What is it that project managers do. Simply put: absolutely everything. Is that even possible? Absolutely, and the cherry on the cake is that you get to do everything with knowledge, skills, tools and techniques that allow you to skilfully balance the competing constraints of scope, time and cost so that you deliver a successful project to a satisfied customer. A project management course online from Mancosa will facilitate this superpower.
Project management has become all the more relevant and necessary to achieve business value as it primes you to adapt speedily and with agility. It is the best response to Industry 4.0’s demand for agility in bringing products, services and results to the market quickly, easily and reliably. Find out more about how you can become a project manager.
What is Project Management?
Project management is the discipline of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria. It is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements.
What this means is that there is:
- a body of knowledge
- a team of skilled people
- a clearly defined goal that has to be achieved
There are also constraints within which to achieve the goals like Scope, Time and Cost – add Quality to that. All of these elements are integrated to successfully produce a product, service or result that will make the customer smile because it would have been achieved within a limited budget and in the least amount of time.
There is also a Project Management Framework within which project success is achieved. This framework presents a holistic picture embracing the 10 Project Management Knowledge Areas (to ensure comprehensive planning – everything gets planned & nothing is left to chance) across the 5 Project Life Cycle processes (from the beginning to the end of a project. These are:
- Initiating
- Planning
- Executing
- Monitoring & controlling
- Closing the project with an array of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques at your fingertips – all to ensure project success.
Elements of the project management process
There are 5 project management process groups:
- Initiation: A need is identified; feasibility is established; business case is presented; and approval is sort. Then comes kick-off where all stakeholders gather to discuss their respective roles.
- Planning: Project manager + project team + stakeholders + subject matter experts get together to plan project delivery. They consider the 10 Project management knowledge areas and the appropriate tools and techniques; and so begins the creation of the Project Plan. Risks are assessed and budgets allocated.
- Execution: The Project Plan is reviewed and actual work begins. Monitoring and control is implemented throughout and corrective action is immediate. Performance tracking, Forecasting and Reporting ensues at planned intervals to keep the project on track. All deliverables are achieved within Scope, Cost and Time to be validated by the customer.
- Monitor & control: Begins at project Initiation and continues right through to project closure. Actual work is compared to the baseline plan and where necessary, approved changes are implemented and the project plan revised with version control securely in place.
- Closing: All deliverables are finally completed and ready to hand over to the customer. But wait, there are a few important tasks to complete first. All administrative and contractual documentation is finalised and closed, close-out report compiled on resource performance and lessons learned report consolidated.
And then there’s the Agile Project Management process that is mostly used in software development projects and in projects that have rapidly evolving requirements.
What is Agile project management?
In Agile, the project is managed by breaking it up into several stages with ongoing stakeholder collaboration and continuous improvement. It is presented mostly as a spiral repeating the same set of life-cycle processes (iteration) involving:
- planning
- developing
- building
- evaluating
What does a Project Manager do?
The “everything” that project managers do, requires superpowers and with a project management course online, you will have developed not one but THREE (3) avatars, which are:
- The Technical Project Manager: with the knowledge, skills and behaviours to rule any project, programme or portfolio management domain.
- The Leader: with the leadership skills to dazzle, inspire and motivate high-performance teams.
- The Strategic and Business Manager: to deliver business value by transforming strategic objectives into economic benefits.
With this great power comes great responsibility – so said Uncle Ben to Spidey. It’s no different for a project manager, whose success criteria requires a charismatic style, critical thinking, a crisis crunching attitude and, more importantly, boundless motivation with a vision to believe in and a sincere focus on quality.
The Importance of Project Management
Industry 4.0 demands agility – the ability to rapidly adapt to the disruptive change and digital transformation that it unleashes. The knowledge, skills, tools and techniques available to project managers, positions them perfectly to deal with these disruptions and transformations. Project Management is important because it allows businesses to create lean processes supported by data analytics to improve decision-making and to respond swiftly to the radically changing and competitive business environment so that you stay ahead in the rat-race to claim the larger market space. Projects and organisations are transformed into agile (current, sustainable and competitive) entities that aggressively exploit the opportunities presented by Industry 4.0.
With relevance across all professions, the skills you will acquire from a Project Management course online will in no uncertain terms enable you to:
- Maximise your efficiency
- Optimise resource usage
- Have more impact in less time
- Work BETTER, FASTER & SMARTER.
Greater efficiencies at lower costs with improved customer and stakeholder satisfaction, plus greater competitive advantage is most definitely a recipe for business success. To sum it up, Project Management is used to realise the delivery of business outcomes and in so doing, ultimately drives business success.
Understanding the 5 Project Management process groups
At the heart of the quest to successfully deliver business outcomes that meet and exceed customer expectations whilst simultaneously propelling competitive advantage, are the project management process groups that project managers expertly navigate until successful completion of a project.
How to become a project manager
A relevant qualification in project management will set you on the road to becoming a project manager. The field of project management is one of the most competitive industries in the business landscape so it’s essential that you develop the right skills to be able to meet the responsibilities required for good business practice.
The daily tasks of a Project Manager vary depending on the industry, field or project. Therefore, in order to fulfil in-demand business functions Project Managers are required to possess certain skills, knowledge and experience. Management practices of global supply chains, and procurement operations contribute in defining the trajectory of who a successful project management professional is. One of the many responsibilities of a Project Manager is to oversee business projects and create optimised processes to allow for project objectives, timeframes and funding budgets of projects to be met.
The MANCOSA Project Management course online is tailored to equip students with the necessary toolkit to meet these requirements and demands and to ultimately succeed in the workplace.
Who should study project management?
Project management has come to be greatly in demand over the last few years therefore, anyone aspiring to embark on a full-time career in this discipline should undertake a formal study toward the profession in order to obtain a recognised and transferable qualification. It is also fundamentally important for those already engaged in project management to ensure that they are up to speed with the latest professional tools.
Anyone who is frequently engaged in the planning and execution of tasks designed to improve the ways in which their respective line of work, department or team operates in their workplace should consider the advantages of studying toward a project management qualification to efficiently and effectively undertake their roles. From a general perspective of career development, it is advisable to keep in mind that organisations are now using projects as a means to achieve their strategic goals and therefore, the need to engage in projects is becoming increasingly common as organisations also try new avenues of growth and new ways in which to increase efficiencies.
What can you do with and where can you work with project management?
Graduates with a project management qualification find employment in industries, like engineering, information services, real estate development, business, retail, finance and insurance, architecture, construction and manufacturing.
MANCOSA presents a hierarchy of Project Management qualification options:
- Higher Certificate in Project Management
- Bachelor of Commerce in Project Management
- Postgraduate Diploma in Project Management
- MBA elective: Strategic Project Management
The benefits of studying a project management course online
Project Managers are needed in all industries in the business market, including the government sector and small-to-medium businesses, covering a variety of job roles that demand project management skills such as the ability to lead, to plan, and to execute projects to stringent deadlines, complex project scopes and funding budgets. Therefore, those who possess a certain level of competence in these areas of business functions are considered attractive to prospective employers.
Online learning is gaining incredible traction in the country, which is why at MANCOSA the project management programme is offered online so students have the advantage of a flexible programme that fits in with their work or lifestyle. They are provided with a range of tools and techniques that are transferable to ensure productivity and offer abilities to meet the requirements of the industry. Some of these skills include:
- Effective communication
- Organisational abilities
- Negotiation and conflict resolution
- Advanced reporting skills
- Technical writing
- Budget management
- Time management
- Team management
- Risk management
- Policy knowledge
- Leadership capabilities
Fastrack your career: study a project management course online
The need for speed and agility requires you to increase your impact as a Project Manager. Are you ready to increase your impact? What are you waiting for? The sooner you register for any of the CHE accredited Project Management Online qualifications, the sooner you can become the Project Manager who delivers successful projects better, faster and smarter. MANCOSA offers a wide range of other online courses to suit those who need a flexible online learning environment. Visit our project management certifications or contact us for more information.