To many, a Project is a process that results in the creation of some tangible asset, like "a building" or "a computer system".  However, just about any new business initiative that results in change can be classified as a project for the purposes of Project Management.

Project Management is the method used to plan, monitor and control projects, in order to achieve desired objectives, in the most expedient and cost effective way for the organization business.

 

Project Management Office

In any organization that undertakes significant numbers of projects concurrently, there are always conflicts present, usually arising from the competition for human, financial or physical resources.  This conflict is compounded from the different perspectives taken by people with different roles or job functions.  In order to be effective, a Manage-by-Project organization needs to recognize the different roles and to have clear methodologies for prioritizing work and measuring performance.

 

The major roles and impacts of the Project Management Office are:

1. •Visibility of what the organization is doing.
   

2. •Projects alignment with business goals.
   

3. •Accountability of who will deliver what projects and when.
   

4. •Metrics of how people and projects are performing.
   

5. •Manage the project mission critical processes and manage the decision-making process.
   

6. •Establish the organization internal and external resource capacity.
   

7. •Connect to the broadest selection of global resource pools.
   

8. •Balance the supply and demand of highly skilled workers, and strategically manage skills inventory.   
   

9. •Align your most skilled resources with the most strategic engagements.
   

10. •Track and control resource time and expense across multiple engagements.
    

11. •Capture and share intellectual capital and best practices with all practitioners.
    

12. •Evaluate the performance of a particular project, team, and program or business area.
    

13. •Evaluate and track program team and suppliers performance.
    

14. •Estimate, deliver, and measure project portfolio success.
    

15. •Demonstrate business value.
    

16. •Monitor program risks, issues and changes.
    

17. •Balance resource supply and demand.   
    

Management-by-Project organizations must use Quality Systems to be fully effective.