Project management, why do we need to learn this course?

This is a critical question  for any manager  that works with new projects only in a daily basis.
A lot of workers are good at their specific field. However sometime workers need to do work outside their field and project management maybe one of these requirements.
Since I started my project management class, I have asked several managers  for examples of general uses of project management in their departments. The following are their responses:
1. Creating a project charter to explain and to see the objective of this project.
2. Developing and maintaining schedules
3. Work distribution among the team.
4. Monitoring performance of a project in terms of cost, time, and what was agreed on.
5. A general way to be organized and to encourage organization
6. Creating lessons learned documents to understand what went right and wrong

For me when I started studying project management I found out it was very helpful when it came how you need to enhance your communication skills, how to plan a project and even working with other workers from different backgrounds and also how the way they think to execute the project in hand.

At first let me explain to you what is project management?

Project management: is the process and activity of planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling resources, procedures and protocols to achieve specific goals in scientific or daily problems. A project is a temporary endeavor designed to produce a unique product or a service.

We all use project management outside work. For example, if you are planning a trip to go with your family you need to use the same steps as if it is a project. First you start to plan with your family where is the location of the trip. Second when will it be suitable a day to have the or when is everybody  free to go. Finally how much the trip well cost.

In this class I was required to do a field project in a very short time (three weeks) so I started to see if I can find a suitable group to work with which thankfully I did. Our group had a lot of great ideas to start with but due to the short of time we had to be very careful to choose the right idea with least risk in hand plus to have a backup plan in case something went wrong for the first project. Day by day thankfully the project went well because we had a very good understanding among ourselves and we did a very good job planning. We discussed the pros and cons of this project and we distributed the work based on the teams skills and talents.

In the end i learned  that project management is one of the essential courses to teach students or workers of how to achieve or implement good project and it can even be used in our day to day life.

In your opinion what will be the result if managers did not learn about project management?

5 thoughts on “Project management, why do we need to learn this course?

  1. I do have to admit that this post is but a good reminder of project management basics. Unfortunately these basics are still seen missed leading to project failures and employee frustration. Moshen598spr15 has highlighted an important fact related to the advantage of having a simple design of a project. Having this initial step done right, eliminates a lot of projects ambiguity and increases the effectiveness of project planning. Hope everyone gets the chance to study PM as encouraged in this post.

  2. You’re absolutely right. PM is a very important course for managers to develop their skills and techniques. Even though the course is time and resources constrained, but it’s not far from reality. PM introduce a simple but a powerful idea that can be used on daily basis, furthermore, this course allow managers to experience each others and deal with different levels on the hierarchy of organizations without having an absolute power over them. I believe that most managers are bad managers because they are not investing in their people correctly, people are the most valuable asset in the organization and a lot of managers tend to mishandle this asset. Such course will enrich managers of how:
    1. Simple tools and planning techniques gives a better insight about were your projects are and where you’re heading
    2. Flexibility cannot be debated and well-defined goals and responsibilities among the team lead to great performance

  3. I do agree this course is important for all people to take, not just managers. That being said I do disagree with Nayef slightly in terms of his second point. I understand having a firm plan and sticking to it is important but disagree that flexibility is non-negotiable. To relate is back to Mohsen’s post, when you plan a vacation you use PM skills to do so. However, if my favorite baseball team is in town when I will be visiting a city I would look at my schedule and see if I can re-arrange it to make my trip better and more meaningful. I guess my point here is that making a project better sometimes means conceding to the original plan. A good PM who has been through this class would know this.

  4. I do agree with Mohsen598spr15 that, when it comes management of applying combine skills of all members of the team and to get desired result; PM becomes essential course.And that is why today corporation identify that Project Manager is essential position for project success.
    In my opinion, if manager did not learn Project management then irrespective of all the resources in hand it would be difficult get sati fired results from project two reasons:
    1. In project management,it is important to set tools to measure project success and failure and keep alternatives ready so without these set of tools it would be very difficult to know, team perform well or not.
    2. in every project, there are always constrains of resources. and it requires skillful job to decide how to use those resources at right time and right place. and project planning and continuous evaluation help to develop that skill.

  5. I like your point about some of the activities you do in your personal life involve project management like travelling. Sometimes we forget that in order to complete some of our day-to-day tasks, we need basic project management skills. I can relate to planning a trip with my family. I just came back from a family trip to Niagara Falls. My husband was the PM (his family was travelling with us) so he had to let everyone know what time we were picking them up, what time we were leaving and communicate with the family already in Buffalo NY our estimated arrival time. We had already organized the activities we were going to partake in during the two days we were there. On 4th of July, we arrived at Niagara Falls State Park very early in the morning but one of the activities already had a 3-hr wait. We had to change our plan and go to our back-up activity. Overall, it was a successful trip but we still encountered an issue that could have ruined our day if we did not have a plan B.

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