1.1. Introduction to Project Management
Project Management
The application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements.
A key factor that distinguishes project management from just ‘management’ is that it has this final deliverable and a finite timespan, unlike management which is an ongoing process. Because of this a project professional needs a wide range of skills; often technical skills, and certainly people management skills and good business awareness.
According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), organizations that undervalue project management report an average of 50% more of their projects failing outright. Fifty percent. Failed projects can quickly derail your initiatives and delay or even prevent business growth.
Project management is more than simply tracking deadlines and setting a budget. A good project manager takes control of a project from beginning to end, ensuring that the initiatives and goals are strategically aligned, the project has stakeholder support, and everyone is on the same page.
In other words, the purpose of project management is to plan and manage a project to successfully complete its listed goals and deliverables. It involves identifying and managing risks, careful resource management, smart budgeting, and clear communication across multiple teams and stakeholders.
Tasks
Watch this video to gain more insight into the five phases of project management:
The importance of project planning cannot be overstated. Too often, organizations overestimate how quickly they can achieve deliverables, underestimate the costs, or both—a recipe for failure. A good project manager considers the big picture and sets realistic and achievable goals, budgets, and timelines. Without careful management, a project can quickly get off track before it has even begun. To set realistic goals, budgets, and timelines, the project manager communicates with different stakeholders to understand the strategic priorities and business objectives of the initiative. Based on their research, the project manager then outlines a project plan that balances those priorities within the constraints of time and budget. This process involves cost estimation, resource management, and risk assessment.
A lack of clear goals was the most common reason for project failure in 2017. Project managers help organizations hone in on their priorities and define their project objectives. When project management is left to the team to handle, the scope and objectives can easily get muddled. Unclear focus can lead to scope creep, missed deadlines, and overspending. Plus, without a project manager to oversee the project plans and task breakdowns, many teams may not notice potential risk factors as they arise. If they don’t address evolving project risks, the team could end up prioritizing the wrong tasks.
A good project manager keeps an eye on all these factors so that the team can focus on the right tasks at the right time and adapt as needed.
One of the most important reasons to use project management is to align projects with business strategy. Mark Langley, the president and CEO of PMI cautions, “If your organization is not good at project management, you’re putting too much at risk in terms of ultimately delivering on strategy.” In other words, project management is a driver of organizational strategy. So if you aren’t applying it to your initiatives, you are missing a crucial opportunity to grow. As project managers oversee the planning and execution of a project, they help ensure the project’s overall goals and its subsequent tasks and milestones all align with the organization’s strategy. Strategic alignment at every level of the project keeps each stakeholder on the same page and ensures your initiatives drive the organization forward.
Project management is a proactive process that seeks to help the right people do the right tasks at the right time. Without a set project management method, many teams tend to work reactively—handling issues as they arise rather than proactively planning for known risks and setting project goals and parameters from the beginning. Project managers help teams break down a project into more manageable pieces. By breaking the project into a clear process of assigned tasks, milestones, and deadlines, project managers can direct their teams more efficiently and react to issues with greater agility.
Quality control is an essential component of project management. Your project could meet all parameters for time and budget, but if the quality standards aren’t met, the project will be deemed a failure. Unfortunately, this is an all-too-easy trap to fall into. Teams are under a lot of pressure to finish a project on time and on budget. And this can lead to rushed work and shoddy execution. That’s where project managers come in. They not only manage deadlines and objectives, but they also keep an eye on how well project tasks are executed. Project managers help outline deliverables and define their quality standards so that everyone knows exactly what they’re aiming for.
In 2018, according to PMI, 9.9% of every dollar invested was wasted due to poor project performance—that’s $99 million for every $1 billion invested. Project management reduces project costs by improving efficiency, mitigating risks, and optimizing resources. Even with the added cost of investing in a project manager, organizations stand to gain much more.