Managing everyday tasks is different from Managing Projects, although these two are often confused.
Project Management involves planning, organising, scheduling, leading,communicating and controlling work activities, to achieve a pre-defined outcome on time AND within the budget. Because of the complexity of Project Management, managers need to use special management tools to help control the risk. Controlling risks is an important part of project management.
How does managing projects differ from regular management?
If you manage ongoing work, you can predict, based on experience, how much time, money and equipment are required to complete the work.
If you are a project manager you can’t rely solely on experience because every project is unique. That makes project management riskier than regular management.
There are no absolute rules for predicting how much time, money and equipment you will be needing to complete the project successfully. There is always an element of risk involved in any project. The role of the project manager is to minimise, control and manage these risks.
Even though all projects are unique, they all progress through the same phases:
- Project Initiation
- Project Planning
- Project Implementation
- Project Close-out
Another thing to remember, as a project manager, you will need to tolerate ambiguity. Your project has never been done before, now it’s up to you to decide how your team will reach their goal.
You have to step up and lead them to success! Remember, the basic criteria for success on every project is: On Time; Within Budget; High Quality (satisfying or exceeding customer quality expectations) All the information needed to succeed as a project manager might seem like a colossal mountain of information, but it is completely possible if you are dedicated and work hard.
