An official definition of project management is “the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements.”
A more tangible (but less interesting) description is that project management is everything you need to make a project happen on time and within budget to deliver the needed scope and quality.
Project Planning involves understanding the fundamentals of a project:
- What business situation is being addressed?
- What do you need to do?
- What will you do?
- How will you do it?
- How will you know you did it?
- How well did you do?
A project is distinguished from regular work in that it’s a one-time effort to change things in some way. Through an example it’s easier to understand the Project Management Principal. For example, the creation of a new web site would be a project; ongoing maintenance and minor updates would not. Time and budget are familiar terms—perhaps the project is intended to take seven weeks and have a budget of $30,000. Scope refers to the list of deliverables or features that have been agreed—this is where the scale of the required solution is identified. For instance, creating a new web site for the company may realistically be possible in seven weeks, but rewriting all the accounting software isn’t. Quality is exactly what it says on the tin, but in project-speak, quality may include not only the quality of the finished product, but also the approach. Some industries require that particular quality management approaches be used—for instance, factories producing automotive parts have to meet particular international standards.
Ahoora Ltd | Management Consultation Grou
Hamta Group | Hamta Business Solution Sdn Bhd