Project Management

1. Discuss the principal reasons why project management has become such a popular business tool in recent years.

Define a project. What are the characteristics which help differentiate projects from other functions carried out in the daily operations of the organization?

1) The difference between projects that fail and those that are ultimately successful has to do with:

Project ____ may be defined as a test of whether a project has met scope, time, and cost goals.

All projects are defined by the purpose, objectives and deliverables. Properly defining these, as well as the other aspects of the project management plan will

The completion of all phases can determine a project success. The success of a project includes the completion being completed within the allocated time period, within the budgeted cost. It must be completed at the proper performance/quality level with acceptance by the consumer. During this phases there should be minimum scope changes and no disturbance to the main work flow.

2. One way that project management differs from management of more traditional activities is because of the limited lifetime of projects.

In simple words a Project can be defined as temporary effort undertaken to create a unique product, service or result. Since the project is of temporary nature it has a definite start and end time. (Guide 2001)

What is project management? Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements. (PMBOK 2004)

‘A project is a connected sequence of activities involving a range of resources, designed to achieve a particular outcome and frequently used as an instrument of change. It takes place within a defined period of time and is the responsibility of a single individual or agency’ (CMI p17)

Projects can be affected by a wide range of issues that may cause it to fail from not meeting project scope, timeframe, budgetary constraints to lack of management support or bad customer service. Failures of a project can affect morale, employment, and waste time and money. For a project to be started without adequate organization may end as a failure.

He needs to ensure that the project’s scope clearly identifies and accurately associates to the resources, time and budget throughout the life cycle of the project. It is just as equally important that the project manager controls the scope. The most common reason for software project failures is not failure to control budget or schedule, but an inability to control requirements, either at the outset or during the build phase (Nielsen, n.d., para. 1). It starts with a stakeholder having one objective in mind, but after the last speaker has added his or her wish list, it bears no resemblance to the original vision. Failure to maintain a narrow focus on the initial objective of the project will lead to overruns of both schedule and budget (Nielsen, n.d., p. 1).

As it was often cited in class, no project can achieve success without proper coordination between three essentials: scope, schedule and cost. Change one, and the other two will be impacted. On the other hand, trying to prohibit all changes to a project is often fruitless and can have very adverse consequences.

The project priorities are in regards what should be prioritised in the project. What is to be taking in regards in terms of cost is (budget), time (schedule), and performance (scope) of the project. What is important to emphasise on here is how these three correlate with one another. In a case where time is important it would be necessary to perform faster, which will prevent a quality outcome, hence lead to reduced costs. The importance of a project manager is to control the trade-offs between budgets and scope. The project managers functions as a link between upper management and project customers. The project manager needs to have keen understanding of project scope in order to fulfil the requirements for the customers and how prioritize the demands. The customer can also add requirements and then the manager needs to prioritize the requirements in regards to the project. An important method is to use the priority matrix to identify what is worth prioritizing more. The constrain is stick and have to be obliged to the first agreements made between the customer, this includes, the specifications and scope of the project or the budget. The enhance includes time and costs. The enhance is an essential factor seeing where to emphasize on either on reducing costs or

This essay will critically analyze the following statement: “The First step in making project management work must be a complete definition of the boundaries across which the project management must interact” (Kezner, 2009 p 381) by: detailing the importance of planning, the importance of defining boundaries, and