Question

1: What is the purpose of project management, and what are examples of projects?

2: Explain PERT, GANT, and Microsoft Project and how they are used in project management.

3: Project Management started in construction and technology. Why is it now used across many disciplines?

Answer 1

1 Purpose of Project Management:

Project management involves foreseeing and understand the potential risks of the project right from the beginning till the end in such a way that control measures can be taken to facilitate its desired results. The purpose of the project management is to plan, organize, evaluate, control and coordinate the activities in such a way that necessary strategies are implemented to run the project successfully.

A project may be defined as an activity or a set of tasks that are required for a product or a service over a pre-defined period of time. Examples: First Line Maintenance project awarded to a telecom company by an operator for a period of five years; Planning a trade fair is a simple example of a project as it is conducted on a specific date and time for a specific reason.

2. PERT: PERT abbreviated as Program Evaluation Review Technique developed by the US Navy in 1958, is a statistical tool that is used in a project to analyze and control the tasks involved in it. The PERT is used in the project management to identify the shortest time and the longest time that activity involves so that the activities can be scheduled for the team to accomplish the work.

GANTT: The GANNT chart is developed by Henry GANTT in 1917 which is helpful in the project management to plan and schedule the projects. It helps to determine the sequence of work that needs to be done, the resources needed and the duration of the project. GANTT chart is also used to identify discrepancies in the project.

Microsoft Project: The Microsoft Project is a project management software that is developed and released in 1984. The Microsoft Project is helpful in the project management to schedule, allocate resources based on tasks, track the progress and also manage the budget. AS most of the managers use Microsoft Office for their official purposes, the Microsoft Project became a dominant PC based project management tool soon after its release.

3. Project Management is used in various industries irrespective of the size of the project as it has the following benefits:

• Project Management helps to achieve a quality result and reduces the time constraints due to irregularities.

• It helps to anticipate risks and other external factors and plan accordingly so that it can be averted or at least the impact can be minimized.

• It helps to schedule the task and assign it to the workers so that it can be managed and tracked effectively.

• Project management helps to track and complete the project within the budget avoiding a loss.

• Project management facilitates to set realistic goals and timelines which can be also shared with the stakeholders.

• Project management emphasizes proper cost estimation and resource management.