Introduction to Project Management PDF Guide Free Download
What is Project management?
Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, securing, and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives. It is sometimes conflicted with program management, however, technically that is actually a higher level construction: a group of related and somehow interdependent engineering projects.
A project is a temporary endeavor, having a defined beginning and end (usually constrained by date, but can be by funding or deliverables), undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives usually to bring about beneficial change or added value.
The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast to business as usual (or operations) which are repetitive, permanent, or semi-permanent functional work to produce products or services. In practice, the management of these two systems is often found to be quite different, and as such requires the development of distinct technical skills and the adoption of separate management.
The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the engineering project goals and objectives while honoring the preconceived project constraints. Typical constraints are scope, time, and budget the secondary—and more ambitious—challenge is to optimize the allocation and integration of inputs necessary to meet pre-defined objectives.
Explain the Evolution of project management
The importance of Project Management is an important topic because all organizations, because they are small or large, at one time or another, are involved in implementing new undertakings. These undertakings may be diverse, such as the development of a new product or service; the establishment of a new production line in a manufacturing enterprise; a public relations promotion campaign; or a major building program.
On a macro level organizations are motivated to implement project management techniques to ensure that their undertakings (small or major) are delivered on time, within the cost budget, and to the stipulated quality.
On a micro level, project management combined with an appropriate information management system has the objectives:
- Reducing project overhead costs;
- Customizing the project workplace to fit the operational style of the project teams and respective team members;
- Proactively informing the executive management strata of the strategic projects on a real-time basis;
- Ensuring that project team members share accurate, meaningful, and timely project documents; and
- Ensuring that critical task deadlines are met.
Whilst the motivation and objectives to apply project management in organizations are commendable, they do not assure project success.
