Project management, the process of guiding a project from the beginning to the middle to the end is really very exhausting. This is because the project manager coordinates other professionals to achieve results. It is therefore a great intellectual relief that Paula Martin and Karen Tate, two experts in project management, have offered a solution in this text entitled “Getting Started in Project Management”.
Martin is the CEO of MartinTate, a management consulting and training company. Martin is the co-author of six books. She works with project teams to help them improve their performance. Martin has been a consultant on issues related to organizational performance improvement for more than ten years.
Tate is the president of MartinTate and also a project management professional. She has more than 20 years of project management experience and teaches project management to teams in organizations around the world. According to Martin and Tate, project management is a valuable Human Capital Management of both professional and personal life.
They educate that whether you are working on an international project for a Fortune 500 company or hosting a family reunion, project management is essential to ensure the timely and efficient completion of any project.
Martin and Tate comment that if you are new to project management, you are definitely not alone. They say that many people are discovering that project management is a tool that can help make their projects more successful.
These authors clarify that for many people, working on a project can be frustrating as team members refuse to agree on what to do or how to do it and deadlines are missed. Martin and Tate, however, emphasize that projects can be fun and successful if you use an effective method to help your work through the project steps.
Using their easy-to-use, results-oriented, open, collaborative project management methodology called “CORE project management methodology” for short, these authors offer a foundation for anyone who wants to learn or improve their project management skills.
Martin and Tate identify four phases of project management as project initiation, planning, execution, and closure. They say that in addition to describing the project management process, this text teaches you how to use the tools that drive it.
Martin and Tate say that you will also learn in this text the seven keys to successful project management; different approaches to the process; how to assess risk and avoid problems by identifying them early; scheduling and budgeting techniques that will keep your project on time and on money.
Structurally, this text is segmented into 14 chapters. Chapter one is titled “The Basics.” According to these authors here, before we can begin our journey through the land of project management, we need to cover a few basics. The first question we must address is: “What exactly is a project?” In the words of these authors, “For example, is building a custom house a project? What if you are a developer and you have a team that builds a standard house over and over again? Is that a project?”
Martin and Tate say that projects and business processes are obviously not the same. They teach that project management is a set of tools, techniques, and knowledge that, when applied, will help you produce better results for your project. Martin and Tate add that trying to manage a project without project management is like trying to play soccer without a game plan. “The coach would gather the players and say: ‘How should we play this game? We are supposed to score more points than the other team and to do that we have to score goals. Now everyone go out there and do what they think.’ ‘ what to do to win ‘”, these experts emphasize.
Chapter two is based on the topic of starting a project. Here, these authors teach that the first phase of a project, which is called “initiation”, begins after the management decides to authorize the project. According to them, the goal of initiation is to set the direction of your project and define any constraints on the project.