Introduction to Project Management

Introduction

I am in IT industry for more than 10 years. 10 years exposure to the industry makes a person an experienced IT professional. I have experience working for Hewlett Packard and Acer. So, what adds here is the standard processes that I followed in my tenure as a part of my work. This helped a lot to follow the project management standards. After adapting to the PM standards, I faced no failures in my projects (this is not a joke). The posts in this blog will speak a lot on the PM standards, situations that I encountered in my projects as well as my friends and my seniors. This targets IT professionals from the entry level to the people in lead levels. 

PMI Standards

PMI is one of the world’s largest non-profit membership associations for the project management profession. There is no specific author for the PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) which contains the Project Mangement standards. Surprising thing is there are more than 7 Lakhs contributors who considerably added points from their work life to form the standards of the Project Management.

Courtesy : Gentleman who posted this in youtube

Project Management

Before we talk about Project Management, lets have a clear vision on what is project and why we need to manage it.

PMBOK (References from PM Standards - Project Management Body of Knowledge will be mentioned as PMBOK hereafter) defines project as temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result. Temporary doesn't actually mean short duration and at the same time, repeated monotonous activity cannot be considered as a project but a service. Apparently it should have a defined start and end. Constructing Tanjore (Tamilnadu, India) temple was a project and the success of that project is now a monument and it represents Tamilnadu's tradition to the world. 

So, as you guessed, what is needed here is a strategy to drive the project. There are ways to drive it and that  is what called as Standards. The way you effectively drive it is management. 

The word "drive" when used as a verb should need of course a "Driver" and here in PM terms the person who drives it is called as "Project Manager"

So, Project Management is effective application of knowledge, talents, tools and techniques to the activities involved in the project to meet the requirements.