Why is project management important? Project management may seem like a loose term used to describe the management of projects. Essentially, down to its core, that is exactly what it is. However, projects tend to be complex and multi-faceted, in need of effective planning, organisation and monitoring. In this point, we find the importance of Project Management as the most important key to finish them on time and under budget.
This is where the broader, more deep understanding of project management comes in. In this article you will learn about how effective project management can help transform your project from zero to hero and why it is regarded as such an important discipline in today’s organisations.
Índice
What is Project Management?
Before we begin explaining the importance of project management, it is important to understand what project management is and what it entails. Project management involves the use of various principles, procedures and policies that are established to guide a project from its conception stage all the way along until its completion.
Every project management professional will admit that planning and organisation are major parts of project management as well as the implementation of created plans. This article will give you a project management step by step guide. A project itself, is described as a specific start undertaken with parameters designed to be followed in order to produce a defined outcome. A project holds its own against ongoing processes due to the fact that it has a specific start and end date whereas processes can be ongoing for an unidentified period of time.
The plan is used to guide all aspects of a project along the project management basic steps; a path from start to finish, highlighting the importance of project planning. The ideal goal of effective project management and the role of project manager work is to reach the expected outcome of a project on time and within budget. Through anticipating certain challenges and bottlenecks of a project and coordinating an efficient and effective team, Sinnaps, the online project management app, can greatly increase the probability of a project reaching its goals in the most ideal way.
Why is Project Management important?
Managing a project more often than not requires a team of people with skills and abilities that complement each other and help to work towards reaching the goal of the project. The team, along with its project manager are responsible for planning, organising and monitoring project progress. Any project management professional will tell you that every project follows a project life cycle and certain project management steps that bring it from start to finish. Projects are a lot more than simply preparing resources and materials and require a deeper element of management.
Project management can be a hard skill to acquire, but most definitely comes with its benefits and it is well worth investing your time into learning the skill. Project management is important for the following reasons:
- Clearly defines the plan of the project before it begins: The importance of planning in project management cannot be ignored. The more complex project, the more scope there is for chaos. One of project management’s primary functions is to tame the chaos by mapping out a clear plan of the project from beginning to end.
- Establishes an agreed schedule and plan: Schedules help to eliminate delays or overruns and provide a plan to be followed for all those involved with the project.
- Creates a base for teamwork: People are required to work in a team on a project. This is due to team synergy benefits through the sharing and support of knowledge and skills. Bringing people together in this way inspires team members to collaborate on a successful project.
- Resources are maximised: Both human and financial resources tend to be expensive. Project tracking and project risk management ensure that all resources are used efficiently and are accounted for economically.
- Helps to manage integration: Projects that are completed within an organisation are generally integrated with wider business processes and systems. Integration forms the value aspect of projects and their management.
- Helps to keep control of costs: Depending on the scope of the project, some projects can incur organisations significant costs. It is important therefore to keep on budget and to control spending. Project management greatly reduces the risk of budget overruns.
- Helps to manage change: Today, more than ever, change is something which all organisations face. Projects, during their running, also face changes and must be prepared to face such deviations from the original plan. Project management allows for effective change management and makes it less of a complex task.
- Quality is continuously managed: More so than ever, it is important to produce quality results. Project management helps to identify, manage and control quality. Quality results make clients happy, which is a win-win situation for all involved.
- Knowledge: The more projects a business undertakes, the more knowledge it will acquire over time. This will serve as an asset to any business and project management helps to capture and retain knowledge.
- Creates an opportunity for learning: Sometimes, projects work out perfectly and other times, project fail miserably. Either way, much can be learned from previous experience and past mistakes can be avoided in the future. Project management ensures that these lessons are learned and applied in the future.
Importance of Project Management in organisations
Organisations are constantly facing new challenges and opportunities. The world and marketplace is fast-paced and filled with uncertainties and opportunities for growth. Without the practise of project management, organisations would find themselves drowning in an ocean of failed projects and processes with few options of salvation. All organisations need to take project management seriously in order to survive and thrive.
Without a clear path to follow when it comes to managing projects, the task of achieving their desired objectives would prove very difficult. Constraints such as time, resources, budgets, scope and quality are all too significant to simply pass over without applying a scientific approach. Project management provides exactly that: a scientific approach that helps to ensure successful results through structure and organisation.
By using project management methods, organisations can gain control over the running of projects and make sure that they are keeping on track and within budget. Project deliverables need to be managed effectively so that no one loses track over what is happening. One failed project may not seem like a lot to a company, however when we are talking about large organisations with multiple, complex and on-going projects, project management is vital.
Due to the triple constraint which project managers face with regards to quality, time and scope, the way in which a PM deals with these constraints on top of all the other aspects of the project that need to be managed means a lot when judging a PM’s skill on a project manager resume. Without Project Management there would be chaos in organisations which would induce stress, uncertainty and higher rates of failure, highlighting project management’s essential nature to organisations.
Importance of software Project Management
All organisations, business and companies manage project, people, costs and tasks on a daily basis. This can prove to be a complicated task. Having a solution that helps to organise and manage these aspects proves invaluable to a company. This solution is project management software such as Sinnaps.
There are numerous advantages to project management software. Project management has come a long way from a pencil, sheet of paper and a methodology to what is available today in our technologically advancing world.
Project management software tools allow companies to become competitive in their environments, optimising time and effort and keeping project on track. They are used for planning, managing time, resources and people, controlling costs and monitoring project progress.
Project management is comprised of a number of essential and basic functions that add to its importance and which are enhanced by technology and project management software such as Sinnaps:
- Project management plan: Project management software allows you to plan projects whilst taking previous track records into account.
- Tracking project progress in terms of completion, time and costs: Certain warning signs that software allows you to easily spot gives way for in-time warnings.
- Scheduling and time management: The importance of project scheduling cannot be ignored. Each member receives their schedule and is aware of what is expected and when.
- Resource allocation: Certain software such as Sinnaps, measures resource spending and also allocates resources for each task and each member.
- Budgeting: Controlled in real-time costs and time evaluation. Sinnaps sends all of whom are involved with the project weekly updates of progress.
- Communication and Collaboration: The importance of communication in project management is undeniable and we’ve said it here more than once! Software such as Sinnaps offer real-time chat options and also includes a project wall which is similar to a social media feed, updating all involved of any change or addition.
- Documentation: Documents can be created within project management software and stored there for safe keeping, especially if the app is cloud-based like Sinnaps. The importance of project report writing is taken into account by most project management software.
- User-friendly: Effective software should act as an enabler and not as a barrier.
5 e-mails to train you as a Professional Project Manager
“This has been my first exposure to the tpoic, thank you so much. Explanations are fairly clear and above all, precise. What’s important is emphasised.“—Andrea, online and free project managemnet course student.
Some of the more significant advantages of project management software include:
Project Collaboration: Generally, team members are assigned to individual tasks, some of which are dependent on others. These tasks form part of the whole project. Project management software allows for the collaboration over reports, timelines, outstanding work etc. Effective collaboration is a key aspect to project success.
Internal & External Communication: The importance of project communication is greatly taken into consideration with software. Communication is accessible using software. Channels are created for communication regarding tasks and other aspects as well as creating channels of communication to external stakeholders and clients.
Budget Management: Budgets are very important to projects. If they are left to get out of control, the outcome will be negative. Projects are about delivering results within the budget provided. Planned versus actual budget can be created and monitored accordingly.
Monitoring and Control: Monitoring of work progress is essential to make sure the project is on track. Software allows for the monitoring of each stage of the project with expected dates, deadlines and highlighting outstanding tasks.
Documentation Sharing and Retainment: Sharing documents both internally and externally is essential. Team members can use them to find useful information and stakeholders can consult them to become aware of how the project is going.
Optimized Decision-Making Processes: Software allows for an easier decision-making process due to the clear picture it paints of the project and its plan highlighting any potential bottlenecks and task dependencies. Software such as Sinnaps offers Test-Mode, in which Project managers can test certain changes and seeing how they will affect the project before actually implementing them.
Heightened Customer Satisfaction: With the help of software allowing for the proper consideration of importance of project planning in project management, projects are more likely to be completed on-time, within budget and producing overall more quality and valuable results. This leads to a satisfied client, which you will undoubtedly see again.
In a general sense, project management software works towards making sure that all parties to a project come out at the winning end and this characterises its relevance and importance to the field of project management in today’s world.
How Sinnaps help you to manage your projects?
Project management tools such as Sinnaps allow for the creation of a more modern and updated version of the traditional Gantt chart used for project management: the Gantt-flow. Task dependencies are clearly portrayed as are the various information flows and activity relationships. The Gantt-flow is user-friendly and very effective in project management. Both simple and complex project can be planned out using the Gantt-flow.
If tracking time is important to your project and you understand the importance of project work, a Gantt chart can help immensely. Sinnaps includes weekly progress reports that are automatically calculated and sent to everyone involved in the project. In this way, everyone becomes aware of how things are going with the project and whether any changes need to be introduced during project management steps and processes.
Complex projects are normally projects that include many different tasks and activities that have multiple interdependencies. Sinnaps Gantt-flow automatically creates the project critical path using CPM and PERT technologies. The critical path is highlighted at the top of the Gantt-flow and defines the tasks that are most critical to a project’s successful completion.
Sinnaps also monitors resource allocation and time management. There are performance indicators that allow everyone involved in the project to keep track of project progress. Each member is assigned to specific tasks. Within each of these tasks, there is an option to in-chat. This allows for the resolution of any doubts or worries. Apart from the in-chat feature, there is a project wall, similar to that of any social media wall which identifies any changes or updates that have been made to the project. Overall, the importance of project management skills is fully understood and taken into consideration by Sinnaps project management software.
Along with all of the features such as the critical path, in-chat options, automatic reports, weekly updates and task relationships, creating a Gantt-flow with Sinnaps, the cloud-based project management app is easier and more effective than ever. Try it out for yourself today and see the benefits for yourself!
Empezar a gestionar proyectos gratis
We hope that you now have gained a more in-depth understanding of the importance of project management and the benefits it can bring to any organisation, if utilised correctly. Project management allows for the improved and effective running of what sometime can be complex and difficult projects, that, without project management and its advantages, would more than likely fail.
Here at Sinnaps, we love hearing what you think. Give this article a like if it has helped you and leave a comment sharing your opinion or asking any question you may have! We’ll be sure to get back to you! 😉
Maybe, this is interesting for you…
Network Diagram Project Management
Project Manager roles and responsabilities
