Project Management

Project management is the discipline of planning, executing and completing projects. Project managers achieve this by using a set of methodologies, processes and tools to guide their teams and manage resources.

Today, most project management professionals use project management software to plan, execute and control projects. ProjectManager, for example, lets you manage plans, resources, costs and teams in one online tool, for instance, Gantt chart, kanban boards, and calendars, to create project schedules and assign work with real-time resource availability.

Let's examine the main elements that make up the project management discipline:

Project Management Knowledge Areas
The Project Life Cycle
Project Management Methodologies
The Triple Constraint (To be added at a future date)
Project Management Tools & Techniques (To be added at a future date)
Project Management Software (To be added at a future date)
Project Management Team Roles (To be added at a future date)
Project Management Certifications (To be added at a future date)

Project Management Knowledge Areas

The term project management knowledge areas are used to describe all the different aspects of a project that need to be managed. Project managers are responsible for overseeing these areas, so they use all the tools, methods and resources available to them.

Here's a list of all the 10 project management knowledge areas described by the Project Management Institute (PMI) in its Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK). Click the links for an in-depth explanation of each.

Integration Management: Takes various project management processes and methodologies to create a strategy that helps teams work better together. This fosters teamwork and synchronises information for more clarity.
Scope Management: Project tasks, deliverables and milestones are identified, defined and controlled through a process that includes collecting stakeholder requirements, creating a work breakdown structure (WBS) and then monitoring and managing changes.
Schedule Management: Details how the project schedule will be created, managed and monitored. It is part of the planning stage of project management and creates a realistic timeline to achieve project goals.
Cost Management: Process that manages the planning and controlling of costs related to a project. This means collecting, analysing and reporting on costs to forecast and monitor the project budget to keep from overspending.
Quality Management: Overseeing all activities related to project deliverables creation to ensure that it meets quality expectations. This is done by continuing to measure quality throughout the execution of the project and correcting any deviations from quality expectations.
Resource Management: Get the most from the people, materials and equipment needed to execute your project by allocating and reallocating resources.
Communication Management: Various processes are used to deliver clear messages in a project. It involves the creation of channels, frequency and correct messaging to make sure they're received in a timely manner and understood.
Risk Management: Identifying, evaluating and preventing or mitigating risks in your project, whether these are negative risks to avoid or positive risks to exploit.
Procurement Management: Building and maintaining relationships with external resources required in your project. This includes vendors that sell products and services needed to meet project objectives.
Stakeholder Management: Identifying project stakeholders, determining their expectations and influence, and then developing strategies to manage them and keep them updated on progress.

These project management knowledge areas need to be managed from the beginning to the end of your projects. All projects go through the same phases known as the project management life cycle.

Project Life Cycle

The project management life cycle is made up of five phases, known as project management process groups: initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and control and closure.

The term project management process groups were coined by the Project Management Institute (PMI), and it's widely used in the project management industry. Some authors use synonyms such as project life cycle or project lifecycle, project management process or project management phases.

Let's learn about each of these project life cycle management phases.

Project Management Methodologies

Throughout the years, many project management methodologies have been developed to adjust to the needs of different industries. Some of these project management types or approaches also work best for projects of certain sizes and complexity levels.

Here's a list of the main project management methodologies. Click the links for an in-depth explanation of each.

Waterfall Project Management: A linear project management approach in which stakeholder requirements are gathered at the beginning of the project, and then a sequential project plan is created.
Agile Project Management: An iterative project management approach that doesn't follow a rigid project plan but short sprints of work called agile sprints.
Scrum Project Management: An agile framework that is very popular for product and software development.
Lean Project Management (or Lean Manufacturing): This technique was invented to improve manufacturing processes and became a very important project management methodology through the years.
Kanban Method: Kanban is a widely used project management approach that involves managing work through visual boards and cards. Kanban boards are used by agile and scrum teams.
Six Sigma: Just like kanban or lean, six Sigma is a set of tools and techniques developed to improve production processes, later becoming a project management approach.
Critical Path Method (CPM): The critical path method is a project scheduling technique that allows project managers to estimate a project's duration, identify task dependencies, float and critical activities.
Critical Chain Project Management: A project management approach based on the theory of constraints and uses resource management as the primary way to execute projects effectively.

PRINCE2 is the most popular project management methodology in the UK, Australia, and European countries. PRINCE2 is very similar to the Project Management Body of Knowledge from the PMI because it provides definitions and best practices for project managers.

PROJECTS

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