Article on
Elements of Project Management
by
Samir Amberkar
(published on 21-Jan-2012)
Abstract:
The article talks about various areas of Project Management on which Project Manager has to work on during the lifecycle of a Project.
Introduction
A Project is bound by 4 major coordinates or parameters: Cost, Scope, Quality, and Schedule. If you pull, push or disturb any one, it will strain other three.
Cost
Scope
HHHH ProjectHHHH
Quality
Schedule
Fig. 3.1.1
Though the article is based on author's experience as a Project Manager of development project of a telecom product, the concepts are equally applicable to projects from other fields. Examples of a Project would be "residential building construction project", "maintenance of banking software project", "medical R&D project", "development of new automobile model project".
Lifecyle of a project consists of four (broad) stages: Conception, Initiation, Execution, Acceptance or Completion. Though not considered to be part of project, another stage, "Post-completion Analysis or Review stage" may be present to analyse, learn - from the experience gathered and/or data collected from completed project - and update practices/processes (that would be followed in future projects). A Project Manager (PM) has to work on number of areas during the lifecycle of project to deliver the project (output) as per Scope within estimated Cost on Time with all Quality criteria met. In this article, we will briefly look at these areas; the areas are listed below. These areas (and the way they are handled) impact one or more coordinates of project, directly or indirectly.
