PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Project Management

Project Management

Introduction

Project management is increasingly becoming a way of life for public organizations across the globe. As a result, project management is all about dealing with the three tasks of coming up with important ideas worth implementing, forging the coalition needed to adopt and to implement the changes and implementing the changes in a timely fashion. In the process, management and strategic and operational concerns are becoming fused (Kerzner, 2009).

The paper presents the basic elements of project management, its planning and implementation including its attention to the environment, stakeholders, mission, mandates, strategic issues and strategies. Project planning is the basic building block of project management. The basic approaches to institutionalizing project management strategic planning systems are offered on strategic planning systems. Finally, a conclusion is derived from the evidence extracted.

Discussion

Project management has a normative structure as a linear decision-making process that makes plans as a way to achieve desired outcomes. The project management process revolves around five sequential steps:

(1) Problem/ opportunity,

(2) Research,

(3) Policy/programming,

(4) Implementation, and

(5) Evaluation (Weissand Wysocki, 2002).

The management process begins when a planner confronts a problem or opportunity. Here, the planner establishes the anatomy of the problem/opportunity and determines if the development of a plan is the best way to achieve a desired goal. The research phase in the management process begins with a need for information (“research question”) to shore up any deficiencies in his or her knowledge about the management task being addressed. Research most commonly occurs during the research and evaluation junctures (Steps 2 and 5) in the management process (Frame, 2003). However, the purposes for research in these two planning junctures are very distinct. Investigations made during the research phase of the planning process can take one of two directions: research as part of a comprehensive planning process or strategic research to investigate a planning problem. While various authors have suggested generic project management processes, but is instead a set of concepts, methods and tools that must be customized carefully to conditions if enviable conclusions are to be accomplished. Project management is an encompassing process, 'concerned with managing an organization in a strategic manner on a continuing basis'.

Poster and Streib (1999) present a framework for thinking about project management as a process. The framework incorporates seven elements: values, mission, and vision; strategic planning; results-oriented budgeting; performance management; project measurement; assessment of the internal and external environment; and feedback relationships among these elements.

Values, mission and vision form the central organizing force for project management efforts. If consensus can be achieved on these elements among key stakeholder, the creation and operation of a project management system will be far easier than it would be otherwise. If consensus is not possible, then the system no doubt will be looser and less integrated (Thomsett, 2002). In fact, because consensus on values, mission and vision is difficult to achieve in many - perhaps most - circumstances, tightly integrated project management systems are not particularly common, and probably should not be pursued in ...