Project Management For Beginners

Project Team Management
Human resource management is one of most difficult knowledge areas because people can be unpredictable. The level of their confidence can go up or down. Also, they can cause unexpected conflicts or even abandon the project in an unplanned manner.
To ensure success, a project manager must have the following skills:
Leadership
Communication
Conflict Management
Negotiation

Every member of a project must have a role and a set of responsibilities. This process defines how the project manager will assess, team build, improve and manage the project team. For that reason, this process is done during the initial phase of the project and is implemented repeatedly as the project progresses.

This process aims to keep the stakeholders and sponsors updated on the project’s progress.

The dependency of an activity can either be internal or external.

Scheduling of Activities
After identifying the activities, the project manager must arrange them according to their importance and dependencies. These dependencies must be known because they determine the correct sequence of activities.

Definition of Activities
This process identifies the specific tasks that must be accomplished to achieve the goals of the project.

Management of Plan Schedule
The primary goal of this process is to establish the policies and procedures that will be used in the execution of the plan schedule. Its elements are:
• Tools and Techniques - the analytical techniques used in this process include: review of schedule performance, analysis of alternatives, schedule compression, leads & lags and rolling wave planning.
• Inputs – this process needs the project charter, organizational process assets, project management plan, and all environmental factors that may affect the project.
• Outputs - it generates the schedule management plan. This plan is used as the framework for the remaining time management processes of the project.

This group is composed of seven repetitive processes that can be improved as the project progresses. These are:
Management of Plan Schedule
Definition of Activities
Scheduling of Activities
Estimation of Activity Resources
Estimation of Activity Time Frames
Schedule Development
Controlling the Schedule

Determining the variance between the actual costs and intended costs is a simple procedure. In fact, there are several tools that can be used to quantify any difference. A project manager must be able to describe exactly where a project is in terms of costs. They are expected to submit a variance report to the sponsor of the project.

This phase involves acquiring the estimated cost data, determining which cost options to use, computing their effects, and assigning cost information to work packages.