Project Management Approach and Philosophy
A philosophy is an outlook or a way of thinking about the field of application. A project management philosophy reflects the way an organisation performs its work methodically. It is valuable to develop a project management philosophy.
Let us first understand what constitutes a project
A project is a combination of organisational resources put together to develop a product or service which enhances the performance capability in the design and execution of organisational strategies. Let us now discuss some of the characteristic of a project.
- Projects are the principle means to deal with organisational changes.
- Projects are used to bring changes in an organisations products, services or processes.
- Every project has a specific objective with regards to cost, schedule and technical performance capability.
- Completion of a project should increase operational and strategic capability of the organisation.
- The life cycle of a project starts with emergence of an idea and ends with project result delivery to a user or customer.
- The organisational design and culture is changed by a project primarily through the working of the "matrix organisation ".
- Organisations plan, integrate and use resources to support a project.
- In order to manage project resources proper scheduling, motivation, leadership, and control techniques are followed.
- Project management is widely practiced in all industries such as military, educational, ecclesiastical organisations, social and political domain.
- Managing project stakeholders is a major challenge for the team.
- A body of knowledge has evolved which describes the art and science of project management which is changing the way contemporary organisations are managed.
Every organisation performs work. Work generally involves operations or projects. Operations and projects share the following characteristics:
- It is performed by people.
- It is constrained by limited resources.
- It is planned, executed and controlled.
Operations are ongoing and repetitive process, where as projects are unique and temporary processes.
The body of knowledge namely the PMBoK (Project management Book of Knowledge) defines a project as a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product or service. It is temporary because every project has a definite start and end date. The term "unique" refers to the outcome of a project which is different in some particular way from similar products or services.