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Project
Management
According
to the Project Management Institute
WHAT
IS PROJECT MANAGEMENT?
A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge
- [Project Management Institute (PMI®)
December 2000], project management is the application of knowledge,
skills, tools and techniques to a broad range of activities
in order to meet the requirements of the particular project.
Project management knowledge and practices are best described
in terms of their component processes. These processes can
be placed into five Process Groups:
- Initiating, Planning, Executing, Controlling and Closing
- and nine Knowledge Areas - Project Integration Management,
Project Scope Management, Project Time Management, Project
Cost Management, Project Quality Management, Project Human
Resource Management, Project Communications Management, Project
Risk Management, and Project Procurement Management.
The project team
manages the work of the project, and the work typically involves:
-
Balancing
competing demands for: project scope, time, cost, risk
and quality
-
Satisfying
stakeholders with differing needs and expectations
-
Meeting
identified requirements
The term "project
management" is sometimes used to describe an organizational
approach to the management of ongoing operations. This approach
treats various aspects of ongoing operations as projects in
order to apply project management techniques to them.
Project management
helps organizations meet their customers' needs by standardizing
routine tasks and reducing the number of tasks that could
potentially be forgotten. Project management ensures that
available resources are used in the most effective and efficient
manner. Project management provides senior executives insight
into "what is happening" and "where things are going" within
their organization.
Many organizations
around the world such as NASA, IBM, AT&T, Siemens, and
PricewaterhouseCoopers utilize project management to enable
innovative processes, to plan, organize and control strategic
initiatives, to monitor enterprise performance, analyze significant
deviations and forecast their impact on the organization and
project(s).
The application
of project management principles enables senior executives
to:
-
Establish
measures of success
-
Enable
customer focus and alignment
-
Quantify
value commensurate with cost
-
Optimize
the use of organizational resources
-
Incorporate
quality principles
-
Put strategic
plans into practice
-
Ensure
fast time-to-market
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