PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Project management is the practice of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of
a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria at the specified time. The primary
challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals within the given constraints. This
information is usually described in project documentation, created at the beginning of the development
process. The primary constraints are scope, time, quality and budget. The secondary—and more ambitious—
challenge is to optimize the allocation of necessary inputs and apply them to meet pre-defined objectives.

The object of project management is to produce a complete project which complies with the client's objectives.
In many cases the objective of project management is also to shape or reform the client's brief to feasibly
address the client's objectives. Once the client's objectives are clearly established they should influence all
decisions made by other people involved in the project – for example project managers, designers, contractors
and sub-contractors. Ill-defined or too tightly prescribed project management objectives are detrimental to
decision making.

Types of PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Project management methods can be applied to any project. It is often tailored to a specific type of projects
based on project size, nature and industry. For example, the construction industry, which focuses on the
delivery of things like buildings, roads, and bridges, has developed its own specialized form of project
management that it refers to as construction project management and in which project managers can become
trained and certified. The information technology industry has also evolved to develop its own form of project
management that is referred to as IT project management and which specializes in the delivery of technical
assets and services that are required to pass through various lifecycle phases such as planning, design,
development, testing, and deployment. Biotechnology project management focuses on the intricacies of
biotechnology research and development. Localization project management includes many standard project
management practices even though many consider this type of management to be a very different discipline. It
focuses on three important goals: time, quality and budget. Successful projects are completed on schedule,
within budget, and according to previously agreed quality standards.

Approaches of PROJECT MANAGEMENT

A 2017 study suggested that the success of any project depends on how well four key aspects are aligned
with the contextual dynamics affecting the project, these are referred to as the four P's:

Plan: The planning and forecasting activities.

Process: The overall approach to all activities and project governance.

People: Including dynamics of how they collaborate and communicate.

Power: Lines of authority, decision-makers, organograms, policies for implementation and the like.

Benefits Realization Management

Benefits realization management (BRM) enhances normal project management techniques through a focus on
outcomes (benefits) of a project rather than products or outputs, and then measuring the degree to which that
is happening to keep a project on track. This can help to reduce the risk of a completed project being a failure
by delivering agreed upon requirements/outputs but failing to deliver the benefits of those requirements.

Critical Chain Project Management

Critical chain project management (CCPM) is an application of the theory of constraints (TOC) to planning and
managing projects, and is designed to deal with the uncertainties inherent in managing projects, while taking
into consideration limited availability of resources (physical, human skills, as well as management & support
capacity) needed to execute projects.

Earned Value Management

Earned Value chart shows Planned Value, Earned Value, Actual Cost, and their variances in percent. The
approach is used in project management simulation SimulTrain.

Earned value management (EVM) extends project management with techniques to improve project
monitoring. It illustrates project progress towards completion in terms of work and value (cost). Earned
Schedule is an extension to the theory and practice of EVM. This theory was introduced in 2019.

Iterative and Incremental Project Management

In critical studies of project management, it has been noted that phased approaches are not well suited for
projects which are large-scale and multi-company, with undefined, ambiguous, or fast-changing
requirements,or those with high degrees of risk, dependency, and fast-changing technologies. The cone of
uncertainty explains some of this as the planning made on the initial phase of the project suffers from a high
degree of uncertainty. This becomes especially true as software development is often the realization of a new
or novel product.
Lean Project Management

Lean project management uses the principles from lean manufacturing to focus on delivering value with less
waste and reduced time.

Phased Approach

The phased (or staged) approach breaks down and manages the work through a series of distinct steps to be
completed, and is often referred to as "traditional"[28] or "waterfall".[29] Although it can vary, it typically
consists of five process areas, four phases plus control: initiation, planning and design, construction,
monitoring and controlling, completion or closing.

Process-based Management

The incorporation of process-based management has been driven by the use of maturity models such as
the OPM3 and the CMMI (capability maturity model integration; see this example of a predecessor)
and ISO/IEC 15504 (SPICE – software process improvement and capability estimation). Unlike SEI's CMM,
the OPM3 maturity model describes how to make project management processes capable of performing
successfully, consistently, and predictably to enact the strategies of an organization.

Project Production Management

Project production management is the application of operations management to the delivery of capital
projects. The Project production management framework is based on a project as a production system view,
in which a project transforms inputs (raw materials, information, labor, plant & machinery) into outputs (goods
and services).

Product-based Planning

Product-based planning is a structured approach to project management, based on identifying all of the
products (project deliverables) that contribute to achieving the project objectives. As such, it defines a
successful project as output-oriented rather than activity- or task-oriented. The most common implementation
of this approach is PRINCE2.

Process Groups

Traditionally (depending on what project management methodology is being used), project management
includes a number of elements: four to five project management process groups, and a control system.
Regardless of the methodology or terminology used, the same basic project management processes or stages
of development will be used. Major process groups generally include: Initiation, Planning, Production or
execution, Monitoring and controlling, Closing.

Initiating

The initiating processes determine the nature and scope of the project. If this stage is not performed well, it is
unlikely that the project will be successful in meeting the business’ needs. The key project controls needed
here are an understanding of the business environment and making sure that all necessary controls are
incorporated into the project. Any deficiencies should be reported and a recommendation should be made to
fix them.

Planning

After the initiation stage, the project is planned to an appropriate level of detail (see example of a flow-chart).
[34] The main purpose is to plan time, cost and resources adequately to estimate the work needed and to
effectively manage risk during project execution. As with the Initiation process group, a failure to adequately
plan greatly reduces the project's chances of successfully accomplishing its goals.

Executing

While executing we must know what are the planned terms that need to be executed. The
execution/implementation phase ensures that the project management plan's deliverables are executed
accordingly. This phase involves proper allocation, co-ordination and management of human resources and
any other resources such as material and budgets. The output of this phase is the project deliverables.

Project Documentation

Documenting everything within a project is key to being successful. To maintain budget, scope, effectiveness
and pace a project must have physical documents pertaining to each specific task. With correct
documentation, it is easy to see whether or not a project's requirement has been met. To go along with that,
documentation provides information regarding what has already been completed for that project.
Documentation throughout a project provides a paper trail for anyone who needs to go back and reference the
work in the past. In most cases, documentation is the most successful way to monitor and control the specific
phases of a project. With the correct documentation, a project's success can be tracked and observed as the
project goes on. If performed correctly documentation can be the backbone to a project's success.

Monitoring and controlling

Monitoring and controlling consists of those processes performed to observe project execution so that
potential problems can be identified in a timely manner and corrective action can be taken, when necessary,
to control the execution of the project. The key benefit is that project performance is observed and measured
regularly to identify variances from the project management plan. Monitoring and controlling includes:
Measuring the ongoing project activities ('where we are'); Monitoring the project variables (cost, effort, scope,
etc.) against the project management plan and the project performance baseline (where we should be);
Identifying corrective actions to address issues and risks properly (How can we get on track again) ;
Influencing the factors that could circumvent integrated change control so only approved changes are
implemented.

Closing

Closing includes the formal acceptance of the project and the ending thereof. Administrative activities include
the archiving of the files and documenting lessons learned.

This phase consists of:

Contract closure: Complete and settle each contract (including the resolution of any open items) and close
each contract applicable to the project or project phase.

Project close: Finalize all activities across all of the process groups to formally close the project or a project
phase

Also included in this phase is the Post Implementation Review. This is a vital phase of the project for the
project team to learn from experiences and apply to future projects. Normally a Post Implementation Review
consists of looking at things that went well and analyzing things that went badly on the project to come up with
lessons learned.

Project Controlling and Project Control Systems

Project controlling (also known as Cost Engineering) should be established as an independent function in
project management. It implements verification and controlling function during the processing of a project to
reinforce the defined performance and formal goals.[38] The tasks of project controlling are also: the creation
of infrastructure for the supply of the right information and its update; the establishment of a way to
communicate disparities of project parameters; the development of project information technology based on
an intranet or the determination of a project key performance indicator system (KPI); divergence analyses and
generation of proposals for potential project regulations; the establishment of methods to accomplish an
appropriate project structure, project workflow organization, project control and governance; creation of
transparency among the project parameters.

Project control is that element of a project that keeps it on track, on-time and within budget. Project control
begins early in the project with planning and ends late in the project with post-implementation review, having a
thorough involvement of each step in the process. Projects may be audited or reviewed while the project is in
progress. Formal audits are generally risk or compliance-based and management will direct the objectives of
the audit. An examination may include a comparison of approved project management processes with how the
project is actually being managed. Each project should be assessed for the appropriate level of control
needed: too much control is too time consuming, too little control is very risky. If project control is not
implemented correctly, the cost to the business should be clarified in terms of errors and fixes.

Control systems are needed for cost, risk, quality, communication, time, change, procurement, and human
resources. In addition, auditors should consider how important the projects are to the financial statements,
how reliant the stakeholders are on controls, and how many controls exist. Auditors should review the
development process and procedures for how they are implemented. The process of development and the
quality of the final product may also be assessed if needed or requested. A business may want the auditing
firm to be involved throughout the process to catch problems earlier on so that they can be fixed more easily.
An auditor can serve as a controls consultant as part of the development team or as an independent auditor
as part of an audit.

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