Foundations of Project Management

What is a project?

A project is a series of tasks that need to be completed to reach a desired outcome. This is a widely accepted definition across project management literature. Achieving this outcome requires collaboration, careful planning, and effective management to keep the project on track and within budget.

Temporary Endeavour - Unique Results

Digging deeper, Google Project Management: Professional Certificate emphasizes that a project should deliver a unique product, service, result, or deliverable. Indeed, they also discuss how there isn’t necessarily a single project “product”; instead there could be multiple “deliverables” that are required to meet pottentially diverse project objectives.

A project is a unique endeavour, and usually includes a set of unique deliverables. Google Project Management: Professional Certificate

Next, Google Project Management: Professional Certificate, underscore how projects are temporary by nature, stating “a project is also a temporary pursuit, it has a defined beginning and an end”. And we also see this detail highlighted by, for example, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 7th ed., 2021.

A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. The temporary nature of projects indicates a beginning and an end to the project work or a phase of the project work. Projects can stand alone or be part of a program or portfolio. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 7th ed., 2021

Similar sentiments are made by the PRINCE2 framework, which describes a project as: a temporary organization that is created for the purpose of delivering one or more business products according to an agreed business case. PRINCE2 Study Guide: 2017, 2nd Edition

These definitions highlight that projects are not part of routine operations; they are unique and temporary, designed to achieve specific goals before coming to an end.

Beyond Business as Usual

It’s worthwhile drawing further attention to the idea that projects are not part of routine operations. Indeed the authors of PRINCE2 Study Guide: 2017, 2nd Edition do exactly that; they discuss how the very first step for any project manager is to ensure that the situation they are addressing does indeed qualify as a project!

As they note, sometimes this is not so straightforward. For example, if an IT manager is asked to update a website, should this be consider a project? If the update is small or minor in it’s predicted reach, the work might be considered to fall under routine operations - that it is a normal operational task. However, if it’s a larger piece of work, involving extensive modifications, then it might be wise to treat it as a project.

Thus, the question becomes “at what point does the small update become too big to be business as usual?”

It is for these reasons that the PRINCE2 framework places a great deal of importance on project justification; their definition of a project includes a requirement that every project be backed by an agreed business case. Consequently, since project deliverables will ultimately be delivered to the leading organization, every project should have a clear purpose and measurable benefits, and everyone involved with the project should be able to justify it’s importance.

In addition, PRINCE2 Study Guide: 2017, 2nd Edition discusses five characteristics of project work that distinguish it from business as usual:

1. Change: Projects should lead to transformation(s) within the organization. For example, implementing a new invoice-processing system should fundamentally change how the finance department operates.
2. Temporary: Projects are finite endeavours, with a start and end point, and concluding when the desired change or outcome has been achieved, delivered, or implemented.
3. Cross-functional: Projects often involve a team with diverse set of skills, possibly across departments or even organizations.
4. Unique: Every project is unique, even if it resembles previous work. For example, even if it’s simply the installation of a new version of Microsoft Office software, the work to be done uniquely defines the project.
5. Uncertainty: The previous four characteristics introduce a great deal of uncertainty into project work; thus projects come with inherent uncertainty and risk, distinguishing them from routine tasks.

Value Delivery

Of course, one of the core objectives of a project is to deliver value to stakeholders. Both the PMBOK and PRINCE2 reinforce how projects should always operate within a broader system designed to create value for organizations and their stakeholders.

What constitutes “value” will vary depending on stakeholder priorities, but A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 7th ed., 2021 lists some common examples, including:

• Delivering a new product, service, or result that fulfills customer or end user needs.
• Contributing to positive social or environmental objectives.
• Improving efficiency, productivity, effectiveness, or responsiveness.
• Enabling changes needed to facilitate the organization’s desired future state.
• Sustaining benefits enabled by previous programs, projects, or business operations.

Projects, therefore, are not just about completing tasks; they are instrumental in driving strategic change, meeting organizational goals, and enhancing stakeholder satisfaction.

Understanding the Project Environment

Finally, we note that projects should not be viewed in isolation; the environment in which they exist plays a driving role in our approach to the project, it’s scope and complexity, our definition of it’s goals, who our stakeholders are, the time and budget available, and many of the other parameters in which the work is completed.

In Effective Project Management: Traditional, Agile, Extreme, Hybrid, 8th ed., 2019 author Robert K. Wysocki describes this in terms of the project landscape. As illustrated in the figure below, every project can be categorized into four types, based on goal clarity and solution clarity. With projects falling into only one quadrant of the four available classifications.

Based on figure 1.1, page 8 of Effective Project Management: Traditional, Agile, Extreme, Hybrid, 8th ed., 2019

• Traditional Projects (Q1): For projects with clear goals and clear solutions, a traditional approach works well.
• Agile Projects (Q2): When the goal is clear but the solution is uncertain, an agile approach is often most effective.
• Extreme Projects (Q3): Projects with unclear goals and solutions, often requiring iterative and exploratory methods.
• Emertxe Projects (Q4): When the solution is clear but the goal is evolving, projects are adjusted as objectives emerge.

Since resources are finite, all projects running in parallel within the same environment will draw upon the same resources. Thus using the analogy of a project landscape (or environment) provides a foundation for management decision-making. It is a framework that helps project managers choose the right methodology and approach based on the project’s complexity and requirements.

Of course, we also note, just as author Robert K. Wysocki does, that these values are conceptual, not quantifiable, and their interpretation is more subjective than objective. A given project can exhibit various degrees of clarity. The lesson we take from this landscape is that the transition from quadrant to quadrant is continuous and fluid.

What is project management?

Project management is a structured approach to guiding a project from start to finish, using defined practices to deliver successful outcomes. Both the Google Project Management: Professional Certificate and A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 7th ed., 2021 provide solid definitions of project management. The latter goes on to state “Project management refers to guiding the project work to deliver the intended outcomes”.

Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to meet the project requirements and achieve the desired outcome. Google Project Management: Professional Certificate

The application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 7th ed., 2021

Through these definitions, we see how project management is the framework within which a project exists, encompassing organized planning, execution, and resource management. Indeed, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 7th ed., 2021 further explains how project teams can adopt a broad range of approaches (e.g., predictive, hybrid, and adaptive) in order to achieve project outcomes, depending on the context and complexity of the work.

And so it is through these frameworks that we can define project management. Thus, in this sense, project management is about applying structure methods to organize, guide, and complete project tasks effectively; the frameworks of organized thinking, planning, and execution.

Cross Industry Skill Sets

Although project management spans many industries and company types, it’s interesting to note, as Google Project Management: Professional Certificate argue, that it doesn’t require deep, technical knowledge. Thus, any work or life experience gained will help in building the skills needed to be successful in project management. Such broad applicability means that a background in various fields can support the transition into project management.

However, I would caveat that for specialized roles, such as those in IT or engineering, technical knowledge can be an asset. For example, my own background in mathematics and software engineering has made managing technology projects more intuitive, as it allows me to engage with technical teams more deeply. The best project managers understand the business context in which project deliverables must be defined, produced, and function. This means not only an understanding of the internal systems and their interaction, but also the external systems environment of suppliers and customers in whose environments the deliverables must function.

Nonetheless, the frameworks for project management, such as CAPM, PRINCE2, and PMP, are intentionally designed for cross-industry application. As Robert K. Wysocki points out, the devil is in the details; creativity on the part of the project manager is crucial when adapting project management to different contexts. In an ever-evolving business landscape, having a broad skill set can make a project manager more versatile and adaptable.

In any event, Effective Project Management: Traditional, Agile, Extreme, Hybrid, 8th ed., 2019 reminds us of how broad and deep the world of project management can be. Here Wysocki defines project management as a process that answers six essential questions:

1. What business situation is being addressed by this project?
2. What does the business need to do?
3. What are you proposing to do?
4. How will you do it?
5. How will you know you did it?
6. How well did you do?

And so, through these universal principles, we can understand the breadth of environments, industries and projects within which project management skills are applicable.

Four Main Areas of Project Management

Author David Hinde gives a more comprehensive definition of project management in PRINCE2 Study Guide: 2017, 2nd Edition (see page 5), where he identifies four main areas of project management: plan, delegate, monitor, and control.

These four areas ensure that the work of the project is co-coordinated in an effective way so as to deliver what is required within the environmental constraints of the project (such as budgets and delivery dates). Essentially it is a framework that aims to ensure that all those working for the project, and the associated tasks and resources, all work together towards the project’s goals and outcomes.

The following descriptions are given for each area of project management:

• Plan Planning determines what needs to be done and how, ensuring work is coordinated effectively.
• Delegate Effective delegation by the project manager ensures that the right people do the right work at the right time. A project manager must communicate efficiently to provide all the necessary details, including time, budget, and reporting requirements.
• Monitor The project manager needs to continually monitor progress of the project, identifying risks and opportunities to keep the project on course.
• Control Through the previous three areas, project managers exert control over the project. It provides for controlling the work of those involved, ensures the right activities occur at the right time to create the right products. And it allows for taking corrective action to ensure the project proceeds according to plan.

Finally, we note how these four areas of project management exist as part of an iterative process. They will need to be executed, in the order discussed above, again and again, throughout the project in order to adapt to changing conditions and ensuring alignment with project goals.

High Job Demand

The demand for project management professionals continues to grow. According to the Project Management Institute, the global project management labour force in seven project-oriented sectors is expected to increase by 33 percent, or nearly 22 million new jobs, by 2027¹.

This growth reflects the value organizations place on project management. Poor project management leads to significant financial waste, with PMI estimating that inadequate project practices result in 48% of projects missing deadlines, 43% exceeding budgets, and 31% failing to meet organizational goals. Effective project management, therefore, is critical in delivering outcomes that align with an organization’s objectives and contribute positively to its bottom line.

Project management is valuable to businesses because it helps ensure that a project delivers the expected outcomes both on time and within budget. Google Project Management: Professional Certificate

Thus the value of project management and the high demand for professionals becomes clear; the controlled arrangement of resources within a specific environment, with the aim of producing value to the leading organization.

What does a project manager do?

The project manager is the person assigned by the organization to lead the project team and oversee the tasks necessary to achieve and deliver the project objectives.

Project managers perform a variety of functions, such as facilitating the project team work to achieve the outcomes and managing the processes to deliver intended outcomes. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 7th ed., 2021

Lead with Strategy

Project managers typically follow a structured process that involves:

• planning and organizing.
• managing tasks.
• budgeting.
• controlling costs and other factors.

Each of these activities, and everything else they do, is designed to ensure the projec can be completed on time and on budget. Ultimately, a project manager is responsible for ensuring the project outcomes bring value to the organization. A project manager can add value in many different ways - whether creating a new service for customers or modifying and improving an existing one to be more tailored to the customer’s needs. In either case, the goal of every project is to deliver value and it’s the project manager’s role to oversee this process and ensure that project is both valuable and successful.

However, a project manager’s effectiveness and professional capacity is so much more than a set of technical skills. For example, Laugesen, 2024 argues that the mark of a true professional project manager is defined by three key factors:

• The ability to accumulate relevant professional reference points and contexts.
• The ability to balance technical, interpersonal, strategic, and unforeseen agendas.
• The ability to internalize experiences as useful mental models for decision-making.

It is interesting to consider then, as we did earlier, how these broad skills build over time. Your previous employment experiences all contribute to the underlying set of skills and effectiveness you carry forwards with you through your career. We had noted how creativity and adaptability on the part of the project manager is crucial when applying project management principles in different contexts. The listing given here by Laugesen are broadly defined skills that any professional can develop over their career, reinforcing the idea that project management skills are cumulative and transferable.

Governance Systems

In A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 7th ed., 2021 the authors discuss what a project manager does in terms of a system of governance. That is, a framework of functions and processes that guide project activities. Such a governance framework can include elements of oversight, control, value assessment, integration among components, and decision-making capabilities. In doing so it provides an integrated structure for evaluating changes, issues, and risks associated with the environment and any component of the project; helping evaluate changes, address risks, and maintain alignment with project goals.

The authors continue the discussion (see page 40 of A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 7th ed., 2021); in particular highlighting how coordinating a collective work effort is extremely important to the success of any project and should be a core responsibility of the project manager. The project manager’s functions include:

• Providing oversight and coordination: including leading the planning, coordination, monitoring, and controlling of activities.
• Present objectives and feedback: in particular to connect the potentially differing perspectives, motives, insights, and direction of the project stakeholders.
• Facilitate and support: involving encouraging project team member participation, collaboration, and a shared sense of responsibility for the work output. To help the project team create consensus around solutions, resolve conflicts, and make decisions.
• Contribute insights and expertise: provide the knowledge, vision, and expertise in a specific subject for a project and realize it’s outcomes.

These functions underscore the project manager’s role as both a leader and a facilitator, ensuring the team operates cohesively and efficiently.

The Principled Project Manager

One of the most complete discussions of a project manager’s role that I’ve read in the literature is given by Chapter 3 of A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 7th ed., 2021, titled “Project Management Principles”. This chapter highlights the principles and professional standards and methodologies that serve as a foundation for strategy, decision making, and problem solving integral to the project manager’s role.

The Project Management Institute (PMI) has defined 12 core principles of project management, providing guidance for effective project management, which were identified and developed through engagement with the global community of project managers across different industries, organizations, and cultural backgrounds. Those principles are:

1. Be a diligent, respectful, and caring steward.
2. Create a collaborative project team environment.
3. Effectively engage with stakeholders.
4. Focus on value.
5. Recognize, evaluate, and respond to system interactions.
6. Demonstrate leadership behaviors.
7. Tailor based on context.
8. Build quality into processes and deliverables.
9. Navigate complexity.
10. Optimize risk responses.
11. Embrace adaptability and resiliency.
12. Enable change to achieve the envisioned future state.

Each principle provides a foundation for the project manager’s approach to their role, focusing on ethical stewardship, team collaboration, adaptability, and value delivery. These principles guide project managers in maintaining standards of professionalism, making strategic decisions, and addressing complex project challenges.

For the purpose of this article, let me simply emphasize that these principles provide project managers with a structured yet flexible framework, helping them navigate the dynamic environment of project management and effectively lead their teams toward achieving successful project outcomes.

What are the typical daily activites of a project manager?

Project managers daily activities will of course vary depending on the organization, landscape, methodology, and scenario in which they are working. Overall we would refer to these constraints in terms of the specific ‘environment’ in which the project is being conducted. Thus that it is the project environment that dictates the overall project management approach and likewise the required daily activities.

Nonetheless, the daily responsibilities might include some form of the following:

Planning and organizing

• For example gathering requirements from teammates, stakeholders, clients, and customers.
• Active listening to understand the project landscape and to uncover exactly what the project is trying to accomplish.
• You might have a kick-off meeting or send a survey for example.
• Begin to create various project plans, which might cover the project’s goals, scope, deliverables, and success criteria.
• It also helps if the project manager can use this phase to set the tone for the entire project; to help keep everyone on pace and aligned, so that the project tasks continue to move along.

Managing tasks

• Once the project is underway, the project manager helps manage tasks for the team members and communicates key milestones to the wider team and set of stakeholders,
• This helps keep everyone updated on how the project is progressing.
• As the project progresses keeping clear and consistent documentation of that progress, and the decisions made, can ensure transparency and clear communication.

Budgeting

• The third piece is budgeting and controlling costs and other factors.
• Managing the budget and controlling costs is a common responsibility that project managers have to understand to keep the project on track and within budget.
• One or several of the project plans that were created during the project planning phase, and which the project manager has been managing and tracking, may change causing unexpected costs to arise.

What are the ‘traditional’ project management roles?

One of the greatest benefits of the project management field is that it encompasses a wide variety of positions across numerous industries.

Lets consider some of the different project management job categories and common roles within those categories.

Entry-level positions

Entry-level project management positions are a great opportunity to understand how a company operates and manages projects. The lessons you learn from these experiences are extremely valuable to your growth in project management.

Some entry-level project management positions include:

• Junior Project Manager: Performs all aspects of being a project manager alongside a more experienced professional.
• Project Administrator: Assists the rest of the project team with administrative tasks.
• Project/Program Assistant: Supports team members working on a project and offers administrative support. May perform research or create training documents along with other jobs as assigned by program leaders.
• Project/Program Coordinator: Participates in hands-on project work and administrative tasks. Works under a project manager to make sure projects are completed on time and within budget.
• Project Support Specialist: Works alongside a project manager and team members to oversee assigned projects. May also be responsible for training and developing employees to perform designated tasks.

Once you have gained some experience in introductory-level positions, you can explore traditional project management roles, such as:

• Project Manager: Responsible for the initiating, planning, executing, monitoring, and closing of a project. Includes industry-specific titles like IT project manager, construction project manager, or engineering project manager, which utilize skills that are transferable among industries.
• Project Analyst: Moves a project along by sharing information, providing support through data analysis, and contributing to strategy and performance.
• Project Leader/Director: Drives core decision-making and sets the direction for the project. Usually knowledgeable about the product or deliverable.
• Project Controller: Primarily responsible for project planning. You are likely to see this job title in industries like engineering and construction.
• Technical Project Manager: Conducts project planning and management for identified goals within a company. Ensures that projects are completed to the requirements within a defined time frame and budget.
• Project Management Office (PMO) Analyst: Manages the progress of complex projects to ensure timely execution and completion.

What might a project manager’s career progression look like?

As mentioned, project managers are responsible for the day-to-day management of projects. They shepherd projects from start to finish and serve as a guide for their team. Project managers must apply the right tools, techniques, and processes to complete the project successfully, on time, and within budget.

After you have carried out projects successfully and feel you are ready for a step up in responsibility, a program manager position may be the next step for you. While a project is one single-focused endeavour, a program is a collection of projects. Program managers are responsible for managing many projects simultaneously.

Successfully implementing programs as a program manager can eventually make you a great fit for more senior positions, such as a senior program manager or a portfolio manager. A portfolio is a collection of projects and programs across an entire organization. Portfolio managers are responsible for portfolios of projects or programs for one client. Over the course of your career, you might progress from project manager to program manager to portfolio manager roles.

While project, program, and portfolio managers hold different types and levels of responsibility, they are all project managers.

• Program managers: Manage a group of projects that are related or similar to one another and handle the coordination of these projects. They facilitate effective communication between individual project managers and provide support where necessary. They also help create and manage long-term goals for their organization.
• Portfolio managers: Responsible for managing a group of related programs within the same organization. They coordinate various programs in order to ensure they are on track and that the organization is meeting its strategic initiatives. Portfolio managers look at all projects and programs within the organization and prioritize work as necessary.

Why experience matters

Nobody is born a professional; it is something we only become over time and with experience. Some professional capacities we learn by ourselves. Some we must learn from others. It is the critical experiences and mental models that make us better project managers and better professionals. Laugesen, 2024

In Laugesen, 2024 the author discusses his concern with how we develop relevant frameworks or mental models that address the realities we operate in, the realities of technique, people, power, and the unforeseen. Our capacity to deal with these realities starts out in a rather shallow way, but during our career, we attain more complex and nuanced capacities. We get better each time we have been involved deep and long in a task to understand its context complexities and we get better when we get exposed to different experiences and contexts. We get better because we are constantly learning. Every new experience alters what we know and how we act. Getting reminded of our previous experiences makes us process new experiences better than we did last time.

The fundamentals to become good at what we do are accumulation of professional reference points and spreading activation to utilize these reference points. Accumulation of professional reference points and experiences, and in particular the accumulation of technical, people, power, and complex unforeseen professional experiences, is the starting point for becoming a professional project manager. The brain’s spreading activation system is the mechanism that handles this accumulation of professional reference points and makes us think and act professionally. It is from these fundamental platforms we go to work and become good project managers and good professionals.

Concluding thoughts

For me the most important take away is the manner in which our professional experiences (indeed our experiences beyond the working environment) are cumulative. Thus to be a success project manager we can draw upon all of that life experience and bring it into how we plan, manage, and complete projects.