PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND TOOLS

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Journal Overview

This Journal is mainly focused about project management and tools. This journal is a reflective write-up on what the webinar was about, what was learnt from it and how the knowledge gained from it can be applied to my future career.

1.2 List of Acronyms and Abbreviations

PM: Project Management

PMI: Project Management Institute

DDD: Delivered Defect Density

2. BUILDING A MODERN DATA WAREHOUSE SOLUTION

2.1 Summary

Project management is the process of leading the work of a team to achieve goals and meet success criteria at a specified time. The primary challenge of the project management is to achieve all of the project goals within the given constraints.

Project management is important because it brings leadership and direction to projects. Project management provides leadership and vision, motivation, removing roadblocks, coaching, and inspiring the team to do their best work. Project managers serve the team but also ensure clear lines of accountability.

2.2 Learning Outcome

Project management is important because it ensures there is a proper plan for executing strategic goals.

Where project management is left to the team to work out by themselves, you’ll find teams work without proper briefs and without a defined project management methodology. Projects lack focus, can have vague or nebulous objectives, and leave the team not quite sure what they’re supposed to be doing, or why.

As project managers, we position ourselves to prevent such a situation and drive the timely accomplishment of tasks, by breaking up a project into tasks for our teams.

Oftentimes, the foresight to take such an approach is what differentiates good project management from bad. Breaking up into smaller chunks of work enables teams to remain focused on clear objectives gear their efforts towards achieving the ultimate project goal through the completion of smaller steps, and to quickly identify risks since risk management is important in project management.

Often a project’s goals must change in line with a materializing risk. Again, without dedicated oversight and management, a project could swiftly falter but good project management (and a good project manager) is what enables the team to focus, and when necessary, refocus, on their objectives.

2.3 What is a Project?

A project is any undertaking, carried out individually or collaboratively and possibly involving research or design, that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim. It is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.

2.4 What is Project Management?

Project management is the process of leading the work of a team to achieve goals and meet success criteria at a specified time. The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals within the given constraints. It is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements.

2.5 Why Project Management is Important?

Because projects are often complex and involve numerous stakeholders, having a project manager to lead the initiative and keep everyone on the same page is critical to project success.

In fact, PMI found that organizations using any type of project management methodology are better at meeting budget, staying on schedule, and meeting scope, quality standards and expected benefits.

A lack of clear goals was the most common reason for project failure. Project managers help organizations home in on their priorities and define their project objectives.

When project management is left to the team to handle, the scope and objectives can easily get muddled. Unclear focus can lead to scope creep, missed deadlines, and overspending.

Plus, without a project manager to oversee the project plans and task breakdowns, many teams may not notice potential risk factors as they arise. If they do not address evolving project risks, the team could end up prioritizing the wrong tasks.

A good project manager keeps an eye on all these factors so that the team can focus on the right tasks at the right time and adapt as needed.

2.6 Why Software Delivery is Challenging?

Some projects are failed and some of them are did not meet their goals, some of them are exceeded their initial budgets, some of them are late to complete the project.

These are some reasons for that why software delivery is challenging:

- Inaccurate requirements

- Uninvolved project sponsors

- Shifting project objectives

- Inaccurate estimates

- Unexpected delays

- Not enough resources

- Poor project management

Most failures occur due to quality issues. Delivered Defect Density (DDD) is important indicator of quality.

Quality control is an essential component of project management. Your project could meet all parameters for time and budget, but if the quality standards aren’t met, the project will be deemed a failure.

Unfortunately, this is an all-too-easy trap to fall into. Teams are under a lot of pressure to finish a project on time and on budget. And this can lead to rushed work and shoddy execution.

That is where project managers come in. They not only manage deadlines and objectives, but they also keep an eye on how well project tasks are executed. Project managers help outline deliverables and define their quality standards so that everyone knows exactly what they are aiming for.

2.7 Cost of Quality

Project management is important because it ensures proper expectations are set around what can be delivered, by when, and for how much.

Without proper project management, budget estimates and project delivery timelines can be set that are over-ambitious or lacking in analogous estimating insight from similar projects. Ultimately this means without good project management, projects get delivered late, and over budget.

Effective project managers should be able to negotiate reasonable and achievable deadlines and milestones across stakeholders, teams, and management. Too often, the urgency placed on delivery compromises the necessary steps, and ultimately, the quality of the project’s outcome.

2.8 Project Management Knowledge Areas

Effective project management requires planning, communication, and task management. But, do you know all the project management knowledge areas and how they work together? These 10 project management knowledge areas will provide you with the essential knowledge you need to run smoother projects, delight your stakeholders, and fight fewer fires.

· Project Integration Management

· Project Scope Management

· Project Schedule Management

· Project Cost Management

· Project Quality Management

· Project Resource Management

· Project Communications Management

· Project Risk Management

· Project Procurement Management

· Project Stakeholder Management

2.9 Who are Project Managers?

Project Managers understand what projects have in common, and their strategic role in how organizations succeed, learn and change. They work well under pressure and are comfortable with change and complexity in dynamic environments.

A project manager is a professional in the field of project management. Project managers have the responsibility of the planning, procurement, and execution of a project, in any undertaking that has a defined scope, defined start and a defined finish, regardless of industry. Project managers are first point of contact for any issues or discrepancies arising from within the heads of various departments in an organization before the problem escalates to higher authorities, as project representative.

Project management is the responsibility of a project manager. This individual seldom participates directly in the activities that produce the end result, but rather strives to maintain the progress, mutual interaction and tasks of various parties in such a way that reduces the risk of overall failure, maximizes benefits, and minimizes costs.

Without Project Manager, teams and clients are exposed to chaotic management, unclear objectives, a lack of resources, unrealistic planning, high risk, poor quality project deliverables, projects going over budget and delivered late.

Great project management matters because project managers with great training deliver success.

Project management creates and enables happy, motivated teams who know their work matters, so do their best work. And that project management enabled team ensures the right stuff is delivered; stuff that delivers real return on investment, and that makes happy clients.

2.10 Essential Skill of a Project Manager

Any project management skills list is sure to include communication near the top. This includes written and verbal communication. Project managers need to ensure that team members and stakeholders are informed about the project plan, timeline, and budget and updated on the project's latest happenings.

2.11 Project Management Processes

Traditionally (depending on what project management methodology is being used), project management includes a number of elements: four to five project management process groups, and a control system. Regardless of the methodology or terminology used, the same basic project management processes or stages of development will be used. Major process groups generally include:

Initiation
Planning
Production or execution
Monitoring and controlling
Closing

In project environments with a significant exploratory element (e.g., research and development), these stages may be supplemented with decision points (go/no go decisions) at which the project's continuation is debated and decided. An example is the Phase–gate model.

2.12 Project Management Tools

List of 10 best free project management tools in 2021

Kissflow Project
Trello
Asana
Zoho Projects
Wrike
Monday.com
Proofhub
Clarizen

2.13 Root Cause Analysis

Root cause analysis (RCA) is a systematic process for identifying “root causes” of problems or events and an approach for responding to them. RCA is based on the basic idea that effective management requires more than merely “putting out fires” for problems that develop but finding a way to prevent them.

2.14 Waterfall Project Management

Waterfall project management is a sequential, linear process of project management. It consists of several discrete phases. No phase begins until the prior phase is complete, and each phase's completion is terminal—waterfall management does not allow you to return to a previous phase.

2.15 Agile Project Management

Agile project management is an iterative approach to delivering a project throughout its life cycle. ... Iterative approaches are frequently used in software development projects to promote velocity and adaptability since the benefit of iteration is that you can adjust as you go along rather than following a linear path.

2.16 Waterfall vs Agile Project Management

Some of the distinct differences are: Agile is an incremental and iterative approach; Waterfall is a linear and sequential approach. Agile separates a project into sprints; Waterfall divides a project into phases. Agile helps complete many small projects; Waterfall helps complete one single project.

3. Conclusion

Project management is important because it ensures risks are properly managed and mitigated against to avoid becoming issues.

Risk management is critical to project success. The temptation is just to sweep them under the carpet, never talk about them to the client, and hope for the best. But having a robust process around the identification, management, and mitigation of risk is what helps prevent risks from becoming issues. Especially in complex projects, dealing with risk is where the value of project management really comes into play.

Good project management practice requires project managers to carefully analyze all potential risks to the project, quantify them, develop a mitigation plan against them, and a contingency plan should any of them materialize. It requires knowing the right questions to ask in order to uncover risks early.

Naturally, risks should be prioritized according to the likelihood of them occurring, and appropriate responses are allocated per risk. Good project management matters in this regard, because projects never go to plan, and how we deal with change and adapt our project the management plan is a key to delivering projects successfully.

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