Foundations of project management

• Module 1: Embarking a career on a project management?
• Module 2: Becoming an effective project manager
• Module 3: The project management life cycle and methodologies
• Module 4: Organizational structure and culture

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Embarking a career on a project management

what a project is ?

• A project is a unique endeavor and usually includes a set of unique deliverables. It's also a temporary pursuit, it has a defined beginning and an end.

To put it another way, A project is a series of tasks that need to be completed to reach a desired outcome.

• Reaching that desired outcome takes collaboration and careful planning that keeps the project on track and on budget,that's where project management comes in.?

What is project management?

• Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to meet the project requirements and achieve the desired outcome.

For Example: In life you will be doing many things? such as planned? and unplanned activities. In all planned activities with or without knowingly there will be some elements of project management activities are involved.

Why is project management an important part of an organization, and how is it vital to a project's success?

• project management is valuable to businesses because it helps ensure that a project delivers the expected outcomes both on time and within budget.
• More and more companies are starting to understand how project management can save them lots of money and time.?
• Poor project management can lead to trillions of wasted dollars every year for organizations around the world.
• project management can lead to 48% of projects missing delivery dates, 43% missing budget targets, and 31% failing to meet an organization's goals.

What project manager does?

• Project manager brings the bunch of people together and getting organized,aligned around a common goal.
• They usually follow a process that involves planning and organizing, managing tasks, budgeting,controlling costs and other factors.
• Everything they do helps make sure the project can be completed on time and within budget and make sure that the project outcome is bringing value to the company.?

What does the day-to-day life of a project manager look like??

• planning and organizing : Might be gathering requirements from teammates or customers ,have a kickoff meeting or send a survey and work on creating project plans.
• Managing tasks:? Manage tasks for the team members and communicates key milestones to the larger team or customers and it helps keep team members, and customers updated on how the project is progressing.?
• Budgeting and controlling costs: Managing the budget and controlling costs is a common responsibility that project managers have to understand to keep the project on track and within budget.
• Using different tools, techniques and methodologies every single day and? the favorite part? is to watch the project's growth from start to finish. It's really special to create something from nothing, working from the ground up. It's a really satisfying feeling.

Becoming an effective project manager

• Project managers shepherd projects from start to finish and serve as guides for their team, using their impeccable organizational and interpersonal skills every step of the way.

• Project managers add value to their teams and organizations in key ways that include prioritization,delegation, and effective communication.?
• Prioritization

• Effective prioritization of tasks required to complete a project.
• Helping team members identify and break down large tasks into smaller steps.???????????
• Finding out critical task by connecting with their team and stakeholders to gather information and make a plan.

Delegation????????

• ?Matching tasks to individuals who can best complete the work.(appropriate skills and identifying the strengths of team)??????????

Effective communication

• ??Delivers value through effective communication, both with their team and with key stakeholders.
• ??Being transparent, which means being up front with plans and ideas and making information readily available.
• ??Regular contact with their team about the progress of the work and help identify areas where a teammate may need support.?

How project managers impact organizations

• Focusing on the customer
• Building a great team
• Fostering relationships and communication
• Managing the project
• Breaking down barriers

Focusing on the customer?

• Customers are always a key element to success in any business.?
• In project management“customer” refers to a person or an organization that defines the requirements of the project and sets important guidelines, such as budget and deadlines.?
• In projects, customers can be internal or external.
• Building relationships with customer can add a lot of value to the project.

Building a great team

• Having a great team is a project’s biggest asset .
• Getting the Right team for the project and enabling the team to be successful and make decisions.?
• Understanding the customer’s requirements helps shape the skills needed for your team and identify each person’s motivations, strengths, and weaknesses.
• People with the right skills and ensure the team knows that each individual is valued, trusted, and appreciated.

Fostering relationships and communication

• Maintaining customer satisfaction and building a great team are two ways that you, as a project manager, can add value to a project.
• Building relationships and communicating with team members and stakeholders can set a different tone to the project.

Managing the project

• Once each task is done, the person responsible for that task hands that part of the project over to the next person.and the team member don't always see the whole picture of the project.

Breaking down barriers

• ?Sometimes, when you ask why something is being done a certain way, the response you get is, “Because we’ve always done it this way.”and by breaking down barriers, the team? innovate new ways to do things, and empower them to share ideas and try new approaches to find solutions.

?Responsibilities that utilize your interpersonal skills.

Interpersonal skills are the behaviors you use to interact with others, such as communication,?active listening, and leadership.

Teaching and mentoring:?

• As a project manager, you can serve as a mentor to your team.
• Mentoring also involves supporting each individual on your team in meeting expectations and?

helping them to exceed their own sense of personal potential.

Building relationships?

• Relationships are everything it takes time to build within the team and customers.
• They doesn't feel like just like we are employees.

Controlling change

• The only thing that never changes is that everything changes.
• Projects change as you continue to understand the expectations and the needs of your stakeholders.
• You need to remain flexible and adjust to the stakeholders’ needs & it is also important to protect your team from constant change and rework.

Empowering your team

• Appreciating continuously for their work done progress.
• It will help in getting fresh idea and passionate employees willing to find solution to problems.
• Effective mentoring often leads to more empowered teams.

Communicating status and concerns

• With effective communication, you can work together with your team to find solutions to challenges.
• Maintaining an open door policy and building trust within your team and among stakeholders—all while staying positive—will help the success of the project.

A project manager’s role within a team:

project manager is not often the direct manager of the people working on a project team.

• Everyone on your team will have their own set of roles and responsibilities.
• Hold your team members accountable by giving them ownership over specific pieces of the project.
• You'll need to ensure that issues and risks are tracked and visible, and be able to establish escalation paths.(communicate risks to the right people at the right time.)
• You'll need to understand and help teammates adopt the right workflows and project management styles.
• You'll need to collaborate with other teams at the organization to meet the requirements based on project,scope, schedule, and budget.?

Working with cross-functional teams:

• Work with cross-functional teams who have different backgrounds, types of expertise, and job functions ,have different skill sets, occupy different roles, and ven work in different departments, they are all working towards a common goal.
• cross-functional team are referred to as “T-shaped professionals.
• Each member of a cross-functional team has their own unique perspective and experience, bringing different ideas and strategies to the project.?

Clarify goals?

• It is important to ensure that each member of the team understands their role, how they support each other, and the common goals of the project.
• It is vital to set clear goals for the team and make sure that the team understands those goals.

Get team members with the right skills

• Making sure you have team members with the correct skill sets for each of the project functions is critical.?

Measure progress

• Showing your team how much they have accomplished helps keep them motivated.
• Take time and measure the progress across the cross-functional team.

Recognize efforts

• ?There are certain skills that get recognized more than others.

The core skills of a project manager

• Enabling decision-making
• Communicating and escalating
• Flexibility
• Strong organizational skills

Enabling decision-making:

• Ability to enable decision-making on the team, or gathering decisions from the appropriate leader, is crucial to keep projects on task and achieve their goals.
• Make sure that those decisions are communicated to the necessary coworkers, whether that's the immediate team or company leaders.

Communicating and escalating

• ?Documenting plans, sending emails about the status of the project, or holding a meeting to escalate risks or issues to stakeholders.

Flexibility

• Plans definitively will change, even with careful upfront planning.
• Unpredictable moments like these are almost always guaranteed.?

Strong organizational skills

• ?Using a lot of different processes to keep the project on track.?
• Organize these processes and the core elements of a project to ensure nothing gets lost or overlooked.
• Track daily tasks in a spreadsheet or send frequent status updates or reminders.

Leadership and team dynamics

• Determine the priorities of the project and motivate your team throughout the process.
• Possessing strong interpersonal skills is a huge part of good leadership.
• Influencing without authority, which refers to a project manager's ability to guide teammates to complete their assigned work without acting as their direct managers.
• A few key interpersonal skills that helps to accomplish even without the authority to influence those skills are communication, negotiation, conflict mediation, and understanding motivations.?

Communication

• Checking in with teammates to understand how they're progressing on a task and providing clear feedback on the quality of a teammate's work.

Negotiation

• Working with a teammate to compromise on a new deadline when they tell you that they won't be able to complete their work on time.?
• ?Balance with your teammates and stakeholders and get adjusted to their needs and what is best for the project.?

Conflict mediation

• Project plans can change and issues will arise.
• This might involve setting up a meeting with two teammates who are struggling to agree upon the best way to handle a shared task.

Understanding motivations

• Getting to know your teammates and figuring out what pushes them to do their best work.

The project management life cycle and methodologies

Initiate the project?

• Define project goals
• Determine resources, people, and project details
• Get project approval

Make a plan?

• Create a budget
• Set the schedule
• Establish your team
• Determine role and responsibilities
• Plan for risk and change?
• Establish communications.

?Execute & complete tasks?

• Manage the progress
• Communicate
• Make adjustments

Close the project?

• Ensure all tasks have been completed?
• Confirm acceptance of the project outcome
• Reflect on lessons learned?
• Communicate results with stakeholders
• Celebrate completing the project
• Formally move on from the project

project management methodologies

Waterfall is a traditional methodology tasks and phases are completed in a linear, sequential manner, and each stage of the project must be completed before the next begins. The project manager is responsible for prioritizing and assigning tasks to team members. In Waterfall, the criteria used to measure quality is clearly defined at the beginning of the project.

Agile involves short phases of collaborative, iterative work with frequent testing and regularly-implemented improvements. Some phases and tasks happen at the same time as others. In Agile projects, teams share responsibility for managing their own work. Scrum and Kanban are examples of Agile frameworks, which are specific development approaches based on the Agile philosophy.

Scrum is an Agile framework that focuses on developing, delivering, and sustaining complex projects and products through collaboration, accountability, and an iterative process. Work is completed by small, cross-functional teams led by a Scrum Master and is divided into short Sprints with a set list of deliverables.

Kanban is a tool used in both Agile and Lean approaches that provides visual feedback about the status of the work in progress through the use of Kanban boards or charts. With Kanban, project managers use sticky notes or note cards on a physical or digital Kanban board to represent the team’s tasks with categories like “To do,” “In progress,” and “Done.”

Lean uses the 5S quality tool to eliminate eight areas of waste, save money, improve quality, and streamline processes. Lean’s principles state that you can do more with less by addressing dysfunctions that create waste. Lean implements a Kanban scheduling system to manage production.

Six Sigma involves reducing variations by ensuring that quality processes are followed every time. The Six Sigma method follows a process-improvement approach called DMAIC, which stands for define, measure, analyze, improve, and control.

Lean Six Sigma is a combination of Lean and Six Sigma approaches. It is often used in projects that aim to save money, improve quality, and move through processes quickly. Lean Six Sigma is also ideal for solving complex or high-risk problems. The 5S organization framework, the DMAIC process, and the use of Kanban boards are all components of this approach.

Organizational structure and culture

An organization's structure is most commonly mapped out using a reporting chart or "org chart," which is short for "organizational chart."

Classic and Matrix structures

• Classic: functional or? "top-down" structures
• Matrix structure: Direct higher-ups to report to and stakeholders from other departments or programs
• Authority has to do with your ability to make decisions for the project that impact the organization.
• ?Resource availability: Managing a project is a lot easier when you know how to access the people, equipment, and budget that you need.

Project managers serve key functions in both Classic and Matrix organizations. Within both of these types of structures, there is sometimes a group devoted specifically to project management in the organization: the Project Management Office.?

Project Management Office (PMO)

• ?It is a group within an organization that defines, sets, and helps maintain project management standards and processes throughout that organization.?
• ?It often acts as a coordinated center for all of the organization’s projects, helping them run more smoothly? and efficiently.

?Functions of a PMO

Strategic planning and governance,

Best practices,

Common project culture,

Resource management and

?Creation of project documentation, archives, and tools.

Organization’s culture

• Organizational culture is critical to the health of a company, the people who work there, and the customers it serves.
• Understanding the company’s culture can help you navigate your team through a project.

The importance of organizational culture?

• Identity
• People
• Processes

Understanding an organization’s culture

• organization’s culture that are directly related to how you will manage projects are communication, decision-making, rituals, previous management styles, and values.?

Ask questions with your management and peers

Atmosphere,Policies,Processes,Values,Listen to people’s stories,company rituals

Understand your impact

As a project manager, you become a change agent. Remember: a change agent is a person from inside an organization who helps the organization transform by focusing on improving organizational effectiveness and development. When you begin a new role, sit down with management to better understand what is expected of you and how you can make the most of the opportunity.

Sharpen your communication skills

Interpersonal communication skills are a major part of project management. How a company communicates is directly tied to its organizational culture. You will most likely have interactions with various departments and management levels while executing projects. To communicate effectively, you will need to understand how to navigate the different channels in your company.

Change management

• change management is the process of delivering your completed project and getting other people in the organization to adopt it.
• Change management is a major undertaking and a project in and of itself.you may not always be responsible for leading and planning the entire end-to-end process.

?????When you are thinking about change management as it relates to your project, begin by asking yourself

• How will the organization react to change?
• Which influencers can affect change?
• What are the best means of communication??
• What change management practices will lead to the successful implementation of my project??

Best practices for approaching change management on your projects : Be proactive,Communicate about upcoming changes,Follow a consistent process,Practice empathy and use tools?

Example:?

• Feedback mechanisms: such as surveys, can capture input from stakeholders.

• Flowcharts :can visualize the project's development process.
• Culture mapping :can illustrate the company's culture and how the company's values, norms, and employees behavior may be affected by the change.

Corporate and project governance

• Governance in business is the management framework within which decisions are made and accountability and responsibility are determined.(understanding who is in charge)

Corporate governance

• Organizations standards and practices are called corporate governance, and they will influence your projects. And it is the framework by which an organization achieves its goals and objectives.
• Governance and change management go hand-in-hand.
• Effective governance in change management provides clearly defined roles and responsibilities during change.
• Example of governance within an organization is the creation and use of steering committees.Steering committees decide on the priorities of an organization and manage the general course of its operations.
• Steering committee essentially acts as an advisory board or council to help the project manager and the company make and approve strategic decisions that affect both the company and the project.?

Project governance

• project manager, you will be responsible for project governance and it is the framework for how project decisions are made.?
• Project governance helps keep projects running smoothly, on time, and within budget.
• It involves all the key elements that make a project successful and covers policies, regulations, functions, processes, procedures, and responsibilities.?
• It needs to be tailored to your organization's specific needs.
• Project governance concerns those areas of corporate governance that are specifically related to project activities.
• Effective project governance ensures that an organization’s projects are aligned to the organization’s larger objectives, are delivered efficiently, and are sustainable.
• I hope you have understood the fundamentals of project management clearly now people who would like to connect with the project management community and still discuss this topic or job search can connect here .