Test Your Project Management Knowledge

Project Management: An Overview

• Project management is the process of leading a team to achieve project goals within given constraints.

• The primary constraints are scope, time, and budget, with the secondary challenge being to optimize the allocation of necessary inputs.

• The objective of project management is to produce a complete project that complies with the client's objectives, which should influence all decisions made by other people involved in the project.

• Projects are temporary and unique endeavors designed to produce a product, service, or result with a defined beginning and end.

• Project management developed from several fields of application including civil construction, engineering, and heavy defense activity.

• Project management types include construction project management, IT project management, biotechnology project management, and public project management.

• Approaches to project management include phased, lean, iterative, and incremental, with careful consideration given to the overall project objectives, timeline, and cost.

• Benefits realization management (BRM) enhances normal project management techniques through a focus on outcomes (benefits) of a project rather than products or outputs.

• Critical path method (CPM) is an algorithm for determining the schedule for project activities.

• Critical chain project management (CCPM) is an application of the theory of constraints (TOC) to planning and managing projects.

• Earned value management (EVM) extends project management with techniques to improve project monitoring.

• Phases of a project lifecycle include initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing.Overview of Project Management

• Project management involves planning, executing, monitoring, and closing a project within a specified timeframe and budget.

• Conceptual design of the final product may be performed concurrently with project planning activities to inform the planning team.

• Proper allocation, coordination, and management of resources is essential for successful execution of a project.

• Documentation is key to maintaining budget, scope, effectiveness, and pace of a project.

• Monitoring and controlling processes ensure that potential problems are identified in a timely manner and corrective action is taken.

• Project control should be established as an independent function in project management to reinforce defined performance and formal goals.

• Project complexity plays an important role in project management, and its identification is specifically important to multi-project engineering environments.

• A project manager is responsible for planning, executing, controlling, and closing a project while understanding the order of execution of a project.

• Project management success criteria are different from project success criteria, which includes output, outcome, and impact success.

• Risk management is proactive identification of future problems and understanding of their consequences allowing predictive decisions about projects.

• Work breakdown structure is a tree structure that shows a subdivision of the activities required to achieve an objective.

• Organizational breakdown structure, cost breakdown structure, and risk breakdown structure are other types of breakdown structures used in project management.Project Management Overview

• Work breakdown structure provides a common framework for planning and control of a contract.

• Work breakdown structure can be displayed as a table or organizational chart.

• WBS is used to record and track work packages when the project is scheduled.

• Other decomposition techniques are organization breakdown structure, product breakdown structure, cost breakdown structure, risk breakdown structure, and resource breakdown structure.

• Programs are collections of projects that support a common objective.

• Project networks are temporary projects formed of several different evolving phases.

• Project portfolio management is the means of selecting the right projects and delivering outcomes in the form of benefits to the organization.

• PPM is performed by a dedicated team of managers organized within an enterprise project management office.

• Project management software helps plan, organize, and manage resource pools.

• Virtual project management is management of a project done by a virtual team with concerns of remote work and global collaboration.