What is Project Management, Benefits does it Bring to Companies?

Project Management is a series of theoretical and practical perspectives that are applied to manage, design, and guide efforts within a corporate, civil, technology, and any other project from start to finish.

What are the Stages of Project Management?

According to the PMI (Project Management Institute), which is an organization on project management, and its Guide of the Project Management Body of Knowledge ( pmbok ), there are 5 phases in project management:

Feasibility Study

It is the first stage that is executed in the realization of projects. Its objective is to determine if the company would obtain economic or strategic benefits by realizing the same.

Through management software, a project record is created. An analysis of the scope, methodologies, and departments involved in determining the potential risks and applying the feasibility study at the desired times to know the total cost and quality.

Work Planning

In this phase, all the planned tasks and the resources necessary to complete the project are detailed. If this stage is not clearly detail, negative results can be produce for the organization. Great care!

To avoid problems, it is necessary:

• review project scope analysis;
• make estimates of effort, cost, and resources;
• define a project plan;
• and finally, draft a document on the terms of the agreement.

Execution

It is perhaps the most critical phase. Since in it, all the ideas, planning, and designs are materialize, using the techniques, resources, and processes previously foreseen.

It manages work environments, tasks, delivery of resources, and change requests.

Tracking

During this phase, the analyst must check that all parties involved are complying with:

• the labors;
• planning;
• and to manage and guarantee the quality of the project.

When verifying, follow-ups are carry out in the areas involve with quality control and incident registration. Then reports are generate with the predetermine indicators to be shown to superiors.

Close

At the end of the project, it must be evaluate and verify that the expectations have been met and that everything is as establish during the planning. However, it is necessary to apply a failure analysis of the project to document the drawbacks and help make better decisions in the future.

A checklist is carry out during this stage, and a formal closure is Carrie out in all areas. A backup copy of the data is made, and the results are analyze to contrast them with the initial estimates.

What Methodologies Exist in Project Management?

Different methodologies can be use to optimize time, resources, and others according to the type of project or its needs. The most used are:

Traditional Sequential

These are the projects that are execute stage by stage. That is, one phase must be complete to start the next.

The advantage is obvious. It allows you to easily manage the progress at each stage and each person in charge. However, it causes projects to be restart  by going back to the beginning in the event of a failure.

Agile

It has the peculiarity of “breaking” the tasks into pieces and also, establishing a specific time to fulfill them. The objective is to carry out projects that meet exceptionally high-quality standards and respect planning priorities.

Likewise, it contributes to the acceleration of activities, increased productivity, and more lavish parties’ commitment.

Change Management

With a special focus on risk planning and taking advantage of change when it occurs. Its methodology allows you to focus on change management within the project. In them, it is possible to determine the potential risks outside the project’s scope and offer massive change management techniques to advance towards its completion.

What Tools Exist For Project Management?

To minimize or avoid errors and increase productivity. Today, there are three effective techniques: Gantt Chart, Pert/CPM, and Critical Chain.

Gantt Chart

It comprises two coordinate axes where all the tasks and activities within the project are contain. Likewise, the different phases are delimited to identify the critical events for all those involved.

If it is update periodically, it is easy to visualize the reality of the project. However, it is not recommend for very flexible projects to change, nor for effortless approaches.

Pert/CRM

It serves to identify the activities within the project, their dependencies, and also, the time required for each one, to apply a probability equation that determines the total execution time.

This tool is handy when running complex projects with simultaneous and sequential tasks.

Critical Chain

It is ideal when facing very complex projects since it simplifies the monitoring and control stages. Thanks to it, crucial activities for the project can be detect and also, become critical activities.

It reduces the estimate terms of the same, and time is use in strategic areas. It allows control of the development of tasks and, in this way, the speed is monitor, and timely decisions are made.

Conclusion

Project management remains the process of leading the work of a team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints. The primary controls are scope, time, and also, budget. This information remains usually described in project documentation, created at the beginning of the development process.