Do you know about the different constraints in managing a project in a organization ?

Project Constraints  -

Obviously the Triple Constraints Scope, Time  and cost.

Other constraints implicit are Quality and Customer Satisfication. 

"PERFORMANCE STANDARDS"  associated to the scope is a primary constraint. These are Goals set forth for the project . If these are not achieved, Project Cant be successful. Hence PERFORMANCE STANDARDS are vital to the project. PERFORMANCE STANDARDS dictate how project work must be completed. It should be looked deeper than initial goals

Also Company Structure (Matrix/Functional/Projectized) Culture, Policies and Procedures would also be constraints.

For effective planning, Prioritizing Constraints is essential  hence strategic decisions could be made and resources could be utilized effectively.

Basically  the Constraints  are to determined MOST IMPORTANT (DRIVER), LEAST  IMPORTANT (WEAK) and MIDDLE CONSTRAINT  for effective and efficient planning .

 Relative Importance of each constraint based on Project Sponsor/Business expectations is important.

 

 

 

 

Introducing Project ManagementAfter completing this lesson, you will be able to:

• Understand what projects are and how they differ from ongoing operations.

   

• Define projects in terms of the project triangle.

   

• Apply the features of Microsoft Project 2000 to both the planning and the executing phases of projects.

This lesson introduces project management. Although project management is a broad subject, this lesson focuses on the "project triangle" model. In this model, you work with projects in terms of time, cost, and scope.

To complete this lesson, you won’t need to start Microsoft Project or open a project file. Just read on.

Understanding What Defines a Project

A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (referred to as the PMBOK—pronounced "pimbok") defines a project as "a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service." Let’s walk through this definition to clarify what a project is and is not.

First, a project is temporary. A project’s duration might be just a week or it might go on for years, but every project has an end date. You might not know that end date when the project starts, but it’s out there somewhere in the future. Projects are not the same as ongoing operations, although the two have a lot in common. Ongoing operations, as the name suggests, go on indefinitely; you don’t establish an end date. Examples include most activities of accounting and human resources departments. People that run ongoing operations might also manage projects; for example, a manager of a human resources department for a large organization might plan a college recruiting fair. But projects are distinguished from ongoing operations by an expected end date, such as the date of the recruiting fair.

Next, a project is an endeavor. Resources, such as people and equipment, need to do work. The endeavor is undertaken by a team or an organization, so projects have a sense of being intentional, planned events. Successful projects don’t happen spontaneously; some amount of preparation and planning happens first.

Finally, every project creates a unique product or service. This is the deliverable for the project, the reason that the project was undertaken. A refinery that produces gasoline does not produce a unique product. The whole idea, in this case, is to produce a standardized commodity; you usually don’t want to buy gas from one station that is significantly different from gas at another station. On the other hand, commercial airplanes are unique products. Although all Boeing 777 airplanes might look about the same to most of us, each is, in fact, highly customized for the needs of its purchaser.

By now, you may be getting the idea that a lot of the work that goes on in the world is project work. If you schedule, track, or manage any of this work, then congratulations are in order: you are already doing some project management work!

Project management has been a recognized profession since about the 1950s, but project management work in some form has been going on as long as people have been doing complex work. When the Great Pyramids in Egypt were built, somebody somewhere was tracking resources, schedule, and the specifications for the final deliverable.

I agreed with Vijay

But Goals are most important and should be clearly defined and also backbone should be in frame

OOOOOOO!
That is a question that cannot be answered like this but let me attempt to do that. Some of the major constraints are:

1) People - the skill, attitude and other things related to soft and hard skills is one major constraint
2) Backbone - things like IT infrastructure, admin, HR, quality, Recruitment, Training etc are the backbone of any organization and the lack or mismanagement of that would be a major constraint.
3) Culture - The culture of the organization matters a lot to drive productivity, schedule etc - so this could be a major constraint
4) Business Goals - If the target business is in a domain/technology that your organization has not worked before, that would be an initial constraint but one that can be overcome if the other three listed above are in place.

As I mentioned, it is too broad a question. Check out www.manager-tools.com or www.thepmpodcast.com to get you started off on some of the aspects that I have mentioned. These links contain podcasts that you can download for free personal use and learn a lot from it.

Hope these help.