Project Management

The reward of sound project management is, first of all, a satisfied customer. The customer could be some external organisation or a senior manager within your own organisation who requested the work to be done. You could also be the customer of your own project, for example, when you are renovating your house.

For contractors a successful project is often rewarded by increased future business and an improved market share.

For the project manager, a successful project brings the satisfaction of having led a successful effort, an improved reputation and, possibly, improved career prospects.

Too much specialisation is sometimes risky for one’s career: if the need for a specialised skill decreases, a specialist might have to start a different career from a lower level, or he or she might face unemployment.
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Through the ages, mankind undertook many different kinds of projects. Ancient projects typically involved construction and resulted in structures such as the pyramids, the Great Wall of China and cathedrals in Europe. In modern times man continued to build physical structures such as buildings, roads, bridges and railway systems and also developed a vast range of products such as motor cars and electronic equipment and even undertook space travel. All these endeavours involved projects.

Project management developed in the engineering industry and is still part-and-parcel of the work of most engineers in all parts of the world. The construction industry, aerospace and defence industries contributed significantly to the develop­ment of this discipline. However, project management also proved to be very effective in many other situations where change and uncertainty prevail. The result is that, during the last number of decades, project management has found wide application outside the engineering profession.
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On the lighter side of Project Management...

Project managers have been known as prima donnas: Dynamic, assertive people who understood the art of sticking to tight schedules and budgets. While projects still attract energetic people who like challenges and diverse work experiences, the prima donna status of project managers is gradually changing and their role demystified as project management becomes an established vocation and as companies increasingly develop standardized methodologies for managing projects.

When the term ‘project management’ was coined in the 1950s the emphasis was entirely on scheduling, budgeting and control. In 1981 when, as a young engineering manager, I first studied project management at the University of Pretoria, the emphasis was still to a large extent on scheduling, budgeting, control and project information systems (that ran on main- frame computers).
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