“Operations keeps the lights on, strategy provides a light at the end of the tunnel, but project management is the train engine that moves the organization forward.”
~ Joy Gumz .
A Project is any undertaking carried out individually or by groups, which includes design or research, that is accomplished in an organized and planned manner. It is a temporary endeavor to create a unique solution to a particular problem by implementing our ideas, knowledge, and technical skills.
Project Management is the process of leading a team to fulfill the requirements of a specific project. The main aim is to fulfill all the requirements in a project within the given time. Project Management is the process of leading the work of a team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints.
There are two types of project management strategies:
Traditional methodology (Waterfall Method) :
project management definition is required when it comes to discussing traditional project management. Following is a definition of traditional project management.
PMBOK defines traditional project management as a set of techniques and tools that can be applied to an activity that seeks an end product, outcomes, or a service. Traditional project management uses orthodox methods and techniques in the management process. These methods and techniques have been evolved for decades and are applicable for most of the domains. But for some domains, such as software development, traditional project management is not a 100% fit.
Agile Methodology :
Agile project management is an iterative approach to delivering a project throughout its life cycle.
Iterative or agile life cycles are composed of several iterations or incremental steps towards the completion of a project. Iterative approaches are frequently used in software development projects to promote velocity and adaptability since the benefit of iteration is that you can adjust as you go along rather than following a linear path. One of the aims of an agile or iterative approach is to release benefits throughout the process rather than only at the end. At the core, agile projects should exhibit central values and behaviors of trust, flexibility, empowerment, and collaboration.
Who is a project manager?
A project manager is one who takes responsibility for a particular project and guides the teammates. He keeps the track of the project and is responsible to finish it within the given span of time. He is supposed to plan the project from start to finish, mapping out timelines, executing each phase of the project life cycle by monitoring it, keeping in touch with the stakeholders, deploying the end product. He is also responsible for risk management, cost management, and pipeline management by keeping in mind fast-tracking, multitasking. Click here to read more about it.
Qualifications required to become a project manager
According to Jennifer Bridge, PMP, the meaning behind project manager qualifications can change depending on the business and the role they’re hiring for. Essentially, a project manager who’s qualified has the temperament, skills, and experience needed for the position. Typical requirements generally include at least three years of experience in a related role, the ability to communicate, formal training, and a PMP Certification. Certification can be acquired through a professional association, a university or college, or through a specially focused online learning program.
Project Management Certifications:
A few ways to get certified include:
- PM/BA
Earning a degree or certification from a formal undergraduate and graduate education program. - PMP (Project Management Professional) Provided by the Project Management Institute (PMI), this is an internationally recognized certification.
- Agile/Scrum Get trained and certified by organizations, like the Scrum Alliance.
A project management certification, especially a PMP, can be a great career move, but it’s essential to weigh the pros and cons before diving in.
According to Derek Singleton, Product Manager for Internal Applications at Software Advice, if you already know you want to pursue a career in project management seriously, a PMP certification is for you. You also need to have professional experience in managing projects.
Skills required as a project manager
Leadership Qualities:
This is the most important skill for any project manager. As a project manager, you are responsible not only responsible for the completion of the project successfully, but you are leading a team to achieve the goal. This requires you to motivate and mediate where necessary. It’s more than managing tasks, it’s about managing people.
Communication Skills:
Communication really goes hand-in-glove with leadership skills. You can’t be an effective leader if you are not able to articulate what it is you need your team to do. But, you are not going to be communicating with your team, you’ll need to have clear communications with everyone associated with the project, from vendors and contractors to stakeholders and customers.
Scheduling:
The only way to achieve the goals of the project within the time frame that has been decided on is to break down that goal into tasks on a timeline. That’s scheduling, and it’s the heart of what a project manager does: setting up a realistic schedule and then managing the resources to keep on track so the project can be successfully concluded on time. This can be achieved successfully by using project management tools.
Risk Management:
Planning a project, big or small, is inherent with risk. It’s part of your job to see those issues before they turn out into problems. Therefore, before executing the project, you have to put it in the work to identify, assess, and control. The more you can manage risk, the more likely your project is going to succeed. Not everything in a project can be anticipated, there will be some unanticipated issues that can arise, so you should have an idea about the necessary steps that should be taken to handle the project effectively.
Cost Management:
We know that we can’t buy anything without money, so we need to create a budget. As a project manager, you have to make sure that the budget is realistic and can meet the financial needs of the project and controlling the cost throughout the execution of the project. Unless you work for an organization with limited funds, you’re going to have certain financial constraints.
Negotiating:
Being good at negotiation is a sort of a subset of communication, but it deserves its own space here. Leading a project means you’re in constant negotiations. If you have got strong negotiating skills you can resolve these disputes before they blow up and threaten the project.
Project Management Software
Project Management Software is software used by a wide range of industries for project planning, resource allocation, and scheduling. It enables project managers as well as entire teams to control their budget, quality management, and all documentation exchanged throughout a project.
Examples of project management tools:
Jira
Jira is a project management tool used as an issue tracker that is developed by Atlassian. It is used for bug tracking and for agile project management. It is used for planning, tracking, and managing tool mainly used for software projects.
Why we are using JIRA when we know that we can manage it manually?
JIRA is an all-in-one solution for multiple software and team-related use cases. Even if you are not working on an agile project or in a scrum team, you can use it for other business-related perspectives or it can even be used for employee management in a company.
When working on software-related projects, it can be used for creating backlogs, creating tasks and can be used for updating status on the board, Managing releases all at once, and code integration that can be connected to any repository that you are using in your company and managing workflows or creating your own workflow.
Benefits of project management:
- Clear and organized plans improve team collaborations.
- Defining everyones roles eliminates confusion.
- Well defined goals improve team effectiveness.
- Defining a communication plan keeps your team aligned and focused.
- Project management tools helps increase efficiency.
Clickup
ClickUp is a cloud-based collaboration and project management tool suitable for businesses of all sizes and industries. Features include communication and collaboration tools, task assignments and statuses, alerts, and a task toolbar.
ClickUp is great if you’re looking for a user-friendly way to manage your projects, tasks, and time spent. If you’re looking for a tool that is more specific to a certain project management methodology (Agile, etc.), it probably is not the best solution, but can still be utilized in a way that fits any method.
ClickUp is great for small teams, particularly given the free plan is decidedly robust. It offers unlimited projects and unlimited users, so you can really get a lot out of it for no cost.
Asana
Asana is a software as a service designed to improve team collaboration and work management. It helps teams manage projects and tasks in one tool. Teams can create projects, assign work to teammates, specify deadlines, and communicate about tasks directly in Asana. It also includes reporting tools, file attachments, calendars, and more.
Asana: The best work management tool for your team
Asana is easy to use and flexible enough to handle any workflow — so you can get your entire company on the same page. Asana makes it easy to organize and see projects and tasks — so you can stay on track and move work forward.
Asana helps both individuals and teams break down big tasks into manageable pieces. It is an all-inclusive work management platform to keep track of the progress you make on projects and tasks, exchange files, comments, and notes, keep track of your deadlines. It is a modern way to work together.
Trello
Trello is a kanban-based collaboration and task management tool that is perfect for all kinds of projects or teams. This includes content teams, marketing projects, customer support tracking, sales pipelines, HR tracking, and even Agile project management.
This tool is an all-around great fit for most projects as long as your needs are not financial in nature because Trello doesn’t come with any budgeting or invoicing features.
In my opinion, Trello is the easiest to use project management software on the market considering its list of features and the level of convenience worked into its design.
MS Project
Microsoft Project is a project management software product, developed and sold by Microsoft. It is designed to assist a project manager in developing a schedule, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing the budget, and analyzing workloads.
Microsoft Project was the company’s third Microsoft Windows-based application. Within a few years after its launch, it became the dominant PC-based project management software.
It is part of the Microsoft Office family but has never been included in any of the Office suites. It is available currently in two editions, Standard and Professional. Microsoft Project’s proprietary file format is .mpp.
Microsoft Project and Microsoft Project Server are the cornerstones of the Microsoft Office enterprise project management (EPM) product.
Microsoft Project is the world’s most popular project management software developed and sold by Microsoft. The application is designed to assist project managers in developing plans, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing budgets, and analyzing workloads.
