Upper management can benefit from having a core leadership group that can focus on delivering changes within the organization. These people can offer a clearer, more dispassionate view of the business because they’re not directly involved with any individual part.
A project management team will tend to be more critical of each individual piece of a process and have an eye toward the overall business need. Unlike middle managers, program managers do not work day to day within an operational group or division. This provides a more independent view of the organization that can then offer specific alternatives to the company. With no axe to grind or turf to protect, the project manager is much more able to offer clearly defined changes that benefit the company and the bottom line.
In the course of a typical career, many people will be faced with the need to lead “the project.” The project of course, could be anything from a major re engineering of the company to getting a presentation ready for the big meeting. Many things that make modern business operate efficiently can benefit from even basic project management skills. These skills include organizational management, planning, scheduling to a delivery date, gaining an understanding of what is required, understanding the scope of the job, etc.
All these skills are the meat of project management. Each piece builds on the others and demands a clearly understood picture before moving forward. A lack of details or any information at any part of the total project means that the project is in jeopardy of failure.
Consider not planning. How would anyone be able to deliver to a schedule without planning when things needed to be done?
How about not having a clear picture of what was required? Without really knowing what needed to be done, how could you even hope to know when you were finished?
Consider scheduling. Other than a simple project where there’s no need to involve anyone, could you imagine getting a project completed without scheduling the other facets of the effort?
Project management is the oil that makes business move. Unfortunately, the program manger skills are typically not recognized within many companies today.
Project management is delivering product or processes on time. The key though is DELIVERING and delivering WHAT. If the WHAT is not clearly defined, how does anyone, but especially management or the business, know if what was delivered was correct? The WHAT of course is what is to be delivered. The WHAT should be clearly defined as requirements that can be measured and agreed to by all stakeholders. Without a clearly defined WHAT, the potential for project management hell greatly increases. The need therefore is to outline in high level terms, what the project is expected to accomplish. The requirements document would then be used to outline the details and how these details would be measured. This measurement for success would be used to focus the work on the important aspects that have the potential to deliver real value to the business.