Project management best practices – Part 1

Project management is one of the most important and durable job disciplines in the IT industry. To understand why, it is helpful to review the definition of a project – a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. Project management is the discipline of orchestrating change. In this 2-part blog series, we’ll discuss project management, the right approach toward PM, charters, managing project changes, and recommended best practices for all these activities. In part 1 of this series, we’ll explore project management, best practices for selecting a project management approach, and project management standards.

What is Project Management?

Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to fulfill the project requirements. Driving change is even more important today than it has ever been with the pace of technological, business, and environmental changes accelerating at a seemingly endless rate.

The chaos all this change creates can not only be overwhelming to manage but also causes an organization to be vulnerable to the considerable risk that must be managed. Despite all the changes occurring, the importance of skilled project managers and sound project-management methodologies have remained constant, enabling organizations to embrace changes in their environments, respond to opportunities/threats and evolve products/services and processes, safely and effectively.

Project management, like any discipline in modern business and technology fields, has changed since 2009 – responding to a more rapid pace of business, embracing modern technology, and finding new and innovative ways to address risk and ambiguity. Project-management best practices and new ways of working have emerged as responses to issues, such as compliance, globalization, cloud services, consumerization of IT, and agile software development. These provide project managers and project teams with a greater variety of tools they can apply to individual project scenarios.

Best practices for selecting a project-management approach

Project management isn’t a one-size-fits-all discipline, even within a single company. Projects have differing needs, constraints, and contexts, which must be considered when selecting a project-management approach. There are many methodologies project managers can choose (waterfall, agile, rolling wave, big bang, phased delivery, etc.). Selecting the most appropriate approach is the first step to achieving project success.

Some companies have defined project-management standards, which may constrain the project manager’s options; however, even within the context of these organizations, project managers often have some level of flexibility to make adaptations within a standard to address the project’s unique needs. A seasoned project manager will consider many factors when selecting a methodology for a project. Some of the most important factors include:

Project scale

Large projects often require greater project management rigor and formality to separate and manage project complexity than small, simple projects.

Scope ambiguity

Projects with a clearly defined scope are often better suited for waterfall-type methodologies. Projects with large degrees of scope ambiguity are often more easily managed with agile and rolling-wave approaches, which defer many decisions until later during the project lifecycle when greater scope clarity can be achieved.

Risk tolerance

The impact of project failure on an organization is probably the most important consideration when choosing a project management methodology. If a company’s viability or reputation is at risk or if the product could put lives at risk, then project managers should select project management methodologies that focus on rigor, quality, and structured-risk management.

Compliance and documentation requirements

Some projects have regulatory-compliance requirements that mandate a certain level of project formality, documentation and decision governance. Agile methodologies that empower individual team members to move quickly and encourage risk-taking may not be appropriate for such projects.

Culture and experience of the project team

The dynamics of the project team itself may also be a factor in the approach selection. Project teams that have been working together and have established work methods may be more successful in continuing to use existing working methods rather than introducing a new project management methodology.

There is no right or perfect answer to what project-management method is best suited for a specific project. Experienced project managers weigh many factors, some internal and some external, to assess the project needs, constraints, and environment to select the methodology they think will maximize the success of the project.

Project-management standards

Project management has existed for centuries in various forms but became a distinct profession during the mid-20th century. During the past 60+ years, the Project Management Institute (PMI) has emerged as the leading professional organization promoting standards and best practices in the project management field. PMI has developed a comprehensive ecosystem of project management resources, including A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) and the globally-recognized Project Management Professional (PMP) certification. In addition to its core project-management products, PMI has developed variants for program management, portfolio management, and agile methods as well as specialty disciplines, such as business analysis, risk, and scheduling.

Because of its storied history, broad coverage of project management-related topics, and the global ecosystem of project management professionals and software vendors aligned to PMI’s standards, PMI is one of the industry’s leading sources of project management best practices and defines project management in the context of 5 process groups:

  • Initiating
  • Planning
  • Executing
  • Monitoring and controlling
  • Closing

Project management best practices strive to execute these processes effectively and efficiently to achieve any project’s objectives. In addition to the process areas, PMI defines 10 project management knowledge areas, which provide further clarity about how to execute and apply the project management processes within the context of a project.

  • Integration
  • Scope
  • Time
  • Cost
  • Quality
  • Procurement
  • Human resources
  • Communication
  • Risk management
  • Stakeholder management

It is within the context of these knowledge areas that most project-management best practices have emerged. The core project-management processes are the same, regardless of the nature of the project or methodology selected. How you execute the processes is a matter of subjective decisions made in each of the knowledge areas.

That’s it for this blog post. In part 2 of this blog series, we’ll take a look at best practices for project charters, critical path analyses, managing project resources, and project-change management. Read “Project management best practices part-2” here.

 

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