The Dirty Little Secret Of Project Management

Top to Down: When given the total time by project manager, higher level managers tend to squeeze the time to reduce the time and cost. Therefore, lower level manager has to give up the initial schedule to satisfy higher level managers. The finalized time depends on the complexity of the organization: the more layers, the less time to complete a project.

With the exceptional growth in technology, the present day projects are often large and complex involving a significant risk. So, a Project Management Methodology enables the delivery organization to handle these projects comprehensively, systematically and in an integrated manner, which results in strategic, tactical and operational benefits.

In the current business environment, the demand for project managers is ever growing. In short, project management is a provisional project constrained by time, cost and scope (A guide to the project management body of knowledge, 2013). Between the immense organization, optimization, and communication assets skilled project management brings to a project, it is easy to see why project management is a booming field of study. Furthermore, project management can be both financially and personally rewarding when long term milestones and goals come to fruition.

1. Mitigate effect motivational and cognitive biases in estimating and scheduling. In many cases, project managers intentionally or unintentionally create project schedules that are impossible to implement.

Project Management is the art of arranging, sorting out, spurring, and controlling resources to attain specific objectives. A project is a brief endeavor intended to deliver a unique product, service, attempted to meet extraordinary objectives and goals, commonly to achieve helpful change or included quality.

In this paper the word ‘project” is defined, discussed and elaborated on. The phases of a project lifecycle and its purpose are to be discussed, and how it is important for organizations to use project management to accomplish tasks will in conclusion be discussed thoroughly. The indisputable word ‘Project” may be defined in numerous unusual ways, some can all have the same meaning and others can mislead a reader. The definition that accurately explains what a project is, comes from the Houghton Mifflin Company (2009) website stating; “something that is contemplated, devised, or planned; plan; scheme.” A definition that can mislead a reader is this definition from the same website just two paragraphs

Some projects may last only a few days while others could last for years. The author states that the first step in managing a successful project is to develop a plan to produce the desired results on time and within budget. Short projects which are thoroughly and realistically planned are most likely to succeed. However, larger, more complex projects are more likely to encounter things that don’t work as planned. The greatest chance for success comes when

Overconfidence can lead to internal failure within a person or a team. A good leader will be able to see when his or her team is beginning to demonstrate such behavior and have a technique or strategy to humble the team. This keeps the team focused on the goal at hand and keeps the team on track to achieve the goal. During the Denver Airport Project the main coordinators did not leave room in the timeline for unseen drawbacks and had to keep pushing the airport opening day back. This just was not a few days or weeks this was months to years.

One way project teams add safety to duration estimates is to overestimate the time to complete individual activities. Team members may pad the activity time to ensure that they will be able to meet the promised deadline. This padding is augmented by the

Project Managers and management seem to be the only people who have knowledge about the roadmap of the project and what needs to be done (Pechau, 2011). The arbitrary timelines being imposed in a top-down way are making it difficult for those who are actually performing the tasks to communicate exactly what, from their level, still needs to be done and the nature of that work. This is impeding an accurate understanding of where the timeline really is and the depth and breadth of the work to still be accomplished.

it is being completed, and the procrastinator lulls themself into a false sense of security. This

Alternatively, I’ve observed over-zealous executive teams declare a time-to-market mandate without consideration of the project complexities. The pressure on the project teams results in estimates executives “want to hear,” but that have no basis in the reality of the work. As time and cost estimates are missed, the environment tends to deteriorate into one of finger-pointing, excuse-making and general dysfunction

In most projects, there are so many things that have to get done that it's hard to stay on top of everything and in control of everything. A project manager thinking differentially and see big picture and then manage according to work.

In a perfect world, the project manager would simply implement the project plan and the project would be completed. The project would work with others to formulate a schedule, organize a project team, keep track of the progress, and announce what needs to be done next, and then everyone would charge along. (Larson p.339) We do not live in a perfect world and most of the time things do not go according to plans. When situations arise project participants get upset, become angry with each other, technical glitches accrue, and sometimes the job takes longer than excepted. The project manager job is to get the project back running smoothly, serve as a peacemaker, and make appropriate trade off, time cost, and the scope of the projects.

Proper following and acknowledgement of the timeline is vital to the success of this project. If the project goes overtime, it can cause serious budget mess-ups and furthermore delays.