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Project Management Concepts To Help You Understand Your Project
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Every project needs a project management plan. Without it, a project becomes a messy black box that nobody can get a handle on, or worse, hold together! In order to make a project management plan to work successfully, it needs to be well-planned, well-structured and backed by actionable deliverables.
Project management plans identify different processes in project management organized into ten Learning Areas and classified into five process groups. In this article, we'll look at the first learning area, namely, Project Integration Management, and its generic processes. Project Integration Management includes six important elements: project planning, integration (both functional and structural), change control, integration strategy, project monitoring, and lastly, decision support. We'll discuss these topics in further detail.
The first stage of a project management plan is the project planning stage. In order to successfully manage project work, you must have a comprehensive understanding of all of its stages. This stage is often called, "Gathering the Ingredients." In every project, the goal is to gather as many inputs as possible, in the format required by the project, and from the right sources, and organize them in a way that is most efficient and effective for the process being conducted. In essence, this involves educating your team about what they are supposed to do, and what is expected of them.
Next, your project management plan will need to define your project's charter. The charter is a high-level document that describes the overall purpose and objectives of the project, as well as the means by which this project is to be conducted, and the relationship of all stakeholders to this project. For example, if your charter is going to involve a technical assessment of the proposed project, it will need to include information about the project manager, the manager of the subcontractors, and the scope document(s) (if any). It should also include the charter of the project budget. This charter should be reviewed and refined based on the needs of the project.
The final stage in your project management plan is the identification and evaluation of project management risk. You will need to identify and describe risks to the project and the ability of the project manager to control or mitigate them. In many cases, this will require the engagement of other organizational process assets, such as the organizational environment, human resources, the project budget, business case analysis, customer requirements, etc.
Project charter, high-level project management processes, and project management plans are only some of the many project management concepts that need to be understood, developed, and evaluated according to the specific requirements of a given project. In general, there are four project management processes involved: planning, organizing, starting, and finishing. Each project will call for different project management processes. Each process can be defined in terms of its own set of project management requirements. Thus, you need to understand that project management processes you need to use and how to apply them.