What is Project Management?
Project Management can be described as the process of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing a project, from its beginning to its completion, to achieve a final goal in a certain period, at a certain cost and quality, through the mobilization of material resources, technological resources, financial resources and human resources.
The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals within the given constraints, reaching the best possible result of the cost-term-quality trinomial
Thus defined, project management can be applied to asset management projects, operational excellence projects, OEE projects, Lean projects, six sigma projects, Problem solving projects, digital transformation projects, reliability projects, maintenance projects, CMMS/EAM implementation projects, product development and IDI projects, process development projects, acquisition of new equipment, expansion or construction of new sites/factories, process optimization projects, reorganization of the company, transformation process, a training project, an investment project, among others.
Why project management?
In an era when corporate competitiveness is getting one of the most relevant factors it is essential to prevent all type of deviations during project development, either in costs, deadlines or quality deliverables. The cost of changes and error corrections increases substantially throughout the project life cycle; therefore, it is essential to involve the project stakeholders since the beginning of the project.
To manage clients’ projects, g3p consulting uses project management based on Project Management Institute best practices (PMBoK®), integrating several areas of knowledge, knowing that is the most effective way for organizations to avoid loss of productivity and waste through the processes of initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and control and closure.
The project life cycle, includes:
- Identification of relevant stages and their sequence
- Type of work done in each phase
- Inputs and deliveries (outputs) of each phase
Project management phases
It is easier and more efficient to handle the details of a project and follow phases in the right order. Dividing your project management efforts will help on the project structure and simplify them into a series of logical and manageable steps.
- Project Initiation
Initiation is the first phase of the project lifecycle. This is where the project’s value and feasibility are measured. Project managers typically use some tools to decide whether or not to pursue a project. One of the most complete is the project charter that includes the Business Case Document and the feasibility Study – This document justifies the need for the project, and it includes an estimate of potential financial benefits, an evaluation of the project’s goals, timeline and costs to determine if the project should be executed. It balances the requirements of the project with available resources to see if pursuing the project makes sense.
It will ensure that the Project Sponsor will have information to decide GO/NOGO
- Project Planning
Once the project receives the green light, the project manager needs a solid plan to guide the team, as well as keep them on time and on budget. The key is a clear project plan that will give guidance for obtaining resources, acquiring financing and procuring required materials. The Project Management Plan is a formal document that has to be approved, used to manage project execution. The Project Management Plan documents the actions needed to define, prepare, integrate and coordinate the various planning activities in the different areas of knowledge.
Project Management Plan defines how the project is executed, monitored, controlled and closed.
This document should be built based on the Project Charter developed in the initiation phase.
Also, in planning phase, the team have to develop the Work Breakdown Structure. When the plan is validated, the Project Manager needs to save the baseline plan.
- Project Execution
This is the phase that is most commonly associated with project management. Execution is all about building deliverables that satisfy the customer. Team leaders make this happen by allocating resources and keeping team members focused on their assigned tasks.
Execution relies heavily on the planning phase as per the baseline. The work and efforts of the team during the execution phase are derived from the project plan.
- Project Monitoring and Control
Monitoring and control are sometimes combined with execution because they often occur at the same time. As teams execute their project plan, they must constantly monitor their own progress.
To guarantee delivery of what was promised, teams must monitor tasks calculate key performance indicators and track variations from cost and time. This constant vigilance helps keep the project moving ahead smoothly. If the scope changes, the outcomes have also to be revised, so a new baseline will be available.
- Project Closure
A project can be closed when the team deliver the finished project with validation form the customer, communicating completion to stakeholders and releasing resources to other projects. This vital step in the project lifecycle allows the team to evaluate, using a lessons learned process, and document the project and move on the next one, using previous project mistakes and successes to build stronger processes and more successful teams.
What is PMBoK®?
PMBoK® is the Project Management Body of Knowledge that compile a set of standard terminology and guidelines for project management. The body of knowledge evolves over time and is presented in A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, a book whose sixth edition was released in 2017.
The PMBOK Guide is process-based, which means it describes the work as being done by processes. This approach is consistent with other management standards - the ISO 9000 and the CMMI of the Institute of Software Engineering;
Processes overlap and interact throughout a project and its various phases and include:
- Inputs (outputs from other processes, decisions...)
- Tools and Techniques
- Outputs (drawings, drawings, etc.)
PMBoK® recognizes 49 processes that fall into five basic process groups and ten areas of knowledge that are typical of most projects.
This mechanism applies to the whole life cycle as well as to each of its phases
Type of projects
There are several types of projects, which may involve aspects of nature in which several differentiation criteria can be considered:
- type of product / industry: software, civil construction, marketing
- type of process: design, development, maintenance
- complexity: simple, complex
- Client type: internal, external, market, government
- degree of risk / innovation: R & D, systems improvement
There is no agreed universal classification, nor does PMBOK® propose such a scheme. Therefore, it is for each organization to define the criteria for the treatment of different types of projects.
