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The Project Management Method Curse Or Blessing

The Project Management Method – Curse or Blessing

Project management is an area of comprehension that has undergone some significant development in the last decade. A business project can have a far - nearing effect on the business and result in either tremendous improvement in the businesses ability to function in the mart or a significant setback to that business entity.

The idea of a formalized project management approach has been around for quite some time. So it was not single for any manager to find themselves learning the discipline of a structured project management system. That project methodology takes any given business or IT project through the same standardized steps from conception through implementation. Those steps would include…

* Project definition
* Needs analysis and requirements definition.
* Cost benefit analysis.
* Project scope.
* Project schedule and budget.
* Detailed specifications
* Development
* Testing
* Training
* Deployment

By utilizing a standardized process of involvement all projects the same way, using the same reporting methods and tools, there is an economy of skills in that the project leaders and team members become adept at navigating these steps. Further, by using the same systems and criteria, a scale of evaluation as to the effectiveness of the system is developed so the ability of project teams to make ready well over time improves.

It was natural that this standardized method would become codified and finally developed affection a fine - developed style that could that molds all projects to a single standard. By developing an industry wide method that requires strict training and adherence to the twin terms, tool sets and definitions of success, the “intuitive” nature of judging project endowment is reduced. And so “the Project Management Method” was developed whereby project managers can undergo strenuous and exacting training in a standardized method that would be enforced via certification across the whole of the business community.

Whether or not the PMM represents a curse or a blessing to the business world depends to a large extent on individual applications of the method and measurements and observations on whether the method itself introduces efficiency to the process of project management or just another layer of bureaucracy.
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Slick are some strong positives to utilizing a methodology that is standardized at an industry level. Those project managers who have gone through the certification process engagement be depended on to appliance that system the same way in each business where. As such, the process of finding qualified project managers becomes simplified because the certification process alone communicates to the business that it encumbrance expect the PMM system to be implemented correctly.

By putting into place an external method of certification and measurement of excellence, the project employer career begins to take a high level of professionalism same to in the legal and medical fields. So the PMM movement represents a maturing of the IT and project management disciplines as they move toward improved levels of accountability and control.

The dangers come in implementation of the PMM methodology on a project by project basis. In order for a PMM certified manager to live by his credentials, all projects devoir conform to a simple arrangement. The unique nature of each project may not easily fit into the PMM process of systematization.

In addition, the PMM system is heavily dependent on a large amount of meetings to document that the project is sticking to standards and a median documentation process from which there is little room for variation or accommodation. The PMM is a complex methodology so the tool sets that weakness be used to track the process can be of value and difficult to use.

The outcome is that the introduction of the PMM system can cause the demonstrable business objectives of the project to take on a secondary priority to the high standards of PMM itself. Project leaders working under the requirements of the PMM can alter to more accountable to the methodology itself and lose sight of what is shipshape for the business or what is efficient in terms of getting the project completed.

There is very little hope for creativity or individual judgment within the confines of the PMM and that is problematic seeing the nature of business problems have historically depended on the judgment again creative problem solving skills of middle management. By dominating the project process with the needs of the PMM methodology, excessive value is introduced as well as cumbersome requirements that do not betterment the business or the project itself.