Table of Contents Title Page

Conforming to Project Management Life Cycle Ensures Success Knowing Project Manager Responsibilities for Effective Management Attain Success with Sequential Project Management Phases Integrated Project Management A Holistic Approach Run Your Business with an In-depth Project Integration Management Project Management 101 A Good Aproach to Project Scope Ensure Project Success with Comprehensive Project Scope Management Project Management Framework The Secret to Successful Business Implementation Set Specific Project Management Objectives to Achieve Specific Outcomes Project Management Processes Helpful Tools to Achieve Objectives

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Conforming to Project Management Life Cycle Ensures Success

Project management forms the framework of planning, control and analysis of an objective that will allow completion of a project within a certain period of time. Project management life cycle refers to a logical sequence of activities that must be undertaken to accomplish the project's goals or objectives. Regardless of the extent of coverage, all projects go through a series of stages from start until completion. Initiation, planning, execution and closure are the stages of project management which are all of significant value in finishing a project. The initiation phase is the stage for laying down the scope of the project together with the strategies to deliver the desired results. Since it is the first stage, it should be done right otherwise, the whole project will not be successful. The members of the project need to have a good If there are

understanding of the environment they are working in.

problems identified, they should be reported immediately so that they will be addressed before the start of the project. In this stage, the project

manager is appointed and he in turn chooses the team members based on their skill and capabilities.

The second stage is planning, which includes detailed identification and assignment of each task to the project members. This stage involves the creation of a set of plans to serve as a guide through the execution and closure phases of the project. During this phase, risk analysis and

definition of quality criteria is done for the successful completion of products or services being handled. Involve your team in planning as this will give you a chance to plan the project based on all the available experience and creative ideas. The created plans will help you manage time, quality, change and cost. It will also help you effectively manage your staff and suppliers to ensure that you deliver the project on time. The execution phase is usually the longest phase that consumes the most energy and resources. During this phase, it is important to ensure that project activities are properly executed and controlled. Planned solutions are implemented to solve specific problems. Product design is created based on a set of product requirement. Groups across the organization become deeply involved in planning for the final testing, production and support. Closure is the final stage. At this point, the project manager is tasked to ensure that the project is properly completed. Written reports and reviews are submitted. This phase involves handing over the products to your

customer, releasing staff and equipment, giving the documentation, closeout of supplier contracts and formally closing the project.

Understanding Project Manager Responsibilities for Effective Project Management

A project is a sequence of tasks designed to produce a unique output. Projects are coupled with constraints and risks regarding cost, time and performance outcome. Project management is a well defined method of planning, organizing and managing resources to produce specific project goals and objectives within a certain time. The goal of project management is to ensure completion of a task with a well defined purpose and strategy. As such, it is a crucial factor in determining the success of an organization. Project management involves a wide variety of techniques, also known as project management tool box. Several management tools like business plans, team building techniques, and scorecards are also commonly included in the project management tool box. A project manager plays a major role in managing projects to achieve better productivity, ease of operation and a well focused marketing target. There are different skills needed to manage a project smoothly. To

become an effective manager, a person must receive formal management training to enable him to deal with any project related to architecture, construction, telecommunications and other infrastructural projects. Project managers are also needed in fields of design, services and sales. There

are a lot of project manager responsibilities but simply put, he focuses mainly on managing the projects he is assigned with. The manager is accountable for both starting the project and finishing it within the specified time. A good manager can be defined with five main criteria like managerial, leadership, team management, communication and ability to resolve problems that may arise. Project management is

associated with imparting duties and responsibilities to the members of the team. Individuals who are aspiring to be a project manager have to learn to be vigilant, develop a vision, make proactive decisions and understand the training diversity. A manager should have the ability to deliver the project with better success rates. To ensure good team performance, the manager should be able to lead everyone in his team and motivate them to perform beyond what is expected of them. Project managers should make it a point to perform efficiently and honestly even without supervision from higher authority. A key responsibility of a project manager is to be able to maintain confidentiality. Several projects are not properly implemented because the secrecy of projects was not safeguarded by the manager, which can be very costly. It is also the responsibility of the manager to establish He

communication between the employees and the higher authority.

should be the focal person when there is a need for a dialogue between members of a firm or organization. During emergencies or occurrence of an unexpected situation, the manager should be able to present immediate solution for his team members after all, he is expected to manage everything.

Attain Success with Sequential Project Management Phases

In most activities that you do, there is a sequence that you follow. There are standard chronological steps that you perform in order to arrive at a desired output. In baseball, for example, you cannot make a homerun

unless you hit the ball real good; there is no shortcut to a homerun. Otherwise it is not considered as a point for your team. In the same way, projects have to be carried out step by step to ensure accomplishment of the goals set at the beginning. In the accomplishment of a project, it is essential to follow these project management phases: 1. Project initiation is the first phase, and it sets the course for the whole project. During this stage, the group will understand the business need and the purpose of the project by creating a business case. The business case should describe the context of the business and define measurable goals that the project aims to achieve. In this phase you will identify the key sponsor of the project. He will be the one to establish the charter to carry out the project, provide adequate funds and remove roadblocks as they occur. This phase also includes appointing the project team and identifying the key stakeholders who will be involved during the entire project. To have a guide in the process of carrying out the

project, it is expected that the project scope management be clearly defined, stating, among others, what will and will not be delivered. 2. Project planning is the key stage that revolves around planning the project's resources, finances and timeline. More work is done to determine whether the proposed project will be of real benefit to the organization. If the project is considered beneficial and it is approved, more detailed planning ensues. During this stage, you will develop the project budget and schedule. The budget should incorporate costs of resources The business benefits, project

associated with the project activities.

requirements, scope, governance and integrated project management methodologies are agreed upon. 3. Project execution. After defining the scope of the project and finishing the plan, it is time to execute. During this time, you implement the activities according to your plan. There are a lot of factors to oversee during this stage, such as quality of work, timeliness, potential issues and communications with stakeholders to ensure that your project stays on track. 4. Closing a project. This phase happens when you finalize all project tasks and keep important documents for future reference. You will hand over the project deliverables to the customer, close contracts with suppliers and report to the sponsor the success of the project.

Integrated Project Management: A Holistic Approach

Project Management is a complex undertaking which involves

numerous stages and processes. It must follow the project management phases from definition to justification of the project, taking into account the delivery of benefits or profit for the business. Management is a necessary skill in the success of any business or discipline. Standards are set to measure the success or failure of a

particular project. However, as time passes, there may be a need to raise such standards in order to improve operating efficiency in the completion of a project. Projects need to be delivered on time, accomplished within the budget and at a high-quality standard to bring the needed benefit to the organization. Resource and budgetary constraints, together with the advancement of technology, call for a holistic, broader, efficient administration and leadership of projects. A comprehensive approach to project management is very essential now more than ever, and this can be achieved through an integrated project management approach. Integrated project management or IPM is considered the corporate governance that supports all efforts to optimize resources and achieve a good level of efficiency and expected benefits in the implementation of a project. It is concerned with human resource management, planning and

transforming an investment idea into a physical reality to achieve value for money. IPM acknowledges that a lot of stakeholders are directly involved with the management of a project, and that these stakeholders will invariably need to know the status of a project. These stakeholders are the business

owners, customer, management, technical staff and the organization as a whole. It is important to understand that different stakeholders need

different detailed data points depending on the specific roles they play. In a traditional organizational structure, individual stakeholders are reported to independently from separate data sources. This results in a

decentralization of data points and disconnection between the stakeholders interrelationships. Each stakeholder is focused only on their individual

responsibility to the project, and a holistic approach is never established. The project integration management approach, on the other hand, utilizes a centralized data source. This approach collects and forecasts relevant

information oriented towards a project's schedule, cost, resource requirements and accomplishments. Unlike a non-integrated approach, IPM allows each stakeholder to concentrate on how their responsibility will affect and are affected by the actions, decisions and interests of the other stakeholders. Bottom line is that the holistic approach provides insight rather than hindsight on both the project and stakeholder levels. It helps prevent crisis management by

supporting innovative communication among the stakeholders and it also presents timely, accurate and consistent data points for every stakeholder at different levels.

Run Your Business Well through In-depth Project Integration Management

Project Management is the process of organizing the elements of a project, whether the project is development of a new product, a marketing campaign or launching of a new service. A project is a planned undertaking that produces a specific result. Project integration management is a component of project management that coordinates all aspects of the project. When project integration is

properly observed, it ensures that all the procedures in a project will run smoothly. Integration management will produce a series of deliverables which include project charter, preliminary project scope statement and project plan. management: The first process is the development of the project charter. The project charter initiates the project and authorizes the project to progress. It also states the project objectives and identifies the project manager. The second process is the development of the preliminary scope statement which defines what is and what is not part of the project. The scope There are seven processes involved in integration

statement will list only the work involved with a specific project. It is a narrative description of the products or services to be supplied by the project and often indicates business boundaries, product requirements and strategic alignment with the performing organization.

Development of the project plan is the third process. Such a project plan includes the project charter, definition of the project, objectives, project schedule, budget and the resources required to finish the project, project scope management plan and the initial risk assessment that might be encountered in the implementation of the project. The fourth process is the directing and monitoring of project execution. This is the time when the project really gets underway. produced during this phase include the final deliverable product. The next process is the project work monitoring and control. During this process, management change may be implemented. It should be noted that requests for project change may be made within any of the project management phases. It is important that these requests be monitored and controlled; otherwise, the quality of the project may be compromised. A team is usually tasked to oversee requests for change and the evaluation or integration they entail. The sixth process of project integration management is the control of integrated change. This process involves reviewing all change requests, approving changes and controlling changes to the deliverables. Finally, closure of the project is necessary once it has been completed. Closing the project means going over the processes, successes and failures that were encountered in the project lifecycle. During this phase, an enumeration of the lessons learned is written and submitted by the project management team. references. Documents are then archived for future Particulars

Project Management 101 A Good Approach to Project Scope

An effective project manager is described as someone who has a clear vision of where to go and the ability to articulate it. In

general, project managers should have the qualities to empower people to achieve goals and objectives. Managers should have good communication skills to be able to negotiate effectively and use persuasion (when necessary) to ensure the success of the team and the project. Through effective communication, project managers are able to support individual and team achievements. The project manager must also follow all project management phases to ensure success. An effective and efficient project manager must simultaneously manage the four basic elements of a project: money, resources, time, and most importantly, scope. All these elements are interconnected and each must be managed effectively to arrive at the desired result. managed together and not treated as separate entities. Resources refer to people, equipment and materials needed in carrying out a project. Lack of project resources will be a constraint in the completion of the project. Successful integrated project management (IPM) is a result of resource scheduling, availability and optimization. Allocation of limited All must be

resources is based on the priority given to each activity.

The element of time management describes how to monitor and control time spent within a project. You can control the amount of time it takes Time management involves

staff to develop deliverables within a project.

listing of the key steps taken to manage time, a process diagram showing when those steps were taken and project duration. The element of money talks about project cost, contingencies and profits. The final element in project management 101 is the scope of the project. The project scope defines what the project is supposed to accomplish and the budget that was allocated to achieve the project objectives. Any

change in the scope of the project may entail a matching change in budget, time and resources or a combination of the three. Project scope involves the identification of your goals, objectives, tasks, budget, resources and scheduling. It also outlines the parameters of the project and identifies what is excluded. The scope must inform the

stakeholders exactly what product or service will be delivered, and identify what initiated the request for a new product or service. Scope changes occur in the form of scope creep piling up of small changes that are manageable by themselves but can pose problems when they aggregate. To facilitate the handling of these changes, you can form a change team that will effectively control changes in the scope of the project. Indeed, a project manager cannot effectively learn to manage the resources, time and money involved unless, of course, he himself actively manages and defines the project scope.

Ensure Project Success with Comprehensive Project Scope Management

The project scope is an important element to understand in any project. Project planning and budget allocations are anchored on this understanding. The scope is the definition of the processes that limit and control the work included in the project. These processes

ensure that all the work and only the work required to finish the project successfully are included. In order to be

effective, each process has a set of input and a set of output. Tools and techniques are also employed to convert input into output. Since scope is at the initiation stage of project management phases, it has a great bearing in the overall outcome of a project. A good project scope document defines the tasks to be performed as well as results to be delivered. It specifies the date when deliverables are due and at the same time lists the budget allocated for them. To be effective at project scope management, you must learn to control what is and what is not in the scope of the project. Failure to clearly define the scope of the project will lead to wrong estimates for cost or time. Lack of

communication will result to frequent change in scope, which, in turn, will mean additional cost and disruption in the schedule of the project and leading to losses.

The main purpose of defining the scope is to have a clear description and reach an agreement on the logical boundaries of the project. As such, there will be more chances of project success as more and more aspects of the project scope are defined. All this information can be derived thorough analyses, design and testing models employed to determine which processes are in scope and which are not. Other helpful information includes types of financial, sales and employee data; human resources, manufacturing and vendors available; and decision support, data entry and management reporting. It is important for the project manager and project team to realize that a scope change may sometimes be called for to ensure good project result. There is nothing wrong with scope change because, at times, clients cannot fully identify every detail and feature that is required for the final solution. Change is also necessary to cope with the changes in the trends of business. Failing to accommodate change may lead to unfavorable

occurrences in the project implementation. Integrated project management, therefore, is needed to effectively address needed changes. Every project necessitates the creation of a process to manage change. The process should include identifying the change, determining the profit value of a change, weighing its impact on the project and presenting the information to the project sponsor for evaluation. Given the needed data, the sponsor can then determine if the change should be included or not. If it is included, the sponsor should be made to understand the need for additional budget, time to accommodate the change, as well as all the other project plan deviations that it will entail.

Project Management Framework: The Secret to Successful Business Implementation

Every company, big or small, has its own way of completing its projects. Although some projects

are completed smoothly without any major disruption, some projects never have the chance to get off the ground. In all likelihood, the projects that prove successful are those that followed a project management framework, breaking the project into manageable stages. Project management framework is a set of processes, tools and templates designed to be used together to manage a project through its life cycle. In simpler terms, it is how a project is managed from start to finish. Indeed, the natural life cycle of a project begins even before it is started and develops until it is finally completed. The framework identifies the natural stages of a project into initiating, planning, executing, controlling and closing stages. The initial/initiating process includes notification of the intention to develop a project proposal. Initiation brings together foundational documents to

define the project; business agreements, sponsorship and continuous project governance. It is a critical part of a project because it ensures a successful project start-up and gives you a strong foundation in achieving your project management objectives. Failure to perform these steps will often result to a poorly managed project and one which, at best, can only come up with mediocre results.

The planning process is used to communicate the status of projects to the project team. It consists of tasks, activities, dependencies and resources required for the successful completion of the project. It is the role of the project manager to create and maintain the project plan. A project plan is beneficial because a well-written plan establishes goals. It is also used to communicate to everyone so that they will know their specific functions, as well as time frame in which the team must operate. Such a plan enables you to evaluate the performance of a team as a whole. The execution stage is where all the actual project work fall in. It is the longest phase of a project life cycle and it involves measuring all of the completed tasks. Work is assessed against the quality measure set by stakeholders. Project management processes during this phase include; keeping people informed about the progress of the project, monitoring the environment, anticipating problems and taking the necessary action and reviewing change requests with the project team. Control processes ensure that all tasks assigned to the different phases of the project were analyzed and have passed the project quality standards. Its purpose is to measure project performance, compare actual

performance to the expected performance and fix any discrepancies between them. The closing process is the final step in a project cycle. All tasks must be successfully finished according to plan. The project manager must

complete a project audit, hold final project meetings and submit all relevant documents and have the report endorsed by the project sponsor.

Set Specific Project Management Objectives to Achieve Specific Outcomes

As you come together to form a project team and discuss objectives and deliverables, you have to make sure that the project is moving forward. This is accomplished by making sure you have action plans and assignments throughout the project. It is important that, as a team, you decide how you will measure each objective and deliverable. This leads you to create progress

indicators that will be used for measuring work throughout the project. Project Management is established to foresee possible problems, to plan, organize and control activities so that a project is completed in the best way, despite the risks and challenges. The element of risk and uncertainty which is ever present in every endeavor means that the end result of a project can never be foretold with absolute accuracy. In carrying out a project, it is important to follow a project management framework. Goals and objectives are statements that describe what the project will accomplish. Objectives are concrete statements and should not be vague, so that it can be evaluated at the completion of a project to see whether it was achieved or not. The best guide in making an objective is the SMART model which means that objective should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound. Project management objectives increase the chances of achieving a specific outcome. Objectives should show how successful a project has

been. While a project may have one major project objective, there may be interim objectives in pursuit of the final objective. From the agreed project requirements, you can establish the project objectives. Objectives are traditionally stated in terms of time, cost and quality as the project manager is constantly balancing budget, schedule and quality in relation to the scope of the project. Generally, there is only one objective related to time (completion date) and one related to cost (budget objective) however, quality or functionality might require several objectives. Time. Actual project progress should match, if not exceed the planned progress. All the pertinent stages of the project must take place no later than the specified dates, to be able to complete the project on or before the planned deadline. Time objective is extremely important because delayed completion will jeopardize the whole project. Budget. The project should operate and be completed without exceeding the authorized expenditure. If funds run out before completion a project might be abandoned altogether. If the budget is exhausted before project completion, the money and effort invested in the project will be forfeited. Performance and Quality. The end result of a project must coincide with the purpose for which it was intended. For a time, quality was the

responsibility of the quality control department. With the development of business strategies, however, effective project management processes have come to recognize that quality management is a task that must be shared by all staff.

Project Management Processes: Helpful Tools to Achieve Project Objectives

All projects require some level of management. The bigger

and the more complex a project is, the more there is a need for formal, structured and standard process. Good project management practices during the early planning and project concept phases help produce beneficial results. Too often, project failure is the result of unrealistic targets (technical, cost or schedule targets) and inadequate risk analysis and risk management. Project management framework is a very important tool for the project manager to successfully manage a project. By working in terms of stages, the manager can ensure that the deliverables at the end of each stage meet their purpose and that project team members are properly prepared for the next stage. Every project management process helps you manage a particular aspect of a project from start until closure. It is a methodology for managing work as a project and it is designed to be flexible to address the specific needs of a project. Following are the project management processes: Quality management process helps you make sure that your deliverables meet the requirements of your customer. This process allows you to

implement quality assurance and quality control techniques to monitor and

heighten quality level within your project. You can set quality targets, make quality reviews and carry out measures to improve the quality of your deliverables. The time management process enables you to monitor and control time spent on a project. You can create a system for completing time sheets, recording time sheet information and gaining an overall view of the status of your project. In the same manner, the cost management process assists you in managing your project expenditure. It gives you an idea on how to

document your expenses through the use of expense forms. It also tells you how to update your project plan with your expense information. The change management process, on the other hand, helps you deal with scope creep, one of the greatest risks in a project. Uncontrolled changes can lead to delays, non-achievement of project management objectives, overspending and poor quality of deliverables. This process is essential in identifying project change as well as effective strategies in dealing with these changes. Risk management enables you to deal with the possible risks. This is important because your success is determined by the way you manage risks. Meanwhile, the issue management process helps you come up with formal procedures for recording and resolving issues before they impact on your delivery deadlines. Communications management process enables you to communicate the right message to the corresponding stakeholders at the right time. You can use communications planning templates to inform stakeholders of the

progress of the project at all times. All these can help in getting a project done competently, but in the end, success rests in how well you use these tools to your project's advantage.