What is Project Management?
What is a project?
A project is a temporary venture that exists to produce a defined outcome. Each project will
have agreed and unique objectives as well as its own project plan, budget, timescale,
deliverables and tasks. A project may also involve people from different teams within an
organization who are brought together to accomplish a specific goal.
What is project management?
Project management can be defined as the discipline of applying specific processes and
principles to initiate, plan, execute and manage the way that new initiatives or changes are
implemented within an organization. Project management is different to management of
business as usual activity, which is an ongoing process, as it involves creating new work
packages to achieve agreed ends or goals.
Key components of project management are:
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Time – the intended duration of the work
Cost – the budget allocated for the work
Scope – what innovations or changes will be delivered by the project
Quality – the standard of the outcome of the project.
Increasing or decreasing any one of these components will affect the others.
For example, reducing the time allocated to complete the project will also reduce the amount
of work that can be done (scope), which may then affect the quality and the cost of the
project.
Project management stages
Although there are different project management methodologies and approaches, most
projects follow these stages:
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Initiating the project – the project manager defines what the project will
achieve and realize, working with the project sponsor and stakeholders to
agree deliverables.
Planning – the project manager records all the tasks and assigns deadlines for
each as well as stating the relationships and dependencies between each
activity.
Execution – the project manager builds the project team and also collects and
allocates the resources and budget available to specific tasks.
Monitoring – the project manager oversees the progress of project work and
updates the project plans to reflect actual performance.
Closing – the project manager ensures the outputs delivered by the project
are accepted by the business and closes down the project team.
Project management approaches
There are different techniques and processes that can be used to manage projects. These
include AXELOS’ PRINCE2®, which is a structured project management methodology that
can be tailored to fit any size or type of project.
Agile and Lean project management are also widely practised and allow a more flexible
approach to projects.