Answer

Aspects for a Successful Project Management

According to the project management institute, a project refers to a momentary effort commenced for crafting an exceptional product, service or outcome (Collins, Parrish, & Gibson, 2017). Project management refers to the diverse application of knowledge, techniques, tools and relevant skills to project activities purposely to meet the requirements of the project (Harrison & Lock, 2017). Basically, project management encompasses the organization and management of resources to attain a defined goal. Several aspects are aligned with the success of a project as discussed in this paper.

Recently, I took part in a project of initiating an electronic health record system within a certain state county hospital. Although the duty was quite heavy, we managed. There were several significant aspects of project management that enabled the entire team effectively manage the myriad of project sections. From this experience, I discovered that the most important aspect of project management for a successful project completion is the planning phase. Collins, Parrish, and Gibson (2017) also agrees that the most essential phase of any project is the planning process. Just as the old adage puts it: if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Arguably, project planning is still the most significant role of a project manager. Of essence, our planning session was properly organized and was practiced as a team exercise.

It is also critical to understand that project plans may be adapted or switched depending on the prevailing situation (Harrison & Lock, 2017). Accurate planning, as our formerly adapted strategy, enabled our team to reduce unnecessary project costs, estimated project duration, improved the quality of work delivered, and increased in-built flexibility, especially whenever uncertainties arose (Collins, Parrish, & Gibson, 2017). Proper planning went a long way in facilitating the execution of project targets. As with several other things within a corporate environment, support from the stakeholders and overall management is important to the success of any project. The management extended a lot of support systems both at the start of the project, where we were able to secure corporate sponsorship and approval and ran throughout each point and milestone in the journey to confirm that budget and scope did not creep along our path to project completion. This too was out of proper planning from the beginning.

Proper planning also entails effective communication within the team (Collins, Parrish, & Gibson, 2017). For our project, effective communication was achieved through regular briefings and meetings. These were critical as they helped to analyze and iron-out vital project-related concerns (Harrison & Lock, 2017). Team members were able to point out their issues in relation to the project, which allowed them to voice their opinions regarding various aspects. The project was facilitated by leaders who had trustworthiness, fairness, focus, transparency, and consistency during operations. All plans were executed under a common agreement and which did not go beyond the estimated project budget. The strategy challenged the rest of the team members to rise way above frustrations and other particulars of team dynamics. Always, they took the (HOT) high road.

It was understood that working as a team needed a high level of coherence. Each member had their own strengths and points of weakness. Our project manager identified what these factors were at the very beginning stage of project planning, which enabled him to assign tasks accordingly- not on basis of who should possess particular sets of skills, but the particular members who actually have the appropriate skills. These strengths were wisely used for diverse project tasks.