What Is Project Management?
Why We Need Project Management?
26% of projects are successful.
46% of projects are challenged.
28% of projects fail.
Average cost overrun is 89%.
Average schedule overrun is 122%.
45% of functions provided in newly developed systems are never used.
## The Top Ten Reasons Why You Need Project Management..
A disciplined project management process is important to any project. Project managers are expected to deliver results, on time (if not sooner) and on budget. Solid project planning reduces the risks associated with any project you take on. Here are ten reasons why you need project management:
1. Control Scope Creep and Manage Change,
Small changes in demands occur on every project. They come from management, the customer, your project team, suppliers, or other stakeholders. Individually, they may appear acceptable, but collectively these project demands can add up to a significant project expansion (referred to as “scope creep”) that can overrun your budget. As a project manager, if you effectively manage the scope of your project, you have a better than even chance of effectively managing project resources — time, money, etc. — and managing change.
2. Deliver Project Results On Time and On Budget,
Project planning starts with a well thought out business case justification that usually includes some type of cost calculation associated with Return On Investment (ROI). Once these measures are established, it is up to the project manager to ensure that on-time, on-budget performance is maintained; otherwise, the project will never produce the expected results. That’s what good project management is all about.
The project team can easily drift off topic and spend too much time on the wrong tasks. A good project manager keeps the project team focused by using a clear and concise project charter, resolving barriers, or shielding the team from unnecessary interference.
4. Obtain Project Buy-In from Disparate Groups
As President Lincoln once said, “Public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed.” A good project manager uses the tools in the initiation phase of project management to collect user requirements, project constraints, and a feasibility study to build a strong business case justification. Using input from various sources, the project manager overcomes dissent and obtains buy-in by communicating the project benefits as the different stakeholder groups see them.
5. Define the Critical Path to Optimally Complete your Project,
Every project is made up of a series of connected activities, each of which has its own constraints. The project manager identifies the critical path of activities — the optimal sequence of actions that best ensure the project’s successful completion.
6. Provide a Process for Estimating Project Resources, Time, and Costs,
Using project management software, previous project experiences, and a solid project initiation phase can provide the discipline needed to reduce project estimating errors, increasing the likelihood that the project will finish on time and on budget.
7. Communicate Project Progress, Risks, and Changes,
As a project progresses, stakeholders must be kept informed of the outcomes, changes, stumbling blocks, or successes that the project experiences. Project management creates a project communication plan to address these communication issues, provide a format, and lay out a process for execution.
8. Surface and Explore Project Assumptions,
All projects are based on assumptions to some extent. A good project manager delves into user requirements, project constraints, and management expectations to understand what is said and what is not said. Relying on too many unconfirmed assumptions can invalidate a project schedule or, worse, sink the project.
9. Prepare for Unexpected Project Issues,
Every project runs into unforeseen issues, such as changes in market conditions, and is hit with random cause variability. Experienced project managers plan for the unexpected by lining up alternative courses of action.
10. Document, Transfer, and Apply Lessons Learned from Your Projects
The last phase of project management focuses on “closing out” the project. The project manager reviews how well each prior phase — project initiation, project planning, project execution, and project monitoring and control — was performed. As part of good knowledge management, all project review notes should be dissected and analyzed for patterns, trends, and opportunities for improvement. These “lessons learned” should be documented and communicated to other project managers before starting the next project.
Project Manager Value
The value a project manager adds is to a project is:
• Manages people in a stressful environment
• Keep everyone focused on the ultimate goal
• Manage the scope of the goal
• Constantly adjust workloads and timeframes to keep the project on track
• Manage problems. Not necessarily resolve the problems but ensure they are
being addressed or escalated
• Ensure all the stakeholders are aware of any changes
• Fight for the necessary resources
• Plan ahead and take actions to ensure the plans can be followed
• Know where everything is up to, and manage dependencies between different
By better project management, perhaps the warning signs that the project was at risk could have been communicated. Expectations could have been managed. Perhaps better project management could have refocused the project to smaller deliverables in shorter timeframes, or a complete re-scoping of the project. All these are the normal activities of a project manager. Any experienced, people oriented project manager will understand these sorts of potential issues. By project managing the close down of the project, many of the employees could have been salvaged.
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