Project Management
Project management is the activity of organizing and managing resources so that a project will be completed within a pre-determined scope, time and cost and quality.
The project itself is a one-time, temporary endeavor that contrasts with semi-permanent or permanent ongoing work that creates the same product or service time after time. Project management is the management of both systems and it is frequently difficult and necessitates the use of different technical skills and philosophy.
Challenges of project management
The primary goal of project management is assuring that the project will be completed and delivered within all applicable constraints. An even more ambitious and necessary goal is the optimized allocation and integration of project inputs required to meet previously defined objectives. The project being managed involves resources that include people, money, materials, energy, space, communication and provisions that permit the objectives to be met when properly managed.
What does a project manager do?
The project manager ordinarily has little participation in the details that produce the final result. Rather, he is responsible for maintaining the progress and effective mutual interaction of project participants so that the overall risk of failure is minimized. Thus, he directs project management from an overall control perspective to ensure that all the people and processes involved come together to permit completion on time and within the allocated budget.
Project management involves triple constraints
Every project must be performed and delivered under the triple constraints of scope, time and cost. These are often also referred to as the project management triangle where each of the three sides represents a constraint. Here, one side of the triangle cannot be changed without affecting the other two and maintaining the relationship in balance is a project management necessity. An additional refinement separates product quality or performance from scope and turns quality into still another, fourth constraint. The project management triangle usually focuses on the trade-off between time, cost and quality and this deviation which is claimed to be traditional is different in that quality that combines other aspects id termed ‘process quality’ and not product quality. The time constraint is that amount of time given for project completion while the cost constraint is the available budget. The scope constraint defines what must be accomplished to produce the desired end result. These constraints frequently are in competition as increased scope generally means increased costs and time; a tight time constraint can mean increased cost and reduced scope; and a tight budget could mean increased time and reduced scope. Thus, the competition between the three constraints of project management.
Other project management considerations
Project management discipline is all about providing the necessary tools and techniques that will permit the project team to organize their work responsibilities to meet these constraints. Another approach to project management requires the consideration of finance, time and human resources. This means that if a project must be completed in less time than originally allocated, you can assign additional people to the project that in turn will raise the cost unless costs elsewhere can be reduced by the same amount.
