Project Management Summary

Project Management Summary

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CPMGT/301

December 7, 2015

Project Management Summary

In the business world, there are many varied types of management. One of these subcategories of management is the category of project management. This category is relatively self-explanatory on its face, but it is linked to many other disciplines within a business. An example of this would be strategic portfolio management. Strategic project portfolio management relates to project management in that it is, in a nutshell, a collection of all the projects a business is involved in. Project management refers to the practice of governing individual projects as part of the project portfolio. The two disciplines work hand in hand, but are, in fact, quite different.

Governance

When it comes to project management and strategic portfolio management, it can be dangerous to confuse the two. It can also be dangerous to govern each discipline according to the others' needs. Individual projects, though part of the strategic project portfolio, usually have their own sets of standards and require methods to complete specific objectives. When a project needs to be completed on a specific schedule with a finite amount of assigned resources, it is incumbent upon the project manager to make that happen. At this level, it is simply inefficient to waste time and energy ruminating about the effect this project will have on other projects, or even the strategic project portfolio as a whole. In a perfect world, it should be assumed, at the project level, that the portfolio manager has already made these determinations.

Conversely, project portfolio management may suffer if the manager gets involved in the minutiae of each project. Micromanagement can often be a signal that a manager is better suited to project management than program or portfolio management. "Project portfolio governance is a critical capability in the best of times. Project portfolio managers must navigate their projects...