The Importance of Time Management in Project Management
Managing a project for any organization, school, and university or even in personal life is an integrated task that makes provision for a learning experience for everybody associated with it. Any project management course offers new experiences, given both the personal and professional experiences gathered from the inception of the project to the conclusion (Wu et al., 2017). In this reflective essay, I would convey the experiences I have gathered throughout the processes of my course including my personal and professional experiences. In the personal experiences, I would share how the project management course has helped to convey significant lessons throughout the program for maintaining balance within family responsibilities and work-life. I would also share my thoughts on the most surprising elements I have learnt throughout my program. It would be later explained in the essay how both or either of these experiences has added up to my project management career (Walker, 2015). Following would focus on my professional experiences comprising of the class of Project Quality Management that I have found most relevant in the entire course and how it has helped me to advance in my career. Following would be the insights that I have gathered throughout my program and also the non-project management courses that have contributed to my ability of leading a project. The soft skills that I have learned during the program course will also be described in details concluding with few advices that I would like to share with people who would like to enrol for the program.
In any project course, it is necessary to convey that may however be the professional life is; it does not hamper any individual’s personal life. It should always be kept in mind that profession is a part of life, and not the entire life itself (Waheed, 2016). Therefore, it should only be considered as a proper course, if it helps in maintaining a balance between family and work-life. Time management is hence, a very important aspect of a project management procedure. I have come across the fact that in any project management procedure, the most important aspect is the scheduled time within which the project should attain its completion (Turner, 2016). Therefore, the entire procedure is about how every individual task is attained within a scheduled amount of time so that the wholesome procedure, that is an amalgamation of these individual procedures, can be completed wholly within the given amount of time. Thus, in my opinion, this program helps in teaching how to balance every task within the given time so that balance is maintained in all aspects of an individual’s life (Shtub & Rosenwein, 2018).
Team Implementation in Project Management
The most surprising thing that I have experienced in this course program for program management is the team implementation process. It also forms the most important stage of project planning altogether. It is generally established rapidly for the project to commence. The integration of an entire team to perceive the most productivity out of them and gaining complete ownership to the project is something that is done initially by a Project Director (Ramazani & Jergeas, 2015). It is essentially surprising about how the Project Director gains the foresightedness of implementing a number of people for a project by choosing the best people for the job. It depends on the different individuals, the skills they possess and the influence they have on the organization for which they have been serving.
The ability to implement time management and that of possessing the foresightedness to implement a team forms the base of making a project management move forward. Time and budget forms the most important factors in a project (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017). If I have the ability to manage time and incorporate it to deploy a perfect team required for the project, it may not be difficult for me to lead an entire project flawlessly. It would be much easier to move forward with the project management since the individual tasks comprising of the total project would be attained within or before the scheduled time.
During the course of my learning of a project management program, I have come across the fact that the most important measure for a Project Management program is customer satisfaction (Kerzner, 2018). Therefore, the project program is not only required to be completed within a scheduled time limit but it is also required that the project be completed with utmost finesse and all the project requirements are met according to the needs of the client. In my opinion, it is essentially important that the expectation of the customers are essentially handled well, also keeping in mind about the time required to complete the tasks (Kerzner, 2017). This makes it easier to maintain the quality of the project, which is absolutely essential to keep the customers satisfied.
Project management is not just concerned with the completion of tasks at the given proper scheduled time. It also focuses on how every single and individual task is handled at the simplest way possible (Heldman, 2018). The individual tasks handled in a project management make me realise that becoming a project manager would certainly help in gaining the understanding for the technical aspect of a work being carried out. Even incorporating and deploying a team with respect to their individual skills according to the understanding of the project is a major acquired knowledge (Heagney, 2016). All these would definitely add to the proper understanding about any task and establishing a broader network of contact within the organization and even out of it. This in turn leads to the pavement in the path of a career for any individual.
Customer Satisfaction as a Measurement of Project Success
As a project manager, the course shapes and sizes the logical steps that would incorporate all the acquired skills along with the learning outcomes that the course suggests (Fuller et al., 2017). As significant insights, I would like to lay a focus on the responsibility that a project manager sustains throughout the entire course of a project from its inception to its completion. The completion of a single task successfully makes a project manager accustomed to take on more complexes, larger and longer tasks than before (De los Ríos-Carmenado et al., 2015). Being a project manager, I think that the experiences gathered in this course opens up several options for further progression in the career. It can make a person be open to take up a task of a management consultant, a program manager, a portfolio manager, a project head or even a director of projects.
It is a known fact that having proper project management skills would impact upon the project handling methods. However, there are other associated skills as well that helps in the advancement of a project in a proper way, which are not really considered to be entitled as project management skills (Jong, 2017). These non-project management skills can include soft skills. Soft skills are the acquired knowledge by which a person handles a situation ethically and the way by which communication is handled within the project team. Handling an entire team and their problems as well is governed by the soft skill courses (Carvalho, Patah, & Souza Bido, 2015). As per my opinion, it is necessary that not just the task required for a project but also the individual people comprising the team should also be taken care of.
In my opinion, there is a huge impact of soft skills in the project management course. For attaining success in handling a project, soft skills of a leader or the director of a project impacts heavily. The relationship between identified soft leadership skills and success of project moderation is extremely positive (Binder, 2016). The soft skills make a project manager impact positively on a team by coordinating his skills in finding problems within the project and the team, analyzing and solving issues with finesse. If the team is handled properly and with ease, the project propagation would also be easy and without further fumbles. In addition to this, the assessment of further risks due to these problems would also be handled very well given the soft skills of a project manager.
The Role of Soft Skills in Project Management
All these learned lessons in the project management course starting from the personal and the professional experiences only had positive impacts on me. This course not only has made me aware of the technical skills required for this project but also had focused on how can I improve my soft skills and make them turn into the positive way to handle any complex work. This also ensures how to handle situations arising in the real life as well.
For people who are opting for this course, I would like to recommend them to definitely opt towards taking enrolment since this course enhances professional and personal skills all at the same time.
In conclusion, it can be said that the personal experiences that I shared in the essay depicts how the project management course has helped to convey significant lessons throughout the program for maintaining balance within family responsibilities and work-life. I also shared my thoughts on the most surprising elements I have learnt throughout my program. Later, I have also explained in the essay how both or either of these experiences has added up to my project management career. The essay had also focused on my professional experiences comprising of the class of Project Quality Management that I have found most relevant in the entire course and how it has helped me to advance in my career. I have presented my insights on the positive impact that soft leadership skills have on the project course including further advices to the people who would opt for the course in future.
References
Binder, J. (2016). Global project management: communication, collaboration and management across borders. Routledge.
de Carvalho, M. M., Patah, L. A., & de Souza Bido, D. (2015). Project management and its effects on project success: Cross-country and cross-industry comparisons. International Journal of Project Management, 33(7), 1509-1522.
de Jong, A. C. (2017). Gaps between skills for successful project management and project management framework education. Zeitschrift für interdisziplinäre ökonomische Forschung, (1), 107-114.
De los Ríos-Carmenado, I. G. N. A. C. I. O., Lopez, F. R., & Garcia, C. P. (2015). Promoting professional project management skills in engineering higher education: Project-based learning (PBL) strategy. International journal of engineering education, 31(1), 184-198.
Fuller, M. A., Valacich, J. S., George, J. F., & Schneider, C. (2017). Information Systems Project Management: A Process and Team Approach, Edition 1.1. Prospect Press.
Heagney, J. (2016). Fundamentals of project management. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.
Heldman, K. (2018). PMP: project management professional exam study guide. John Wiley & Sons.
Kerzner, H. (2017). Project management metrics, KPIs, and dashboards: a guide to measuring and monitoring project performance. John Wiley & Sons.
Kerzner, H. (2018). Project management best practices: Achieving global excellence. John Wiley & Sons.
Kerzner, H., & Kerzner, H. R. (2017). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Ramazani, J., & Jergeas, G. (2015). Project managers and the journey from good to great: The benefits of investment in project management training and education. International Journal of Project Management, 33(1), 41-52.
Shtub, A., & Rosenwein, M. (2018). Hands-on Project Management: Practice your Skills with Simulation Based Training. World Scientific Books.
Turner, R. (2016). Gower handbook of project management. Routledge.
Waheed, Z. (2016). Understanding Project Management: Skills and Insights for Successful Project Delivery. Facilities, 34(7/8), 493-494.
Walker, A. (2015). Project management in construction. John Wiley & Sons.
Wu, W. Y., Rivas, A. A., & Chen, Y. C. (2017). The role of team reflexivity as a mediator between project management skills, task familiarity, procedural justice, and product performance. Journal of Management & Organization, 1-20.
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