Project management involves four main phases: initiating, planning, executing, and closing. The initiating phase involves establishing the project team and management procedures. Planning defines tasks, schedules, resources, and risks. Execution involves implementing the project plan, monitoring progress, and managing changes. Finally, closing includes finalizing documentation, conducting reviews, and closing out the project.

1. Project Management: A controlled process of initiating, plannig, executing, and closing
down the project.
1. Initiating the Project:: The 1st phase of project management process in which activities
are performed to assess the size, scope and complexity of the project and to establish
procedures to support later project activities. The types of ctivities you wil perform
when initiating a project are:
a. Establishing the project initiation team – the activity involves organizing an
initial core of project team members to assist in accomplishing the project
initiationactivities.
b. Establishing a relationship with the customer – A thorough understanding of
your customer buids stronger partnerships and higher level of trust. To foster
strong working relationships between business units (like purchasing) and
the I.S department group by assigning a specific individual to work as liaison
between both groups. Same strategy used for establishing relationships with
customers in many organizations.
c. Establishing the project initiation plan – This step defines the activities
required to organize the initiation team while it is working to define the goals
and scope of the project. This required the collection, analysis, organization
and transformation of a lot of information. They also needed to define when
and how they would communicate, define deliverables and project steps, and
set deadlines. Their initiation plan included agendas for several meetings.
d. Establishing management procedures – successful projects require the
development of effective management procedures. Each project may have
unique procedures tailored to its needs. Yet, in general when establishing
procedures, you are concerned with developing team communication and
reporting procedures, job assignments and roles, project change procedures,
and determining how project funding and billing will be handled.
e. Establishing ther project management environment and project workbook –
the focus of this activity is to collect and organize the tools thatyou will use
while managing the project and to construct the project workbook. Project
workbook is an on-line or hard copy repository for all project
corerspondence, inputs, outputs, deliverables, rocedures, and standards that
is used for performing project audits, orientating new team members,
communicating with management and customers, identifying future projects,
and performing post-project reviews. The establishment and diligent
recording of all project information in the workbook are two of the most
important activitires you will perform as project manager.
2. Planning the Project: The 2nd phase of project management process, which focuses on
defining clear, discrete activities and the work neede to complete each activity within a
single project.
a. Describing project scope, alternatives and feasibility – the purpose of this
activity is to understand the content & complexity of the project. During this
activity, you should reach agreement on the following questions:
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2. i. What problem or opportunity does the project address?
ii. What are the quantifiable results to be achieved?
iii. What needs to be done?
iv. How will success be measured?
v. How will we know when we are finished?
After defining scope of the project, next objective is to identify and document
general alaternative solutions for the curernt business problem or
opportunity. You must then assess the feasibility of each alternative solution
and choose which to consider during SDLC phases.
b. Dividing the project into manageable tasks – this is the critical activity. In
which you must divide the entire project into manageable tasks and then
logically order them to ensure a smooth evolution between tasks. The
definition of tasks and their sequence is referred to as the ‘work breakdown
structure’. Some tasks may be erformed in parallel whereas others must
follow one another sequentially.
c. Estimating resources and creating a resource plan – to estimate resource
requirements for each project activity and use this information to create a
project resource plan. The resource plan helpsassemble and deploy resources
in the most effective manner.
d. Developing a preliminary schedule – during this activity, use the information
on tasks and resource availability to assign time estimates to each activity in
the work breakdown structure. These time estimates will allow you to create
target starting and ending dates for the project. Target dates can be revisited
and modified until a schedule produced is acceptable to the customer. The
schedule may be represented as a Gantt chart or as a PERT (program
evaluation review technique) chart.
e. Developing a communication plan – to outline the communication
procedures among the management, project team members, and the
customer. The communication plan includes when and how written and oral
reports will be provided by the team, how team members will coordinate
work, what messages will be sent to announce the project to interersted
parties, and what kinds of information will be shared with vendors external
contractors involved with the project. It is important that free & open
communication occur among all parties, with respect for proprietary
information and confidentiality with the customers.
f. Determining project standards and procedures – During this activity, you will
specify how various deliverables are produced and tetsed by your project
team.
g. Identifying & assessing risk – the goal of this activity is to identify sources of
project risk and to estimate the consequences of those risks. Risk might arise
from the use f new technology, prospective users resistance to change,
availability of critical resources, or team member inexperience with new
technology etc.
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3. h. Creating a preliminary budget – you need to create a preliminary budget that
outlines the planned expenses and revenues associated with your project.
i. Develop a statement of work – this document outlines works that will bw
done & clearly describes what the project will deliver. The statement of work
is useful to make sure that you, the customer, and other project team
members have a clear understanding of the intended project size, duration
and outcomes.
j. Setting a baseline project plan – at the end you will be abe to develop a
baseline project plan. This plan provides an estimate of the project’s tasks &
resource requirements and is used to guide the next project phase i.e.
execution.
3. Project Execution: The 3rd phase of project management process in which the plans
created in the prior phases (project initiation & planning) are put into action.
a. Executing the baseline project plan – as project manger, you oversee the
execution of the base line project plan. This means that you initiate the
execution of the project activities, acquire and assign resources, orient and
train new team members, keep the project on schedule, and assure the quality
of project deliverables.
b. Monitoring project progressagainst the baseline project plan – whilw you
excute the base-line project plan, you should monitor your progress. If the
project gets ahead of (or behind) schedule, you may have to adjust resources,
activities and budgets. Monitoring project activities can result in
modifications to the current plan. Measuring the time and effort expanded on
each activitywill help you improve the accuracy of estimations for future
projects. Monitoring projects also means that the team leader must evaluate &
appraise each team member, occasionally chage work assignments or request
changesin personnel, and provide feedback to the employee’s supervisor.
c. Managing changes to the baseline project plan – you will encounter pressure
to make changes to the base-line plan. Only approved changes to the project
specification can be made and all changes must be reflected in the base-line
project plan and project workbook, including all charts. In additiont to
changes occuring through formal request, changes may also occur from
events outside your control. In fact, many events may initiate a change to the
base-ne project plan, including the following possibilities:
 A slipped completion date for an activity
 The identification of the new activity that becomes evident later in the project
 An unforseen change in personnel due to sickness, resignation or termination.
d. Maintaining the project workbook – maintaining complete records of all
project events is necessary. The workbook provides the documentation new
team members require to assimilate project tsaks quickly. It explains why
deign decisions were made and is primary source of information for
producing all project reports.
e. Communicating the project status – the project manager is responsibe for
keeping all the team mebers, system developers, managers and customers
abreast of the project status. Clear communication is required to create a
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4. shared understanding of the activities and goalsof the project. Thismeans that
the entire project paln should be communicated to all interested parties so
that every one understands ho the plan is evolving.
4. Project Closedown: The final phase of the project management process that focuses on
bringing a project to an end.
a. Closing down the project – during closedown, you perform several diverse
activities e.g. to assess each team member and provide an appraisal for
personnel files & salary determination. You may also provide career advice to
team members, write letetrs to superior praising secial accomplishements of
team members, and send thankyou letters to those who helped but not team
members. As project manager, you must be prepared to handle possible
negative personnel issues such as job termination. When closing down the
project, it is also important to notify all interested parties that the project has
been completed and to finalize all project documentation
b. Conducting postproject reviews
c. Closing the customer contract
Customers &
Management
Expectations
Documentation & Technological
Communication Change
Time & Resource
SDLC
Constraints
Organizational
Methodologies &
Change &
Tools
Complexity
Contractors &
Managing People
Vendors
The Art of Project Management
Common Activities and Skills of Project Manager
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5. Activity Description Skill
Leadership Influences the activities of others Communication; liaison
towards the attainment of a between management, users,
common goal through the use of and developers; assigning
intelligence, personality and activities, monitoring progress.
abilities.
Management getting projects completed Defining and sequencing
through the effective utilization activities; communicating
of resources expectations; assigning
resources to the activities;
monitoring outcomes
Customer Relations Working closely with customers Interpreting system requests
to assure project deliverables and specifications; site
meet expectations preparation and user training;
contact point for customers
Technical Problem Designing and sequencing Interpreting system requests
Solving activities to attain project goals and specifications; defining
activities and their sequence;
making trade-offs between
alternative solutions; designing
solutions to problems
Conflict Management Managing conflict within a Problem solving; smoothing out
project team to assure that personality differences;
conflict is not too high or too compromising; goal setting
low
Team Management Managing the project team for Communication within and
effective team performance between teams; peer
evaluations; conflict resolution;
team building; self management
Risk & Change Identifying, assessing, and Environmental scanning, risk
Management managing the risks and day-to- and opportunity identification
day changes that occur during a and assessment; forecasting;
project resource redeployment.
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