What is Project Management?
The building blocks of every project are Time, Cost, and Quality.
The concept of Time in a project means to schedule and use a collection of techniques to develop and present plans that show when to perform a specific type of work or activity. Cost means how necessary funds are acquired and finances managed. With Quality, the fitness for the deliverables and management processes will be assured.
Project management aspires to create an end-product that will affect some changes to benefit the organization that started the project. Using initiation, planning, and control of a range of required tasks to deliver the end product. This product could be a physical new software or something less tangible like a new way of working.
The critical factor of final deliverables and a finite timespan distinguishes project management from just management, unlike an ongoing general management process. Therefore, a project manager needs a wide range of technical skills, people management skills, and good business awareness.
Why and When Do We Use Project Management?
Not all projects need project management. But creating something, a new product or modification of an existing product (tangible or intangible), with a finite timespan (definite start and end), which is likely to be complex in terms of work or groups involved; demands the management of change; and the management of risks need project management.
Effective project management investment provides a more prominent possibility of achieving the desired result, ensuring efficient and best value use of resources, and meeting the differing needs of the project’s stakeholders.
Projects differ from business-as-usual activities. When an organization wants to deliver a solution to set requirements within an agreed budget and timeframe, it must apply project management techniques. It’s required to gather a team of people to come together temporarily to focus on specific objectives. Therefore, effective teamwork is the key element to successful projects.
Project management aims to manage discrete work packages to achieve particular goals. A wide variety of factors affect the managing process.
For example, the work’s scale, significance, and complexity are obvious factors affecting project management.
Each project has its objectives that can be expressed in terms of:
- outputs (such as a new HQ building);
- outcomes (such as staff relocation from multiple places);
- benefits (how to reduce travel and facilities management costs);
- strategic objectives (creasing the organization’s share price in three years).
What is Project Risk Management?
Risk analysis and risk management is the procedure that allows unique risk circumstances and overall risk to be understood and managed proactively. Risk management aims to optimize success by minimizing threats and maximizing opportunities and outcomes.
Risk management focuses on foreseeing what might not go according to the plan and put measures to reduce uncertainty to a tolerable level.
Risk can be categorized either positively (upside opportunities) or negatively (downside threats). A chance is a potential situation or event that impacts the achievement of specific objectives.
Before moving onto the risk management process’s risk analysis step, the project’s professional works with the risk owner to ensure that all the risks are identified.
The project risk management process reflects the dynamic nature of assignments, capturing and handling risks, and reflecting new knowledge in existing risk analyses.
Project managers use a risk register to document, analyze and respond to the risk and assign clear ownership of actions.
Project Risk Management Professional (PRMP)
Project Risk Management Professional is one of the AACE certifications for anyone who wants to pursue a career in project risk management.
A PRMP or Project Risk Management Professional is a skilled and knowledgeable practitioner who establishes an effective risk management plan. They implement that plan following the project/program/portfolio’s goals. The PRMP is responsible for communicating in verbal and written forms, both internally (with their team) and externally (with the project’s stakeholders).
A person with a Project Risk Management Professional (PRMP) certification is an expert in project risk management (PRM) domains. Project Risk Management Professional should be skilled in Communication competency, Risk management supporting skills, and other functional skills and expertise.