Do you want to be more effective in leading your next project?
Maybe you rely on your natural abilities to organize and lead work. Prior to project manager certification, I did too. When your projects get challenging, look here for PM essentials to help you be more successful!
If you need more than just essentials, contact me or look to PMI for PMP certification.
Look to Scaled Agile for skills in Agile Solution Delivery, Business Agility, and agile project management.
Check out this video of PM Essentials, covering four essential process steps, six knowledge areas, and leadership skills that are important for every project. A good introduction to project manager certification concepts.
These are the essential steps for any project:
Launch
Plan and Design
Execute and Monitor
Close
Whether your organization uses traditional or Agile project management, these basic steps are still required.
Understand and document the goals and key assumptions for the project
Create an adequately detailed plan.
Manage resources and quality, monitor work against the plan and communicate progress.
Evaluate if you met customer expectations for the project.
These six areas of information need to be gathered for every project and integration needs to be done throughout the project.
As you go through the Project Management Steps, you gather Project Information. See the key information needed at each step below.
Define what work is required and should be “in scope” and what work is “out of scope” to provide the greatest value to the company and complete the project successfully.
Define needs, and identify and obtain resources (human, physical, funds) to complete the project successfully.
Define when the project will be completed, including how long each task will take and when specific deliverables will be done.
Optimize the project for success.
Incorporate quality processes and quality requirements for project outcomes.
Define who will be impacted by the project (people, organizations) and how they will be engaged and kept informed.
Throughout a project, the PM is working through an iterative process of collecting information, adjusting plans, improving execution and monitoring progress. The PM is also the driver of project integration, making sure all aspects of the project are aligned and that all stakeholder considerations are incorporated in project decisions. While subject matter experts can assist in collecting and assessing other project information, integration needs to be led by the project manager. As the complexity of a project increases, PMs should consider project manager certification or agile project management with more advanced methodologies, tools, automation and best practices.