Project Management Information
What is a Project?
The Project Management Institute (PMI) defines a project as "a temporary group activity designed to create a unique product, service, or result." A project has distinctive elements that distinguish it from ongoing work or business operations.
- A Project is a planned set of activities
- A Project has a scope
- A Project has time, cost, quality and resource constraints
Projects vs Operations
- Projects are temporary
- Developing new products or services
- Moving, adding, changing, or deleting
- Implementing a new service or solution
- Operations are ongoing
- Repetitive actions
- Maintenance
- Core business functions
What is Project Management?
Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements. It is basically about people working in a team to get things done and make the unpredicted predicted.
- Addressing the various needs, concerns, and expectations of the stakeholders as the project is planned and carried out.
- Balancing the competing project constraints including, but not limited to:
- Scope,
- Quality,
- Schedule,
- Budget,
- Resources,
- Risk.
Project Management Lifecycle
The project management simple lifecycle structure includes four phases, and they can be applied to all projects. You start and plan the project, organize and prepare, carry out the work, and close the project. The Project Management Institute (PMI) originally defined the lifecycle in five phases, Initiation - Planning - Executing- Monitor & Controlling and Closing. In order to simplify the process, we will be covering the lifecycle in four phases. Each phase activities are given below and those steps are customized for University usage.
- Initiation:
- Submit your project request
- Assign a Project Manager
- Conduct a kickoff meeting
- Define team roles and responsibilities
- Sponsors' approval to proceed
- Enter project into TeamDynamix (if used for project management)
- Planning:
- Gather requirements and define scope
- Create high-level project plan
- Finalize communication plan
- Develop strategies to manage risks
- Finalize project plan with the team
- Execution:
- Hold team status meetings
- Create status reports
- Manage issues and risks
- Manage quality of deliverables
- Update your project status in TeamDynamix (if used for project management)
- Closure:
- Confirm requirements and deliverables have been completed
- Hold project close out meeting
- Complete project closing report
- Update TeamDynamix and archive project folder (if used for project management)
A number of templates are available to you for use in IT project management.