Table of Contents
Project Management Guide Overview
1. Project Management Basics
2. Project Management Methodologies
3. Project Lifecycle
4. Project Management Software
5. Team Collaboration Tips
6. Agile Methodology Basics
7. Agile Project Management Tools & Techniques
8. Project Management Frameworks
9. Resources
10. Glossary
11. FAQ
Basic Guides and Tutorial Stages
- Beginner: I Haven’t Started the Project
- Middle: Planning the Project
- Advanced: Managing a Project
Even though “project manager” isn’t your official title, everyone oversees projects. Project management is crucial to attaining corporate goals, whether you’re a marketer, creative director, or IT specialist.
Project management is the process of developing, planning, and carrying out a plan to achieve particular objectives. Project management, however, goes far beyond what it is described as. It’s a broad subject that includes many different themes.
Because project management may improve organizational efficiencies, foster teamwork, and have a positive effect on the bottom line, we at BLOGFORALL are passionate about it. We are aware that not everyone works as a project manager. Despite the fact that project management is utilized in all facets of the company, mastering its intricate terminologies and principles might advance your project management career.
Our project management guide was created to give you an overview of some of these ideas and terminologies as well as advice on how to manage projects more effectively. Additionally, we’ve included links to numerous blog posts from BLOGFORALL as well as additional BLOGFORALL eBooks, films, and infographics. Enjoy it, we hope!
Basics of project management introduction
To stand out in today’s fiercely competitive global business market, it is essential to be able to deliver projects on time, within budget, and in alignment with corporate objectives. Due to this, it is crucial that the project manager has a thorough understanding of project management, ranging from the fundamentals to substantial expertise. Project managers have a very challenging job that requires a unique combination of analytical thinking, excellent interpersonal skills, and organizational skills.
We’ll go through the fundamentals of project management and what it entails to be a project manager in this section.
How do you define a project?
We must first define what a “project” is in order to go on to the fundamentals of project management. Sure, you’ve certainly been given a ton of “projects” at work or at school, but what does that term actually mean?
A “project” is described by the Project Management Institute as “a temporary activity was undertaken to generate a distinctive product, service, or outcome.”
In this definition, you need to pay attention to the following points:
Projects that are described as “temporary” must have a clear beginning and end. This implies that a timetable, scope, and resources are required for any project. It is not a component of continuing operations because it is a one-time event with a start and end. Consequently, we arrive to our second point.
A project’s goal must be “to provide a distinctive product, service, or result.” This indicates that a project will be launched to achieve a particular objective that is ordinarily outside the purview of ordinary day-to-day business operations. This means that the project team may be made up of individuals who don’t generally collaborate and may call for resources that fall outside the normal course of business.
While dictionary.com describes a project as “a huge or important enterprise, especially one involving considerable money, employees, and equipment,” this definition is a little more ambiguous.
Nevertheless, the following elements need to be included in every project:
- Goal: What are you trying to achieve?
- Timeline: When are you trying to achieve it by?
- Budget: How much will it cost to achieve?
- Stakeholders: Who are the major players who have an interest in this project?
- Project manager: Who is going to make sure everything that needs to be completed gets completed?
A project is not something routine. Day-to-day operations or maintenance is not considered a project because it does not have a definitive start and end.
What is project management?
Applying knowledge, skills, tools, and strategies to execute a project in accordance with predetermined criteria is the practice of project management. The key to comprehending project management is to recognize the issue, develop a strategy to address it, and then carry out that strategy up until the issue is resolved. Although it may seem straightforward, each step of the process involves several different factors.
The construction of the Great Wall of China and the Giza Pyramids is where project management first emerged. However, the modernization of project management dates back to the 19th century, when railroad firms hired thousands of employees and acquired tons of raw materials to build the transcontinental line.
Early in the 20th century, Frederick Taylor began to apply project management principles to the working day, creating plans for doing things more effectively and efficiently rather than making workers put in longer and tougher hours. In order to provide a new approach to visualize project management, Henry Gantt, a colleague of Taylor’s, took these ideas and graphed when specific activities or a sequence of tasks were accomplished using bars and charts.
Military and business executives used even more intricate management techniques during World War II, which eventually led to more standardized procedures like the critical path method.
The International Project Management Association and Project Management Institute were established in 1965 and 1969, respectively, as a result of the growing acceptance of these techniques across industries. The Agile Manifesto, which was written in 2001, formalized agile project management practices.
The desire to deliver change quickly, an environment that is more competitive, and new technology are all causing changes in the field of project management (automation, AI, etc…)
What are the stages of project management?
The five project management process groups are:
- Initiating: The goal for this phase is to define the project.
- Planning: This phase includes developing a roadmap for everyone to follow.
- Executing & Monitoring: In this stage, the project team is built and deliverables are created. Project managers will monitor and measure project performance to ensure it stays on track.
- Closing: The project is completed, a post-mortem is held, and the project is transferred to another team who will maintain it.
Why is project management important?
Project managers will help your organization:
- have a more predictable project planning and execution process
- adhere to project budgets, schedules, and scope guidelines
- resolve project roadblocks and escalate issues quicker and easier
- identify and terminate projects that do not have relevant business value
- become more efficient
- improve collaboration across and within teams
- identify and plan for risks
What do project managers actually do?
Project managers must have a thorough understanding of project management because they are in charge of the planning, carrying out, monitoring, controlling, and finishing of projects. But those are simply the very beginnings of project management fundamentals. The following are a few of the primary duties of a project manager:
Create the plan: Project managers are in charge of determining the project’s most practical course of action. The project scope, schedule, and budget must all be included in the plan. Finding the appropriate tools for the job can also fall under this category.
From the team: The foundations of project management depend on choosing the right team. Depending on the size of the initiative and the tasks required to finish the project, each project team will be unique. It is excellent to get specialists and subject matter experts for each of the required duties.
Give tasks: Project managers must clearly define the precise duties and deadlines for each phase of the project for their team. Despite the fact that each team member is accountable for their own work, many activities will necessitate cooperation from both internal and external team members..
Leading the team: After the team has been put together and duties have been given, the project manager must keep everything running well by going above and beyond the scope of project management. This will involve following up with people to find out how they are doing, locating and removing obstacles, settling disputes, maintaining team spirit, and offering training and mentorship.
Budget management: Since most projects will incur some costs, success depends on an understanding of how to create a project budget and control costs. This entails comparing actual costs to projections and, if necessary, altering the project design.
Keeping things on schedule is the project manager’s responsibility in order to ensure that the team meets its estimated completion dates, much like with the budget. This calls for establishing a thorough schedule, communicating regularly with their team for status updates, and setting reasonable deadlines throughout the project’s lifecycle.
Stakeholder engagement: Stakeholders are important to your project’s success. They are frequently powerful individuals who will be impacted by the initiative. Project managers need to keep a good relationship and an open line of communication with stakeholders because they may both help remove obstacles and empower your team and also cause unneeded bottlenecks and derail a project if they become dissatisfied with the course it is taking.
Transferring the project: The project manager’s job is not finished just because the project’s goals have been met. The project must now be handed over to the group that will be in charge of its ongoing management, upkeep, and operation. The project manager will then be given a new project and will no longer be the “go-to” person.
Create a process log: Finding and recording “lessons learned” is a beneficial practice for project managers’ personal development as well as for sharing that knowledge with other teams within the business for future use. This will prevent others from making the same errors or from utilizing any shortcuts that were found.
Project Manager Certifications
- It is not required to obtain a general project management certification, however, certain firms may favor or pay more for certified project managers. Although the Project Management Institute (PMI) administers the Project Management Professional (PMP), it is not the sole certification program. Here are a couple of the additional choices
- Associate in Project Management
- Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)
- Certified Project Director (CPD)
- Certified Project Manager (IAPM)
- Certified ScrumMaster (CSM)
- CompTIA Project+ certification
- PRINCE2 Foundation/PRINCE2 Practitioner
- Professional in Project Management (PPM)
- Master Project Manager (MPM)
It’s time to study project management approaches now that you have a solid grasp of project management fundamentals. Every methodology serves a different function, therefore depending on the project’s needs, you’ll want to pick the appropriate approach or framework.
The next section outlines each methodology in in-depth
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