Project Management – Definition, Career path, Principles, and Tools

1. What is Project Management?
2. Project management career path
3. Salary of Project Management professionals in India and USA
4. What are key components in Project Management?
5. What are the principles of Project Management?
6. Critical path method in project management
7. What are the Project Objectives in Project Management?
8. How to write SMART project objectives?
9. What are the different phases in Project Management?
10. What are the different types of Project Management Methodologies?
11. Project Management Tools
12. Reasons to pursue a course in Project Management
13. 5 Reasons to pursue a career in Project Management

“Project management can be defined as a way of developing structure in a complex project, where the independent variables of time, cost, resources and human behavior come together.” – Rory Burke

In simple words, it can be defined as a process in which a set of project professionals use a set of project management tools to achieve goals a given project, with the guidance of a project manager.

What is Project Management (PM) ? 

A project can be anything from hiring the right people to fill a position in a sales job to rebuilding your home to make it look and feel new according to emerging trends in technology. Every project has a project management system , headed by a project manager who overseas budgets, and allocate resources to meet schedules to meet the end goal of a project.

A project can take anywhere from 6 months – 5 years to be completed depending on the size, goals and the use of technology, which may help in accelerating the completion of a project. A project manager chooses his team, based on their experience, and educational qualification and some simply based on their will to learn. A project managers team consists of a Project Coordinator, Project Scheduler and Assistant Project manager. An Assistant project manager fills in for a project manager as and when needed and works closely with every member of the team to achieve the goals of a project, in a given time. To learn more, you can take up a project management free course and enhance your knowledge about the same.

Project management career path

Project Coordinator

• Works closely with the team of field workers to ensure there is no issues on the job 
• They ensure all the personnel in a crew has all the tools needed to meet project goals
• Assist project manager in documenting reports and project phases 
• Last but not least, they work on building a strong relationship between the members of each team to work closely towards achieving project management goals.

Education requirement

• High School Diploma

Experience Requirement

• Entry Level

Project Scheduler

• A Project Scheduler does a job of updating and maintaining schedules and documents with the help of software tools
• Keeps every team member aware of project time lines
• Work on project reports to show the perfomace of a project
• Work closley with teams to build effective project management systems to acheive goals faster

Experience Requirement

• Entry Level

Education requirement

• Bachelors Degree
• Certification course in PMI-SP

Assistant Project manager

• Assist Project manager in procuring resources needed to complete project
• Motivates and assists the team in acheiving project goals
• They work closely with project managers and over look project implementation schedules
• Work closely with enitre project manegement team from start to finish of the project

Education requirement

• Bachelors Degree
• Computer Science
• Project Management Certification

Experience Level

• Entry Level

Project manager

• Work closely with assitant project manager to finalise project schedule and objective
• Track project budget and make sure it doesn’t exceed limits
• Work closely with project management team to develop and maitain project schedules
• Ensure industry best practices, standards and techniques are used during the course of the project

Education requirement

• Bachelors Degree
• Computer Science
• Project Management Certification

Experience Level

• 2-3 years

A Project manager can grow further in his career into a Senior Project Manager, Director of Project Management and VP of Project Management, with experience and upskilling.

Salary of Project Management professionals in India and USA

Job Role	Average Salary in India (yearly)	Average Salary in USA (yearly)
Project Coordinator	₹ 2,92,000	$47701
Assistant Project Manager	₹ 2,92,521	$58,214
Project Manager	₹ 5,46,393	$73818
Senior Project Manager	₹ 10,38,011	$102,524
Director of Project Management	₹ 12,26,109	$128646
VP of Project Management	₹ 13,63,460	$144201

Also read – Project Manager vs Product Manager

Key Components in Project Management

The four main components are Time, Cost, Scope and Quality. 

• Time – The duration the work would be completed by
• Cost – The budget allocated for the project
• Scope – What is the outcome or goal of the project
• Quality – The standard of the outcome of the project

Time

A given project can be completed within a given time frame from 1 week to 1 year or more, depending on circumstances and need for technology and government approvals. Some projects stay stagnent on the planning pharse itself, while some come to a hault when there are second thoughts in the end goals of the project.

Cost

Every project begins its journey with a price tag, some projects get done with the budget agreed upon intially, while some catapult to figures that where never forseen before. These variations may arise due to a number of circumtances related to government approvals and updated project completion time lines to name a few.

Scope

While a project may have intially kickstarted with a scope to be home to a number of IT companies, may not always reach its goals on completion in the end. The reasons can be related to cost, location and completion time lines to name a few.

Quality

Every project should follow industry best practices, standards and techniques while on course of the project. All materials used should be ISO certified and the personals working on the project should be certified and knowegable to every detail needed to meet the requirements of the project from start to finish. This project quality management course will provide you with the skills and knowledge necessary to manage quality in projects effectively. By the end of the course, you will be able to understand the importance of quality management in projects, identify the key elements of a quality management system, Monitor and control project quality, etc.

Project Management Principles

Project management principles are the fundamental rules that should be followed to manage projects successfully. The Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK) currently does not contain an official list of principles for successful projects. However, PMI’s annual pulse survey can help emphasize what successful project managers and companies are following. Below given are some principles:

• Formal project management structure
• Invested and engaged project sponsor
• Clear and objective goals and outcomes
• Documented roles and responsibilities
• Strong change management
• Risk management
• Mature value delivery capabilities
• Performance management baseline
• Communication plan

What exactly is the critical path method in project management?

Critical path method is a resource utilization algorithm used to schedule project activities. A CPM can be used to construct a model of a given project, which would contain the overall list of tasks in a project, an estimate of how long it would take to be completed and a list of task dependencies.

Project Management Objectives

What are Project Objectives in Project Management?

Project objectives are goals, simple and understandable. These are the business objectives that you want the project to achieve. Within Project Management (PM), it is important to state the project objectives precisely as these will impact the project management lifecycle.

In short, project management objectives are the successful development of project’s phases including initiation, planning , execution, monitoring and closing. 

How to write SMART objectives?

SMART objectives are goals defined using the SMART goal system. In this framework, SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. When writing out your project objectives, make sure to bind them up into the far-reaching of your project.

Your SMART objectives should be practical, to the point and specific statements that tie into the overall goals of the project. They should not be lengthy, broad or unrealistic. 

Project Management Life cycle

What are the different phases in project management?

There are five different phases namely: Initiation, planning , execution, monitoring and closing. 

Phase 1: Project Initiation

• Define project goals
• Set targets
• Appoint the project team

Phase 2: Project Planning

• Define project scope and budget
• Create a project plan
• Risk management
• Define roles and responsibilities

Phase 3: Project Execution

• Manage project resources
• Build the project
• Status reports

Phase 4: Project Monitoring

• Track effort and cost
• Quality of deliverables
• Monitor project progress

Phase 5: Project Closure

• Handover deliverable
• Review project deliverable
• Project closure report

Project Management Methodologies

Project management methodologies are basically the different ways to approach a project. Each methodology has a unique process and workflow.

Types of project management methodologies

• Waterfall project management
• Agile project management
• Scrum project management
• Kanban project management
• Lean project management
• Six-Sigma project management
• Prince2 project management

Project Management Tools 

Project Management tools are tools that help a project manager and his team in organising and managing the progress of a project from start to finish in an efficient manner.

• Gantt chart,
• Logic network
• Program Evaluation and Review Technique Chart (PERT)
• Product Breakdown Structure (PBS)
• Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

Gantt Chart 

Gantt chart is a project management bar chart developed in 1931. The main function of this chart is to track phases, tasks , milestones and resources required on a project. 

Logic Network 

A Logic network as  a project management tool helps in identifying dependencies in a project in terms of timescale and workflow. 

Program Evaluation and Review Technique Chart (PERT)

A model developed by the US Navy, to analyze the time required to finish one task, in correlation with the time that would be required to complete the whole project. 

Product Breakdown Structure (PBS) 

PBS is tool used to document, analyse and communicate every given outcome or goal of a project.  

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

As the name suggests, WBS helps break down a project into small and manageable components in terms of deliverables and tasks of work packages that can be costed, scheduled and assigned to professionals. 

5 reasons project management is the right career choice in 2022

According to LinkedIn, there is a need for 62000+ project management professionals in India today. Furthermore, there is a requirement for over 15000+project managers in India. There are vacancies for over 210000+project managers in the USA.  

In addition to these numbers, listed below are 5 reasons why you should pursue a career in the field: 

1. Multi-industry requirements – Finance, Oil and Gas, Manufacturing, Construction and IT constitute only a handful of industries that require the services of a project manager. 

2. Good salary packages – Project managers at an entry-level position in the US, draw a minimum salary of $60000 a year. In India the same professional would earn a yearly salary of ₹6,20,000. 

3. No prerequisites required – To pursue a career in this field, you don’t need to have prior experience or knowledge to start with. Although pursuing a PG program in Product Management and Analytics, can help you gain an edge over other professionals pursuing the same career path. 

4. Multiple growth opportunities  – A management professional on a daily basis, deals with strict deadlines, difficult situations in and around a team and a project. As a result they improve skill sets such as problem solving, decision making, and such on a regular basis. They turn out to be more diligent and forbearing.

5. Travel opportunities- Project managers get to travel the world. Where there is a project , there is a project manager to facilitate its progress from start to finish. They get the opportunity to travel to countries located from north to south and east to west.