PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Project Management

Project Management

Concept of Project Management

The concept of project management includes in itself processes such as leading, managing, organizing, controlling, planning, and securing the resources for the purpose of achieving goals and objectives. A project is usually known to be an endeavor on which work is done on a temporary basis, and its duration is defined along with the start and end. Limitations of resources and funding also apply on projects as they are acquired to achieve specific aims and goals, usually aimed at adding value or bringing beneficial change. What differentiates projects from usual business operations is the fact that their nature is not permanent or repetitive, the way it is in business when it comes to functional activities required to produce services or products. The management of these two scenarios is different in practice as it requires the development of certain management strategies and technical skills (Heerkens, 2002, pp. 26).

The main purpose of project management is to attain all of the goals and objectives of project while taking into consideration the provided constraints. Some of these constraints are related to time, budget, scope and quality. Another challenge in project management is about optimization of all the available input resources and their integration in order to achieve the desired objectives and outcomes.

Every project also needs to have a project cycle. The project cycle encompasses of phases such as the concept phase; where data is analyzed to determine the criteria required for successful completion of the process. The second phase is of planning where the project managers along with the project team discuss and decide the ways to complete the project and develop a plan of action. The next phase is known as the execution where the plan of project management is carried out and that leads to final phase of the life cycle which is the close out (Heerkens, 2002, pp. 56).

Roles and Responsibilities of a Project Manager

There are certain roles and responsibilities of a project manager that have to be identified and carried out by the manager for the purpose of ensuring effectiveness and efficiency of processes. The project manager carries the project from the planning stage to the completion stage and is responsible for various tasks (Howes, 2001, pp. 42). The manager needs to formulate a detailed plan for project management and identify all the necessary resources, required time duration and plan of action for ...