By Shambhavi Kapoor

Video Link: https://youtu.be/-wh9ZRF5Hkg

In continuation of the ‘Digital marketing and management series’, the 7th video tells us about ‘Project management processes’.

To put it in simple words, project management is the process of picking an idea and planning the entire process from scratch to implementing and closing it.
The video begins with citing a lot of examples of various techniques and models of project management that have been developed through the years, for example, The Six Sigma, The Waterfall Model, and the Agile process.
Project management is the sort of planning that takes care of every aspect of your project, no matter how big or small it is. It also helps you find the best possible path for your idea by calculating and assessing your need, time, money, and resources.

Suggesting a simple yet powerful strategy for project management, Ravi sir presents a well-designed model. This model comes from a person who has experience and specialization in quality translation management as well. And in later portions, you’ll also realize how experience matters.

Through a pictorial representation of the idea, we learn the basic steps of the procedure which include- ‘initiating’, which simply means initiating something, maybe an idea; ‘planning’ which is the part of taking the idea into potential assessment; ‘executing’ which includes physically implementing the idea as well as controlling and monitoring, and ‘closure’ which is the end of the project and might also include closing feedback for future references.

We will study them more deeply now. To note here, control and checkpoints are added in all the activities from their inception to their closure so that all needs and activities are monitored carefully and to ensure that needs are up to the mark and met timely. Keeping a record of your plans is very important because a blueprint of an already executed plan is beneficial and helpful. Through past experiences, you can rectify the same errors beforehand and even take tips of great ideas from previous plans. It helps you minimize the error and maximize efficiency. That’s why experienced project managers are considered very valuable for designing projects because they already have an assessment of a lot of things.

To understand and simplify the terms, we have an in-depth discussion on the various stages of project management.
Stage one is ‘Planning’ and it comprises the scope of an idea to determine its feasibility, its cost to decide the affordability, arranging finances, the timeline of the project which is important to calculate the entire cost of the project as well as assess the need of resources including human as well as materials to be procured for shaping the idea into reality.

After ‘planning’ of an idea for the project is done, ‘Scheduling’ comes into play. It helps to define the timeline for the supply of goods and services, human and material resources, sometimes health check-ups & recreation, communication, and other related activities so that project can be better managed and controlled.

After this follows the ‘Control and Execution of work’. It’s always easier said than done. To make sure that the execution of what we do goes hand in hand with control. This stage also helps us take the correct measures and allow planned work to happen. When everything is being done according to the plans, then timely notification of needs like Human resources or material resources can be taken care of. Unforeseen contingencies like machine breakdowns or technology mishaps can be systematically handled through a plan. Monitoring all activities is a vital step in ensuring the smooth functioning of the plan.

All of this is possible only through one very important key factor which is ‘communication’. Communication of any and every sort is important in any field. It’s the key to a successful plan. When you’re implementing a plan, parallel communication with the existing stakeholders is important. It helps them keep a tab of all the information as well as build confidence in the plan manager.

Along with communication, ‘documentation’ of plans is super important. This helps you keep a record of all your activities. It also acts as a reference point for future projects. Through this, we can always preserve our ideas to be used or referred to, in the future. It also helps in comparison as we can always analyze different plans and compare them if we have a record of all their positive and negative aspects as well as the feedback of each of them so that we use the best strategies from them to design new plans. It also helps us understand our scope of improvement and the things we need to take care of.

Holistically, through a project management plan, we apply ‘Total Quality Control’ by ticking all boxes, that is; act, plan, check, do. It makes the tasks easy, helps in controlling the cost of the entire project to effectively executing the entire plan, and ultimately winning customer satisfaction, which is always the end goal. All this helps in overall business growth.

Thus good project management is vital for making a bright future for your business.