Project management is an emerging trend in businesses. The traditional hierarchical structure has been deemed obsolete and individuals find themselves belonging to project teams. Increasing emphasis on high-quality, speed-to-market, and outstanding customer satisfaction prompted managers to dissolve the vertical structure in organizational charts. Project managers are responsible for giving direction to all the efforts in the project. They must be able to balance the so-called Triple Constraints of time, resources and technical performance. Unfortunately, few project planners are actually qualified for the demands of the job. They must have proper management training in order to be truly effective. The paper focuses on the product scope management practice. This practice involves project scope planning, project scope definition, creation of the work breakdown structure, project scope verification, and project scope control.
[...] The AMA Handbook of Project Management attributes the peculiarity of projects to the following characteristic: Projects are unique undertakings—once executed, projects are not likely to be repeated often; Projects are composed of interdependent activities—as in all activities, there is a specific beginning and end and projects may be composed interrelated, simultaneous or successive activities; Projects create a quality deliverable—a project is not deemed complete unless its deliverable or development product meets quality standards; projects involve multiple resources—these resources may be human and/or nonhuman which need to be in close coordination with each other; Projects are not synonymous with the products of the project—project refers to the managing all the efforts to achieving the product and not the product itself; Projects are driven by the Triple Constraint—the Triple Constraint also known as the equilibrium among time, technical performance, and resources, must be maintained though there may be one that serves as the main factor in the project. [...]
[...] Because of this fact, in order to be responsive to these demands, project management progressively becomes more and more vital. As a result, businesses are also shifting into project management from the traditional hierarchical management—organizational charts are now team-based structures, as opposed to the time-honoured vertical structure. The employees cease to do the same tasks everyday and tend to have various challenging functions and middle managers are disappearing—the less challenging, repetitive, data gathering work are now given to computers. The people focus on tasks like problem solving, product design, improving the ordering process—afterwards, once the project is completed, it will be shut down. [...]
[...] From all these information and discussions, the author has come up with the following: close coordination among the stakeholders of the project; a clear statement of the project scope; a scope manager sensitive to the changes in the scope; and an effective scope verification to determine of the product meets the agreed upon standards. Such processes minimize the occurrence of scope creep and eliminate unnecessary costs. The success and failure of projects perhaps rely mostly on the people working on them. [...]
[...] Changes that occur in the execution of a project must be proactively managed. Firstly, effective project scope management must be instituted in the project. There must a comprehensive project scope planning. From the plan, the project scope definition arises. This definition must incorporate the totality and exceptionality of the project. From these two preceding activities, a work breakdown structure must be created so that daunting tasks are made simpler and more manageable. Then the project scope must be formally verified and accepted by the project stakeholders. [...]
[...] The following are the key processes undertaken in project management discipline: Integration Management—that projects cannot be successful without amalgamating with other management activities; Scope Management—certifies “that the project includes all the work required, and ONLY the work required, to complete the project successfully” (Project Management Institute's A Guide to the Project Management, 2004); Time Management—this is crucial to the success of the project as it ensures when the project should and will be completed; Cost Management—this looks after the financial condition and control of the project so that the project can be finished within the approved budget; Quality Management—ensures that the product is consistent with the standards and meets the expectations of the buyer/consumer/client; Human Resource Management—makes sure that the people and the teams are motivated enough to work efficiently for the completion of the project; Communications Management—guarantees that the lines of communication are open within the project team and helps in the “timely and appropriate generation, collection, dissemination, storage and ultimate disposition of project information” (Project Management Institute's A Guide to the Project Management, 2004) and it is the project manager's responsibility to be knowledgeable of the kinds of messages necessary, who are to receive them, and to make sure that all people concerned understand the messages; Risk Management—a proactive way of dealing with potential setback or problems that may arise during the duration of the project; Procurement Management—takes into consideration all the necessary requirements for purchasing and acquiring raw materials for the project even the varying “social, political, legal, and financial implications of this process.” (Dinsmore & Cabanis-Brewin pp. [...]
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