Why Project Management?

So you’ve arrived at this blog, you’ve read a few of the posts, and now you are wondering, why should I learn project management, or does this really apply to what I am doing, or some similar question. Before I can answer these, I have to explain to you what a project is, and what project management really is. After we cover these, we can get on to why this is important to you and your business. So, let’s dive right in, shall we?

The first question we need to answer is, what is a project? Thanks to Wikipedia for this definition: A project is a temporary and one-time endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service, which brings about beneficial change or added value. This can be compared to day to day operations which may be required in a business. To give you an example, a project might be creating a new color to include in the Crayola 164 color box, which we would contrast with the day to day manufacturing which would be required to make the new color once it has been created. Another example might be a project to redesign an e-commerce web site, as contrasted with the day to day operational tasks such as order fulfillment.

Now that we have defined what a project is, what exactly is project management? Once again turning to Wikipedia for a definition: Project management is the discipline of organizing and managing resources (e.g. people) in a way that the project is completed within defined scope, quality, time and cost constraints. So what this means is that project management is mainly about managing resources to meet specific goals or objectives. Resources are web sites, domain names, web 2.0 properties, content, tools and anything else that can be used to achieve your objective, including people. As a project manager, you want to complete a project to the satisfaction of your customer, on time and on budget.

By this time you might be wondering why this is important to you and your business. I’m glad you asked. The primary reason this is important is because everything new you start is a project. By understanding planning from a project management perspective you will save a tremendous amount of time. By understand budgeting from a project management perspective you will spend less on losers and funnel your operational budget only into successful projects. If these reasons are not enough to convince you, I don’t know what will.

I’m hoping that this short article has given you a good taste of why you would want to learn to become a better project manager. Just by understanding the principles of project management, and having a very basic understanding, you will greatly enhance your success in business. Additionally, I think you will find that some of the tools used in managing projects can make life as an entrepreneur much simpler and far easier.

If you have any specific questions, please search the blog for information to see if it has been covered. If it has not been covered at all, or if it just doesn’t answer your question, please leave a comment here (preferred method) or send an email to chris (at) internetmarketingpm.com and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

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