What is Quality Management?

PROJECT MANAGEMENT (PMP)

Definition of project

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The project management was always existing informally before it appeared formally. People needed to manage projects, like building the Great Pyramids of Egypt, old cathedrals, roads, bridges, canals, castles and so on. The project management as a discipline formally appeared in the 1950s. Organizations started applying tools and techniques for managing different types of projects. People started using the critical path analysis and PERT (Program Evaluation Review Technique) techniques for planning the projects .So, the discipline of project management experienced massive growth until today in businesses as well as in nonprofit organizations.

 What is project ? 

According to the Project Management Institute a project is “a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result”some managers defines a project as “a temporary organization that is created for the purpose of delivering one or more business products according to an agreed Business Case.

so in another words PROJECT: is a one-off set of tasks which deliver CHANGE. 

Many people get confuse between project & business as usual (BAU), project as what we mention before it cause Change to the organizations , but BAU is the operational work that keeps a business running, such as opening the post or managing accounts or paying invoices. projects use a temporary organization  structure  to deliver the result , whereas BAU is normally undertaken by permanent team. So once the project is complete the team will disband and go on the next project  possibly  working with different  people ( Teams ). 

So the main characteristics of the project:-

Temporary – every project has defined starting and completion date. 

Unique – projects differ with their goal, people involved, resources used. 

Uncertain – characteristics mentioned above introduce uncertainty,
for example, the uniqueness of the project. Projects are risky

Change – by using projects organizations introduce change. 

Cross-functional – projects consist of teams, including different individuals with different knowledge and skills. They have to work together temporarily to achieve the project goal.

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Project Management Life Cycle 

Every project has the beginning and the end, and the phases or stages between those two. Different authors offer different project life cycle phases. Some of them consist of four stages some more, some less. The number and the name of the phases mostly depend on industry, company, the type as well as the size of the project. There is no consensus about the amount and the name of the phases for the ideal project life cycle. 

Irma Chkhaidze (2009, own translation) devotes several chapters of her book - Basis of Project management - to the stages of the project life cycle. She defines the project life cycle as the period from the start of the project until the end of the project. 

The team operates on four main stages of project management and will carry out the predefined tasks in the specified time interval. The consistent stages of project management are the project preparation stage; the project planning stage; the project accomplishing stage; the project finishing stage. Maylor (2003) defines four main phases of project life cycle. 

1. Define the project – purpose, and reasons for having the project are defined. 

2. Design the process – build the plans and models that will help to show how the project will be developed.

3. Do It? or Deliver the project – try to follow the plans and models covered in the second phase. 

4. Develop the project process – assessment and evaluation of the project.

According to Richardson (2010), the project life cycle was adapted in 1930 – by Shewhart and Deming Plan-Do-Check, later, PMI added initiation and closing steps and all total it consists of 5 main and detailed phases: 

1. Initiating – this phase mainly includes the activities like the definition and the authorization of the project or phase. The goal of the phase is to evaluate how project’s vision matches and supports the organization’s goal. 

2. Planning – includes activities such as defining objectives, scope, budget, additionally this phase consumes a big amount of resources. The main goal of the phase is to create a workable project plan that will have the impact on knowledge management areas (like Quality, Human Resources, Communications, Risks, and Procurement). 

3. Executing – project deliverables are produced in executing phase. The goal of the phase is to produce those deliverables in the planned time and budget.

4. Monitoring and Controlling – this phase tracks and checks the progress of the project and identifies the necessity of changes in the plan.  

5. Closing – includes activities to formally shut down the project. Additionally, the lessons learned are captured for the future projects.