Project?
A project is a task given to with a time designated and requirements to comply. It is very common especially to students because these are always given by their teachers or instructors. It maybe in a written or oral form. One example is, you are given a project to build or create a program for a certain company. To finish that project and comply all the requirements needed you must have perseverance and you must manage yourself.
A process which involves setting up a comprehensive scheme, which takes account of the various aspects of one situation, for the purpose of arriving at another. Projects have a purpose: projects have clearly-defined aims and set out to produce clearly-defined results. Their purpose is to solve a “problem”, and this involves analyzing needs beforehand. Suggesting one or more solutions, it aims at lasting social change. Projects are realistic: their aims must be achievable, and this means taking account both of requirements and of the financial and human resources available. Projects are limited in time and space: they have a beginning and an end, and are implemented in a specific place and context. Projects are complex: projects call on various planning and implementation skills, and involve various partners and players. Projects are collective: projects are the product of collective endeavor. They are run by teams, involve various partners and cater for the needs of others. Projects are unique: all projects stem from new ideas. They provide a specific response to a need (problem) in a specific context. They are innovative. Projects are an adventure: every project is different and ground-breaking; they always involve some uncertainty and risk. Projects can be assessed: projects are planned and broken down into measurable aims, which must be open to evaluation. Projects are made up of stages: projects have distinct, identifiable stages. Projects are temporary in nature. They are not an everyday business process and have definitive start dates and end dates. This characteristic is important because a large part of the project effort is dedicated to ensuring that the project is completed at the appointed time. To do this, schedules are created showing when tasks should begin and end. Projects can last minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or years. Projects exist to bring about a product or service that hasn’t existed before. In this sense, a project is unique. Unique means that this is new, this has never been done before. Maybe it’s been done in a very similar fashion before but never exactly in this way. The project is completed when its goals and objectives are accomplished. It is these goals that drive the project and all the planning and implementation efforts are undertaken to achieve them. Sometimes projects end when it’s determined that the goals and objectives cannot be accomplished or when the product or service of the project is no longer needed and the project is cancelled.
As what I have learned from our first discussion, project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a product, service or result. A project is temporary in that it has a defined beginning and end in time, and therefore defined scope and resources. And a project is unique in that it is not a routine operation, but a specific set of operations designed to accomplish a singular goal. So a project team often includes people who don’t usually work together – sometimes from different organizations and across multiple geographies. The development of software for an improved business process, the construction of a building or bridge, the relief effort after a natural disaster, the expansion of sales into a new geographic market — all are projects. And all must be expertly managed to deliver the on-time, on-budget results, learning and integration that organizations need. I have learned that all projects are work, but not all work is project. A project has a distinct start and end. When you are given a project, you are also given a span of time to finish it.
Not all projects are successful. There are some factors that lead a certain project to fail. We always encounter projects in our daily lives. We had already known that a project is a temporary task or activity given with a common time allotted. This is one of the factors why a project may fail. Time. Time is gold but mostly it is wasted. Commonly, we are pressured by the time given to us, that’s why we don’t meet the qualifications needed for that matter, we lose our focus on the project. For example, your project is to build a program for a certain business company and you are given two (2) months to comply it. Because you are pressured by the span of time given you made the project with no much effort not meeting all the things looked-for. Another factor that leads a project to failure is lack of motivation. If you are not motivated because you don’t love what you are doing, your project might probably fail. You must be enthusiastic with what you are doing. For example you are ask to cook a certain viand for special guests but your interest is not on that matter, let’s say you want to do graphics design, surely you wouldn’t successful in meeting the necessities for that project because you are not in that kind of matter. You will not be motivated to do it because it is opposite with what you want.
Management?
Management is the way how you handle a certain situation or a thing you encounter. It is the way how you organize a given matter to make it easier to accomplish. It is somewhat the way how you handle a given circumstance. For example a given a project that ask you to make a thesis. You must be able to manage your project that within the allocated span of time you will finish it and meet all the qualifications needed to pass it. Management in all business areas and organizational activities are the acts of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives efficiently and effectively. It doesn't necessarily mean managing people. We can manage ourselves or the material assigned to us at work. If you managed a project very well on your own, it would mean that you did the job in a well-organized, efficient manner, making good use of all resources at your disposal. Management is like investment. Managers have resources to invest - their time, talent and, possibly, human resources. The goal (function) of management is to get the best return on such resources by getting things done efficiently. This doesn't imply being mechanical or narrowly controlling as some writers on management suggest. The manager's style is a personal or situational matter and it has evolved over time. With highly skilled and self-motivated knowledge workers, the manager must be very empowering. Where the workforce is less skilled or not very motivated, the manager may need to monitor output more closely. Skilled managers know how flex their style, coach and motivate diverse employees. Getting things done through people is what they do. By saying that management is a function, not a type of person or role, we can better account for self-managed work teams where no one is in charge. In a self-managed team, management is a group effort with no one being the designated manager. Management operates through various functions, often classified as planning, organizing, leading/directing, and controlling/monitoring. Planning: Deciding what needs to happen in the future (today, next week, next month, next year, over the next 5 years, etc.) and generating plans for action. Organizing: (Implementation) making optimum use of the resources required to enable the successful carrying out of plans. Staffing: Job Analyzing, recruitment, and hiring individuals for appropriate jobs. Leading/Directing: Determining what needs to be done in a situation and getting people to do it. Controlling/Monitoring: Checking progress against plans. Motivation: Motivation is also a kind of basic function of management, because without motivation, employees cannot work effectively. If motivation doesn't take place in an organization, then employees may not contribute to the other functions (which are usually set by top level management).
During our discussion, a manager and a leader were compared. Manager and Leader have distinct traits. There are fundamental differences in the way of thinking and executing things. A manager tries to get maximum benefits of the available resources. He/She relies on high efficiency and productivity of existing resource. A leader on other hand has a creative mind. He/She is an inventor and is constantly thinking of changing and improving the way things are done. He/She can sacrifice efficiency or productivity for some time to promote creativity and hence finding novel unconditional ways. A leader is more risk savvy then the usual manager. A leader is always on look out for new ideas. He/She looks at his/her resources like people, machinery and computer systems in a different way then the manager. Manager aims to extract maximum value from these resources unlike a leader who aims to get different more valuable output from the same resources. Both a manager and a leader may know the business well. But the leader must know it better and in a different way. S/he must grasp the essential facts and the underlying forces that determine the past and present trends in the business, so that s/he can generate a vision and a strategy to bring about its future. One telling sign of a good leader is an honest attitude towards the facts, towards objective truth. A subjective leader obscures the facts for the sake of narrow self-interest, partisan interest or prejudice. Effective leaders continually ask questions, probing all levels of the organization for information, testing their own perceptions, and rechecking the facts. They talk to their constituents. They want to know what is working and what is not. They keep an open mind for serendipity to bring them the knowledge they need to know what is true. An important source of information for this sort of leader is knowledge of the failures and mistakes that are being made in their organization. Managers adopt impersonal, almost passive, attitudes toward goals; decide upon goals based on necessity instead of desire and are therefore deeply tied to their organization's culture; tend to be reactive since they focus on current information. While leaders tend to be active since they envision and promote their ideas instead of reacting to current situations; shape ideas instead of responding to them; have a personal orientation toward goals; provide a vision that alters the way people think about what is desirable, possible, and necessary. Managers view work as an enabling process; establish strategies and makes decisions by combining people and ideas; continually coordinate and balance opposing views; are good at reaching compromises and mediating conflicts between opposing values and perspectives; act to limit choice; tolerate practical, mundane work because of strong survival instinct which makes them risk-averse. While leaders develop new approaches to long-standing problems and open issues to new options; first, use their vision to excite people and only then develop choices which give those images substance; focus people on shared ideals and raise their expectations; work from high-risk positions because of strong dislike of mundane work.
To endure in this kind of society we need a new generation of leaders, not managers. “A good manager does things right. A leader does the right things”. Doing the right things implies a goal, a direction, an objective, a vision, a dream, a path, a reach.
Project Management?
Project management is a carefully planned and organized effort to accomplish a specific (and usually) one-time objective, for example, construct a building or implement a major new computer system. Project management includes developing a project plan, which includes defining and confirming the project goals and objectives, identifying tasks and how goals will be achieved, quantifying the resources needed, and determining budgets and timelines for completion. It also includes managing the implementation of the project plan, along with operating regular 'controls' to ensure that there is accurate and objective information on 'performance' relative to the plan, and the mechanisms to implement recovery actions where necessary. Project management is the science (and art) of organizing the components of a project, whether the project is development of a new product, the launch of a new service, a marketing campaign, or a wedding. A project isn't something that's part of normal business operations. It's typically created once, it's temporary, and it's specific. As one expert notes, "It has a beginning and an end." A project consumes resources (whether people, cash, materials, or time), and it has funding limits. No matter what the type of project, project management typically follows the same pattern. Definition, Planning, Execution, Control and Closure. Defining the Project. In this stage the project manager defines what the project is and what the users hope to achieve by undertaking the project. This phase also includes a list of project deliverables, the outcome of a specific set of activities. The project manager works with the business sponsor or manager who wants to have the project implemented and other stakeholders -- those who have a vested interest in the outcome of the project. Planning the Project. Define all project activities. In this stage, the project manager lists all activities or tasks, how the tasks are related, how long each task will take, and how each tasks is tied to a specific deadline. This phase also allows the project manager to define relationships between tasks, so that, for example, if one task is x number of days late, the project tasks related to it will also reflect a comparable delay. Likewise, the project manager can set milestones, dates by which important aspects of the project need to be met. Define requirements for completing the project. In this stage, the project manager identifies how many people (often referred to as "resources") and how much expense ("cost") is involved in the project, as well as any other requirements that are necessary for completing the project. The project manager will also need to manage assumptions and risks related to the project. The project manager will also want to identify project constraints. Constraints typically relate to schedule, resources, budget, and scope. A change in one constraint will typically affect the other constraints. For example, a budget constraint may affect the number of people who can work on the project, thereby imposing a resource constraint. Likewise, if additional features are added as part of project scope that could affect scheduling, resources, and budget. Executing the Project. Build the project team. In this phase, the project manager knows how many resources and how much he budget or she has to work with for the project. The project manager then assigns those resources and allocates budget to various tasks in the project. Now the work of the project begins. Controlling the Project. The project manager is in charge of updating the project plans to reflect actual time elapsed for each task. By keeping up with the details of progress, the project manager is able to understand how well the project is progressing overall. A product such as Microsoft Project facilitates the administrative aspects of project management. Closure of the Project. In this stage, the project manager and business owner pull together the project team and those who have an interest in the outcome of the project (stakeholders) to analyze the final outcome of the project. Time, Money, Scope. Frequently, people refer to project management as having three components: time, money, and scope. Reducing or increasing any one of the three will probably have an impact on the other two. If a company reduces the amount of time it can spend on a project, that will affect the scope (what can be included in the project) as well as the cost (since additional people or resources may be required to meet the abbreviated schedule).Project Portfolio Management. Recent trends in project management include project portfolio management (PPM). PPM is a move by organizations to get control over numerous projects by evaluating how well each project aligns with strategic goals and quantifying its value. An organization will typically be working on multiple projects, each resulting in potentially differing amounts of return or value. The company or agency may decide to eliminate those projects with a lower return in order to dedicate greater resources to the remaining projects or in order to preserve the projects with the highest return or value. Project management, then, is the application of knowledge, skills and techniques to execute projects effectively and efficiently. It’s a strategic competency for organizations, enabling them to tie project results to business goals — and thus, better compete in their markets.
Project management is very important in the business industry especially nowadays people are finding ways to innovate the resources around them. Innovation relies on project management. Irrespective of whether the innovation concerns a new product, or a new process, or indeed a contribution to pure science, better project management, on the whole, will see a successful outcome reached more quickly, having consumed fewer resources. All organizations use projects as the way to translate strategies into actions and objectives into realities. Many companies are project-intensive – they live and breathe project management because they are in that kind of business, such as construction, aerospace, engineering design, engineer-procure-construct (EPC), general contractors, consulting, software, and so on. For them, organizing around projects is a natural way of life as almost all senior staff have "come up through the ranks", and top management understands what it takes to be successful in project work. On the other hand are less project-intensive organizations such as food, retailing and textiles. But even such companies have projects, e.g., setting up a new distribution depot or a new plant. Even in public sector, it is effective project management that translates politicians' visions of new roads, schools and hospitals into gleaming new constructions that improve everyday life. In modern day business scenario the business always try to diversify their resources into profitable areas; accordingly the progression plans are chalked out. The risk at any step of business progression means pitfalls and losses. So to avoid these pitfalls and losses, project management is really badly needed.
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