Business or business organizations involve conceptualization of implementation of a specific plan designed for particular business outcomes. This particularity of business outcomes envisages putting up a well coordinated system for realization of the same. Forming a conglomeration of peoples, activities work schedules, methods, processes, all geared towards achieving a specific business objective, work or assignment, it works according to a plan to achieve the objective within a particular time-frame, with the available or additional resources. This whole process is given the generic name of “Project”, and coordinating all the activities within it to achieve the desired objective to perfection within the time frame is known as “Project Management” (Heerkens; 2001). Given the generic nature of the work as well as the outcome it can be said that every activity requiring a particular work to be completed within a particular time by using a particular amount of resources takes the shape of a project. In that way every activity, be that of building a township, a bridge, a subway project, oil refinery, steel production, manufacturing facility erection or even conducting a study to seek some particular information, data or have some desired outcome, all can be termed as projects. In that way projects are distinguishable from continuing work processes like manufacturing process, routine management work or doing daily chores, which are continuing in nature, with the distinguishing factor being a specific time for start and completion of a particular work. So, essentially, time is the core element of a project. As a result the inseparable part of a project is adoption of proper management systems and processes to complete the project within the particular time and cost (Levine; 2002). For this it is imperative that there should be proper planning to execute a project within the allotted time, cost and resources for which there should be proper planning for its implementation. Project planning and implementation within the allotted time by properly organizing it to maintain quality of execution, avoid risks and adhere to the project schedule by proper utilization of resources is key to the success of a project (Hillson; 2003).
This study essentially pertains to discussing the key aspects of project planning and control activities in order to successfully complete a project by adhering to the quality of execution of projects.
Project Management:
Project management essentially is the process of planning, organizing and managing the allotted resources given to a project in order to successfully complete the project’s objectives and program. As said, a project is one time work unlike a continuing process, and has a particular period of execution with a starting and ending time in order to meet particular goals and objectives that is aimed at bringing about a particular outcome(Kerzner; 2009). It means that the projects are different from usual business processes that have repeat value and are of permanent nature requiring routine functional work that is envisaged to produce different products and services. In actual practice, the two systems are quite different, thereby requiring the development of specific technical skills and adoption of separate management practices. Projects adhere top specific phases or stages of work processes.
According to Horine, project management process includes conducting feasibility studies, defining the project scope and objectives, planning the model to attain those objectives, implementing the plan according to design and scope, evaluating the process of implementation to ensure that the project is being implemented according to guidelines and quality along with provision of proper support and maintenance backup to protect against any hiccups in the implementation process (Horine; 2009). All these are required because project management is a meticulously planned and organized effort to attain a specific and single objective like building a flyover, implementing a software system or building a thermal power plant. It is for this reason only that the project management process includes developing a project plan, which includes defining the project goals and objectives, identifying tasks and goals to be achieved, quantifying the resources needed, and determining budgets and time period for completion and managing the implementation of the project plan, along with establishing control procedures to track the proper implementation of the project according to the objectives relative to the plan and intervene to restore the quality of implementation wherever required (Lewis; 2006). All these aspects constitute the project planning and control process.