Project management is the most challenging aspect of today’s businesses, yet it is also one of the most important areas in which to base a successful future. If you think that you know what you want to do and how to do it but you don’t have plans and objectives in order, then you will find that, ultimately, you will be running out of options and chance. If you have a plan in mind and know what you want, you are halfway there, and if you have plans in place and know what you want, chances are that you are well ahead of the game and have a more than a satisfactory career to look forward to as well. As on a PRINCE2 Course edinburgh training.
The first key to any successful project is in having a clear purpose and direction that you know where you are going and are set out in advance for your objectives, problems and obstacles. If you don’t have a set purpose and direction, you will not only be wasting time, effort and money but you are also wasting hope. Without a clear goal in mind, you are neither going to succeed or not. That is why it is so important that you know where you want to go, what you will need to do to achieve that and how to go about achieving that.
The next important step is to have a brainstorming session that means you need to split your project into multiple elements, to plan the most likely route for each element and make sure that each element will go in the right direction to get to reap the maximum rewards.
When moments lack sleep ability and energy, your body crashes, your mind fills with confusion and you organize new ones you are not going to get anywhere but in the end, you will end up somewhere rather nothing. By trying to get through your day without rest, you will actually be taking more time out to rest than if you sleep. My suggestions that you sleep at most five hours per night are a good way to ‘unroll’ your body and by doing this you will find that you are increasing your resiliency as you are getting much more done and achieving much more.
Project management skills are a bit like a recipe, as he says, you basically need three key ingredients and if one of these is missing, then you won’t have anything to eat for breakfast, but once all three are in place, you will know where you should be going from. Medical experts have found that a tired body is worse than having no sleep, and this is the same for your body.
Another essential ingredient is to have your daily tasks written out and set in a master plan, this is where you see you will need the most creativity, as to ensure that each day you have all the resources that you need to make your action point in achieving your goals. This can be done in document form or as spreadsheets and documents in excel or even lists and notes in useable word documents which you can make use of to do your own project management.
There are various systems of project management ranging from the Traditional Project Plan, Critical Path and Management Framework (although most of them can be improved on as it becomes increasingly more widely used).
Critical Path is a system of task-based planning used by more and more professionals and businesses, where each task is allocated to a Customer with completion due date and an Outcome specific to that Customer. Critical Path is a system where the critical path is mapped out ahead of time and communicated to each member of the team.
Critical Path can be used across all team members and is therefore not suitable for project-based planning. The most useful part of the Critical Path system is its power to deliver a project plan that can be easily updated and recorded in whatever medium you are working in.
Critical Path is a system that works exceptionally well for the government and public sector projects but it fails miserably in the private sector and in the trend of developing a derived value for a non-government component. The use of Critical Path would be more appropriate and suited for those sectors that need broader thinking.
Critical Path is personalized and is highly regarded by the industry leaders who know it to be the central planning process for almost any problem or document that needs to be completed. Although core to PM methodology, the Critical Path process is power-packed and gives greater opportunity for creativity in the planning process. It is typically used once a week or twice a month with everyone on a team, where the plan is based on a set of critical actions, which also contains timeframes and defined boundaries that have been set, in their own words, to achieve the organization’s business outcomes and objectives as defined. Because it is based on detail and hard facts, it holds enormous value for formal, routine and, indeed, informal project processes.
In terms of progression, the Critical Path system is likely to be one that a company will concentrate on one day per month, perhaps three if they have enough involved members and have high-level resources without small teams within it.
