Project Management Study Notes UNIT-I
Project Definition
A project is a set of tasks that must be completed within a defined timeline to
accomplish a specific set of goals. These tasks are completed by a group of
people known as the project team, which is led by a project manager, who
oversees the planning, scheduling, tracking and successful completion of
projects.
Important elements of a project: Each project has the following elements:
Goals: these are desired outcomes that must be achieved by a predefined
time. For example, the project goal could be to “launch the app by March
10” or “gain X new leads by September.”
Tasks: tasks are the project activities that are assigned to team members
who must complete them before their deadlines.
Timelines: timelines indicate clear start and end dates for individual
tasks. They also help project managers visualize a project in its entirety.
Milestones: milestones are important events along a project’s timeline
and are used to monitor progress. Examples can include obtaining
funding, getting approval from a key stakeholder, or entering the testing
phase for a new app.
Resources: resources are anything you need to deliver a project. These
include people, money, supplies, and more.
Deliverables: a deliverable is what you produce during the project. It can
be reports, content, products, apps, or any other item that the client has
asked for.
Budget: budgets are the total cost of a project.
Stakeholders: stakeholders are individuals who are involved in a project.
Internal stakeholders can include project managers and team members.
External stakeholders can include contractors and suppliers.
Acceptance criteria: acceptance criteria are the conditions that a project
must meet for a client to accept (e.g., a mobile app has to work with iOS
and Android devices).
What Are Examples of Project Types?
A common example of a project would be product development. Multiple
departments are involved in creating the product, marketing it, selling it, and
more. The team that designs a project is different from the teams that
manufacture, market, or sell the product. As part of a project, each of these
teams would be working with a project manager who helps move the product
development from one stage to the next.
What is Project Management?
Project management is the process of leading the work of a team to accomplish
all project goals within a specific period of time. Project management is an
application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to meet the project
requirements. The objective is to use the optimum resources to accomplish a
goal in the minimum time.
Characteristics of Project Management
1. Project Charter: The project charter is one of the special project
management documents that translate the project sponsor’s business case
into project objectives.
2. Tools and Techniques: The management of projects uses several special
tools and techniques, combined with subject-related knowledge and skills
that have been developed over the years to manage different aspects of
the project and facilitate the processing of large amounts of data. These
include the CPM analysis, the Gantt chart, the resource histogram, the
earned value graph and tables, activity crashing, and matrix organization
structures.
3. Project Plan: The project plan is a special project management document
integrating the knowledge areas with individual plans to form one
combined baseline plan.
4. Project Management Processes: The project management process is a
special management technique for managing a linear sequence of steps or
interrelated actions performed to achieve a specified set of projects,
results, or services. The project management process is subdivided into
the following sub-processes (initiation, planning, execution, and closing).
5. Project Organization Structure: The project organization structure is a
special management technique that enables the project manager to form
temporary organization structures and project teams that can be designed
to suit the needs of the project and the project participants. This enables
the project leader to build and motivate the team and coordinate their
work.
6. Project Methodology: The project lifecycle format is a special
management technique subdividing the project into several identifiable
phases that each produce a distinct deliverable. This sequence of phases
forms the backbone of the project methodology, interlinking all the topics
within a phase and between phases.
