Project management

Project management is the ensemble of activities to plan and follow the execution of a project.

(The contents of this page represent a more "traditional" approach to the subject. Contrast this with an Agile methodology approach such as Scrum for a different point of view).

In general, we can distinguish 5 stages in the development of a project:

1. project initiation
2. project planning
3. project production
4. project monitoring
5. project completion

Not all projects will visit every stage as projects can be terminated before they reach completion. Some projects probably don't have the planning and/or the monitoring. Some projects will go through steps 2, 3 and 4 multiple times.

Project management covers four parts:

• time,
• cost,
• quality,
• safety.

To keep control over the project from the beginning of the project all the way to its natural conclusion, a project manager uses a number of techniques: project planning, earned value, risk management, scheduling, process improvement.

History of project management Project management was not used as an isolated concept before the Sputnik crisis of the Cold War. After this crisis, the United States Department of Defense needed to speed up the military project process and new tools (models) for achieving this goal was invented. In 1958 they invented the Program Evaluation and Review Technique or PERT, as part of the Polaris missile submarine program. At the same time, the DuPont corporation invented a similar model called CPM, critical path method. PERT was later extended with a work breakdown structure or WBS. The process flow and structure of the military undertakings quickly spread into many private enterprises.

There are a number of guiding techniques that have been developed over the years that can be used to formally specify exactly how the project will be managed. These include the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), and such ideas as the Personal Software Process[?] (PSP), and the Team Software Process[?] (TSP). These techniques attempt to standardize the practices of the development team making them easier to predict and manage as well as track.

Critical chain is the latest extension to the traditional critical path method.

In critical studies of project management, it has been noted that several of these fundamentally PERT-based models are not well suited for the multi-project company environment of today. Most of them are aimed at very large-scale, one-time, non-routine project, and nowadays all kinds of management is expressed in terms of projects. Using complex models for "projects" (or rather "tasks") spanning a few weeks has been proven to cause unnecessary costs and low manouverability in several cases. Instead project management expertis try to identify different "lightweight" models, such as, for example Extreme Programming for software development.

Process based management Also furthering the concept of Project Control is the incorporation of Process Based Management[?]. This area has been driven by the use of Maturity models such as the CMMi[?] (Capability Maturity Model intergrated) and ISO/IEC15504 (SPICE - Software Process Improvment Capability dEtermination). Both of these models have been successfully adopted by organisations all over the world in an effort to have better control over project. With a view to improving accuracy of estimation, reducing costs and preventing defects. CMMi is widely used in the defence industry and their subcontractors in the USA and Australia, and SPICE is growing in use in the private sector in Europe.

The main thrust of Process Management is the concept of knowledge management. It is the experience of companies that use these models that the creation of a set of defined processes detailing what the company actually does has enabled them to achieve consistency across project teams and project. They have also found that, when it is defined, their ability to track and monitor performance with a view to improvement is far more successful.

Project management standards and professional certification There have been several attempts to develop project management standards, such as:

• ISO 10006:1997, Quality management - Guidelines to quality in project management
• Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK)
• Projects in a Controlled Environment (PRINCE2[?])
• ISEB Project Management Syllabus (http://www1.bcs.org.uk/DocsRepository/00800/899/docs/certsyll.pdf)

See also: An exhaustive list of standards (maturity models) (http://www.pmforum.org/prof/matmatrix.htm)

So far, there is no known attempt to develop a project management standard available under the GNU Free Documentation License. There is a proposed Project Management XML Schema (http://www.pacificedge.com/xml/xml.asp).

See also: project management software, critical path, critical chain

External links

• Project management on Open Directory (http://dmoz.org/Business/Management/Project_and_Program_Management/).
• page on project management standards (http://www.pmforum.org/prof/standard.htm#STANDARDS/)
• Wideman Comparative Glossary of Project Management Terms (http://www.pmforum.org/library/glossary/index.htm)
• Sofware process bibliography (http://www.computer.org/software/so2001/s5toc.htm)
• alt.projectmng
• alt.comp.project-management
• The Heretics' Forum - Dedicated to promoting more realistic and pragmatic project practices (http://pc.wiki.net/)