PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Project Management

Project Management

Introduction

Today's rapidly changing technological and business environment has given multiple benefits to businesses and changed the way of managing projects (Cleland & Roland, 2006). There is no doubt about the fact that modern way of project management has allowed businesses to improve their ability to make decisions related to IT investments, plan their projects in an efficient way and control projects leading it towards the progress of meeting goals.

Project management (PM) can be defined as a planned effort to accomplish a particular project (Cleland & Ireland, 2007). In fact, Project Management is all about planning, managing, organizing, controlling, and leading resources to achieve goals and objectives. It is all about successful effort in order to accomplish the project. It is one time effort that is made in order to bring specific results. For instance, implementing ERP in an organisation requires one time effort. The main concern of the project management is to construct a plan that defines or highlights the goals and objectives, evaluate tasks to find out how to accomplish goals, quantifying needed resources, prepare budgeting, and determine timeline for completion.

Project Management Process

Project management usually involves some or all of the following activities:

Drafting of the Proposal

The proposal specifies the object, objectives, scope, quality and estimated project risks, and describes how it is carried out. It also includes estimates of cost, and time and makes the integration of all the above with what follows, and justified circumstances, assessing credentials and why the project contract should be given to an organization or team in particular, and under what conditions (Joseph, 2003).

Project Planning

It refers to the identification of activities, milestones and project deliverables, including risk mitigation options.

Estimated Project Costs

This activity is predetermined by the quantitative assessment and collection of talent and resources required to carry out the business plan of the project involves estimating for each of the volumes and unit costs per unit of time to develop the project.

Execution

The project proceeds in various ways depending on the required project outcome and the schedule, cost constraints, and staffing. The project management activity during the stage of execution involves:

Keeping people informed about the project progress.

Monitoring the environment, anticipating problems and taking action to cope with issues (Wateridge, 1995).

Review the changes in the process and project team.

Monitoring and Review

It refers to leadership and continuous monitoring. The manager should know the progress of the project with existing and planned costs. Also, it is normal to issue formal reports on its management, reviewing progress and technical developments of the project, reporting project status (Limoncelli, 2007).

Closing

At this stage, the project process is completed and documented. The finished product is transferred to control and care owner (Limoncelli, 2007).

Control Issues

All process, functions, discrepancies, problems, effects and impacts are interconnected and dependant on one another's performance and undertaking. What happens with project management is to understand the process followed step-by-step: missing layers, skipping tasks, lack of data authenticity and concealed flaws can all cause the project to either fail or may even harm the end ...