Project management in the modern sense began in the early 1960s, although it has its roots much further back in the latter years of the 19th century. The need for project management was driven by businesses that realised the benefits of organising work around projects and the critical need to communicate and co-ordinate work across departments and professions. One of the first major uses of project management as we know it today was to manage the United States space programme. The government, military and corporate world have now adopted this practice. Here is the main definition of what project management is:

1. Project management is no small task.
2. Project management has a definite beginning and end. It is not a continuous process.
3. Project management uses various tools to measure accomplishments and track project tasks. These include Work Breakdown Structures, Gantt charts and PERT charts.
4. Projects frequently need resources on an ad-hoc basis as opposed to organisations that have only dedicated full-time positions.
5. Project management reduces risk and increases the chance of success.

Project management is often summarised in a triangle. The three most important factors are time, cost and scope, commonly called the triple constraint. These form the vertices with quality as a central theme.

1. Projects must be delivered on time.
2. Projects must be within cost.
3. Projects must be within scope.
4. Projects must meet customer quality requirements.

More recently, this has given way to a project management diamond, with time, cost, scope and quality the four vertices and customer expectations as a central theme. No two customers’ expectations are the same so you must ask what their expectations are.

A project goes through six phases during its life:

1. Project Definition: Defining the goals, objectives and critical success factors for the project.
2. Project Initiation: Everything that is needed to set-up the project before work can start.
3. Project Planning: Detailed plans of how the work will be carried out including time, cost and resource estimates.
4. Project Execution: Doing the work to deliver the product, service or desired outcome.
5. Project Monitoring & Control: Ensuring that a project stays on track and taking corrective action to ensure it does.
6. Project Closure: Formal acceptance of the deliverables and disbanding of all the elements that were required to run the project.

The role of the project manager is one of great responsibility. It is the project manager’s job to direct, supervise and control the project from beginning to end. Project managers should not carryout project work, managing the project is enough. Here are some of the activities that must be undertaken:

1. The project manager must define the project, reduce it to a set of manageable tasks, obtain appropriate resources and build a team to perform the work.
2. The project manager must set the final goal for the project and motivate his/her team to complete the project on time.
3. The project manager must inform all stakeholders of progress on a regular basis.
4. The project manager must assess and monitor risks to the project and mitigate them.
5. No project ever goes exactly as planned, so project managers must learn to adapt to and manage change.

A project manager must have a range of skills including:

• Leadership
• People management (customers, suppliers, functional managers and project team)
• Effective Communication (verbal and written)
• Influencing
• Negotiation
• Conflict Management
• Planning
• Contract management
• Estimating
• Problem solving
• Creative thinking
• Time Management

“Project managers bear ultimate responsibility for making things happen. Traditionally, they have carried out this role as mere implementers. To do their jobs they needed to have basic administrative and technical competencies. Today they play a far broader role. In addition to the traditional skills, they need to have business skills, customer relations skills, and political skills. Psychologically, they must be results-oriented self-starters with a high tolerance for ambiguity, because little is clear-cut in today’s tumultuous business environment. Shortcomings in any of these areas can lead to project failure.” – J. Davidson Frame

Many things can go wrong in project management. These things are often called barriers. Here are some possible barriers:

1. Poor communication
2. Disagreement
3. Misunderstandings
4. Bad weather
5. Union strikes
6. Personality conflicts
7. Poor management
8. Poorly defined goals and objectives

A good project management discipline will not eliminate all risks, issues and surprises, but will provide standard processes and procedures to deal with them and help prevent the following:

1. Projects finishing late, exceeding budget or not meeting customer expectations.
2. Inconsistency between the processes and procedures used by projects managers, leading to some being favoured more than others.
3. Successful projects, despite a lack of planning, achieved through high stress levels, goodwill and significant amounts of overtime.
4. Project management seen as not adding value and as a waste of time and money.
5. Unforeseen internal and/or external events impacting the project.

Project management is about creating an environment and conditions in which a defined goal or objective can be achieved in a controlled manner by a team of people.

Managing multiple projects can be cumbersome and chaotic if you don’t have some kind of system in place to keep track of everything. That challenge can be compounded when you add in multiple services, subcontractors or employees, and various team members on the client side. I have found that my business runs most efficiently when I have a system driving data collection, tracking tasks, and facilitating collaboration with all of the people that need to be in the know on a specific project.

I’ve tried many project management applications in my search for the perfect system and came up with a short list of options that seemed to have the most potential for me. Of course, the way each person works is unique to them, so finding the right tool for you may take some individual research. But here are three of my favorites and a handful more to give you a starting point.

1. Intervals

Intervals is listed first because it’s the application I currently use, but don’t let that sway you. This is a powerful tool that would be a worthy addition to any project management list. It has a task-based setup, which suits me perfectly, and it has (almost) all of the features on my wish list, including:

• Task management
• File storage
• Reporting functions
• Client access
• Subcontractor task assignment
• Time tracking
• Security

Intervals also has invoicing and a whole slew of budgeting functionality built in, although I don’t use those features…not yet, at least. They have great customer service, respond very quickly to my many feature requests, and are consistently adding new functionality. Plus, the company behind Intervals is a web design/development company who struggled to find a perfect project management tool for their business so they created their own.

What Intervals is missing for me is an option for recurring tasks, a notebook/whiteboard space, and a few other minor features. It may be a bit pricey (the plan that comes with SSL protection is $100/month), but if you work in a task-centric flow and need expansive functionality in your PM application, this is a great option.

2. Basecamp

Basecamp is a very popular project management system touted as being useable by everyone. And it’s true; it’s very easy to use. Sections are broken into To-Do’s, Milestones, Writeboards, Chat, Time, Files with a Dashboard, showing you all of the highest priority items across all of your data. It’s a great tool for collaboration and interaction, with features including:

• Multiple projects
• File sharing
• Project-based to-do’s
• Time tracking
• Commenting and message boards
• Writeboard (notebook-like functionality)
• Security

It has a good range of monthly plans, with a mid-priced plan of $49/month for features comparable to Intervals $100/month plan. Basecamp provides an exhaustive list of extras and add-ons sold a la carte, which brings the cost closer to Intervals. Some of the useful add-ons include invoicing, time tracking, desktop widgets and some iPhone apps.

The downfall for me is that it is a bit too simple, and I just couldn’t get it to bend to my needs. And, of course, I have my task-oriented focus to support, which Basecamp didn’t. But it is a great option, and if you’re looking for a quick and straightforward tool with virtually no learning curve that everyone on your team can use, this is it.

3. Teamwork Project Manager

Teamwork Project Manager offers a robust set of features in a very intuitive format. It has a look and feel that is reminiscent of Basecamp, but is just a bit more extensive. Some of the features include:

• Task lists
• Time tracking
• File sharing
• Milestones
• Message boards
• Notebooks
• E-mail integration

Like Intervals, Teamwork Project Manager is another very strong project management tool with a responsive company behind the wheel and great customer service. They reply quickly to questions and feature requests and have a roadmap of the up-and-coming enhancements available online. They offer a number of monthly plans, ranging from free to $150/month. Their lowest plan that offers SSL (throughout the account, not just upon login) is $24/month. If you like Basecamp, but need a little more built-in functionality, this is a great option.

For individuals who obtain and maintain PMI credentials, you not only get recognized for your skills and knowledge during the vigorous credentialing process, but also show your dedication to the profession and professional development.  View the top 10 reasons for earning a PMI credential.

Even the family of credentials undergoes a vigorous process of development and maintenance that is recognized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The graphic below illustrates the credential development and maintenance process.

Click here for printer-friendly version of the life cyle chart

PMI Certifications Maintain ISO Accreditation

PMI’s certification program maintains an ISO 9001 accreditation in quality management systems. ISO 9001 is an international standard that validates compliance with quality management processes and performance metrics. Maintenance of the certification reaffirms PMI’s commitment to optimal customer service and to the quality and integrity of its professional credentials.

The PMP credential process also maintains ISO 17024 accreditation. This distinction benefits PMP credential holders in several ways:

1. It elevates the status of PMP credential holders on projects, within organizations and within the global project management community

2. It allows organizations that employ PMP credential holders to reference the ISO 17024 certification as a qualifier for the competence and capability of their employees

3. It assures those professionals considering the PMP credential that PMI’s certification system is recognized in the global business community

Project management has become a very important factor in our job because in this highly competitive market, there are more and more new innovation or ideas that have to be converted into reality. With more and more changes and shrinking of product life spans, there is a need for more projects to be rolled out.

Organizations need people with the skills and effort to convert good ideas from board room charts to everyday reality; to do it within budget, and in a way that satisfies all of the stakeholders of the organization.

Project Management is all about making things happen and is all about coordination.

Effective Project Manager coordinates the planning, managing all the related resources, getting support and controlling the project budget.
This web based project management training course is specially created to share the key successful project management steps for both Project Mangers and the projects they work on. But remember that the most successful projects, no matter how difficult they may seem, are still run on basic, sound project management fundamentals and principles. And, good news is these fundamentals and principles are something that you CAN Learn and Master.

Project Initiation

Project Initiation is the first phase in the Project Life Cycle and essentially involves starting up the project. You initiate a project by defining its purpose and scope, the justification for initiating it and the solution to be implemented. You will also need to recruit a suitably skilled project team, set up a Project Office and perform an end of Phase Review. The Project Initiation phase involves the following six key steps:
 

Project Planning

After defining the project and appointing the project team, you’re ready to enter the detailed Project Planning phase. This involves creating a suite of planning documents to help guide the team throughout the project delivery. The Planning Phase involves completing the following 10 key steps:
 

Project Execution

With a clear definition of the project and a suite of detailed project plans, you are now ready to enter the Execution phase of the project.
 
This is the phase in which the deliverables are physically built and presented to the customer for acceptance.
 
While each deliverable is being constructed, a suite of management processes are undertaken to monitor and control the deliverables being output by the project.
 
These processes include managing time, cost, quality, change, risks, issues, suppliers, customers and communication.
 
Once all the deliverables have been produced and the customer has accepted the final solution, the project is ready for closure.
 

Project Closure

 Project Closure involves releasing the final deliverables to the customer, handing over project documentation to the business, terminating supplier contracts, releasing project resources and communicating project closure to all stakeholders. The last remaining step is to undertake a Post Implementation Review to identify the level of project success and note any lessons learned for future projects.
 

MPMM is based on best practice…

More than 45,000 people in 50 different countries currently use the MPMM Project Life Cycle to deliver projects. MPMM project management methodologies are based on the best practice industry standards for project management: PMBOK® and Prince2®.

About midweek they decide to walk up and down the beach during their lunch hour. Halfway up the beach, they stumbled upon a lamp. As they rub the lamp a genie appears and says “Normally I would grant you 3 wishes, but since there are 3 of you, I will grant you each one wish.”

The hardware engineer went first. “I would like to spend the rest of my life living in a huge house in St. Thomas, with no money worries and surrounded by beautiful women who worship me.” The genie granted him his wish and sent him on off to St. Thomas.

The software engineer went next. “I would like to spend the rest of my life living on a huge yacht cruising the Mediterranean, with no money worries and surrounded by beautiful women who worship me.” The genie granted him his wish and sent him off to the Mediterranean.

Last, but not least, it was the project manager’s turn. “And what would your wish be?” asked the genie.

“I want them both back after lunch” replied the project manager.

The APM Project Management Conference 2009 is an interactive forum that will provide you with an insight into the development of effective project professionals.

Topics being covered include:

Project Sponsorship
Training and development
Growing the skill-set of project professionals
Benefits of the new chartered status
PMPL will be attending the Conference which combines in the evening with the APM’s prestigious awards dinner where we continue our sponsorship for the Young Project Manager of the Year.
Visit us on stand 5 in the King George III room, to hear about new products we are launching and our ‘Learning Beyond the Classroom’ community, which provides support to project managers after their training when back in the work place.

For more information on the event go to http://www.apm.org.uk/conference.asp