Project Management
At IT Projects Consulting we follow eight primary principles of Project Management which we refer to as Principles of Successful Projects
01.
There must be a well-defined project and not just a task or an ongoing activity. The logic of this should be self-evident. Project Management is a tool for effective and efficient management of projects. It is not necessarily a useful or appropriate approach for ongoing production operations or sending an email.
02.
There must be a single leader (project manager), one who is experienced and willing to take responsibility for the work. Probably the first empirical principle that evolved in the development of Project Management: if you want to get a job done you must assign it to one person and hold that person accountable for the results. The experience required of the project manager is both in the business or technology of the project and in the management of projects.
03.
There must be an informed and supportive management that delegates appropriate authority to the project manager. This principle is directly related to No. 2 above, which sets the project manager as the person responsible for the project. If a person is given the responsibility and accountability for something, that person must also be given the authority to carry out the assignment. Informed and knowledgeable executives understand the value of assigning the responsibility for getting results to a single person.
04.
There must be a dedicated team of qualified people to do the work of the project. By dedicated we mean that team members be specifically identified with the project from the standpoint of personal responsibility. This is opposed to the work being assigned to a larger group of unnamed people, It is an informed management that knows the value of personal involvement. That team members should be qualified is self-evident, although a project is not precluded from being the training ground for new employees. In these cases, the newcomers must learn under the guidance of qualified supervisors.
05.
The project goal must be clearly defined along with the priorities of the “shareholders.” If you don't know where you are going, how will you ever know if you have arrived? Project management is a goal-oriented management system and the first order of business is to define the goal, the purpose of the project, in the most straightforward and unequivocal way. Once this goal is set, the stakeholders should indicate the relative importance they hold for the three basic objectives of all projects: for example, to have a short schedule, to have low cost, or to have the highest quality. Because these three objectives are in inherent conflict, initial goals are usually compromises to obtain a practical or optimum overall objective. However, the project manager needs to know the priorities as a guide for future decisions and tradeoffs. Thus, if time is most important, and the schedule is slipping, it maybe necessary to spend extra money to hold to this goal.
06.
There must be an integrated plan that outlines the action required in order to reach the goal. Once the project goal is defined, the project manager must establish the plan of action required to reach the goal. The travel analogy is that we may know what city we are going to, but we need a map to show us how to get there. But any old map won't do, it must be a map, or plan, that takes into account all the factors that affect the trip and all the people who are involved. All of the factors must be considered and conflicts must be resolved or the original plan is bound to fail when the inevitable problems surface.
07.
There must be an integrated plan that outlines the action required in order to reach the goal. Once the project goal is defined, the project manager must establish the plan of action required to reach the goal. The travel analogy is that we may know what city we are going to, but we need a map to show us how to get there. But any old map won't do, it must be a map, or plan, that takes into account all the factors that affect the trip and all the people who are involved. All of the factors must be considered and conflicts must be resolved or the original plan is bound to fail when the inevitable problems surface.
08.
In order to control the cost of a project there must be an estimate of the total project cost as well as a cost breakdown for each activity. These costs may be in dollars, in labor, in materials, or in equipment, all of which can be translated into costs. As the project progresses, the project manager can assess actual costs versus the estimated costs so that deviations can be acted upon quickly. The sequence of this list is not meant to indicate the relative merits of the individual principles. However, they do fall into the normal sequence of activities in the concept and planning phases of projects and thus can be viewed as building blocks, one on another. in establishing the foundation for successful projects; failure of one can jeopardize all that follow.
Sources: pmi.org and atlassian.com