PROJECT MANAGEMENT

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

A project is a well-defined sequence of events with a beginning and an end, directed toward achieving a
clear goal, and conducted by people within such established parameters as time, cost, resources, and
quality. A project is different from what you do every day, because a project goal is a specific,
nonroutine event. , a project requires some planning. How much planning you need
depends on the complexity of the project. The more complex the project, the more you have to plan.
Planning is necessary to avoid wasting time, resources and effort. For example, if your job is to train
employees on a regular basis to use a new spreadsheet application, for you the process requires little
project management because the activities are familiar to you . On the other hand, it would be a
significant project to develop a completely new course for a new financial reporting system. Similarly, if
you spend your days developing financial reports, training even a few employees to use a new
spreadsheet might require some project management on your part.
It is important to note the key elements of project management are planning and control. Deciding
and specifying what to do is the function of project plan. Making sure
it is done right is the function of project control.
A project is characterized by :

i.) Must have a definite beginning and a definite ending meaning the a project is
time-bound.

ii.) Non- repetitive.

iii.) Utilization of scarce resources.

vi.) Inability to predict with absolute confidence its final outcome.

HOW DOES PROJECT MANAGEMENT DIFFER FROM OTHER MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES?

PROJECT Management differs in two significant ways as follows:

Firstly, it concentrates on a project with a FINITE life span, whereas departments or other organizational
units expect to exist indefinitely. Secondly, projects frequently need resources on a part time basis,
whereas permanent organizations try to use resources full time.

The sharing of the resources frequently leads to conflict and requires skillful negotiation to see that the
projects get the necessary resources to meet objectives throughout their project life

THE PROJECT LIFE CYCLE

Each project moves through a predictable life cycle of four basic phases with each phase calling
for different skills from the protect manager. The phases of a project’s cycle are:
Defining the project;
Planning the project;
Implementing the plan;
and completing and reviewing the project.

This will be discussed later on our next post under system development life cyle.

Project Planning and control
The key elements of project management are planning and control. Deciding and specifying what to
do is a function of project plan. Making sure that it is done right is the function of project
control. Planning is vital if control is required at later stage. The following are main steps in
planning a project:

• Identify purpose of project
• Set objectives ,that is, define deliverables
• Gather information on resources, timescales
• Construct a plan- list tasks, timescales and dependencies , allocate task
• Decide on the tools to be used and identify control systems