Project Management
Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing and managing resources to bring about the
A project is a finite endeavor (having specific start and completion dates) undertaken to create a unique product or service which brings about beneficial change or added value. This finite characteristic of projects stands in sharp contrast to processes, or operations, which are permanent or semi-permanent functional work to repetitively produce the same product or service. 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 philosophy, which is the subject of this article.
The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals and objectives while honoring the project constraints. Typical constraints arescope, time and budget .The secondary—and more ambitious—challenge is to optimize the allocation and integration of inputs necessary to meet pre-defined objectives. A project is a carefully defined set of activities that use resources (money , people, materials , energy, space, provisions, communication, motivation, etc.) to achieve the project goals and objectives.
Introduction
Clear and accurate definition of a project is one of the most important actions you can take to ensure the project’s success. The clearer the target the more likely you are to hit it. Defining a project is a process of selection and reduction of the ideas and perspectives of those involved into a set of clearly defined objectives, key success criteria and evaluated risks.
This definition process should culminate in the production of a Project Definition document, sometimes called a Project Charter. The Project Definition document should be approved and issued by a manager with the authority to apply organisational resources to the project activities. Therefore, the seniority of the manager or the management team will be commensurate with the size, cost and business value of the project. As a minimum, the Project Definition should include a statement of the business need that the project seeks to address and the description of the product, service or deliverable business objectives that will be its output. When a project is performed under a contract between seller and buyer, the signed contract may well serve as the project charter for the seller. However this may not necessarily be the case for the buyer whose project may include more than the product or service purchase under the contract.
