What is Project and Project Management?

What is project and project management?

As per the definition, a project is a “temporary endeavour undertaken to achieve a unique purpose” (Schwalbe, 2014 p.4). It is developed through progressive elaboration and requires resources from different areas.   On the other hand, project management is act of applying the knowledge, skills and techniques to meet the project criteria (Schwalbe, 2014). In any project there is uncertainty and since every project differs from each other, so does the level of uncertainty. This means that there are internal and external factors affecting the project from meeting the project goals. Some of the factors affecting the project are common between every project but the degree to which it affects the project may vary and it is known as triple constraint. The triple constraint, also known as project management triangle are the three project restrictions which inter-relate and they are scope, cost and time (Pmalphabet.com, 2016). These three restrictions inter-relate, meaning altering one restriction will affect the other two and as a result affect the project overall.

Example of Project Mismanagement

One such example that highlights the importance of project management is NHS’s civilian IT project. Project management in the field of Information Technology is particularly important as it is a growing at a rapid rate. NHS is a publically funded health care system in England (O’Donnellan, 2016). NHS project was a failure due to project mismanagement. Its goal to provide central electronic health record to 40,000 GPs across the 300 hospitals (O’Donnellan, 2016). The project was designed by a large central team, changing of specification, disputes with stakeholders and technical failures contributes to leaving it behind schedule (Syal, 2014). The consequence of being behind in schedule meant an increase in cost of the project. The project initial cost estimation was approximately 6.4 billion pounds however poor management has increased it to close to 10 billion pounds (Syal, 2014). The project failure clearly outlines the importance of taking into account all the parameters affecting the project.

Atlassian buying Trello, a tool for project management

Software industries like Atlassian are aware of the significance of project management in the functioning of organisations (King, 2017). Appendix 1 outlines Atlassian buying Trello, a collaborative digital whiteboard. Trello is known as a social task management, meaning it is a software tool for collaborative work, especially used for organising. Organising, along with other parameters including equipment, time and cost is important in project management. It is important since it contributes to smooth functioning of project as well as keeping the progress of the project within the boundaries of the triple constraints.  Trello is used as a project management tool as it is good for visualizing the overall project and also track progress. This concept of organising and tracking progress is fundamental in project management in order to efficiently and effectively complete a project within the given time frame (Schwalbe, 2014). According to Software Advice; a company that provides research on software application for business, mention in their key findings that the number of buyers of project management software has increased by 14% since 2014.

Slacks’ new launch – Slack Enterprise Grid

Slack is another company like Atlassian released the Slack Enterprise Grid. It is a product aimed at large organisation and to provide power and utility to the projects they conduct. The main feature of the release is the centralised controls that offer security and a point of collaboration (Lui, 2017). It is has the ability to create communication structures that allows teams to integrate in the unlimited workspace. According to reports, Slack’s new release shows competition between the two companies (Swan, 2017). The competition is a clear indication that companies want to provide the best project management tools for customers. It is imperative to acknowledge and understand that project management is not just restricted within the parameters of the triple constraint but there are other parameters that needs to be managed to determine the project’s success.

Conclusion

PMI’s 2015 report states “All change in organisation happens through projects and program”, which reinforces that project management is extremely important in carrying out any project successfully. The report titled ‘Capturing the Value of Project Management’ explains the importance of management by demonstrating the value that project management contributes to the organisation. It is valid to state that companies such as Atlassian and Slack excel at producing PM software by understanding the parameters that may affect a project and the tools that may enable customers to work on a project which does not allow the parameters be a restriction or a problem.

Bibliography

Capturing the Value of Project Management. (2015). 1st ed. [ebook] Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States: Project Management Institute – Pulse of Profession. Available at: http://www.pmi.org/-/media/pmi/documents/public/pdf/learning/thought-leadership/pulse/pulse-of-the-profession-2015.pdf [Accessed 10 Mar. 2017].

King, R. (2017). Atlassian buys Trello for $578m. [online] Theaustralian.com.au. Available at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/atlassian-to-buy-trello-forus425m/news-story/1de09e0ad9f4600f3cf5907291d60bc9 [Accessed 5 Mar. 2017].

Lui, S. (2017). Slack takes aim at bigger organisations with Enterprise Grid. [online] The Sydney Morning Herald. Available at: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/slack-takes-aim-at-bigger-organisations-with-enterprise-grid-20170201-gu2uom.html [Accessed 11 Mar. 2017].

O’Donnellan, R. (2016). 3 Projects that Failed Miserably. [online] BrightWork. Available at: https://www.brightwork.com/blog/3-projects-that-failed-miserably [Accessed 11 Mar. 2017].

O’Loughlin, E. (2017). Top Project Management Software Buyer Trends – 2015. [online] Software Advice. Available at: http://www.softwareadvice.com/resources/project-management-smb-buyer-report-2015/ [Accessed 9 Mar. 2017].

Pmalphabet.com. (2016). Project Management Constraints and Examples – pmalphabet. [online] Available at: http://pmalphabet.com/project-constraints-examples/ [Accessed 9 Mar. 2017].

Schwalbe, K. (2014). Information technology project management. 7th ed. Cengage Learning.

Swan, D. (2017). Atlassian unfazed by Slack. [online] Theaustralian.com.au. Available at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/companies/atlassian-boss-jay-simons-not-fazedby-slacks-offering/news-story/00b993d4eec7f9b86b7342873d4758b1 [Accessed 5 Mar. 2017].

Syal, R. (2014). Abandoned NHS IT system has cost £10bn so far. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/18/nhs-records-system-10bn [Accessed 9 Mar. 2017].