4 Essential Principles For Successful Project Management

4 Essential Principles For Successful Project Management And Learn To Use Project Management System To Adhere To Essential Project Management Principles

Every project is of its kind; it has its own issues, goals, approach, team structure, stakeholder, etc. However there are few essential principles that sets and governs project structure and work-approach. Depending on how these principles are followed, project project success/failure story can be traced and evaluated. Organizations should consider using project management software to facilitate and follow these project management principles in a methodical & structured approach.

As mentioned earlier, each project has its own story to tell and it is not project manager who write the script for it; s/he is certainly who can orchestrate it or fine tune the execution. Now given the background of uniqueness of projects, there is still a methodical and structured way to drive project towards success. This methodical and structured approach is in fact is governed by four basic principles of project management. Despite of the fact whether the team members have worked together before, whether or not a given project is delivered for existing client or new client, whether or not current project is to be delivered in isolation/stand alone or part of a large program; there are still few elements each project has to follow for better chances of success. As I can see, Organizations are keen to articulate and revisit these guiding principles of project management more and more these days because they want to ensure that project stakeholders can work together more effectively.

These stakeholders will clearly understand what is expected at every phase of project. Let’s look at those basic guidelines of managing projects.

4 Essential Principles For Successful Project Management

Define Clear Project Objectives and Goals To Deliver Business value

Well before a project planning kicks off or even before it gets started, primary project stakeholders like sponsor, project manager, project planner, customers should highlight project objectives and goals. It is important for stakeholders to understand what do we want to achieve from this project, the objective behind doing a project could be cost reduction, improvement in customer satisfaction, better reporting, etc. Essentially it is about knowing how given project is expected to deliver business benefits. Clear understanding of project goals, objective will guide team members in every phase and guide their activities during project execution.

How can project management software help?

Project management tool will help project sponsor to articulate, define project goals & objectives and share those goals with project stakeholders. This will not only brings transparency but also gives feeling of inclusiveness for project team members.

Time Management: Ensure Product, Service, Market Relevance

The most emphasized element of project management: project timeline: how and when project is delivered. To ensure timely delivery of service or product in the market, project timeline is critical. Project managers have to define wbs, backlog, identify project team members, assign tasks to them, track delivery schedule regularly to make sure project is delivered in agreed timeline.

How can project management software help?

Project management system enables project planners and managers to define work breakdown structure, define task list, task dependency, milestones, check resource workload, automated reminder to project team members for due tasks, showing task progress in Gantt chart and dashboard.

Cost Efficiency: Drive Profitability and Sustainability

Project cost is vital from financial perspective since every project needs to be funded by its own organization or client. And whoever is sponsoring project, want to see the bang for bucks, see the return for his investment. The ability to have enough budget for project in order to execute it despite of risks and shocks, estimating project cost reasonably before budget is allocated, tracking project cost on an ongoing basis to keep it within budget and importantly drive project towards profitability (accounting earned value, tangible/intangible benefits). This principle guides the path for sustainable project management.

How does project management software help?

It is not easy to track project cost in absence of sophisticated tool. Only right tool can provide the ability to track time, track cost at minute level as well as rolled up the cost element to project, portfolio level. Knowing the budget, estimated cost, actual cost and billing amount enables project manager and portfolio managers make prudent financial decisions regarding project.

Risk Management: Minimize Vulnerability and Tap Opportunities

Risk management is often followed as a conventional and mostly a routine exercise without realizing that it is an important element for managing project. Merely having a spreadsheet to represent risk register and having stale entries in this spreadsheet represent a sorry state of project management. It may be a strong statement but for fairly large projects and project where significant financial investments are made, there can be no excuse for not managing project risks. Project risk management is necessary for prudent project management.

How is project management tool system expected to help?

Project risk are not to be managed with spreadsheet. Spreadsheet is not a collaborative mechanism. The project management solution should necessarily have a way to capture risks – to review risk, define mitigation plan, contingency plan, etc. Easy reporting/ highlighting of risks, simple way to review risk impact, probability and following up on mitigation/contingency plan by looking at the risk heat map is how project risk management software can help.

Your life can be become easier with the right project management system. ZilicusPM is the right PM tool for you and your team. Get started now.

Additional readings about project management, leadership

• Case Study: What Happens When Project Team Has Dual Reporting
• Avoid These 10 Most Common Mistakes That Leads to Project Failure
• Back2Basics: Ultimate Project Management Guide: Project Planning
• 8 Reasons to Decide Whether Your Organization Needs Project Management Office
• Compare the best project management software 
• All in one project management software
• Guide to selecting best project management software

Do you know ZilicusPM project management software offers comprehensive project planning, project tracking, project collaboration capabilities such as

• Gantt Chart
• Time Tracking
• Budgeting and Cost Management
• Resource Planning and Management
• Issue Tracking
• Risk Management
• Change Management
• Meeting Management
• Stakeholder Management
• Project Portfolio Management
• Project Reporting
• Document Management to help you manage and deliver projects better?

About Zilicus

Zilicus offers the best project portfolio management tool ZilicusPM, with robust project management tools capabilities and easy ways to track project management KPI,

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