Understanding Strategic Terminology and Process, Essay Example

Project management refers to a discipline within an organization that deals with planning, controlling, organizing as well as motivation resources towards achievement of specific goals. There are a number of strategic terminology and acronyms that are used by business managers and professionals in project management. It is important to have an understanding of these strategic terminologies which is a determinant of success in project management (Cleland & Roland, 2006). Agile Project Management is an important terminology in project management which implies to methods responsible for promotion and encouragement of teamwork, effective control, stakeholder involvement and development iterations. Assumptions in project management Involves all factors that play a vital part in the success of the project and they are assumed to be in place. Balanced Scorecard is used to mean tools of performance management responsible for determination of alignment of small scale activities of operation to large scale objectives considering strategy and vision.

Strategic process and the values imply to top level organization processes that require the attention of project managers in the organization. The tasks in this category requires the attention of managers with intellectual capability of significantly high profile since their effects are widely spread in the project and the entire organization and they are only comparable to the processes that are performed by the human brains. Their value in the organization is therefore considerable high and greater attention is required in handling them.

PEST Analysis is an acronym for Political, Economic, Social, plus Technological factors. PEST analysis thus refers to a tool of strategic planning that evaluates the impacts of P.E.S.T in the project though consideration of external environment (Albert, 2004). Gantt Chart implies a popular bar for project management used for tracking important tasks and their interdependencies with progressing time. Milestone in project management means a significant event in the course of the project life is called a milestone including project deliverables and noteworthy achievements. PERT Chart, an acronym for Program, Evaluation, Review, Technique and refers to a tool for scheduling, coordinating as well as organizing important tasks in the project. Other terms that are used interchangeably include network chart, precedence diagram or logic diagram (Harrison & Dennis, 2004).

Portfolio Management in project management means coordinating management of projects portfolio with a spirit of achieving objectives of the business. Project Manager is person trusted with overall responsibilities of planning and implementing a project up to its successful completion (Martin, 2002). Resources refer to all requirements for successful completion of a project with particular interest on funds and labor force. Risk implies to a possibility of occurrence of external event with negative impacts to the project. Risk is a combination of the likelihood of occurrence of unfavorable event and the potential impact that it can bring to the project when it occurs. If the possibility of the two aspects are high, then it is in order to put in place measures if its management (Harold, 2003). Risk Management in project management is a subset responsibility in project management dealing with identification of risk, its quantification, methods of risk response as well as risk response control. The implication of Six Sigma in project management is a philosophy of management requiring that exceptionally high objectives are set, and data collection and analysis done to the finest degree leading to a drastic reduction of defects in services as well as products (Cleland & Roland, 2006). Stakeholder refers to any person either internal or external to a firm with vested interests in the project. Critical Success Factor in project management is any factor that is associated with achievement of success in the project. Deliverable in project management refers to concrete or vague object that arise out of project execution. Baseline in project management refers to any approved item of configuration such as project plan. Critical Path Method, CPM in project management means the applicable technique in predicting anticipated duration that the project is likely to take through an analysis of activities requiring least scheduling flexibility.

References

Albert, H., (2004). Handbook of Project Management Procedures. TTL Publishing, LtdCleland, D.I. & Roland, G., (2006). Global Project Management Handbook. McGraw-Hill Professional.

Harold, K., (2003). Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, & Controlling 8^th Ed. Wiley.

Harrison, F. L. & Dennis, L., (2004). Advanced project management: a structured approach. Gower Publishing, Ltd.

Martin, S., (2002). Project Management Pathways. Association for Project Management. APM Publishing Limited.