What Exactly is Being Managed in a Management Program?

1. What is PMP？

PMP refers to Project Management Professional. It is a qualification examination initiated by the Project Management Institute (PMI) of the United States to assess whether project managers strictly have high-quality knowledge and skills. Its purpose is to provide project managers with a unified industry standard.

At present, the certification exams established by the Project Management Institute in the United States include: PMP (Project Management Division) and CAPM (Project Management Assistant), and these two have set up certification examination bodies in more than 190 countries and regions around the world.

After reading this paragraph, is this the content related to management, and is it up to Party B to learn how to complete the project higher, faster and stronger? Initially, that's how I understood it, and I learned how to go through the various stages to complete the project with quality and quantity to complete it better; however, as I read deeper, I gradually realized that I seemed to have some new insights.

2. What is a Project?

Everyone is saying we have a large project this year, but no one seems clear about a large project. A large project usually costs 1 billion dollars or more, affecting millions of people and lasting for several years. However, large projects are relatively easy. They only need to consider the interdependence of the project itself and not involve other projects. The project is temporary work to create a unique product, service, and success. No matter how big or small, its essence does not change.

A program is a group of projects, subprograms, and program activities that are managed with each other and are managed in a coordinated manner. It needs to consider the dependency between projects within the program; At this time, any failure of one project will affect the rest of the projects.

The project portfolio refers to the projects, programs, sub-project portfolios, and operational work managed to achieve strategic objectives. The priority of the project portfolio needs to be considered.

So, a project:

• It may be an independent project;
• It may be a project in the program;
• It may be a project in a project portfolio.

3. How to Manage the Project?

We specify and control our work in a structured way to achieve strategic and operational objectives by formulating policies and processes. A project is divided into the following parts during the process:

• Before the project starts
• Start the project
• Project organization and preparation
• Execute project work
• Complete project

Each phase of the project process needs to be reviewed, that is, the project gate. And each phase has a point in time; for example, if our DDL is next Monday, then at least we should start the project this week, begin the project and start organizing the preparation on Tuesday, execute it on Wednesday to Friday, and finally complete the project on the next Monday. We can only ensure the project is completed on schedule by controlling the control points at each stage and reviewing them.

4. Project Management Needs to Manage the Life Cycle of the Project

The life cycle of the project includes the following:

• Starting the project
• Organizing and preparing the project
• Executing the project
• Finishing the project

Each stage has content that needs to be provided. For example, the project charter needs to be provided at the project startup stage, the project management plan needs to be provided at the project organization and preparation stage, the deliverables need to be provided at the project execution stage, and the archived project documents need to be provided at the final project completion stage. The higher the cost of change as the lifecycle progresses, the lower the risk of project failure. Therefore, the demand analysis before the starting phase becomes particularly important, and it is necessary to accurately judge the real demand and the false demand.

We need to judge from the following seven aspects:

• Market demand
• Customer requirements
• Social needs
• Legal and regulatory requirements
• Strategic Objectives and Business Requirements
• Environmental factors
• Technical progress

In the early stage, if we grasp these seven points, the probability of project success will be improved to a certain extent.

5. Let's Look at the Following Scenario and How to Apply it to Our Project Management？

5.1 Determine the attributes of the project

The industry where the author works is the TOB management system, which is divided into the pipeline, supplies, finance, document, decision-making, performance, and other systems. We can regard these systems as projects one by one. However, they are related to each other, for example: 

The pipeline is in charge of all store data, and the supply system needs to get some data from it. Therefore, the supply and pipeline systems can be used as a program; If the pipeline data is inaccurate, or there are some deviations in the pipeline, such as inaccurate data, interface problems, etc., these will lead to the failure of the supplied project.

Therefore, if we want to do well in the supply system, we must do well in the pipeline project first, and the two complement each other.

The data of the decision system is sales data, and the performance system needs to take some sales data from it as one of the index items of performance assessment; at the same time, we also need to take some store data from the pipeline system as one of the index items; therefore, the decision system and performance system are a program.

The financial and office systems are two independent projects. They are not interfered with by other projects but are only affected by the project itself. The success or failure of the project itself is only subject to the internal adjustment of the project.

These projects form a portfolio, and their overall success or failure will affect the success or failure of the organization's strategic objectives.

5.2 Determine the life cycle of the project

Let's take the pipeline system as an example. First, we need to conduct a demand analysis of the pipeline system.

The analysis method is to analyze the following content:

• Market demand (a pipeline management system is currently needed in the market to help users manage pipelines);
• Customer requirements (our users currently need a pipeline system to manage stores, special managers, and other groups);
• Social needs (not yet available);
• Legal and regulatory requirements (not yet available);
• Strategic objectives and business requirements (revenue generation);
• Environmental factors (not yet available);
• Technological progress(not yet available)

By analyzing the above, we found that the requirements are feasible and in line with the company's strategic goals.

Next, we start the project. When we start the project, we need to provide a project charter, which includes the following:

• Specify the scope of the pipelines project (such as what belongs to the pipelines and what does not belong to the pipelines and needs to be provided by other systems)
• Constraints such as quality, time, cost, and deliverables

The project management plan needs to be provided in organizing and preparing the project. The project management plan includes milestones (for example, what needs we will complete at the end of April and what use effect users will achieve), stage goals, etc.

In the execution stage of the project, we need to provide deliverable acceptance products. During the execution process, we will encounter user change; however, after determining the stage goals, we must provide related products at each stage, such as in the first stage. In the first stage, we provide the process for the user to build a new store; in the second stage, we provide the process for canceling the store.

At the end of the project stage, we need to deliver the process documents generated in the normal project process, such as requirements documents, operation manuals, technical documents, implementation deployment documents, etc., to the user for acceptance.

6. In Conclusion, What Exactly is Being Managed in a Management Program?

The answer is clear at a glance, and the management project is ultimately in managing people and things.

In terms of expansion, it is:

• People: employee capability and organizational mechanism;
• Things: communication and coordination within the project, correlation, relationship between projects, and consistency between projects and strategic objectives.

If you wish to understand a matter profoundly, you must gain it through personal practice; you will only be able to learn the surface of the matter by reading books. We need to do a lot of things at each stage. Only by doing a good job at each step can we have the project's final success.

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