About this lesson
Recognize when to use project management.
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.
Login to download- 00:03 Hello and welcome to the Microsoft Project 2013 Fundamentals course.
- 00:08 This lesson covers an introduction to project management.
- 00:12 In this lesson, you will learn the following.
- 00:15 What you need to know to take this course, the definition of project management, and
- 00:20 the definition of a project.
- 00:22 As the figure illustrates,
- 00:24 this course assumes you have never used Microsoft Project before.
- 00:28 I will guide you through the user interface and
- 00:30 teach you the basic requirements any beginning user should know.
- 00:35 Every project is different and has its own unique requirements.
- 00:39 With over 15 years working with Microsoft Project I provide you with a guidance and
- 00:44 best practices to help you get started.
- 00:45 I have taught hundreds of people how to use Microsoft Project, and
- 00:50 I offer you this advice.
- 00:53 The worst thing you could do is attempt to use so many features in Microsoft Project,
- 00:57 the tool starts managing you and you lose focus of managing the team.
- 01:03 Good luck and I hope you enjoy this introduction to Microsoft Project.
- 01:07 Whether you are building the tallest skyscraper or
- 01:10 creating the next great software application, you are managing projects.
- 01:14 All projects start with a strategy.
- 01:16 As a project manager, you'll coordinate a diverse group of people.
- 01:21 These people in turn have a diverse set of backgrounds and disciplines.
- 01:25 Software developers may use an agile approach to managing their work work.
- 01:29 Where project managers may use a stage gate methodology to bring new
- 01:33 products to market.
- 01:35 As you can see in the figure, project management takes the form of
- 01:38 an overarching process to deliver on a particular strategy.
- 01:42 There is a global organization called the Project Management Institute, or PMI.
- 01:48 In their publication, the Project Management Body of Knowledge,
- 01:51 also referred to as the PMBOK, you'll find an often used definition of a project,
- 01:57 which is as follows, a project is a temporary endeavor
- 02:01 undertaken to create a unique product or service.
- 02:06 As you can see in the figure, all projects Have a plan start, and
- 02:10 a planned finish date.
- 02:13 Projects are significant efforts to meet a certain objective.
- 02:17 Projects are not maintenance or other business as usual activities.
- 02:21 As the figure illustrates, building a house is definitely a project.
- 02:26 And while it may seem that sweeping the floors, cleaning the windows, and
- 02:31 maintaining the house as a project,
- 02:33 it really is not something that we would consider a project.
- 02:36 If we're designing a new software product, that's definitely a project.
- 02:41 If we're just fixing a bug in that software product, that's not a project.
- 02:46 If we're building a new product that we're going to release to market,
- 02:51 that's definitely a project.
- 02:53 If we're just providing customer support for that new product,
- 02:57 that's again another maintenance style activity that's not a project.
- 03:03 In conclusion,
- 03:04 remember that your role in project management is to deliver on a strategy.
- 03:10 Your role as a project manager is to define the project,
- 03:14 such that it has clearly defined start and finish dates.
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PMI, PMP, CAPM and PMBOK are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.