You don’t have to be a project manager to be “doing” project management. Whether you’re a freelancer, an in-house manager, or someone who’s just stepped into a manager’s role, learning about the basics of project management will help you manage your work better.
In this article, you’ll learn how to plan and manage a project from start to finish. Specifically, you’ll learn:
- What is project management?
- Importance of project management
- Roles & Responsibilities within the project teams
- Phases of a project’s life cycle
- Project management methodologies
- Steps involved in the project management process
- And, project management tools
Project Management Basics
Before we look at the steps involved, let’s first understand the basics of project management.
What Is Project Management?
Project management is the process by which a project is planned, tracked, controlled, and reported. Each project has a specific start date and end date. In addition, a project produces a specific deliverable.
Proven project management processes help move a project towards completion. These include:
- Planning & scheduling
- Resource management
- Risk management
- Task management & monitoring
- Reporting
Project managers are responsible for planning and executing a project along with the project team to produce the desired deliverable and meet stakeholder expectations.
How To Manage A Project From Start To Finish?
The project life cycle gives you a high-level overview of the phases a project goes through. In practice, there’s a lot more in each of these phases.
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Initiation Phase
As discussed above, the initiation phase is all about understanding the project. This involves meetings, discussions, and documentation. However, there’s very little planning that goes into this phase.
High-level role players including clients, client-side stakeholders, project sponsors, and project managers are involved in this phase.
Key steps involved in this phase include:
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