Chapter:1 Project Management in our Contemporary Society
Project management: Project management provides an organization with powerful tools that improve its ability to plan, implement, and control its activities as well the ways in which it utilizes its people and resources.
Forces of PM: (i) The exponential expansion of human knowledge, (ii) The growing demand for a broad range of complex, sophisticated, customized goods and services and (iii) the evaluation of worldwide competitive markets for the production and consumption of goods and services.
Steps of PM: Part I, Project Initiation describes how projects are selected for implementation. It also covers the role of the project manager, the various ways that projects can be organized, and the special requirements for managing a cross-cultural project. Project budgeting, scheduling, resource allocation, monitoring/information systems, and controlling are then discussed in Part II, Project implementation. Finally, Part III, Project termination concludes the discussion with a description of project auditing and termination.
The Project Manager: The project manager is expected to integrate all aspects of the project, ensure that the proper knowledge and resources are available when and where needed, and above all, ensure that the expected results are produced in a timely, cost-effective manner.
The definition of Project: The PMI has defined a project as “A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or services”
Why Project Management: In particular, the projects form of organization allows the manager to be responsive to: (1) The client and the environment, (2) Identify and correct problems at an early date (3) Make timely decisions about trade-offs between conflicting projects goals, and (4) Ensure that managers of the separate tasks that comprise the project do not optimize the performance of