What is a Project ?
Project is a temporary initiative carried out by a team to meet certain goals.
Requirements for a Project
- Financial resources: Involves budget, business planning
- Organizational resources: the experts in field working on a project
- Time: Setting start and due dates of a project
Why is a Project required ?
- Market needs
- Customer request
- Legal requirements
- Technological advancements
- Business needs
What are the stages of Project Management?
The five project management process groups are:
- Initiating: The goal for this phase is to define the project.
- Planning: This phase includes developing a roadmap for everyone to follow.
- Executing & Monitoring: In this stage, the project team is built and deliverables are created. Project managers will monitor and measure project performance to ensure it stays on track.
- Closing: The project is completed and transferred to another team who will maintain it.
Project Documentations required at different Project Phases
- Project Initiation: Project charter, business case, project kickoff meeting agenda
- Project Planning: Project management plan, work breakdown structure, project budget, project schedule, change management plan, scope management plan, risk management plan
- Project Execution: Project status report, lessons learned template, timesheets, change requests, change orders
- Project Monitoring and Control: Project status report, lessons learned template, timesheets
- Project Closure: Project closure report
Who is a Project Manager ?
Project manager is a person who is responsible for planning, executing, monitoring, controlling, and closing out projects. They are accountable for the entire project scope, the project team and resources, the project budget, and the success or failure of the project.
Roles and Responsibilities of a Project Manager
- Plan and Develop the Project Idea
- Monitor Project Progress and Set Deadlines
- Evaluate Project Performance
- Manage budget
- Analyzing and managing risks and issues
Essential skills for Project Manager
- Communication – The most important aspect in communication for a project to be successful. The project manager must understand and also be understood by the team.
- Leadership – Taking important decisions and being responsible for team’s success as well as failure.
- Motivation – project managers should motivate team members to do their best work, even under challenging circumstances.
- Conflict management – Project managers can successfully manage conflicts among their team and clients to keep a project on track.
Types of Project Managers across industry
- Construction: A construction project manager organizes people and resources to oversee the process of building structures like houses and office buildings. The project manager generally works closely with architects and engineers.
- IT: A project manager in IT works with teams to solve IT-related problems in a company. They can, for example, carry out a project to install new software across a company, update networks, or help roll out cloud computing services.
- Software development: Software project managers work with project teams to develop new software and software updates.
- Health care: A project manager in health care leads projects in hospitals and other health care facilities. Health care project managers often have to have a good understanding of health care legislation.
- Energy: In energy, project managers carry out projects that develop new energy infrastructure or improve existing ones. They might also work to roll out energy-efficient practices at individual organizations.
- Marketing: A project manager in marketing might work at a tech company, advertising firm, large retailer, or any number of other organizations that have marketing arms. Projects can include marketing campaigns, research efforts, and new product launches.
Project Management Models/Methods
Waterfall: The waterfall Model illustrates the software development process in a linear sequential flow. This means that any phase in the development process begins only if the previous phase is complete. It cannot handle complex projects. Waterfall model was used wherein strict rules are to be followed such as military operations. Other examples where this model is used are inventory management systems, customer relationship management systems etc.
Advantages:
- Minimal Risks
- Fast
- Easy to manage
Disadvantages:
- No room for changes
- High dependencies
- Delayed testing
Agile: Agile Methodology meaning a practice that promotes continuous iteration of development and testing throughout the software development life cycle of the project. In the Agile model in software testing, both development and testing activities are concurrent.
Advantages:
- Better adapt to changes
- Faster testing
Disadvantages:
- Time consuming
Scrum: Scrum is an Agile project management methodology involving a small team led by a Scrum master, whose main job is to remove all obstacles for getting the work done. Work is done in short cycles called sprints, and the team meets daily to discuss current tasks. It is mostly used in organizations dealing with bug tracing.
Advantages:
- Task backlogs
- Agile Product Development
Disadvantages:
- Inflexible scheduling
Lean: Lean project management focuses on delivering a manufacturing project with more value and less waste. It does this by systematically eliminating waste in the value stream of the lean manufacturing process. Lean methodology is used mostly in the industry that deals in manufacturing processes such as engineering, marketing and publishing.
Advantages
- Remote working
- Product Development
Disadvantages
- Task Dependencies
- Heavy Manufacturing
Kanban: The word Kanban is a Japanese word which means a “visual board”. Kanban project management is an Agile framework used to visualize and improve workflows, reduce waste and inefficiency, and increase team focus by limiting work in progress. It is mostly used by content marketing teams as it is simple to implement and understand.
Advantages :
- Creative Teams
- Content Marketing
Disadvantages:
- Resource – heavy work
- Enterprise level projects
6 Sigma Methodology: Six Sigma is a business methodology that aims to improve processes, reduce waste and errors, and increase customer satisfaction throughout an organization.
Five Steps of the Six Sigma Process
The five steps of the Six Sigma process form an acronym: DMAIC.
Define: The initial phase of the Six Sigma process is the define stage. The team initiates a high-level view of company processes to gauge client needs and define a problem or an area that needs improvement.
Measurement: The second stage, measurement, is the accumulation of data, which is critical during the life of the project. Initially, the team maps out the current process to determine a baseline and looks for what is causing a problem. Throughout the project, it charts possible improvements empirically.
Analysis: The third stage is analysis, which is continual as the team analyzes the data and focuses on the cause of a problem.
Improvement: The fourth phase is improvement. This is the solution-development phase in which the team implements a solution and verifies it performs as expected.
Control: Finally, the fifth phase entails control. Here, the focus is on maintaining the solution and progress the team has made.
Conclusion: Project Management has different types of methodologies, the role of a project manager is to choose which one to use and why. Here I have penned down some of the methodologies which you can have a loot at.
