Introduction to Project Management

There is without a doubt project management is integral to the successful economic growth of any organization. In fact, in so many aspects of our lives, we are actually using project management without even realizing that we are. Whether it is organizing a picnic for a friend’s birthday or building a kennel for our dog, we all use project management every day.

The project management processes of initiating, planning, executing, and monitoring together with controlling as well as closing a project, while seemingly simple require a carefully thought-out process. Poor project management can lead to disastrous results and hundreds of millions of dollars in project losses.

Most people who are involved in project management may not be addressed as a “project manager”. They could be scientists, engineers, administrators, business executives, legal counsels and government officials whose success depends upon being able to lead and manage project work effectively.

While for some professions, project work occupies a larger percentage of their job scope, such as events for an event coordinator, or renovations for a contractor; for other professions, while the project scope might be small, it might still constitute a crucial part of their work.

For example, a senior sales manager might be asked to lead a project to expand a new product line into a country. Hence, project management is integral to almost every occupation, and it is a transferable skillset with universal fundamental principles.

For the purpose of this course, we will also assume that this is your first foray into the discipline of Project Management. It is with this in mind that, we will mainly concentrate on building an understanding of what project management is, what it is meant to do and explore its opportunities as well as critique its purpose.

Together with the prescribed textbook “Project Management – The Managerial Process (Sixth Edition)” by Eric W Larson and Clifford F. Gray, this course will introduce you to the fundamentals of project management and serve as a launching pad for you to explore each aspect of project management in greater detail from other advanced courses.

how you would answer the following questions:
1. What is project management and why is it an important discipline?
2. Is project management the same for all organisations?
3. How does a project manager align to his or her organisation’s business strategic aims?
4. What are some of the projects that your organisation is embarking on? Who undertakes these projects and how are they different from one another?