Project management

Project management is a discipline for achieving a defined outcome or change, within constraints of time, cost and quality.

Project management involves:

• Defining objectives for the project.
• Planning the project. Often this is in the form of a Gantt Chart, which illustrates the tasks in the plan as bars on a diagram.
• Estimating the tasks in the plan.
• Assigning and controlling work.
• Tracking and analysing progress.
• Managing risks and issues.

Large projects typically require a dedicated project manager.

Many of the project management activities benefit from support from PC or web-based tools. The most commonly used tool is Microsoft Project. See the list of project management software on Wikipedia for a more complete list, including free open source software.

Management tips

• At the start of the project, spend time defining, clarifying and agreeing objectives. Do not rush into defining and planning tasks before the objectives are clear.
• Big projects, particularly software development, can suffer from diseconomies of scale. It is often better to run a number of smaller projects, rather than one big project.
• Not everything should be run as a project. Repeatable activities (such as bidding for work or responding to problems) should use repeatable processes, and not have a new plan written each time.

See
Project portfolio management
PRINCE2, a well-respected standard for project management
The Project Management Institute and Association for Project Management
Wikipedia article on project management