Project Management PMI

Project management is the process of coordinating a team and its resources

Project Management

Project management is the process of coordinating a team and its resources to execute a specific task from start to finish successfully. It includes planning the activities, measuring the progress, allocating resources, identifying constraints, and completing the task while respecting them.

Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements. It’s the practice of planning, organizing, and executing the tasks needed to turn a brilliant idea into a tangible product, service, or deliverable.

Key aspects of project management include:

Defining project scope
Identifying deliverables
Managing risks
Effective communication across teamsDefining project scope

A huge part of “coordinating” in project management is communication. Most project managers struggle with this because they underestimate how important (and difficult) it is to communicate the right information to the right people at the right time.

People are at the core of project management. The sole purpose of project management is the successful completion of the project by facilitating people’s work.

Thus, the project manager isn’t responsible for the completion of the project. He is responsible for the people who are going to complete the project. This is a distinction that separates the great from the good project managers.

Similarly, all the project management tools, methodologies, software and techniques serve this one purpose. To make people’s work easier. NOT to do the work for them.

Since we have a reliable understanding of the definition of project management, let’s dive into its most fundamental concepts and key players.

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The 5 phases of the project management process

The Project Management Institute introduced this project management life cycle as an overlay to create a unifying and formalized way of structuring and organizing the various elements of projects.

Essentially, these five phases establish a roadmap to a more consistent, successful completion of projects.

Let’s take a brief, focused look into the five phases of project management:

Initiating

This is the first phase of the project management lifecycle and the one most people like to skip, often to their detriment.

It is where projects are born. The importance of this phase is that it provides context. It aligns projects with strategy.

Explore this strategic planning template to understand where projects fit inside a strategy plan.

This phase might include brainstorming to come up with several project ideas. Then, each project goes through its “initiation” process where you determine its key aspects like:

The scope
The deadline
The risk
The resources
The people needed

This should not be an exhaustive planning of the project (this comes later), but a detailed estimation of whether it’s worthy of the time and resources it requires to achieve your objective.

In this phase, the owner of the project (the project manager) is also determined.

Planning

This is the phase where most people start their project management process. However, only the projects that have successfully gone through the initiation phase should progress to this one.

Why?

Because you don’t want to end up abandoning a project midway through.

Or, even worse, end up with a product that is unrelated or damaging to the business.

The planning phase is where you build a schematic of the project. You break down the project into smaller tasks and milestones, each with its respective deadlines.

Responsibilities are distributed to people and if the organization doesn’t have the necessary people to complete the project (and has decided to commit to it), it includes recruitment as well.

The metrics that will determine the team’s progress are also defined at this phase, as well as the details of the reviewing habit that will be installed.

This is crucial for the successful completion of the project.

Determine the nature of your reviewing habit at the start of the project management life cycle – will it be a meeting, a report? – its frequency – daily, weekly, monthly – and the exact metrics and topics you’ll be reviewing.

The actual cycle of the project management cycle might start here. It depends on the nature of the project and the methodology the project manager chooses to use.

Executing

As soon as the planning phase is over and people start attending to their tasks, the executing phase starts.

The execution phase is where the magic happens. People make progress towards the final goal and the project manager manages unexpected developments and supports their people.

Executing and monitoring are not two distinct phases in a project management life cycle. They support and complement each other.

The execution phase includes:

Building processes
The Development of the product

Monitoring

Monitoring and controlling the project’s progress is a crucial responsibility of the project managers because it enables them to stay on top of the production and proactively manage it to meet the requirements.

Even if the project’s estimations weren’t accurate in the planning phase, a practical monitoring practice has a patching effect. It spots the inaccuracies early, providing the opportunity to recalibrate the rest of the project.

That is exactly why it’s so essential to decide at the start of the project your reporting needs and commit to them. Although your reviewing practices might evolve over time, they should never decline or be treated as optional.

Even a simple update in a conversation can go a long way in maintaining velocity and focused execution. Use this KPI template to simplify your reporting and save time.

Closing

The closing is the final phase in the project management lifecycle. It’s where the team “delivers.”

Two reports should be prepared with the completion of the project. One for the Supervisors (the receivers of the project) and one for the team’s performance, a post-mortem if you’d like.

Along with the deliverables, the team provides a report on the outcome of the project that includes:

Requirement: which were met and which weren’t

Key decision points where certain trade-offs happened. What was the reasoning behind them?

Goals met and unmet

The post-mortem includes:

What went wrong
What went right
Wins to celebrate
Lessons to be learned

To sum, the project management lifecycle is an effective high-level framework that provides structure and formalizes the various phases and processes a project goes through.

It provides clarity and a basic structure to organize the work of each project.

There are, however, more specific and less high-level methodologies that offer more detailed instructions to follow in the mess of the real world.

Before we discuss those methodologies, let’s highlight two crucial elements of project management: the project’s milestones and the project’s stakeholders.

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Project Management PMI

Project management is the process of coordinating a team and its resources