Project management
Management
Project management is a set of actions for implementation of projects derived from the objectives of the companies, within the agreed budget, time, and scope, and taking into account the risks and benefits for the company.
Technical writers should understand the concept of project, understood as a business venture carried out under conditions of globalization and the systematic development of IT technology, ways of communication within teams having various competencies, using a new generation of communication systems, remote problem-solving, and using the knowledge of experts and network services. Technical writers need to understand and apply methods of project management. In every case, planning must take into account necessary resources such as funds, personnel and time as well as workflows and relevant interfaces, e.g. with suppliers.
This topic outlines the principles and methods of project management. It covers the phases of project management, like project kickoff, planning, running a project, controlling, reporting and archiving. Furthermore, it also focuses on competencies needed for effective project management, like change management and risk management.
- Understand the basic principles of project management
- Understand the stages and content of the stages in project management
- Know about tasks, objectives and need for project management
- Know the areas of application for project management methodologies
- Create requirement and functional specifications
- Know about the organisational roles in projects, competence requirements placed on a
- project manager and the project team
- Know about methods of managing interfaces and deliveries
- Know the project management tools and techniques
- Use project management models (e.g. Waterfall)
- Know the project management methodologies (e.g. Scrum, PRINCE2, agile approach, extreme programming)
- Know project management techniques (e.g., Gantt chart, PERT)
- Know about the requirements placed on a project management tool
- Use project management tools (e.g., MS Excel®, MS Project®, Mindjet MindManager®)
- Use of appropriate tools for time management
- Know how to identify the information resources to risk management in the project
- Use appropriate tools for time management
- Prepare and implement changes to the project
- Assess progress of a project/success of a project during the project
- Conduct post-project assessments to determine best practices for next time
- Know the phases of project planning
- Convey a project context analysis and definition
- Do task and performance planning
- Estimate effort and resource planning
- Do the cost planning
- Know about workflow, deadline and resource planning
- Conduct an assessment and the prioritisation (e.g. work packages)
- Define the critical success factors in project management and in communication within the project
- Identify risks and manage risk within the project
- Know about Risk Management methods
- Do project risk planning
- Know how to identify the information resources to risk management within the project
- Identify categories and sources of risk - internal, imminent, introduced during implementation
- Understand the concepts of risk modelling and evaluate the correlation between different types of risk
- Understand approaches to recognition of risk, its measurement and risk prevention in the aspects of cost and the integration of communication technology
- Monitor risk, create channels of communication to inform stakeholders
- Define, analyse and monitor key project indicators and success factors of the project
- Conduct project controlling tasks, methods and procedures
- Determine and manage critical paths
- Perform time management in products and typical “time guzzlers”
- Define measures in the event of deviation from plans
- Follow and make changes to the project documentation
- Coordinating tasks and activities and information management within the project and with the world outside the project
- Know about project communication and manage communication in the project
- Know about project communication tasks and objectives
- Know about change management methods
- Prepare and implement changes to the project
- Implement changes based on mid-project assessments
- Know communication strategies accompanying change management measures
- Know about change management approaches (e.g. participation, integration, leadership, training)
- Know the ways of project reporting
- Define and monitor key project figures
- Prepare status reports
- Do project presentation (e.g., to steering committee and outsiders)
Archive all project results and project-relevant information (e.g., information products, supplier’s documentation, service provider’s documentation, certificates and declarations as well as internal information)