Project scheduling is the medium of communication which defines which task should be done and what resources must be allocated for its completion. It is a complete document containing complete information about all smaller tasks which need to be done for the completion of the project. The project schedule has a full map in which more important tasks are divided into smaller tasks, and each assignment is assigned a starting and ending date so that it gets started at the right moment and gets completed in due time. Along with beginning and ending date, every task has an assigned team member who is responsible for the completion of task. These small details eliminate the risk of mismanagement in the project and ensure that the project continues in a defined and timely manner. In simple words, schedule explains that in a project what needs to be done when it is to be done and who will do it.
Every project requires different skill sets for effective completion of the project. Technical and behavioral skills are necessary for successful completion of the project. Some of the technical skills needed in project management are extensive technical expertise, planning, and technology, information technology, budget estimation, change management, risk Assessment, quality management, safety management, procurement and contract, and resource management. Apart from these, the complete spectrum of project management skills can be divided into four categories which are: project management process skill, interpersonal and behavioral skills, technology management skills and personality traits and skills. Behavioral skills include team building/ teamwork, oral and written communication, conflict resolution, negotiation, influencing, and leadership, delegating, coaching and mentoring. The four most crucial behavioral skills are team building through a selection of right people, assembling a capable team, identifying precisely what each person needs to be accomplished and effective communication through making honest and open estimates of the amount of work required (Kerzner, 2013). Without effective team building skills, no project can be successful as a project team always does a project. No individual can do it at his own. It is the combined effort of all team members which makes the project a success or failure. For a successful project, the project leader must ensure that his/her team members are happily aligned with each other and if they have any conflicts they must be resolved before starting the project otherwise their disputes will impact the project. For this purpose, it is essential to assemble a capable team. It can be achieved through influencing the skill of a project leader which is a leader, and good leaders don’t force their followers to work on their orders, they control their followers to build strong relations with each other and lay personal interest behind in favor of the combined benefit of the organization and work together. When two or more than two people are involved in the project, they communicate with each other and effective communication is the building block of good teams. When team members communicate with each other, it leads to better outcomes, otherwise if one link of communication gets broken it impacts the whole chain. That’s why effective communication both written and verbal are very critical for project completion. The communication between the project manager and the rest of the team hold the predominantly most value. The manager is responsible for communicating the right amount of work required from his/her team members. Honestly and openness can be more effective in such a situation rather than giving a negative estimate of workload and then burdening the team members with way more work than they were told. Honestly is required not only in communication the workload but also in communication the specific tasks of every team member. Before the project begins, the team must know what they are going to achieve and what role and responsibilities they will have during the project. For better communication and satisfied team, the interest of team member can be ensured through negotiation. Negotiation is the only way you reach an agreement that is beneficial for all the parties involved. Since the project is not taken place in space, it has stakeholders inside and outside the organization whose interest somehow gets attached with the project; a good project leader must have effective negotiation skills to reach a consensus among all stakeholders (Hoofmann, 2013).
Project budget is a reflection of tasks, resources and people deemed necessary for a project. A comprehensive project budget is a document which contains which tasks are to be done, which resources will be needed to complete those task and which team members will be involved for completion of different tasks. It provides management with insight and a clear view of how much funds will be required and how they will be spent, how much time will be needed to complete a task. For budget estimation, Work breakdown structure is used in Project management. The work breaks down structure or WBS is the basis of the project budget. It comprises of all necessary information for the outcome or product of the project. A decomposition technique is used for creating work break down structure where deliverables are defined as the lowest division of activities and are called ‘task.' The task is further described in their terms of producing deliverable and the cost of all the factors attached to it including the cost of labor, materials, facilities, services, and overheads. The sum of all the task and deliverables together makes the total estimated budget of a project. Most commonly bottom-up budgeting technique is used where complete tasks are summarized along with the cost incurred on every single of them creating an overall budget. Project managers create an estimated budget during the planning stage of the project where budget is built out on resources, planning, and the outcomes. Managers keep on making small changes as the project progress, but the cost must remain in the proximity of planned cost decided in the early stage of the project life cycle. The estimation for project budgeting originates from the prior project experience of the project manager or industry databases and vendor catalogs (Insight, 2019). Budget management is quite tricky, and it involves a lot of effort. The project manager is not usually from the finance department and getting the required budget even after it is approved is a hard task. The project manager must manage cash flows through various techniques including contingency reserves and management reserves. Contingency reserves are usually used when the required budget exceeds the estimated budget due to some inevitable circumstances. Management reserves, on the other hand, are used for such events when there is a change in the scope of the project. After the budget estimation when the project begins, and down the road at some point if the scope of the project needs to be changed or altered, additional budget requirements are fulfilled through management reserves. During the project, the project manager must evaluate the money spent on deliverables and tasks and match them with estimated and allocated cost to every task and deliverable and he /she must do it regularly, and it is also necessary to communicate this evaluation to managers and other stakeholders. For medium and high complexity projects, earned value analysis is used for assessment of the budget. It is done through the budgeted cost of work scheduled (BCWS) and budgeted cost of work performed (BCWP).
Risk identification at an adequate time is one of the critical responsibilities of the project manager. The sooner he/she realizes the risk, the sooner it will be catered and mitigated through effective planning. Risk identification is an important subject, and it must not be hand-over to someone else. The project manager must do it. Different methodologies are used for risk identification. For qualitative risk assessment, some of the methods used are risk screening, Pareto diagrams, failure modes, and effects analysis and project definition ration index. For quantitative risk analysis, different methodologies are used, and some of them are multivariate statistical models, event trees, system dynamics models. A general procedure used for both qualitative and quantitative risk assessment comprises of six steps. First project risks must be defined and written in a consistent format. Variety of risk identification tools and techniques must be used to analyze the situation and predict the future risks both qualitative and quantities. It is essential that the project manager and his team looks beyond the usual and predictable risk and deeply study the situation not to leave an unturned stone which could later become a threat. In the end, all the risks must be mitigated through effective planning and productive implementation of those plans (Zwikael, 2018).
References
Hoofmann, E. (2013). Project Management: Practices, Challenges, and Developments. New York: Nova Science Publishers.
Insight, P. (2019). Project Management and the Comprehensive Project Budget. Retrieved from Project Insight: https://www.projectinsight.net/project-management-basics/basic-project-budget
Kerzner, H. (2013). Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling. New York: Wiley.
Rouse, M. (2018). CIO guide to project management basics, DevOps and Agile. Retrieved from TechTarget: https://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/project-scope
Sarah. (2018, Oct ). How to define the scope of a project. Retrieved from totally. : https://totally.tech/quick-guides/how-to-define-the-scope-of-a-project/
Zwikael, O. (2018). Project Management: A Benefits Realisation Approach. In J. R. Symrk, Project Management: A Benefits Realisation Approach. Cham: Springer.
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