Operation Management Week 6 - Assignment Example

School: OPERATION MANAGEMENT WEEK 6 Lecturer: OPERATION MANAGEMENT WEEK 6 Project management can be said to be a means to an end of achieving process improvement. This means that though effective project management, it is possible to achieve process improvement (Meredith and Shafer, 2014). To this end, project management must always be carried out in a manner that follows the specific principles of continuous process improvement. At the same time, the principles of project management must be carried out in an independent manner that ensures that at the end of a project, the observation of project management concepts will ensure that there have been efficiency and effectiveness with the whole project.

Traditionally, five major concepts are considered in project management. These concepts form the project management processes prescribed by the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK). The five concepts are initiation, planning or design, production or execution, monitoring and controlling, and closing (David and Cleland, 2006). From the diagram below, it would be noted that some of the concepts are independent, whiles other depend on others. There are also some that interrelate to each other.

On the whole, the concepts are in place to ensure that at every point in time, there will be a systematic way of approaching projects to achieve the goals of process improvement.Source: Alessandro (2008).Examples of projects that have been conducted following the concepts of project management and the success that came out of these projects continues to be an inspiration for others to follow the concepts. A typical example of such project can be cited as the Walt Disney Companys Theme Parks, which was carried out using the ITIL initiative of project management.

Carried out in 2010, the project has become one of the finest examples of projects that met project management core concepts (The APM Group and The Stationery Office, 2010).ReferencesAlessandro B. (2008). Project Management Phases. Rome: Unpublished Dissertation. David I. and Cleland, R. G. (2006). Global Project Management Handbook. New York: McGraw-Hill ProfessionalMeredith J.R. and Shafer S.M (2014). Operations Management for MBAs. 5th Edition, New York: WileyThe APM Group and The Stationery Office (2010).

Disney’s ITIL Journey. Retrieved April 18, 2014 from http://www.axelos.com/gempdf/disney_itil_journey.pdf