The Idea of a Project Being Managed Professionally - Essay Example

INTRODUCTION This paper is about Project Management and attempts to answer the questions that are part of the assignment. The emphasis is on the definitions as well as real world examples. The main source that is used is the PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) 3rd edition. The definition of a project as well as the questions related to the practice of project management is dealt with in this paper. The attempt is to answer the questions and provide a general sense of what project management is all about. 1. What is a Project? According to the PMBOK 3rd edition, A project is defined as a “temporary endeavor with a beginning and an end and it must be used to create a unique product, service or result”. Further, it is progressively elaborated. What this definition of a project means is that projects are those activities that cannot go on indefinitely and must have a defined purpose. A project is an activity to meet the creation of a unique product or service and thus activities that are undertaken to accomplish routine activities cannot be considered projects. For instance, if your project is less than three months old and has fewer than 20 people working on it, you may not be working in what is called a project according to the definition of the term. It has to be remembered that the term temporary does not apply to the result or service that is generated by the project. The project may be finite but not the result. For instance, a project to build a monument would be of fixed duration whereas the result that is the monument may be for an indefinite period in time. A project is an activity to create something unique. Of course, many of the office buildings that are built are similar in many respects but each individual facility is unique in its own way. Finally, a project must be progressively elaborated. This means that the project progresses in steps and continues by increments. This also means that the definition of the project is refined at each step and ultimately the purpose of the progress is enunciated. This means that a project is first defined initially and then as the project progresses, the definition is revisited and more clarity is added to the scope of the project as well as the underlying assumptions about the project. 2. What are the basic phases of a project and their purposes? The phases of a project make up the project life cycle. It is convenient for the project managers to divide the project into phases for control and tracking purposes. Each milestone at each stage is then elaborated and tracked for completion. The basic phases of a project are dependant on the kind of project that is being carried out. For instance, a software project may have requirement, design, build, test, implementation phases whereas a project to build a metro or a building may have different names for each phase. Thus, the naming of the phases of a project depends on the kind of deliverables that is sought at each phase. For the purpose of definition, the phases may be divided into initial charter, scope statement, plan, baseline, progress, acceptance, approval and handover. This classification is according to the PMBOK. Thus, the phases of a project are closely correlated with that of the project cycle. The purpose of each phase of the project is a set of deliverables that are agreed upon before the project starts. For instance, in a software project, the requirement phase needs to generate the requirement documents, the design phase the design document etc. The build phase in a project delivers the completed code whereas the test phase is about the completed testing for the deliverables. Each phase of the project is associated with a certain milestone and the set of deliverables that each phase is expected to deliver is then tracked for compliance and closure. The Project Life Cycle consists of the initiating, executing, controlling and closing processes of the framework as described in the PMBOK. Each of these processes is necessary to ensure that the project stays on track and is completed according to the specifications. 3. Why is it important for organizations to use project management to accomplish tasks? Project management is the art of managing the project and its deliverables with a view to produce finished products or service. There are many ways in which a project can be carried out and the way in which it is executed is project management. Project management includes: identifying requirements, establishing clear and achievable objectives, balancing the competing demands from the different stakeholders and ensuring that a commonality of purpose is achieved. Without a scientific approach to the task of managing the projects and achieving objectives, it would be very difficult for the organizations to successfully execute the projects within the constraints of time, scope and quality and deliver the required result. In other words, there has to be a framework and a defined way of doing things to ensure that there is a structure to the art of project management. Thus, project management is about creating structure and managing the project commitments and the delivery of agreed upon results. By using the methods of project management as described in the PMBOK and allied technical journals, organizations can seek to achieve control over the project environment and ensure that the project deliverables are being managed. Managers face what is known as the “triple constraint”. This is the competing demands of time, scope and quality upon the project manager’s list of things to do and how well the project manager manages these constraints goes a long way in determining the success of the project. Without the use of Project Management, managers and organizations would find themselves facing an unpredictable and chaotic environment over which they have little control. Thus, Project Management is both necessary and essential to the success of the project, CONCLUSION I have listed the answers to the questions that are part of the assignment. Project Management is too big an area to be covered in a few pages and the attempt is to provide concise and lucid definitions of the various terms and terminologies associated with a project. In conclusion, Project Management and the practice of the same have become indispensable to the modern day project manager and they form the basis of much of what is achieved during the course of a project. Thus, the idea of a project being managed professionally lends itself to the concepts and processes laid out for the practitioners of the art of Project Management. Sources “Project Management Body of Knowledge”. 2006. 3rd Edition. Boston: PMI. Read More