Keyword Project Management

Building a Capability for the 21st Century

• Improved business engagement
• Higher productivity
• Lower costs
• Higher quality
• Improved staff morale

The 21^st century has seen information technology become ever more pervasive upon society. Customers now demand real-time information and services at their fingertips.  To meet this, organisations require that their IT department can respond to change; to integrate information and systems, and deliver new feature rich applications.

A phrase attributed to various thought leaders, including Edward de Bono and Robert Heller, in their website www.thinkingmanagers.com - the idea is that managers used to be able to concentrate on their area of focus, without having to pay much attention to what was going on outside of their specific field.

Outside of a work environment, we often come across people who wonder what's so difficult about project management, as, after all, we all have to exhibit some degree of being able to manage things in our normal lives. What we suggest is the difference, though, is the scope of the project, and the fact that it will usually have predefined goals and outcomes, rather than having a vague sense of wanting to change things. For example, a basic project could be to travel from point A to point B.

For the second part of our definition of the phrase "project management", we're going to define the word "management". Again looking at a dictionary, their definition is "the process or an instance of managing or being managed". Not especially helpful, so let's look at the definition for "managing", which is "having executive control or authority". This is a bit more like it, as it defines the process of management as that of being in ultimate control of whatever it is that is being managed.