Project Management Best Practices

Project management processes and techniques are used to coordinate resources to achieve predictable results. All projects need some level of project management. The question is whether the project will be managed reactively or proactively—ad-hoc or in a structured, disciplined manner. Studies prove that most projects, especially large ones, do not end successfully. Given the odds, you might think that companies would be happy to just have their project finish with some degree of success using Project Management Best Practices. However, in spite of the odds, organizations also expect projects to be completed faster, cheaper, and with higher quality. The only way that these objectives can be met is through the use of effective project management processes and techniques through Project Management Best Practices. Consider the size, complexity, and other characteristics of your project, and build the right project management processes to effectively manage and control your project.

There’s a common saying among project managers: Plan the work and work the plan. In essence, that is the key to successful project management. You must first plan out the project and then monitor and control the execution of the program work. What follows is a step-by-step Project Management Best Practices approach.

There are various titles and recognitions for Project Management Best Practices along with tons of literature on the subject to sharpen your skills.  Let’s discuss some of them here. “Project Management Best Practices” Book: Project Management Best Practices book is somewhat of an accident. Curiously, although all project managers bandy about the term "best practice" and claim to have a number of them in their toolboxes, there are few project managers that want to put them in writing. It seems that recording best practices are a bit like "lessons learned" on project closeout. Everyone talks about their value to project management, but most never get around to writing about them. So, author decided to quit talking and start writing.

Project Management Best Practices Assessment: The Project Management Best Practices Assessment is designed to assess the organizational maturity against 30 Project Management industry best practices. It allows organizations with a project management practice/culture in place to assess itself against a 5-Level model of 30 PM best management practices.

Author laid out a couple of rules for the process. First, Author thought another textbook was just exactly what everyone didn't need, which led author to write the book in a conversational tone. You'll note the use of contractions and some attempts at humor where we thought it was called for. Second, since author are Project Management Professionals (PMP®) and are members of the Project Management Institute (PMI®),  author decided to invite PMP's® and members of PMI® chapters to send their best practices, with the expectation author would acknowledge their contributions in the Project Management Best Practices book, which, as you'll see, author did.

What author ended up with was a book on Project Management Best Practices Assessment: The Project Management Best Practices Assessment is designed to assess the organizational maturity against 30 Project Management industry best practices. It allows organizations with a project management practice/culture in place to assess itself against a 5-Level model of 30 PM best management practices. And some observations on project management encompassing not only running projects but working with people to get the projects done. However some of the Project Management Best Practices author included are clearly processes or could be. In any event author hopes what is in this Project Management Best Practices book will be useful to you and that you enjoy reading it.

The Project Management Best Practices is written with great affection for the project management profession. All of people who have worked on projects over the years have encountered problems and concocted solutions that remain in our collective memories. It's not possible to do a complete set of best practices on each project. Author knows, but hopes that some of the writing will trigger ideas for you as you go through your next one.

Who should read “Project Management Best Practices” book? The materials in the “Project Management Best Practices” book are intended for use by people who are practicing project managers or are thinking about becoming project managers. Author sent out requests to a large number of people for their "best practices," and got a very sparse reply. Since project managers all talk about best practices author thought there would be a lot more information coming. It didn't, so author wrote from both our experiences.

Some idea in the “Project Management Best Practices” book will help you be a slightly better project manager. In the case of the veteran project manager Author hope that the best practices will trigger memories of past projects. Author all go though common experiences as project managers and hopefully we will offer ideas on best practices that make the day and project more enjoyable. In fact, Author would like to think that if just one of them will work for you that the savings in pain or dollars will be more than the price of the “Project Management Best Practices” book.