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About this lesson

Recognize when to use project management.

Lesson versions

Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:

2013, 2019/365.

Exercise files

Download this lesson’s exercise file.

An Introduction to Project Management.docx
59 KB

Quick reference

What is Project Management

A project is "a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.” PMBOK® Guide

When to use project management

Since nearly anything you do can have a start and finish date, it might be hard to clarify how and when to use project management. Here are some examples of when to use project management processes and tools:

Project management steps

To determine if you are managing a project, ask yourself some of these questions:

  • Will this effort have a start and a finish date?
  • Will this effort require more than one person to do the work?
  • Does this effort take more than just a few weeks to complete?
  • When the effort is complete, will it deliver at least one product or service?

If your answer is yes to at least three of those four questions, you are likely managing a project. If that is the case, you should consider building a project schedule in Microsoft Project and use project management processes to manage it.

Definition is taken from the Glossary of the Project Management Institute, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, (PMBOK® Guide) – Fifth Edition, Project Management Institute, Inc., 2013. PMBOK is a registered mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

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  • 00:04 Hello, my name is Bill Raymond, and
  • 00:06 welcome to this Microsoft Project Fundamentals Course.
  • 00:09 With over 15 years working with Microsoft Project,
  • 00:13 I provide you with the guidance and best practices to help you get started.
  • 00:18 In this lesson, you're going to learn the basics of project management, and
  • 00:22 in future lessons, I will focus on using Microsoft Project.
  • 00:26 Before we begin talking about project management,
  • 00:29 you might be wondering how much you need to know about Microsoft Project.
  • 00:34 As you can see in the figure,
  • 00:35 the good news is you will never have had to use Microsoft Project before.
  • 00:40 I have taught hundreds of people how to use Microsoft Project, and
  • 00:44 I offer you this advice.
  • 00:45 The worst thing you can do is attempt to use so many features in the tool that
  • 00:50 the tool starts managing you, and you lose focus of managing your team.
  • 00:55 Good luck, and I hope you enjoy this introduction to project management and
  • 01:00 the remainder of the Microsoft Project Fundamentals course.
  • 01:04 Whether you are building the tallest skyscraper or
  • 01:07 creating the next great software application, you are managing projects.
  • 01:12 All projects start with the strategy.
  • 01:15 As a project manager, you coordinate a diverse group of people.
  • 01:19 These people in turn have a diverse set of backgrounds and disciplines.
  • 01:23 Software developers may use an Agile approach to managing their work,
  • 01:28 where product managers might use a Stage Gate methodology to bring new
  • 01:32 products to market.
  • 01:33 As you can see in the figure, project management
  • 01:36 takes the form of an overarching process to deliver on a particular strategy.
  • 01:41 There is a global organization called the Project Management Institute, or PMI.
  • 01:47 In their publication, the Project Management Body of Knowledge,
  • 01:52 also referred to as the PMBOK,
  • 01:54 you will find an often used definition of a project, which is as follows.
  • 01:59 A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or
  • 02:04 service.
  • 02:05 As you can see in the figure, all projects have a planned start and finish date.
  • 02:11 Projects are significant efforts to meet a certain objective.
  • 02:16 Projects are not maintenance or other business as usual activities.
  • 02:21 As the figure illustrates, building a house is definitely a project.
  • 02:25 While it may seem that sweeping the floors, cleaning the windows,
  • 02:29 and maintaining the house is a project,
  • 02:31 it is really not something that we would consider a formal project.
  • 02:35 If we're designing a new software product, that's definitely a project.
  • 02:40 If we're just fixing bugs in that software product, that's likely not a project.
  • 02:45 Again, if we're building a new product,
  • 02:48 then we're going to release that to market and that's definitely a project.
  • 02:52 If we're just providing customer support for that product,
  • 02:56 that's again another maintenance-style activity and not a project.
  • 03:00 In conclusion,
  • 03:01 remember that your role as a project manager is to deliver on a strategy.
  • 03:06 You will work with a team to define the project,
  • 03:09 such that it has a clearly defined plan from start to finish.

Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.

PMI, PMP, CAPM and PMBOK are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

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