Project Management – It’s about reducing risk

Project Management is the art/science of defining, planning, executing and completing an endeavour in a structured and organized way. The purpose of project management is to reduce the risk of that endeavour.

When to use it?

• the endeavour has a finite beginning and end
• the endeavour is high risk or highly strategic

Project management has existed in some form or another as long as humans have been around. Clearly the Romans had some level of project management or else their structures would not have stood the test of time! If you’ve ever engaged in planning for a family road trip by calculating distance, hotels, budget per meals etc. you have been doing some level of project management too.

In the 1950’s project management began to be applied in North America in industries such as engineering, military and aerospace where the risks of not using a structured project management approach could be fatal. For more information on the background of project management see the Wikipedia article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management.

The Project Management Institute (PMI) began in 1969 and is the leading proponent organization in North America for project management. The PMI publishes the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK) which is a framework of principles and practices for project management. Please note that the PMBoK is not a methodology. It is a framework upon which a methodology can be based.

The PMI also has multiple certifications in project management the most well known being the PMP or Project Management Professional.

Links

IPMA – http://ipma.ch/
PMI – http://www.pmi.org/
PMAJ – http://www.pmaj.or.jp
Prince2 – http://www.prince-officialsite.com/
Project Smart – http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/