What is project management?
In the twenty-first century it has become fashionable to manage one's own investments. People nowadays are very much serious on deploying their projects in order to ensure the success of it. Indeed, our environment today is very complex that it requires ongoing implementations. By the use of project management skills, we can be able to manage chaos by providing framework for working amidst persistent change. Or in better understanding, by use of it we can create an environment conducive to getting critical projects done! So what is project management then?
Project management as described by the book, is an application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements. Project management is accomplished though application and integration of the project management processes of initiating, planning, executing, monitoring, controlling, and closing. Project management is then about organization, about changing people’s behaviors, about managing, or about decision making. And the person responsible for accomplishing the project’s objectives is called a project manager.
We all know already that there is no magic formula to guarantee the success of a project. But there are techniques and strategies that will help plan and manage projects. These things are in the scope of project management. Project management therefore provides methods and tools to ensure that objectives are successfully achieved. Thus, without proper project management, a project would certainly fail.
There 3 constraints I learned on managing a project. First is to find its scope. Finding the scope means developing a common understanding as to what is included in, or excluded from, a project. What is it you are supposed to accomplish by managing this project? What is the project objective? Is it a real time system? Is it all screen-based? What reports can be produced? Where does the information come from? What manipulation is required for the data? Is all the data compatible? Do you want to generate standard letters? How many letters? How customizable are the letters? Do you want to store the questions? Do you want to store the answers? Etc. etc. etc. Scope is not about determining the time and cost. We are not talking about deciding how long it will take, or how much it will cost. Time and cost are outputs of scope or comes after the scope is defined. So it is of paramount importance to define the scope to determine the outcomes. Poor scopes leads to failure, so we must see to it that the scope we included or excluded are accurate.
The other two are time and cost. In project management time management describes how to monitor and control time spent within a project. It is all about recording the time spent by people on a project. The time process helps the manager know which tasks has been worked on, when and for how long. It also get varies depending on the present circumstances. Time factor is not in total control despite more sources and alternatives are available to achieve the task. If you have limited resources you can’t control over the time. It is one time of limitation once you are behind the time schedule.
In the case of the cost, we can't know the exactly until the project is complete because we can't accurately predict the future. Cost of the project depends on the different factors like change in the rate of materials, equipments & machinery, change in rate of labors and other various factors. However, we can do an estimate. Doing an estimate would create a good understanding of how projects should unfold through the project life span.
Before ending this piece, I conclude that it is therefore important to understand project management for us to be aware on decision making. Through this we can manage any risk that would eventually comes our way while achieving our project’s objectives.
In the twenty-first century it has become fashionable to manage one's own investments. People nowadays are very much serious on deploying their projects in order to ensure the success of it. Indeed, our environment today is very complex that it requires ongoing implementations. By the use of project management skills, we can be able to manage chaos by providing framework for working amidst persistent change. Or in better understanding, by use of it we can create an environment conducive to getting critical projects done! So what is project management then?
Project management as described by the book, is an application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements. Project management is accomplished though application and integration of the project management processes of initiating, planning, executing, monitoring, controlling, and closing. Project management is then about organization, about changing people’s behaviors, about managing, or about decision making. And the person responsible for accomplishing the project’s objectives is called a project manager.
We all know already that there is no magic formula to guarantee the success of a project. But there are techniques and strategies that will help plan and manage projects. These things are in the scope of project management. Project management therefore provides methods and tools to ensure that objectives are successfully achieved. Thus, without proper project management, a project would certainly fail.
There 3 constraints I learned on managing a project. First is to find its scope. Finding the scope means developing a common understanding as to what is included in, or excluded from, a project. What is it you are supposed to accomplish by managing this project? What is the project objective? Is it a real time system? Is it all screen-based? What reports can be produced? Where does the information come from? What manipulation is required for the data? Is all the data compatible? Do you want to generate standard letters? How many letters? How customizable are the letters? Do you want to store the questions? Do you want to store the answers? Etc. etc. etc. Scope is not about determining the time and cost. We are not talking about deciding how long it will take, or how much it will cost. Time and cost are outputs of scope or comes after the scope is defined. So it is of paramount importance to define the scope to determine the outcomes. Poor scopes leads to failure, so we must see to it that the scope we included or excluded are accurate.
The other two are time and cost. In project management time management describes how to monitor and control time spent within a project. It is all about recording the time spent by people on a project. The time process helps the manager know which tasks has been worked on, when and for how long. It also get varies depending on the present circumstances. Time factor is not in total control despite more sources and alternatives are available to achieve the task. If you have limited resources you can’t control over the time. It is one time of limitation once you are behind the time schedule.
In the case of the cost, we can't know the exactly until the project is complete because we can't accurately predict the future. Cost of the project depends on the different factors like change in the rate of materials, equipments & machinery, change in rate of labors and other various factors. However, we can do an estimate. Doing an estimate would create a good understanding of how projects should unfold through the project life span.
Before ending this piece, I conclude that it is therefore important to understand project management for us to be aware on decision making. Through this we can manage any risk that would eventually comes our way while achieving our project’s objectives.
1 comments:
very informative post for me as I am always looking for new content that can help me and my knowledge grow better.
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