Project Management: a business-focused approach

When managing a project, it is important to have an overall definition of what a project is supposed to accomplish, and a specific description of what the end result should be or accomplish. Regardless of the methodology used, the project development process will have the same four major stages: initiation, planning, execution and controlling, and closure.



The planning phase is critical in the success of a project. If it is not performed well, it is unlikely that the project will be successful in meeting the business’s needs.





Project management software is a term covering many types of software. The components most frequently found are : scheduling, cost control, budget management, resource allocation, collaboration software, communication, quality management and documentation. Project management software needs to provide a lot of information to various people, to justify the time spent using it. It can be implemented as a program that runs on the desktop of each user.



Several national and professional Associations exist which have as their aim the promotion and development of Project management and the Project management profession. For example the PMP (project management professional) has published a set of guidelines for project management known as Project Management Body Of Knowledge (PMBOK). These are helpful guidelines, but they have to be slightly adapted for each project. Nethertheless, applying a recognized project management methodology considerably improves the chances of success.





Project control begins early in the project with planning and ends late in the project with post-implementation review (closure phase). It has a thorough involvement of each step in the process. Each project should be assessed for the appropriate level of control needed: too much control is too time consuming, too little control is too costly.



With a good project tracking system, if a project is partially completed and data about the project duration, cost, and events occurred is available, it is possible to refine information about future potential events and helps to forecast future project performance.





Also furthering the concept of project control is the incorporation of process-based management. In the agile software development or flexible product development approach, the project is seen as a series of relatively small tasks conceived and executed as the situation demands in an adaptive manner, rather than as a completely pre-planned process.





The key project controls needed here is an understanding of the business environment and making sure that all necessary controls are incorporated into the project.