Project Management: An important phase of project development : An important phase of project development

What is project management?

Project management is a process of doing a project which includes initiation, planning, execution, controlling and successfully closing of the work. With the help of project management, we try to achieve a specific goal and specified time. The main goal of project management is to achieve all the project goal in a given time.

First of all, the primary components of project management are mainly scope, time, quality and budget. The secondary objective of the project management is optimisation and allocation of necessary inputs and apply them to meet pre-defined goals. The main aim of project management is to produce a complete project which complies with the client’s objectives.

In this blog post, I will tell why project management is quite essential for the successful execution of any project.

Project management processes fall into five groups:

Initiating
Planning
Executing
Monitoring and Controlling
Closing

1. Initiating

The first phase in the project management life cycle is the project initiation phase as it involves the beginning of the new project. We can start a new project by defining its objectives, scope and purpose. For the development of the project, we hire a project team and set up the project office. This thing comes under the first phase of the project development life cycle which is known as the initiation phase.

In this phase, we try to arrange all the things that can be important for the initiation of the project. The initiating process determines the nature and scope of the project, and if this stage is not performed in a proper manner, you may face problems while execution. In the initiating phase, we try to understand the need of the project, and then we move for the next step which is known as planning.

This is the place where you can measure the value and feasibility of a particular element. Generally, project managers use two tools for evaluation to ascertain whether a project is worthy to be taken forward or not:

Business Case Document

The business case document always justifies the requirement for the project and it also involves an estimate of potential benefits on financial terms.

Feasibility Study

The feasibility study is a process which helps in the evaluation of the goals, costs and timeline of a certain project. This further helps in determining whether the management should execute the project or not.

It further helps in balancing the requirements of a project with all the available resources to check if the project makes sense or not.

After this analysis, the involved teams propose projects which can be labelled as unprofitable or non-feasible. However, the projects which can pass these two tests are further assigned to a team or office.

Business Case Document

The business case document always justifies the requirement for the project and it also involves an estimate of potential benefits on financial terms.

Feasibility Study

It further helps in balancing the requirements of a project with all the available resources to check if the project makes sense or not.

2. Planning

Planning is essential for everything without proper planning we can not execute any task successfully, in the project development, planning before the execution of any project is the most crucial thing which comes under the project development life cycle.

It is considered as an essential part of project management which includes, scheduling, report processing and need of assets for the development of the project. Without proper planning, we cannot execute our project successfully. It improves the process of project development. In this phase, the scope of the project is defined, and it involves the identification of cost and quality of the project.

Here are some development phase of the project life cycle which come under planning

Scope Statement- A document which is meant for defining a business need, advantages of the project, objectives, deliverables, and critical milestones. A scope statement may change or vary during the project management; it is done by only the project manager if he approves for such changes :

Work Breakdown Schedule (WBS) –This is a visual presentation that helps to breaks down the scope of the project by which it could be converted into manageable sections so that team members could perform the task smoothly.

Milestones – It indicates the high level of goal that should be completed throughout the project and includes them in grant chart

Gantt Chart – It is a visual timeline by which you can use to plan out tasks.

Communication Plan – It is quite essential for your project if your project has outside stakeholders. We need to develop proper communication between stakeholders and developers by which they can share their requirements.

Risk Management Plan – while project development any risk can arise at any time but with the help of proper risk management, you can easily avoid such thing and work effectively on your project without being worried about such things.

Kind of risk that can arise during the project development

The most common project risks that can arise anytime during project development are listed below

Cost risk

Due to improper management, risk related to the cost and budget can arise anytime, and in such cases, a risk management plan helps us to overcome from such situations.

Schedule risk

It is a kind of risk that arises when there is no proper scheduling, and if some activities are taking time longer than we expect, it can increase the budget and process of the project.

Performance risk

performance risk is a risk in which project will fail to produce the desired result known as performance risk

Other Types of Risks

There are various other kinds of risks that are concerned with projects. They can cause equal harm like the ones categorized above. In fact, they can drive cost, performance and schedule risks closer to a project. This can ultimately result in various other adversities for the company. Some of those risks are:

Risks connected to external hazards such as storms, earthquakes, civil unrest, labour strikes, terrorism, vandalism, sabotage and floods etc.
Market risks are also a disputable factor including foreign exchange, commodity markets, interest rate risk, credit risks, liquidity and competition. However, they can be cured with marketing management.
Legal risks may come from the regulatory obligations including litigation filed against the company or organization and contract risks.
Operational risks include risks from the process issues like production, distribution or procurement and poor implementation.
Governance risk is related to management and board performance with respect to the ethics, company reputation and community stewardship.
Strategic risks may emerge as a result of flaws in the existing strategy, for example choosing a technology which cannot be made to work.

3. Execution

Plan designed in the prior phase of the project development life cycle is put into action in the project execution or implementation. When we execute our project, the execution team utilises all the schedules, procedures that were prepared and reviewed during the prior phase. In general, we can say project execution is a phase in which deliverables are developed and completed. For proper guidance in research papers and assignment in management, you can get instant help from experts.

Tasks that should be completed during the Execution Phase include:

Create a proper team
Assign resources
Execute project management plans
PM directs and manages project execution
Use tracking systems for a project update
The task should be executed properly
Update project schedule
Modify project plans as needed

4. Monitoring and controlling

The project management monitoring and controlling is a process of tracking, reviewing and regulating the process of the project to meet the goal objectives. It is the fourth and essential process in project management. With the help of this, we can control the quality of our project and keep an eye on the overall process of development. Project monitoring and controlling process start parallelly with the project execution process.

While the project work is being executed, the project is being controlled and monitored. The primary purpose of monitoring and controlling process is to finding issues and errors that can arise anytime during project development.
With the help of this process, developers check and monitor the whole project and try to avoid any technical error from the project.

Project monitoring and controlling Objectives (Project Management)

Quality Deliverables: It determines if specific and required task deliverables are being met.

Effort and Cost Tracking: measuring effort and cost in the development of the project and controlling them comes under it.

Project Performance: It monitors and evaluates the changes in the project.

5. Closing

The fourth phase of project management is the closure of project it means handing over the deliverables to the customers, passing the documentation to the business, releasing staff and equipment and informing stakeholders about the closure of the project.

In a straightforward language, we can say this phase represents that the project has been completed. Workers and contractors hired on the project are terminated at the time of closure. Project management often holds a meeting to evaluate the work and identify what went well for the project and what didn’t. This is quite helpful for those workers who were the part of the project, and with the help of this they can have a better idea of their performance, and they can improve it in their future projects. In order to enhance your knowledge of project management, you should invest some time in solving and going through case studies.

Advantages of project management

With the help of project management, we can have many advantages for our business. No matter how big and small your business is, for delivering a quality product it’s essential to manage things properly for more significant advantages. With the help of project management, we can manage guidelines, techniques and adequate process for the business. It minimises the chances of failure and helps to deliver the project consistently and efficiently.

Pros of project management

project management helps us to manage our project, and it resolves the problem which arises during the project development life cycle.

Here are some benefits of project management are given below ;

It improves our chances of achieving the desired result.
Gain a new perspective on our project, and how it can fit with our business strategy
It ensures the efficient use of resources.
It helps to set a scope, schedule and budget accurately from the beginning.
Help to stay on schedule and keep costs and resources in the budget.
It helps to improve productivity and quality.
It encourages and allows consistent communications amongst staff members, suppliers and clients.
Help to satisfy the various needs of the project’s stakeholders.
It mitigates the risks of a project failing.
It helps to increase customer satisfaction.

Why Customer Satisfaction is the Most Important in Project Management?

As we all know a business is nothing without its customers. In this digitally advanced era, due to a lot of competition, most of the project managers only worry about to complete the project at any cost. They want to complete the project in the given time and forget to maintain the quality of the project.

Benefits of Customer Satisfaction

According to Neil Patel, The most significant benefit of Customer Satisfaction is word-of-mouth.

92% of consumers trust the recommendation from friends and family.
68% of respondents said a positive review help them to choose a service from a particular company, while 40% reported a negative review made them not to use the service
93% turn to online reviews to decide whether if a business is good or bad.
If your business has a 4-star rating, it will increase your business
34% read 4-6 reviews before deciding to trust a company.
Word-of-mouth is a key- influencer for 74% of consumers.

With the high number of satisfied customers, you get free publicity, and it helps to gain more project for a business.

Benefits

Brand Loyalty: if your customer is happy with your service he will choose to stay with their brands or service providers.

Brand Buzz: happy and satisfied customers always leave positive reviews on social media or different review sites, and this is a kind of free publicity.

Brand Trust: your satisfied customers will make your brand more trusted than others.

Happy Employees: happy customers give you a sign of courage and create a positive environment which helps to grow.

Customer satisfaction is not an easy thing. When you execute your project, you should be prepared for such queries from customers end which is listed below;

What is the progress of the project?
Will it be completed in a given time?
What is the status of the modules?
Where can I review the work?
Where to give my feedback or to whom?
How can I review my work?

These are few queries which can arise at any time from the customer of stakeholders end so if you want to make your customer happy you should take care of such little but significant things and with the help of project management, you can resolve these kinds of queries without being worried about anything. Visit AllAssignmentHelp.co.uk for more details on this.