The Basic Principles of Project Management

The field of project management has seen a significant rise in the last two decades. More and more organizations have realized the benefits of project management with their existing projects. Project management is the different ways in which organizations and their teams can complete their projects most successfully and efficiently while meeting timelines of delivery and maintaining a high standard of quality.

This is why companies and working professionals have started investing in their employees. Employees are put in a PMP Bootcamp, a Project Management Professional certification program, to implement project management practices. This article discusses the best practices and principles of project management and what project management is so that learners, organizations, and working professionals can benefit from this certification.

What is Project Management?

According to the Project Management Institute, the world’s most recognized institute for project management, a project is an endeavor taken on by a company with the aim of creating something new such as a product or a service. The term ‘product’ is often used for an application, service, or device created by IT and software companies in their development process. The best practices, tools, and techniques that organizations should follow while completing a project is known as project management.

Project management has various steps that qualified project managers and their teams make sure they complete to achieve successful outcomes. The processes involve the project’s initiation, then the planning and execution stage, after which the teams monitor and control the deployed product or application, and finally close the project once it is complete.

The different project management principles help project managers achieve the processes mentioned above quickly and efficiently. The basic principles of project management are discussed in detail below.

What are the Project Management Principles?

The project management principles discussed below help project managers and their teams achieve optimal outcomes with their projects. The principles can be appropriately implemented once project managers are adequately trained and certified to have the tools and the expertise necessary to run successful projects. This is why a PMP certification for project managers is considered to be extremely beneficial. The basic principles of project management are:

Creating a Culture Conducive to Success

The work environment is crucial to the successful completion of projects. The team members and project managers need to work collaboratively to complete their tasks promptly. The organization’s work culture and environment need to support the same because otherwise, the employees will get demotivated and not perform. A supportive work environment plays a significant role in the success of any project.

Ownership of Tasks

There are specific metrics that need to be put in place during the project’s life cycle to measure the success of the project. Each team member needs to be accountable for their contribution to attaining these metrics. The sense of ownership of their tasks and responsibilities in a team is another essential principle of project management. The team needs to be self-serving and independent when it comes to completing their tasks and goals.

Communication is a Key Principle of Project Management

Team members need to know how to communicate with each other to collaborate on their projects. Effective communication skills need to be implemented within the team by the project manager for successful delivery. If there are discrepancies in the project, they need to be resolved as soon as possible, which is only possible with good communication among the team. Teams also need to know how to communicate with other departments in the organization to work together to achieve the best outcome for every project they undertake.

Creating a Proper Structure for all Projects

A formal structure that can be implemented across all the projects is also essential to a project’s success. A standardized formal structure can save organizations a lot of time and energy when completing their projects. This structure can be customized to meet the specific requirements of individual projects. A project manager needs this structured outline created with different processes to control the project’s life cycle, keep the project on track, and address every aspect of the project in its development and execution process.

Risk Management

Every project comes with its own set of risks that need to be addressed at the project’s planning phase. Risk management is a key principle in project management because it eliminates chances of failure or delay in the project’s duration. Project managers and their teams need to address different risks of their project before they start working on it and mitigate them before starting with the development process. A project can face different types of risks, along with different levels of severity that need to be accounted for and managed, which can be done if working with experienced and certified professionals in the team.

Transparency of the Project’s Progress

Transparency is another key principle of effective project management. A project manager is responsible for creating a transparent work environment where all team members know the project’s actual status and can communicate with each other in case of any disturbances. The transparency and communication principle go hand-in-hand to improve teams’ collaboration during the life cycle of the project.

Life Cycle and Progress of the Project

The life cycle of the project needs to be predetermined before the team starts working on the project. The entire life cycle of the project needs to be created in the initiation and planning phase of the project itself so that the teams have a set guideline of deliverables, delivery dates, and tasks they need to complete to deliver a successful outcome. There needs to be a way for the team to track the project’s progress as well. These performance metrics and tracking systems will ensure the project gets completed on time and that all the team members are performing their tasks diligently.

Conclusion

A project manager is a key element in ensuring all the project management principles discussed above are implemented correctly. PMP certifications help project managers attain the skills and knowledge necessary to run successful projects and train their team members to meet the highest standards of quality with each project they complete.