Learn about the areas of Project Management
Did you know that management mistakes can cause an entire project to fail?
Not knowing all areas of project management is a big mistake for managers. Project management must be part of the day-to-day activities in every company. Integrated planning and effective management are responsible for facilitating and organizing activities, among many other benefits.
Check out the concepts that involve management and get to know the 10 areas of project management in this blog post!
What is project management?
To get to know the areas of project management, first, let’s understand what a project is.
The most popular project definition in the world is from the Project Management Institute (PMI). According to the institution, a project is “a temporary effort undertaken to create an exclusive product, service or result.”
Whoever works in the area must develop skills to face the critical moments of the project. This is why management emerges to support teams to achieve the desired goals through a series of tools and knowledge.
Managing a project is not just about leading and distributing activities to the team. It is the act of leading the project in several stages and areas to deliver the best result to the interested parties.
In a simple and summarized way, project management can plan and design a project from its execution to the final stage.
Project management benefits
The project management areas allow projects to be successfully completed in a safer, faster, and more efficient way. From looking for solutions, resolving conflicts of interest, or motivating the team in times of high stress and pressure, the advantages of carrying out its management are numerous.
Among the benefits, we highlight:
- Process control
- Compliance with the schedule
- Monitor of profit
- Agility and efficiency
- Risks minimization
The project manager needs to play his part and ensure that the team works as a perfect cog. However, there are shortcomings that can put all the benefits of the job to waste.
Discover the project management areas
The Project Management Institute (PMI) defined the 10 project management areas in the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) guide. These areas are intended to group processes, tools, and techniques proven to be efficient.
Continue reading this article and discover all the ten areas below!
- Scope management
Project scope is the detailed document containing all the work required to deliver a product, service, or goal. Without a scope, there is no work to be done! Managing the project’s scope includes understanding all the processes and labor/work required to complete the project successfully.
It contains the specific requirements for the final result: what is intended and what is not intended to be accomplished.
There are 6 steps that need to be performed:
- Plan scope management
- Describe the requirements
- Detail the scope
- Define the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
- Validate the scope
- Control the scope
2. Stakeholder management
Stakeholders in project management are all those who will be impacted by the results of the project. They can be sponsors, suppliers, partners, users, or customers, among others. It is common to replace “interested parties” with the term “stakeholders.”
As one of the areas of project management, stakeholder management is the set of processes that aims to identify stakeholders and map their expectations and needs. Thus, it is possible to develop appropriate strategies to engage people in the project and prepare them for the post-project.
3. Integration management
Ensuring that all stages of the project are connected is an arduous step. Within the areas of project management, integration management is directly linked to the structure of the project and its development. We can call it the coordination of all gear.
The main focus of integration management is to ensure that the entire structure that makes up the project can work together in a coordinated manner. Each activity must start and end at the exact time, without interfering in the chain of subsequent actions, due to problems or delays.
The area provides a broad view that involves:
- Develop the project charter
- Develop the project management plan
- Guide and manage the tasks of the project
- Monitor and control the tasks of the project
- Perform integrated change control
- Closing of the project or phase
4. Schedule management
It is the schedule that will guide the goals, routines, and efforts of the team. Everything revolves around it. The time to complete the project, including the entire planning, definition, development, and completion process, is managed by this area of expertise.
The schedule management includes the processes necessary to estimate the tasks, their resources, and durations to manage the project for timely completion.
Main stages of schedule management:
- Schedule planning
- Definition of deadlines
- Sequencing and estimating the duration of activities
- Control the schedule
5. Cost management
Another highlight of the areas that make up project management is cost management. Project cost management includes the processes involved in planning estimates, budgets, financing, cost management, and control so that the project can be completed within the approved budget.
Some steps involved in cost management are:
- Cost planning
- Cost estimation
- Budget creation
- Budget control
6. Communications management
Communication is one of the most important areas of knowledge for project management. According to PMI data, 90% of project success is related to good communication management.
It is a mistake to believe that the only function of communication management is to define the flow of information. However, its main objective is to ensure that project information is planned, collected, distributed, stored, retrieved, managed, controlled, monitored, and finally disposed of appropriately.
7. Quality management
According to the Aurélio Dictionary, one of the meanings of the word quality is “excellence in anything.” In project management, quality measures how much a project meets the requirements specified in the scope. Therefore, the quality management area is responsible for measuring the work’s success and perfecting the project’s activities.
It is also necessary to be attentive to:
- Product quality.
- Process quality.
8. Resource management
The lack of resource management can seriously affect the performance of a project. Inadequate or poorly allocated resources often compromise internal processes and result in delays, loss of quality, and an incompatible budget.
The concept of resource management is related to activities that organize, manage, and guide the project team. Also part of this management is the identification and acquisition of other resources that will be needed during the project, such as materials, equipment, facilities, supplies, etc.
Resources can be divided into:
- Team resources
- Physical resources – materials, supplies, facilities, and equipment.
9. Procurement management
During a project, it may be necessary to purchase products, services, among others, that guarantee the execution of some activities. To ensure that orders are placed, control partnerships and choose suppliers, procurement management is required.
In this way, procurement management is also one of the areas of project management and interacts a lot with the others. After all, they may all need to make purchases or hire a service, right?
For this reason, the management of the project’s acquisitions includes all the necessary processes to buy or acquire products, services or to hire external teams.
10. Risk management
Preventing catastrophes from impacting the project is essential. Therefore, one of the areas of project management that you need to know is risk management. Risk management seeks to identify, analyze and plan responses to the project’s points of vulnerability. By controlling project risks, it is possible to anticipate problems that may arise.
What is the importance of project management?
The market is increasingly competitive, and consumers are more demanding. In this scenario, new companies appear at all times, further increasing competition. Through the project management areas, the company’s performance can improve.
If you made it this far, you now know how essential it is to understand the areas of project management. Thus, it is possible to manage projects efficiently, achieving the objectives and optimizing resources. At the same time, the unnecessary costs that previously served to compensate for the lack of good projects go out of the picture.
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