what is project management

Project Management is the process of initiating, planning, performing, and finishing the work of the team for achieving the specific goals and criteria at the required time. The crucial challenge of project management is achieving the project goals with innumerable constraints.

Source: MyTechDecisions.com

The project management software, in this case, helps the project managers for collaborating and meeting the goals on time, simultaneously managing the resources and keeping the costs in check. The functions could include time tracking, task distribution, resource planning, budgeting, team-collaboration, along with others.

The core components of the project management are:

  • Defining why a project is needed
  • Preparing the business case
  • Managing the budget of the project
  • Managing the issues, risks, and project changes
  • Securing funding and corporate agreement
  • Maintaining communications with the project organization and the stakeholders
  • Closing the project in a sensible fashion

All these are achieved with the help of the features in the project management software:

  • Planning: This is the first pillar of the project management. It involves acquiring the team members with the right skills. After assembling the resources and the team members, one can use the project management software for scheduling the tasks, forecasting the date of completion, and allocating the resources appropriately.
    • Scheduling: Scheduling the completion dates for all the modules in a project helps the managers for constructing a timeline of the project and delegating tasks. It also helps the managers and the team members for scheduling the tasks. The automatic alerts notify the team members when there is due date or when the task has not been completed. The more robust interfaces have the automatic reports, which show how far the project has been completed.
    • Resource Allocation: Resource allocation helps the project managers in visualizing where your business has invested time, materials, and energy. It is always time-consuming for resources for entering and setting up a detailed inventory of the human resources and the company. The software helps in resolving this challenge.
  • Tracking: Even the best plan cannot work out, as expected by the project managers. There could be various kinds of disturbances throughout the life-cycle of a project. The project management software helps in monitoring and keeping projects efficient and on track.
  • Collaboration: Collaboration tools help to connect different departments, making it easier, including the distributed teams. The extensive collaboration features have been more common among the cloud-based software than the on-premise solutions.

The different types of project management software are:

  • Online: Many of the SMBs across various industries are using the online project management software. The software uses cloud-based technology, which is offered by the application service providers such as SaaS.
  • On-premise: This resides in the company’s server, managed by the IT employees of the company, and located in the data center. One of the best examples of this software is Microsoft Project.

There are many other project management skills that are needed to run a project, but are often overlooked:

project management skills

These, as shown in the image are:

  • People management skills:
  • Horizontal management skills
  • Soft skills management
  • Change management skills
  • Technical skills

The above skills cannot be fulfilled by the project management software. These are the limitations of the software. As a project manager, they need to have these skills to run a project.

Benefits of Project Management:

  • Improving the chances of getting the desired result
  • Setting the scope, scheduling, and budget from the beginning
  • Gaining a fresh perspective on the project and how it can fit the business strategy
  • Prioritizing the business resources and ensuring the efficient use

Some of the top project management software are:

 

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