Project Management in simple words

Management Guru Peter Drucker

Management is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively. Management is a constantly evolving field, with a wide variety of formal and informal approaches and perspectives.

Peter Drucker —
Business, that’s easily defined — it’s other people’s money.

What is Project Management?

The application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements. There are several distinct phases or steps involved with managing a project.

Investigation

This phase

• Involves the initial commissioning of the project
• Understanding and analyzing the scope
• Involves the identification of the initial aim and goals
• Involves investigation into the possible ways the project could be completed
• Is undertaken by top-level management or strategic planners
• This phase would provide a project brief to the project team or project manager.

Planning and Design

Planning

This phase is important as it provides the foundation for the following phases. The aim of this step is to ensure that the objectives can and will be met within the set time and budgetary constraints.

• Defining the exact purpose of the project and clearly defining the objectives to be achieved
• Breaking the project into tasks or activities and defining the purpose of each
• Estimating the shortest and longest possible time required for each activity
• Identifying milestones and key time markers in the project that keep the project on schedule
• Determining the sequence of activities and any constraints affecting the sequence. For example, some tasks must be completed before other ones can start, or particular resources might be required for the activity. This also includes:
• Deciding which activities should be completed before others can commence
• Identifying activities that can be done simultaneously or must be done at the same time
• Assigning resources, people, materials, and equipment to activities
• Estimating the cost of resources
• Drawing up a calendar of events

The deliverables or final output of this phase could include:

• A project plan for management review
• A GANTT chart
• A PERT diagram, including a critical path, or a network diagram

Production

Production

During this phase, the plan is put into operation. It ought to provide a completed project, ready to be ‘handed over to’ clients. Alternatively, it may end in full implementation, i.e. at the end of an internal organizational project.

This phase involves:

• Providing resources
• Completing the activities
• Monitoring, controlling, and recording the progress of the project on the GANTT chart
• Comparing the current progress to the planned schedule
• Updating and refining the schedule as required
• Monitoring resource use to ensure no budgetary blowout
• Ensuring milestones and overall goals are met

Evaluation and Monitoring

The initial part of this phase is the transferal or hand over of the project. Of course this project may not always have a single product as the final result. Either way, the objectives of the project at this point should be met.

Once the project is transferred to the client the project team is ‘decommissioned’, reassigned new tasks or placed into new project teams. Some members of the group may be utilised in observing the full implementation of the project or in supporting or monitoring its implementation.

It is also at this point the management will assess the success of the project. This assessment is based on the elements of efficiency and effectiveness:

• Quality: How well it has met the objectives? What is the final quality of the product?
• Cost: Did the project stay within the budget specified and proposed use of resources?
• Time: Did the project finish on or before the specified date? Was it the shortest possible time for the project?
• Timeliness: Was the project completed in time for the information to be of use?
• Accuracy: Are there any errors in the product?
• Relevance: Does the project/product include only those elements required by the client?
• Completeness: Does the client have everything they need in order to do their work and make their decisions?

Documentation

Project Documentation

Documentation is essential for the success of any information system. Documentation provides anyone who interacts with a particular system an overview of the system capabilities and its software. It may also include specific procedures which must be followed or be used to provide training or reference material. Application and information systems can fail to meet their full potential if there is inadequate documentation to support them. Without good documentation users may flounder and the efficiency gains expected from a new system will never be realised.

Program documentation

When developing a software solution the developer or programmer will document all steps of the process. The software product should be fully supported with technical documentation so that any programmer in the future can understand the process and the code.

System documentation

This involves developing and documenting all the processes of system development. This includes such items as data dictionaries, data flow diagrams, network diagrams and all other design documentation that occurred throughout development. All equipment will be logged and all the technical parts of the system must be documented for future reference.

User documentation

This is a set of documents that assist the user use the system, software or hardware being implemented. It normally consists of a set of paper based and online facilities to train or help the user. It can include training manuals, procedure guides, quick help cards, and frequently asked questions.

Electronic Documentation

Over the last few years electronic documentation has become a popular way to give employees and/or end users the assistance they require to complete tasks. Most software packages now come with the help manual in printed as well as electronic form. Electronic documentation takes advantage of hypertext and other multimedia elements. These forms of documentation are available at any time from the computer they are often referred to as being ‘online’.

There are other forms of documentation. All are useful depending on the user and their needs. For example, there are many training videos and external web sites that provide the end user with help.

Few Concept we should know while managing the project/product

Project Ides/Concept

Project Constraints

The constraint combination of time, money, and quality.

Balance quadrant

These four features (time, budget, scope, and quality) are known collectively as the balance quadrant. The balance quadrant shows the interrelationship between the four aspects and tells how a changing one feature will disturb the quadrant. For instance, if the project’s scope is increased, it will have an impact on the time, cost, and quality of the project. In reality, making any project decision will have an effect on these four aspects.

Tools and Techniques

Project management is performed by people who describe, organize, and monitor the work of project activities using a set of tools and techniques. Project managers are those whose responsibility is to manage the processes involved in a project and who carry out the project activities using necessary the tools and techniques. Using these techniques leads to many advantages in organizing projects