Guest lecture on Project Management

A guest lecture on Project Management was organized at tbs, Delhi on 19th December, 2010. The lecture was delivered by Mr. Manish Kumar Srivastava, Deputy Manager, National Thermal Power Corporation Ltd (NTPC).

At the outset, Mr. Srivastava explained that a project is an endeavour undertaken to produce a product or service. Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, procuring and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of project by the application of skills, knowledge, tools and techniques and meet the need and expectations of all the parties who are directly and indirectly interested in the project. The primary challenge of project management is to achieve the entire project goal and objectives while honoring the preconceived project constraints. Typical constraints are scope, time, and budget. The secondary and more ambitious challenge is to optimize the allocation and integration of inputs necessary to meet pre-defined objectives.

Mr. Srivastava summarised the process of project management into the following essential steps:

  • Project initiation (Prepare charter , Identify interested parties)
  • Project planning and design (Specify quality, schedule, resource, communication and activities
  • Project execution (Perform all the planned activities)
  • Project monitoring and controlling (Ensure quality, cost and schedule)
  • Project completion (Closing and Review)

In conclusion, Mr. Srivastava highlighted that successful completion of project requires:

  • Good coordination among the groups in project team
  • Good synchronization between-project manager and the team members as well as project manager and the stakeholders.

Ultimately, the benefits of the project can be measured in terms of

  • Customer satisfaction,
  • Stakeholder satisfaction,
  • Time schedule for completion and commercialization of the project.

Mr. Srivastava made a lively presentation on the subject and retained the attention of the students by giving live examples, the best one being a comparative evaluation of Delhi Metro Project and the Commonwealth Games Project.