Project Management
What is Project Management?
A project is generally defined to be a unique work effort with a defined scope or deliverable to be completed within a defined period of time. It is not an on-going operational activity. Project Management is the management of the people, processes and technologies of a project. The project manager (PM) is responsible for delivering the results of a project on time, within budget, and with all the expected functionality at the desired level of quality. As such, the PM is accountable to the full set of project stakeholders. To a lesser extent, the PM is responsible for the effectiveness of the solution as specified in the scope and requirements.
As with other management disciplines, project managers are held responsible for the success or failure of the project, while they generally are not direct creators of the project deliverables. Projects do not usually fail for technical reasons, but they often fail for reasons within the scope of the PM's responsibilities. Even within the same organization, no two projects are exactly the same - they differ in multiple ways.
Project Management requires a balance of skills across a broad spectrum of business, technology and people management. The PM's must delicately balance between doing too much of one thing and too little of another. While this makes the PM's job interesting and creative, it makes simply applying standard solutions to problems not a simple matter.
Having a working knowledge of the technical skills of project management does not ensure success. It takes having a sense of the project and the situation, which comes from project experience. Based on the PM's experience and sense, selecting and applying the right tools and techniques becomes easier.
The value of quality project management is often overlooked when a project is a success and not always perceived as the cause when a project gets into trouble or fails. General project management, as in construction and hardware engineering development is a rigorous and mature discipline. Project management within Software Engineering, is just starting to be appreciated and it is maturing rapidly.
As a vocation, Project Management success comes from maintaining the balance and the breadth of the discipline areas.Project Management is the management of the people, processes and technologies of a project.
Project Management is a hybrid discipline within Software Engineering drawing from Business Management, People Skills, Software Engineering technical disciplines and Project Management specialty skill areas. It is rooted as much in business management as it is in Software Engineering. While strength in a one or more of these knowledge areas is very helpful, a lack of exposure in one of the areas can be very detrimental.
Within Business Management knowledge area, the PM must have a working level of understanding in multiple diverse areas, including:
- Business Management Principles
- Organizational Strategies and Goals
- Organizational Policies and Practices
- Organizational Development
- Human Resource (staff) Development and Management
- Team Building and Motivation
- Proposals and Project Estimating
- Finance and Accounting
- Communications Skills and Management (oral, written, one on one, presentations, etc.)
- Risk Management
- Values and Ethics
- Organizational Change Management
- Procurement and Contract Management
- Vendor Management
- Within People Skills knowledge area, the PM must be adept at:
- Motivation
- Problem Solving
- Facilitation
- Performance Evaluations
- Negotiations
Within the Software Engineering technical disciplines, PMs need a working knowledge of:
- Project Initiation and Chartering
- Project Scoping
- Requirements Management
- Standards
- Design Methods
- Documentation Methods
- Technical Training
- Quality Assurance Techniques and Quality Management
- Development Platforms, including Hardware, Software Environments, Networks, Tools, Languages, etc.
- Deployment Approaches
- System Integration
Plus, Project Management specialty skill areas, including:
- Project Planning
- Project Life Cycles
- Development Methodologies
- Requirements Management
- Work Breakdowns and Scheduling
- Project Tracking and Oversight
- Cost Estimating, Tracking and Reporting
- Resource Management
- Stakeholder Management
- Process Management
- Communications (Intra-Project and Outside the Project)
And as a clarification,
Project Management is often confused with, but is not:
- Portfolio Management (PM) - the identification and selection of which projects to fund and work, based upon organizational strategies and goals.
- Program Management (PM) ? in the context of project management, it is the management of a set of projects, which share some common element or purpose, such as being parts of a larger focused deliverable. Program Managers manage the relationships between the project set to ensure the larger deliverable is achieved.
- Capability Management Model (CMM and CMMI) - a specific process improvement program focused on a software engineering organization. There may be projects initiated to achieve CMM goals.
- Process Improvement or Business Process Improvement or Business Process Engineering - efforts designed to improve an organizations work processes. Projects may be created to implement these improvements.
- Six Sigma - a specific business process improvement methodology that is very data and statistically driven.
