2.1 Project Phases and the Project Life Cycle | 2.2 Project Stakeholders | 2.3 Organizational Influences | 2.4 Key General Management Skills | 2.5 Social-Economic- Environmental Influences |
Integration | Scope | Time | Cost | Quality | Resource | Communications | Risk | Procurement |
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Like general management, socioeconomic influences include a wide range of topics
and issues. The project management team must understand that current conditions
and trends in this area may have a major effect on its project: a small change here
can translate, usually with a time lag, into cataclysmic upheavals in the project itself.
Of the many potential socioeconomic influences, several major categories that
frequently affect projects are described briefly below.
2.5.1 Standards and Regulations
A standard is a "document approved by a recognized body, that
provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines, or characteristics for products,
processes or services with which compliance is not mandatory". There are
numerous standards in use covering everything from thermal stability of
hydraulic fluids to the size of computer diskettes.
A regulation is a "document which lays down product, process or
service characteristics, including the applicable administrative provisions, with which
compliance is mandatory". Building codes are an example of regulations.
Standards often begin as guidelines that describe a preferred approach,
and later, with widespread adoption, become de facto regulations
(e.g., the use of the Critical Path Method for scheduling major construction projects).
Compliance may be mandated at different levels (e.g., by a government
agency, by the management of the performing organization, or by the project
management team).
For many projects, standards and regulations (by whatever definition) are well
known and project plans can reflect their effects. In other cases, the influence is
unknown or uncertain and must be considered under Project Risk Management (described in
Chapter 11).
2.5.2 Internationalization
2.5.3 Cultural Influences
2.5.4 Social-Economic-Environmental Sustainability
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