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The Modern Rules of Project Management Best Practices
The purpose of this article is to provide you with all you need to know about project management best practice and what it means for you.
Define Best Practice
According to WikiPedia, a best practice is a technique, method, process, activity, incentive, or reward that is believed to be more effective at delivering a particular outcome than any other technique, method, process, etc. when applied to a particular condition or circumstance.
Best practice can also be defined as the most efficient (least amount of effort) and effective (best results) way of accomplishing a task, based on repeatable procedures that have proven themselves over time for large numbers of people. Best practices can and should evolve to become better as improvements are discovered. It is about developing and following a standard way of doing things!
In summary best practice is a standard approach to follow, that has been proven to work within a business industry or environment and then gets adopted by most people within that specific context.
Do project management best practices work?
My work experience has exposed me to working in organizations that have too few specialist resources, lack of sufficient time for projects and inadequate project budget planning or allocation. I have also worked in highly controlled, standardized approach organizations with expert resources where everything in a project is set up to succeed. This means that planning is based on previous similar projects and expert judgement estimates, resources are dedicated to the project for periods when needed, adequate budget is allocated and proper scope and quality management is applied. Even though normal risks and issues were experienced in both type of organization’s projects, the organizations where best practices are applied consistently, have shown more successful projects and satisfied customers, meaning that these projects always had a better chance of being on time, to budget and with the desired quality.
Make-Up of a Project Manager
Here you would refer to a person’s natural abilities or talents, learned skills and project management knowledge. In the Project Management Paper: “Still more Art than Science” by Kate Belzer, it has been stated that project management is both an art and a science. Understanding processes, tools, and techniques are the hard skills, also referred to as the science of project management. For successful project delivery,you also need soft skills, referred to as the art of project management. Soft skills help to define the business value, clarify the vision, determine requirements, provide direction, build teams, resolve issues, and mitigate risk. Communication is quite simply the most important soft skill. The ability to apply soft skills effectively throughout the life cycle of a project will enhance the success of a project exponentially!
Often projects fail because of a project manager’s inability to communicate effectively, work within the organization’s culture, motivate the project team, manage stakeholder expectations, understand the business objectives, solve problems effectively, and make clear and knowledgeable decisions. These are the skills that take time to acquire through experience, coaching, and mentoring. In my opinion the art and science of project management requires the intuitive application of your talents, your hard and soft skills, your knowledge and experience in the right combination that is applicable to a specific project situation. To find that kind of balance is an art in itself.
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Source by Linky Van Der Merwe
