Project management is the most rated work process in the corporate sectors today.
It entails the planning and scheduling of an organization’s assets to complete a certain work, event, or obligation. Project Management helps an organization improvise its finances to maximize its revenue.
It can be a one-time project or a continuous effort, with resources such as staff, funds, technology, and proprietary information controlled. Project management works in a lot of complex industries, which involve long-term heavy-work loaded tasks.
But, whatever the sector, the project manager has the same job. Their work is to assist define the project’s aims and outcomes, as well as to identify when and by whom the different work elements are to be accomplished.
In this post, we will help you understand the various complexities of Project Management. We will help you understand how they also develop quality control tests. These tests help to guarantee that finished components satisfy a specific standard.
Most Popular Tool for Poject Management
The most widely used project management tool for many years has been Microsoft Project. This is primarily due to project managers and team members’ familiarity with other Microsoft products, rather than because Microsoft Project is the best option.
While its reign has been challenged and several have exceeded it, Microsoft remains a titan in this business. A discussion of project management software would be incomplete if Microsoft Project was not mentioned.
You can also check out the MS Project equivalent for Mac read about it here.
Project Management: What to know?
The kinds of projects that businesses pursue are determined by a variety of factors, including their company strategy and the marketplace. They have jobs depending on the demands of their industry.
As an example, we can see that a project manager at a telecom firm, for example, may oversee a Television marketing campaign, but various other project managers in a fast-food chain system may be involved in flavor profiling of the regions of the country.
Why do businesses invest in it?
Project management is a key strategic resource for firms of all sizes and sectors in today’s highly competitive professional landscape. For a business now, it will be impossible to imagine improving its business without project management.
But this was not always the case. Project Management did not become a true profession until the late post-world war period when a rush of big and complicated projects generated a desire for new methods to project management that boosted efficiency and effectiveness.
Project Management Examples
To help you get a better understanding of how project management works, we are giving you a detailed example from two different industries:
Project Management in Food Industry
A restaurant chain “X” wants to increase it revenue growth by 25% in the next three quarters for which it will have to open its chains in 3 different states of the country. When this task is assigned to a project manager, they start racing their minds.
A project manager will use various skills, techniques, and methodologies they know (given below) to make a roadmap of the project will unfold and would continue. Once they finish strategizing, they will start working on work allocation.
This way they will ensure that the work is in line with the business outlook, and also gets completed in the timeline that has been framed with maximum resource output.
Project Management in Influencer Marketing Agency
A social media influencer “Z” wants to increase their content reach to 200K on Instagram and grow their TikTok audience by 10% before the new year season. For this problem proposition, the same process with necessary modification as followed in the food industry will apply.
A project manager might hire third-party companies and tools to help their objectives be achieved. They will ensure that this work gets done under a specified budget as going above renvenue will put them in net loss which is not a favorable outcome.
How does Project Management matter?
If we take a look at start-ups or even traditional businesses that want to make it big in the current age, project management for them is efficient too for meeting requirements and delivering projects on time.
The biggest advantage of having a project management process is the benefit of having the tools to deal with unprecedented or impromptu problems. Apart from this, many other benefits arise from project management such as:
- Having a clear and defined vision of the project
- Detailed milestones toward reaching the end-goal
- Extremely cost-effective and resource-driven financial input
- Transparent functioning and update on project journey
- Customisability at every step
- Ability to deal with complex, un-thought-of problems
- Problematizing risk prediction
These are only some of the various benefits to gain from project management.
What does a project manager do?
Project managers have a variety of tasks. It might get confusing for normal people to understand the importance of a project manager’s responsibilities because it usually differs from one workplace to another.
However, there are certain key responsibilities of a project manager which are consistent across workplaces.
#1 Management
They include planning and setting up the scope of the project. This involves deciding on which technique and methodology to use for a project and establishing expectations from the project and controlling them.
They also need to draft and redraft the plans for the project. Project Managers spend most of their time allocating resources for the project, and organizing various tasks.
#2 Financials
Project managers have to estimate the expenses of the project along with the time taken to complete each task. The specific budget that has been provided by the company can not be exceeded
#3 Administration
Apart from constantly updating the team members about the status and progress of the project, there is a crucial and added leap they need to make.
Project managers have to access the risks involved in the project while dealing with any issues that come up during the implementation of the project
They frequently find themselves in difficult situations where they have to work hard to make things happen because they usually do not have authoritative power.
Here they have to come up with encouraging and motivating strategies for facilitating communication among the members of the team.
Gaining the respect and trust of your team members as well as the support of upper management is crucial if you want to become a successful project manager. You can only do that if you can get all your team members to collaborate and work together.
What does a team gain out of project management?
When you have a project manager on your team, you have someone who is committed to ensuring that work is completed on schedule and at the appropriate time.
Teams that have a project manager have the advantage of streamlined communication and strategized management. They do not have to worry about how to collaborate with other members or how to divide work because the project manager skillfully allocates each team member their work so that they can solely focus on achieving their individual goals.
Additionally, team managers make sure that the team’s efforts go smoothly with each other so that everyone can concentrate on working hard and creating quality products. This way, they are met with happy and satisfied clients who are content with the projects delivered by the team.
How is a project management process streamlined?
Some projects and industries demand that projects be run in a sequence. For example, in a construction project, you need to plan a lot to guarantee that the completion of a series of particular tasks is delivered within a particular stipulated time period.
When working on such projects, you might want to use traditional project management methods like the waterfall method or the critical path method. In the waterfall method, the main aim is to finish a task and pass it on so that it can be used or built upon in a subsequent task or phase.
In the critical path method, you map out all of the project’s tasks, specify what must be done before each activity begins, and then project how long it will take to complete each activity.
If you are working on projects with constantly changing needs, then you might want to opt for the extreme programming method. In this method, you can organize your team into smaller groups who have the flexibility to instantly change their course of work if required.
Steps used in Project Management
Putting together a project that will achieve the objectives you set for yourself is a difficult endeavor. That is why you must follow these stages and complete the activities that relate to them.
#1 Starting
The creation of a strategic plan and the assessment of the potential benefits of your project are both important at this point.
In addition, the moment is opportune to come up with a project plan, a statement of the outcomes of the project. You should also hold a meeting with all concerned parties to spell out your aims, communication methods, and timeline.
#2 Scheming
After project authorization is done, sit down with your team and work up a strategy that covers expenses, risks, and resources. It is a good time, to focus on your tasks since they will dictate resources and tech needs.
Remember to define an accurate project timetable, a communication plan, and deliverables. The project’s scope is established at this stage, and managers can develop a work breakdown structure to visualize each element of your project.
# 3 Implementing
This is the time when your team works on your project to complete the deliverables. Maintaining collaboration among stakeholders is another obligation that project managers have throughout project implementation.
#4 Monitoring
When your project reaches this level, the project manager must exert control over all team members to ensure that no one deviates from the original plan.
Managers may easily do this by defining Critical Success Factors (CSF) and Key Performance Indicators (KPI). Furthermore, the efforts and expenses must be monitored.
#5 Project completion
After completing the project, the majority of teams have reflection sessions to determine what factors contributed to their success or failure. Companies can then describe what needs to be improved. Finally, the project must be reviewed and a report must be written.