – carries out project plans;
• Project monitoring and controlling systems – accesses actual project outcomes to planned target e.t.c;
• Project completion stage – obtains a formal acceptance of the product/service by stakeholders and tapers out project activities in a planned, organized fashion.

Now take this precarious situation and add to it the effects of two of the most critical concepts in project management; stakeholders and risks. As you work your way up on project stakeholders are putting on you; Left, right, forward and back. Some may be tugging and pulling on your feet and jeopardizing your very foothold.

What do these stakeholders want from you?

Some want the project to be finished sooner. Some want the project to cost much less. Some will want your project’s product to include much more – or to be very different -than originally asked for and agreed to. Some will want combinations of these modifications. Some, usually your top Executives, or most demanding customers, will want all of these. Even worse, they will want it without losing anything originally agreed to in the project’s statement of work. As you’re trying to fiddle, they’re tugging at your legs, pulling and pushing you in multiple directions, some with the intent to knock you down, most with the best of intent but with the same possible outcome.

Can you begin to see why I said it’s not easy?  Let us now consider into detail the Cornelius Fitchner podcast and see how we can meet this challenge.

Be reminded that challenge of every project is to make it work and be successful within the triple or quadruple constraint. The elements are time, cost, scope and quality; these are used to illustrate how changes in a project are inter-connected, unless a PM is able to work some kind of magic, a change in one of these elements will produce a change in another.

According to Cornelius Fitchner podcast the four main elements are described as follows:

• Time

Even if a miracle takes place and you suddenly receive an infinite amount of resources for a project, the very definition of a project prevents you from having an infinite amount of time. A project is defined as by the PMBOK Guide as having a definite beginning and end. It’s inevitable that changes will occur in a project and the duration of contributing tasks will put pressure on that end, which leads us to another area of discussion

• Cost

If you have to deal with a budget every month then you can instinctively understand the cost constraint. We all feel the pressure of the economy and we know funds are limited; as we earlier discussed time as a constraint, the longer the project takes to complete the more expensive it going to be. PM should try their best to identify cost components and communicate them to the client. This will help streamline the understanding of what the result will be and help avoid critical problems in a project’s “end – game”  when a client might have complaints about cost factors that weren’t made clear earlier.

• Scope

Scope of a project is a clear, specific statement as to what has been agreed to be performed/achieved in a particular project. Scope problems some of which are caused by insufficient communications threaten to make a project collapse. Project inflation happens when a client wants to increase the scope of a project without changing the cost or time. For example, the client calls and asks for many more features on computer software, without expanding the project budget or providing more time. This throws the provider into a tailspin as managers struggle to “make it fit”. Here is where communicating the Triple Constraint can really save everyone a lot of headaches. In some cases, the client is really unaware of the problems they are causing, but in other cases, the client may be deliberately squeezing a service provider to test their limits and trying to push against the inevitable Triple Constraint principle. In either case, someone should let the client know that Scope can be changed only with resulting changes to Time and/or Cost.

• Quality

Project management seeks to manage the scope, cost and time invested in a project so as to deliver a product of quality.  Since quality is based on those constraints, it is important to find out what the client’s priorities or requirements are for the project. The number one priority in any business I projects providing quality care to its customers and I believe this most important constraint depending on the client’s expectations.  Usually time, cost and scope will affect the quality of the product.  For example, if the budget for the project is at bare minimum this may result in purchasing material or equipment that is poor in quality.

According to Cornelius Fitchner the one strategy I feel more skilled to implement is the scope and the need to put reserves in the estimate because the customer will and can require more when it comes to the scope. One other thing that is highly possible is that the project can take longer to complete and the customer may want to cut down the cost, in order for one to be ready for this is to is to add a reserve in an estimate. This project reserve is added for normal project risks/delays which may happen along the way. This lays a strong foundation for the project.

Which camp am I in? If I was an IT consultant, I would make sure to explain the importance of quality as being the first priority.  Then discuss the scope of the work and what deliverables are to be expected; followed by a reasonable timeline to complete the project and then the budget to work from.

Of course, one of the keys to making the triple-constraint work is that you have to have an agreement with your client sponsor on the scope of work to be performed and the cost/effort and duration to complete the work.

The triple or quadruple constraint concept is a great foundation of a project success. The requirements from the client will determine the constraints that the project will need to follow. Any changes to the constraints will affect the outcome of the project. That is why it is important to have a formal agreement before starting any project.

In simple math a business analyst is content focused and project manager is process focused. More detailed, the business analyst has to understand and define the application in a way that meets the business needs and then translate the requirements in a way that can be understood by IT, bridging the 2 “worlds”. This usually requires the BA to analyze and model an organization’s business processes and identifying opportunities to improve on them, leading to in initiation of project.

Plans are very important in any project and on various projects particularly larger ones the project manager is the one tasked with ensuring that a project is completed on time. The BA’s job is more to ensure that if a project is not completed on time then at least the highest priority requirements are met. Only then can solution assessment and validation take place

Ultimately, business analysts want to achieve the following outcomes:

• Reduce waste
• Create solutions
• Complete projects on time
• Improve efficiency
• Document the right requirements

Having said that, the project manager translates these goals into a required timeline and budget or resource, which he  guards very carefully. For the scope he relies on the Business Analyst to make sure the scope is still delivered.  The BA is not responsible for the project success, the PM is the one ultimately accountable, and therefore the PM also has the decision-making power within project boundaries.

Like it was mentioned earlier requirements are expressed by clients before the project is started, and they are the basis of chartering the project and assigning a PM. These requirements are normally done by a business SME, sometimes called a Business Analyst before a PM is assigned.

Software development is different, because the project is typically chartered to do “something”, and gathering business requirements is part of the project itself. In this case the PM is assigned first, and the BA(s) will be part of the resources that will be provisioned for executing the project.

When you really think about it, the BA build a strong foundation on which a project manager build on. Both jobs are a project life cycle function and do not end until the stakeholders verify that the product meets their requirements

Some of the skills needed to be successful in either project management or business analysis are as follows:

• PM/BA should be a strong estimator, a proactive in this regard. He should be able to estimate the progress of each individual, the skills of each member, the abilities, the show stoppers during the project, the customer delays or any other activity where an estimation is required.
• PM/BA should be good parent, in regard to understanding himself, his team members, management, customer, other teams, peers – i.e. all involved in the project. He should have a good understanding of his words he is going to speak to his customer, the instructions he is going to give to his team members, the decisions he is going to take. He should be well aware of impact and effect of each of the activity he does during a project lifecycle e.t.c

After consideration of these two roles and how the overlap made me appreciate the importance of each one and as far as my future is concerned I see myself as a business analyst reason being that, most the work I have done in school assignments fits in with what a business analyst would do.

Welcome to my new WordPress blog.This is my first post and great things are on the way. If succeeding in life is your main goal in life then you and I are going to get along very well. Like a lot of youths these days, am also a student who studies  hard, so that I can make a better life for myself and my family.

If you are one of those individuals like me, who hasn’t had it easy in life,please feel free to post your personal experiences, so that others out there get inspired. I grew up being told that I was not going to amount to anything but now I live to prove people wrong. What about You?

Below are a list of my favorite famous quotes to help us get started:

“In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.” – Bill Cosby

“You better live your best and act your best and think your best today, for today is the sure preparation for tomorrow and all the other tomorrows that follow.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“It’s choice – not chance – that determines your destiny.” - Ralph Hodgson