We often hear people asking why project management is essential. It is also pertinent to know how an organization perceives project management (PM). Handling projects tends to be an intimidating task. It requires a thorough understanding of project scheduling, planning, reporting, tracking, and the importance of project management. If you have also wondered why project management is essential, read on to understand better. To become a competent project manager, you need to have a detailed understanding of project management, the importance of project management, and various job roles. Here you will learn why to use project management in different sectors which may have their own peculiarities. First, let us start with what project management is and what it entails. Show
What is Project Management?As defined by the Project Management Institute, “Project management is about the application of skills, knowledge, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements.” It also involves various policies, principles, and procedures to guide a project from the initial stage until its completion. Growing Importance of Project ManagementThe landscape of PM is changing with every passing day. It is crucial to keep pace with the trends if you are interested in understanding the benefits of project management. While project management skills are not easy to learn in theory alone, doing a course does come with benefits. It is worth investing your time in learning project management skills as all employers are giving PM high priority. Project management also brings leadership and direction to projects. Here are a few reasons why project management is essential: A Clear Project Plan and ProcessThe more multifaceted the project, there is more scope for chaos in the organization. That is where proper planning and the importance of project management come in. The primary function of project management is to avoid confusion by outlining a clear plan and a process from the beginning to the end. Establish Plan and ScheduleHaving agreed on a project schedule, sticking to it inculcates the discipline required to avoid delays. A pre-determined process through the project lifecycle gives the project a clear path. TeamworkPeople are made to work in a team on a project, due to the benefits that accrue through sharing and knowledge of skills. It inspires team members to collaborate on a project. Maximize ResourcesIt is well known that human and financial resources are likely to be expensive. Project risk management and project tracking with regular reporting ensure economic and efficient use of all the resources. Keep Control of CostsBased on the project scope, some projects may incur high costs. So, it is essential to keep track of the budget. Incorporating project management strategies eases the budget overrun risks. Build on KnowledgeWhen businesses embark on more projects, they will acquire more experience over time. Project management serves as a knowledge asset to a company and helps to build on both experience and knowledge. Manage QualityIt is crucial to ensure top-quality results. Project management identifies, controls, and manages standards. This results in a high-quality product/ service and a satisfied client. Continuous Oversight
A single failed project may not seem like a great thing to the company; nevertheless, when we talk about large organizations with multiple projects in the pipeline, the importance of project management increases manifold. The absence of project management leads to chaos in the organization, which gradually induces higher rates of failure, uncertainty, and stress. Why Do We Use Project Management?Project management is about delivering outputs to maximize benefits to an organization. Listed below are some more convincing reasons why use project management. It provides:
Strategic Alignment: Benefits for Organizational Projects“Why is having strategic alignment in an organization important?” Globally, organizations today are challenged to adapt to the changing business environment at a rapid pace. If they are to stay competitive in the field, organizations must be able to devise strategies for long-term business success and growth. Lack of strategic alignment will see project managers spend countless hours pursuing initiatives. For instance, there may be a priceless idea, but the time may not be right to focus on a project revolving around it. If organization strategies are not crystal clear to the employees, they are bound to lose faith in the mission, vision, and value of the organization. By ensuring strategic alignment in your organization, you can be sure that the benefits of project management will accrue. So, what are the practical benefits of attaining strategic alignment in an organization? Improved Speed in Decision Making:Uncertainty can weaken productivity and lead to missed deadlines. Having strategic alignment in an organization results in quicker decisions and reduced execution time. It is also why project management stresses clarity. Better Employee Engagement:Strategic alignment in an organization is why project management dictates that there be collaboration and communication with employees. When employees understand how their work complements the company strategy, they become more productive and contented with their work. Minimal Wastage of Resources:Strategic alignment in an organization discerns between activities that spur growth and those that play more of a supporting role. A clear delineation ensures that the company uses limited resources for the right activities to facilitate growth and align functional and business priorities. Reduced Customer Confusion:
It is difficult to achieve perfect organizational alignment. However, a better-aligned organization can reap the benefits of project management best. Why Does Realistic Project Planning Matter?No matter which industry you are in, you will realize why project management is crucial to meeting deadlines. While unrealistic deadlines can mar a project, arriving at a timeline interactively with the team. members can help them identify with the project, and volunteer to deliver the tasks on time. Scheduling, interacting, sharing, and reporting follow naturally, and you will understand why use project management as a tool to control progress. How to Create a Realistic TimelineBefore you start framing a timeline, it is essential to break your project into smaller and manageable components. These small components known as Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) make it easier to wield control over any project. Following are a few tips on creating a realistic timeframe to realize the full benefits of project management.
Creating a timeline will put the project on the right track, but the importance of project management lies in task monitoring and execution. Quality Control: Process and BenefitsThere are strong reasons why use project management for quality control as well. For, while projects may be planned and monitored through their execution, a project manager cannot wait for customer reviews on quality after the project closes. According to the American Society for Quality (ASQ), “Quality control consists of observation techniques and activities to fulfill requirements for quality.” Quality control activities are used to assess whether the product or service meets the quality requirements specified in a project. They are:
It is essential to use the right inputs like a project management plan, quality checklist, quality metrics, work performance, and deliverables to implement quality control. Quality control is hence top on the list of what are the benefits of project management. Quality Control ProcessThe quality control process encompasses auditing project results (deliverables) to scrutinize their compliance with quality standards. Continuous audit of project management provides ample time to come up with solutions to problems. The quality audit comprises these steps:
For efficient implementation of a project, it is essential to carry out quality control activities and quality compliance processes too. There are plenty of software tools developed to help the quality management process. The quality team and project manager should use such tools to keep an eye on errors, suggest corrective actions, and ensure that the project deliverable is produced in line with customer needs and quality requirements. Maximum Resource Utilization: Why is it Useful?Organizations put a lot of effort into resource allocation. As your team grows, it becomes tricky to assign people to multiple projects that are in the pipeline simultaneously. One of the best ways to check whether your resource allocation strategy is successful is to track team utilization patterns. Before we dive deep into resource utilization and its associated formula, let us define resource utilization as it is one of the benefits of project management. Resource Utilization: Definition, Formula, and BenefitsTracking how much time team members spend on assigned tasks helps to track resource utilization. One of the reasons why use project management is to assess resource utilization; the most straightforward percentage measure is to consider the number of hours worked by the total time that the resource could have been utilized. Resource Utilization Formula: Busy Time/Available TimeIf the resource utilization percentage is lower than estimated, it indicates that pending tasks have blocked scheduled tasks. If the delayed, scheduled tasks are critical to the project, there is a danger of missed deadlines, cost escalation, and lack of deliverables. A more worrying aspect of lower utilization is that the project may be over-staffed. Conversely, if the resource utilization percentage is higher than estimated, it could, on the one hand, mean the project is understaffed, and on the other hand, it could also mean that resources have been productive. Maximum resource utilization is thus top on the list of what are the benefits of project management. Here is how:
Risk ManagementWhen utilizing resources to innovate, a project is also exposed to considerable risk as there are many challenges and uncertainties. Thus, risk management, one of the critical benefits of project management, plays a vital role in the success of a project. Risk management is a methodology to identify, analyze, and minimize issues that could adversely affect the progress of projects. If the risks remain unaddressed, the project may fail in several ways, including, overshooting the budget, miss deadlines, and disappointing the client. Hence project management insists on risk management strategies. Having a definite risk management plan helps you to be prepared to deal with uncertainties and reduce overheads by saving valuable resources like time, people, and income. So risk management is part of the benefits of project management:
Role of Subject Matter Expertise in Project ManagementAt the inception of a project, both the team and the project manager require accurate inputs to discharge their duties. While the project sponsor can fund the project, only a subject matter expert (SME) can provide topic-related information, insights, and knowledge to carry forward the project. It is necessary to hire an SME to ensure that the facts and data gathered are correct and that the project deliverables meet stakeholders’ requirements, policies, and best practices. An SME ensures the benefits of project management by providing the following services:
Project Management Information SystemRight from the initiation stage to the closing stage, there’s a lot of data being collected, analyzed, and transformed. With the implementation of various processes in the project life cycle, this unique data is collected and shared with other team members. The amount of data collected is analyzed and later converted into project information through various processes. The acquired information is communicated verbally to the team members or stored and distributed in multiple formats as reports. The project management process information plays a crucial role, and it is divided into three methods, and they are: 1. Work Performance DataThis method is with regards to the observations and measurements made towards all the work carried out by the project manager and his/her team. The work performance data includes information about the project activities like defining the percentage of work completed physically, technical and quality performance measurement of the project, and providing updates on the scheduled work/activities (start and finish date). It also includes the total number of change requests that have occurred during the execution of the project, and the number of defects detected in the project. The work performance data also includes information about the actual cost of the project, the exact time taken to complete a scheduled task so on and so forth. All the details mentioned above are usually recorded in a ‘Project Management Information System’ – (PMIS) and project documents. 2. Work Performance InformationThe project management plan should include a routine collection of work performance information. The gathered information is essential and serves as a guidance tool for conducting quality control measures and programs. Work performance information helps in measuring the project deliverables status, ensuring that the required corrective actions are carried out, and assists in creating performance reports. Analyzing the work performance information is crucial for the project management plan, and it should be considered a priority at all times. This method contributes to the efficient use of allocated resources, helps in identifying potential risks, and acts as a useful project management tool. 3. Work Performance ReportsWork performance reports are the result of the Monitor and Control project work process, and act as an input to various managing and controlling processes. As the name itself suggests, performance reports include different information and data about the project’s parameters and updates on the progress of the project. The work performance report organizes and summarizes the information gathered through the work performance data and work performance information methods and presents it to the project’s stakeholders in a way that they can understand the direction or progress of the project. These reports show the stakeholders the current status of the project and its performance against the planned baseline. In certain circumstances where the stakeholders notice that the project is not progressing according to the plan, they will take corrective measures to ensure that the project is completed within the prescribed budget and time. The Project Information processes help in generalizing the methods used to collect relevant and accurate data that is further used to determine the scope and the progress of the project. All the necessary steps and practices are carried out using this crucial information. Its the project manager’s decision to make as which inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs are to be used to ensure the project’s completion. It’s not mandatory to use all the processes as they are not the same for every project. These inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs are considered to be more of an aspiration to the project managers, and one should try and follow them as and when possible within the project’s constraints, environment and industry. Change in Project ManagementTraditionally, the project manager used to be the key link between all members of a project. He was the sole decision-maker of all project-related activities, and also the only source through whom any kind of progress or updates would be communicated within the team. Hence, the chances of success or failure of a project depended highly on the manner in which a project manager handled all these tasks. Therefore, the project manager first had to gather all information from each and every team member and then communicate to everyone through meetings or mailers. The whole process sometimes ended up being a burden on him or her. This is one of the main reasons why the shift towards social project management occurred. Today, project management focuses on the following:
The Emergence of Social Project ManagementThe present-day scenario has changed with communication within the team taking place through social project management tools and business collaboration software. These are collaborative tools that increase the chance of participation by team members and thereby enhance productivity. The term used to describe this change is social project management. Advantages of Social Project Management
Social project management has taken the world of networking and information sharing to a new level. Gone are the days when you had to open your email or attend a meeting to be a part of a discussion and express your views. Today you can be part of the discussions taking place on the other side of the world with just a click of your mouse. Social networking forums are leveraged highly today by organizations owing to the transparency of the system, ease of communication, and efficiency in sharing information. ConclusionWrong approaches to work will lead to chaos and prevent you from realizing the benefits of project management; an inefficient project manager may make cardinal mistakes in planning which may increase risks and cause failure, leading to an inferior quality of deliverables and dissatisfaction with customers. The importance of project management lies in the ability of the project manager to create motivated teams that deliver quality and satisfy clients. Know more about project management best practices through Invensis Learning’s Project Management certification training on PMP Online Training, CAPM Online Classes, PRINCE2 Course, Project Management Fundamentals, P3O, and MSP. We are a trusted training partner for Fortune 500 companies and Government institutions globally. PMP Certification PRINCE2 Foundation and Practitioner Certification Training Project Management Fundamentals Change Management Foundation and Practiitioner Certification Training EXIN Business Analysis Foundation and Practitioner Training CAPM Exam Prep Previous articleAll You Wanted to Know About Project Management Basics Next articleProject Management Methodologies You Must Know Lucy Brown Lucy Brown has many years of experience in the project management domain and has helped many organizations across the Asia Pacific region. Her excellent coordinating capabilities, both inside and outside the organization, ensures that all projects are completed on time, adhering to clients' requirements. She possesses extensive expertise in developing project scope, objectives, and coordinating efforts with other teams in completing a project. As a project management practitioner, she also possesses domain proficiency in Project Management best practices in PMP and Change Management. Lucy is involved in creating a robust project plan and keep tabs on the project throughout its lifecycle. She provides unmatched value and customized services to clients and has helped them to achieve tremendous ROI. |