Different project perspectives can be determined according to the side you are standing. A project is a complex endeavor with a beginning and an end. The project creates a unique product, service or result at the end of the project life cycle. There are internal and external stakeholders involved in a project and the project is executed by the project team.
Attend our 100% Online & Self-Paced One-Hour Free PMP Training.
The detailed description of the project and Process Groups can be found in PMP training courses. What we are going to explore in this article is different project perspectives. The project perspectives differ from the eyes of the buyers and sellers, or customers and suppliers.
Project Perspectives
We are going to define two different project perspectives and the documents related to them. To illustrate these project perspectives better, we are going to give some examples as well. If you want to learn more about project perspectives you can enroll in a PMP certification training course.
Project Statement of Work (SOW)
Project Statement of Work is an important document for understanding project perspectives. It’s abbreviated as SOW. This document is created by customer or sponsor and describes their needs, product scope, and how the project fits into their strategic plan.
SOW is widely used in the industry. If a company wants a product or service, the details of the product or service are documented in the project statement of work. Based on the details of the service or product that is requested by the customer, several vendors or suppliers enters in bidding or offering to get the project.
For instance, let’s consider that a construction company will outsource the bathroom decorations of its projects to a vendor. The company writes in detail what kind of materials will be used, what will be the quality, what is the schedule requirements etc. Based on these requirements, several bathroom decorating vendors can make bids, and company can select one of these vendors for its project.
This is an example of how the project perspectives differ from the customer to the vendors.
Charters with Work under Contract
Project charters are like the ID cards of a project, so naturally, all projects should have charters. These charters describe the high-level details of the project. But according to project perspectives, there can be different charters for buyers and sellers in a project.
Let’s consider a software project that is executed for the bank. If you think from the seller’s perspective, the seller is executing the project in order to make a profit and to gain revenue from the bank based on the deliverables they will give to the customer.
But if you think from the buyer’s perspective, which is the bank, they might be doing the project in order to take a strategical advantage, for instance, a technological advance, which will differ their services from the competition. The purpose of the bank could be, getting the market leader position in the banking industry.
So this is how the project perspectives can differ from the customer to the buyer.
