First meeting of the subject named “Project Management” with our very owned instructor Mr. Randy Gamboa and it was very crucial time for me. Well why I said crucial because if our instructor calls me and then he wants me to define “Project Management”, very how sad and how pity for me. I don’t know what is the meaning of project management was. But then and again he don’t call me on the other hand he give us 15 minutes to answer the three questions within fifteen lines in our clean one whole yellow paper. The following questions are:
What is a project?
What is management?
What is project management?
Shocks!. In a few words of discussion I finish the three questions but not that an ideal discussion one. Maybe some of the words I have written in my clean yellow paper was wrong. After those trailing time three to five students participate and share their answers. Almost of them have an idea what is project, management and project management. Some of them mention the meaning of project has a limited time, then in management one of the organizing some project and additional the project management was creating a project with organize plan and with a timeframe. So far their answer is quite the same from me.
What is a Project?
If we talk about project we usually think that it was given by a boss or a teacher that has a deadline. You are given a wide span of time to have a plan. It is a task or assignment given that requires a large amount of time, effort and planning to complete that specific task or project. Those projects were given by group or individual. An employee or maybe a student generally requires a lot of amount of effort to think the possible scope and possible output of the detailed project. Constructing a project it also requires to begin to do something with their own fact finding and analysis, one or the other references from internet research, or even public library or maybe a survey research. Project also is a cycle or sequence of activities that must be completed in the set of deadlines, within a budget and also with the specifications, requirements, condition, measurement and pattern.
According to PMBOK project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. For my own understanding temporary means that making or creating a project has scope both start and end. At first you set or you are planning to use or make this project with those raw materials or they say scope limitation of the project. Let us look for a good situation when one company propose a big projects with duration of five years then the times come that the materials you needed was short and you are proposing to buy again but suddenly no available materials the company force to buy a new product with an expensive one or not that the same quality to the older one. The Budget of the company in that project increase, possible decision of the company was to stop that project. May the objective will not meet to the end of the duration time. Since in the meaning of project in PMBOK has Uniqueness of the project, services or even result. Every project there are deliverables and the very important was the uniqueness of the project. But what that deliverables means? Deliverables serves as an overall term that to include a wide or comprehensive range of the requirements of a project. A deliverable may be something that can be uniquely seen, used in the greater scheme of the project. For example, in a project meant to upgrade a firm's technology, a deliverable may be a dozen new computers. Either instead of that, a deliverable may be a function or aspect of the overall project. For example, a software project may have a deliverable specifying that the computer program must be able to compute a company's financial statements. So, the uniqueness of the project, services or even the result may affect the project. Therefore making a larger project even the smaller one must be unique to the other project. Those characteristics of project were associated with the last characteristic of project in the PMBOK called progressive elaboration. Stating my own understanding it was a developing gradually over a period of time in such explanation. A project might see anywhere where it involves people or the source of a project. A project creates a unique deliverables, which are products, services and or results. Stated in Wikipedia that project comes from Latin word “projectum” which means “to throw something forwards”. A specified project consist also a strategy along with the gathering and developing the following information these are OBJECTIVES, ASSUMPTION, LIMITATION and SCOPE.
What is management?
Defining the word management as my own idea it was a group of administration of business who organizing and one controlling of the affairs of a business or a sector of a business. Not only in business but also in some company that has managers and employers considered collectively, especially the directors and executives of a establishment. I can define management too as the one or an individual who can manage the act of handling or controlling something that sooner can be successfully.
According to the online encyclopedia the Wikipedia management in all business areas and organizational activities are the acts of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives efficiently and effectively. As what I have define management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. To include a wide or comprehensive range the deployment and manipulation of human resources, financial resources, technological resources, and natural resources. Because organizations can be viewed as systems, management can also be defined as human action, including design, to facilitate the production of useful outcomes from a system. This view opens the opportunity to 'manage' oneself, a pre-requisite to attempting to manage others. Management can also refer to the person or people who perform the act(s) of management. By my own explanation management also involved a group of function commences to carry out or complete something task successfully. If we simplify a management is all about progressing something completed. In addition it is the way and the process how ones specific target or goals. The management is recently or early defined, but it is already existed in the time that the men knows how and learning in organizing, strategies or by simply planning. Just like you are going to develop a certain system for the school, in order to manage this project you have to know first the specification, estimated time frame and the budget or cost if it necessary. This is the very good example of mine because we experience and implementing some system in school. Since in the past world war the men undertake and strive for the winning battle, that time management already exists since they are start learning in formulating tactics on how to win a game. At the roots, management evolve the definition of knowledge became practically reasonable. However, I can also say that my father was handling some group of employee and he is the manager of the group who participate and made controlling the group.
Addition on the definition of management, it is the organization and the coordination of the activities in accordance with the policy. The basic task of a management is twofold: marketing and innovation. When we say marketing it is selling of product while innovation it is the act of producing or inventing something. In every making of project there should be the one who is supervising or managing the plans. Directors and managers who have the power and responsibility to make decisions to manage an enterprise. As a discipline, management comprises of the joining functions of formulating corporate-policy and organizing, planning, controlling, and directing resources to achieve certain goal. The size of a management is either a single or a group or even thousands of managers in multinational companies. Just like in a company, directors have the responsibility enough to formulate the implemented policy given by chief executive officer. Some business analysts and financiers accord the highest importance to the quality and experience of the managers in evaluating an organizations current and future worth.
The following are the characteristics of management:
• Organize activities. Arranging numerous activities wasn’t that easy. That’s why trained manager is important in leading such project. manager should have the right to supervise and direct every plan that is going to formulate by his team. Management is a process of organized activities. Groups of people cannot be involved in the performance of activities without organized activities. Management comes into existence where a group of people are involved in achieving a common objective. The organized activities may take a variety of forms ranging from a tightly structured organization to a loosely-join organization.
• Existence of objectives. Objective or the idea should be presently utilize when planning is going on. Since a project may result into two ways- succeed or fail, management has been acquainted in every problem or difficulties that might exist.
• Decision making. Management process involves decision making at all levels. Decision-making describes the process by which a course of action is selected as the way to deal with a specific problem. If there is only one alternative, the question of decision making does not arise. The quality of alternatives which a manger selects determines the organization’s performance, and the future of the organization. It is possible to happen when contingencies might exist.
• Relationship among resources. The essence of management is integration of various organizational resources. Resources include money, machine, materials, and people. Management is concerned with the proper utilization of human resources which, in turn, utilize other resources.
• Working with and through people. It is also essential that the relationship towards other people is satisfactorily. Management involves working with people and getting organizational objectives achieved through them. Working through people is interpreted in terms of assigning activities to subordinates.
What does a Project Manager need? It is good thing to know that the manager of certain project is well-oriented enough to patch up things when needed. General management skills are essential in managing projects. Varied expertise like financial skills to evaluate strategic management skills to plan, organizational skills to create teams, or human resource skills to supervise and motivate are all necessary requisites. These are same skills in managing corporations. Process is also the same. You start with a plan, organize according to the plan, and execute it. Then you monitor, and change the plan as you go along to make the requisite changes to accomplish the objectives in spite of the difficulties and risks. The final goal is to accomplish the objective, as desired by both the project team, the sponsors, and also its customers, as well as all other people ( called stakeholders) which have an interest and stake in the project’s outcome.
What is project management?
Management that involves carefully dealing with all those activities, which are necessary as far as the successful completion of a product is concerned, is referred to as project management. Not an ongoing process, a project is a temporary job with defined time duration, within which it has to be finished. To make sure that it is finished before the deadline, and in accordance with specifications, project management is essential. Thus a project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools and technique to project activities to meet project requirements. The significance above definition about project and management something can create a good meaning if we combine the two words. A project management can define also as the framework of everything that we are doing in our daily life activity. We can apply that powerful word not only for the successful of the project but also in the every steps of our daily life so that we can reach our goal and become a professional in any other things. However a project management has a big impact and has a big help for taking the course of Bachelor of Science in Information Technology because as the representative of that course we have difficult subjects and difficult projects and we need to manage everything so that we can sustain form they say terminators. We need to guarantee or ensure that our projects meet the deadline, within the acceptable budget and may fulfills the instructors expectations and specifications. One application to this was the following Gantt chart. My friend Wikipedia stated that a Gantt chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule. Gantt charts illustrate the start and finish dates of the terminal elements and summary elements of a project. The project management a method of doing something that is worked out in advance that describes how the project management system will be used. The project management system content will vary depending upon the area, organizational influence, complexity of a project and availability of existing systems. The organizational influences shape the system for executing projects within that organization. In formulating certain project, it is an essential element of project management, the project planning involves the development of action items and scheduling that will keep the project moving forward on a consistent basis. When executed properly, project planning will also include target dates for the act of finishing a project of each action item, making it possible to move forward with other pending items in an orderly the way in which one project is done or happens.
I had read some article in the internet. Fortunately there is a good context provided by the Project Management Institute (PMI). That framework breaks project management down into nine management areas.
1. Scope management. The establishment of the scope of the project is critical to the success of the project. There will always be changes along the way. The role of the Project Manager is to track those changes, seek approval where required, and adjust the time and cost to reflect the changes.
2. Time management. A schedule needs to be established at the start of the project. The impact of not producing a schedule is that the project will stumble from one stage to the next without any clear indication of where it is up to, or what resources are required in the coming days or weeks. Some tasks will take longer than expected and some less time. Resources need to be constantly redirected, and the overall time for the project monitored and adjusted.
3. Cost management. The cost needs to be estimated. Cost will consist of both resource costs, and capital costs. A budget needs to be allocated to the project so that money is not wasted on something that the organization cannot, or chooses not to fund.
4. Resource management. Resources have to be found and brought into the project. Their role has to be defined just as a Line Manager might draw up a position description. They have to be trained and inducted into the project. Management of resources requires constant attention. People need to be directed, recruited and their performance monitored. Teams have to be built and motivated under often difficult circumstances. There are always pressures of deadlines and changes of focus.
5. Communication management. There will be considerable informal communication to ensure information is not only disseminated but heard and understood. Feedback is also important and this can only occur if the Project Manager makes the effort to talk with people and seek their input.
6. Risks management. A project is about doing something new. Every new endeavor has risk. At the start of the project, a Project Manager should identify the risks and what can be done to lessen the risks. By taking action at the start, many of the risks can be lessened or removed. It is like a Line Manager having a disaster recovery plan. If it does go wrong, we know what to do.
7. Procurement management. If external services or materials need to be purchased, the process needs to be established before the project starts. In many cases the organization may well have a procurement process and this can be applied to the project.
8. Quality management. There is always the temptation to cut quality to meet deadlines. Before the project starts, the Project Manager needs to identify what quality checks will apply to the deliverables. A quality plan should be drawn up so that time can be built into the schedule to accommodate the quality activities.
9. Integration management. During the project, things will constantly need to be pulled together. Plans will need to be tweaked and unforeseen circumstances addressed. People will over achieve or under achieve their targets. Tasks will take longer or shorter than expected. Risks will come to fruition and need to be resolved. The PM will be constantly juggling things to achieve his or her ends.
Project Management like any other career requires years of experience and theory to practice well. So, we are practiced from school to be a professional and can be handle big projects that need to have management. The good example of this was our subject named SAD System Analysis and Design. We are given a chance to be a project manager. Now I am starting practicing how to manage myself to get the scope and have unique output of all my projects. But Mr. Gamboa our instructor differentiates the leadership and management. Leadership is directing and inspiring people without any position required while management was controlling and managing people for instance a worker instructed not to do something or pass something on time, the employee force to do it since he/she is under its management. if I have given a chance to choose between management either leadership I preferred to be a leader because I believe every person born to be a leader. It is up to them on how to handle their leadership towards other people. Now I get confused if it is Project Management or Project Leadership?
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