“A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result.”
-Project Management Body of Knowledge PMBOK Guide 5th Ed
What do you mean by a Project?
To make it sound simpler we can say, a project is a temporary task and hence is different from daily business operations. A project will always have an output that differs from the rest even if its same as the previous one, it differs with respect to time and people that were involved. It has limited time and resources hence a complex function
What requires to be a Project Manager?
Tools and techniques derived from basic understanding and mostly common sense, keeping in mind that its not a child’s play and requires preparation to hold a project yourself, No formula, only practical knowledge which are also mostly guidelines and you’ll find many shades of grey instead of only blacks and whites
Why does a company execute a project?
Organizations have goals including daily and strategic. The strategic goals helps achieve aspiration to become a market leader, for Business needs, and Market need. Eg: you want to create an app as your competitors are making one, it also includes Customer plea: say a customized product and Social needs, legal requirement, ecological impact, advance in technology as well.
How this execution works?
Extra Efforts leads to Desired goals and benefits, and the linker between these two is a Project, hence can also be termed as a type of Investment which comprises of resources like: Financial, organizational and Time. Projects are hence complex initiatives.
Fundamental factors
- Scope: it is unique, and is termed as the sum of all the activities and tasks to be done to achieve the goal
- Time: Its a temporary initiative, usually start and end dates are tentatively fixed.
- Cost: Comprises of resources.
Need of Project manager:
Handle issues & risk, Steer accountability, Steer activities and people. They define leadership qualities in oneself. Apart from handling above mentioned things, their are other things responsible for motivating their team mates as well, to ensure maximum output from every individual. They are responsible for observing bigger pictures with keeping in mind about smaller goals as well, planning for the worst situation and always having plan B’s and C’s makes a project manager decisive in front of everyone and has no negative impact. Good communication skills are a must for a person dealing with multiple task.
How projects are selected?
So Need of the project is seen then ideas related to it are put forth – – -> Project suggestions- – -> filtering of the project and then the validation is done- – -> project selection – – -> Validated project
PHASES
- Initiation
- Planning
- Execution & control
- Closure
PM holds account of what we know & can control and what we don’t and cant control. This work comes under planning and chances of a successful project is only desirable when PM ensure the goals are met, timelines are managed, and completed in the desirable budget need
The execution phase begins with a kick-off meeting(the first meeting with the client of the project and the project team) and ends with the delivery of the last deliverable. PM focuses on scope, the progress of the track, quality and resource assurance, conflict and issues are also sorted by the PM
Monitoring and control: project plan is measured with respect to the project performance. Example: Is my actual data going with the target. If no how to initiate the changes and the needs of the change
Closure: Its importance here is due to the need of clearing all the dues, all resources are utilized, unique projects lead to new lessons, and of course success celebration of the complex projects done so far.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT METHODOLOGIES:
There are many but these 4 are the most used and important to know:
1. Waterfall: The oldest method, This method entails working in waves, with each step heavily reliant on the one before it. It can cause a slew of hitches, especially if bugs are discovered during a later stage of the process and previous steps must be revisited.
2. Agile: It is the fastest method. Working in smaller chunks, or sprints, allows projects to pivot as needed and is accomplished by this technique
3. Scrum: Scrum is the peak of agile methodology. It’s quick, has a limited focus, and can spin on a dime. Scrum is all about breaking down projects into little chunks and completing them in a month’s time. Scrum is ideal for small teams that need to iterate often.
4. Kanban: Kanban is a unique approach to agile project management. Kanban is all about organisation, unlike Scrum, which is focused on time-based components. Kanban does this by focusing on the number of tasks that make up any given process and how they may be optimised, minimised, and so on. This is a particularly good model for people who have a consistent production output.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE:
Need: Basic necessity for managing planning scheduling and updating the project overall. So company also invest in these software for their smooth functioning.
- Meister tasks
- Basecamp
- Trello
- ProofHub
- JIRA
- Asana
- Teamwork projects
Hope this is insightful and guides the reader on what they are looking for and expect in what a project manager is, the roles and responsibilities of the task.
