PROJECT MANAGEMENT

What is 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.
Project management is the application of skills, experience, knowledge, methods,
and processes to achieve the objectives of a project. It is the body of knowledge regarding
projects, i.e., planning, controlling, and reviewing. Project management also involves
making sure you complete the project.
Put simply, it is the profession of planning, organizing, and managing many things,
including people and projects.
A project has a specific beginning and end. In other words, it is temporary. It also has
specific scope and resources. A project is also unique in that it is not a routine business
operation. The project has a unique set of operations that aim to accomplish one goal.

What are Project Management Teams?

A project team is a team whose members usually belong to different groups,

functions and are assigned to activities for the same project. A team can be divided into
sub-teams according to need. Usually project teams are only used for a defined period
of time. They are disbanded after the project is deemed complete.
A project team usually consists of: project manager: responsible for leading the
project team and ensuring the team has everything the need to complete their tasks.
project stakeholders: include the customer or contractee, the project staff, partners,
internal or external service providers.
Wide range of project management tasks

As a project is unique, it typically includes collaborators who do not usually work together.
In fact, the collaborators often come from different organizations, disciplines, and even
countries.

Examples of projects may include the construction of a new bridge or building or

developing software for an improved business process. A relief effort for a natural
disaster, or setting up a strategy to break into a new sales geographic market are also
projects.

If you want to complete a project on time, you need to manage it well. You also need to
make sure you are within budget. Not only must you work to meet deadlines but you also
have to make sure that quality does not suffer.

Project management, therefore, is the application of techniques, tools, skills, and

knowledge to make sure all project requirements are met.

Until the middle of the last century, project management was an informal activity.

According to the PMI (Project Management Institute):

“Project management, then, is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques
to project activities to meet the project requirements.”
Why is ICT essential to Project Management?

ICT Project Management plays a key role in administration of projects in

organization today. Various studies have been conducted on the ICT project management
to ensure that projects are being conducted accordingly and services are delivered
respectively in line with the progress of information technology. Based on the literature
review, there are various methodologies and best practices in ICT project management,
however based on the analysis conducted it is discovered that the number of failures in
ICT projects internationally and locally are tremendous. ICT project management most
used standard project management methodology such as PMBOK, PRINCE2, ITIL,
CMMI and PPISA. Preliminary results found that most of the existing ICT project
management studies do not focus on business process management (BPM) although
BPM has been widely used in organization level. Therefore, this study will use a BPM
approach which is a new discipline in project management, to help increase the success
of ICT projects. This approach combines the methods of management and information
technology and it is believed that can improve the management of ICT projects to meet
the needs of consumers. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to develop the ICT
project management framework using BPM approach. Research methodology is being
conducted through literature reviews, interview and case studies on ICT project
management in public sector. This ICT project management framework using BPM
approach will be validated using the Delphi technique. The results of this research are
found to serve as a guide for the ICT project manager not only to managing ICT project
in public sector, but can be applied to private sector and other fields.
 How does Online Collaborative Tools help in Project Management?

Online collaboration software has recently become the number one tool used
by distributed project teams. Sometimes referred to as project ware or project
collaboration software, online collaboration platforms help people communicate and
make it easier to use the array of other productivity tools currently on the market. Ranging
in price from free to enterprise pricing, online collaboration tools – especially those based
on visual management – are the most effective.

With visual online collaboration software, you can:

 Stop searching through long lists to find critical information

 Stop flooded email inboxes
 Get status updates in real time
 Communicate on projects and share files
 Track productivity

Online collaboration not only helps team members work smarter, it also helps project
managers increase overall team effectiveness and track of all the moving pieces of a
project or task.
Examples of Online Collaborative Tools

 Time Tracking Tools

 Time Doctor - is a feature rich app that will help you determine how long

it takes for a task or project to get completed. You can see what your

remote team members, outsourced workers, and freelancers are

working on at any given time.

 Communication Tools
 Yammer - is a private social network that helps employees collaborate
across departments, locations and business apps. It is a social network
that’s entirely focused on your business. In order to join your business’s
Yammer network, your team member must have a working email
address from your company’s domain.

 Design Tools

 Invision - is an enterprise grade prototyping tool that enables users to

upload designs, create actions such as button clicks, and gather

feedback seamlessly from colleagues and customers right from within

the app.