Project management involves organization of tasks, time and resources for to achieve some specific goals. Such projects are normally of varying sizes and in different industries. The main responsibility of a project manager is to keep people on track in order to deliver the ultimate result on time. For one to be successful this career, he/she has to have some special skills which are only obtainable by going through training in project management.

It is however, not mandatory that you have a basic degree in management in order to obtain professional certifications in this field. Besides helping you learn the dos and don’ts of managing a project successfully, this training also gives you the confidence and tact in managing people as well as that rare opportunity to receive a better salary. Project management training thus arms you with valuable skills and knowledge such as planning, organization, communication with team members, timely application of various leadership skills and management tools, use of methodologies such as Prince2, cost estimation, facilitation of meetings and management of multiple projects. Other importance of training for project management can be summarized as follows:

- Achieving excellent product quality Since maintaining high quality is fundamental in product sales and marketing, project management helps achieve this through proper planning, budget allocation, resources and good testing methods to help achieve higher quality and quantity production. These trainings generally help project managers grasp the intricacies of control, quality and management. – Risk reduction strategies With today’s ever changing business environment, the probability of being hit by unexpected events has also tremendously increased. Using project management software and skills from WebActionHero, one can identify all the potential risks, rectify them and thus help the company in saving on resources. If the crisis is a major one, the management team can be advised to change its management method in order to achieve the desired results. – Crisis management

During the life cycle of a project, some unexpected crises may occur due to factors such as labor strikes, recession, funds shortage and natural calamities. In such situations, a project manager is always called upon to display utmost maturity and profound managerial skills in handling the issues. Project management thus equips one with the right skills needed to carry out such projects to their fruitful completion.

- Attaining strategic goals and objectives

Strategic goals are the main tasks undertaken by a company. A good example would be an infrastructure company that targets to construct bridges, dams and other civil works. By engaging people trained in project management, these strategic goals can be achieved through streamlining the tasks of the company in taking the important decisions and investing more on innovation to come out with ideas that can help increase the profit margin and build the firm’s reputation.

The project management lists of approaches include: Agile project management, Extreme project management which involves managing very uncertain and complex projects, Critical chain management which is a methodology that utilizes the required resources to fully execute project tasks, Prince2 which achieves the project objectives through planning, controlling and monitoring of the aspects involved in the project and motivation of all the people involved, Process-based management and Lean project management.

Some of the software concepts from http://www.webactionhero.com applied in project management are: software engineering, software development, Capability maturity model, Dynamic systems development model and Scrum.

A coworker just passed me a memo. The company I work for, especially my department, loves to send memos. All the fellow drones and I could wallpaper our cubes three times over with the memos we get and still have some left over to line our cats’ litter boxes with at home. This is a Fortune 500 company with computer terminals on every desk and a high speed internet connection that’s ideal for blogging and yet they still pass out the latest nebulous information on 8 1/2 X 11″ sheets of paper.

Not only do most of the memos have absolutely nothing to do with my position or anyyone else in my department’s position, they’re just some of the driest and most mind-numbingly boring write-ups you could possibly read. As a result we don’t really read them so much as we fake-read them and either toss them over to the next cube or, in my case, toss it into the trash.

So what sort of pressing news from the higherups has landed in my cube, you may ask? The first paragraph looks a little something like this:

Subject: Revised Vulnerability Assessment Procedures

XYZ’s Vulnerability Assessment Procedures have been revised. These procedures detail XYZ’s process for assessing network-based infrastructure for security vulnerabilities. Assessments performed include the following: Web vulnerabilities, external and internal network vulnerabilities, telephony vulnerabilities and third-party vulnerabilties. This document in its entirety can be found on the coporate intranet site at www.xyz.com/Pointless Policies & Forms/Misinformation Security.

There, aren’t you glad I shared?

If you walked by my work station and saw this memo sitting atop my desk you might think my work duties include hiding weapons of mass destruction or at the very least warding off corporate espionage. But no, I am a mere worker bee who, aside from helping John Q. Public over the phone, spends most of his time reading blogs or just wandering the cube farm asking Have you seen my stapler?

This was the third memo I received today, and one more found its way into my in-box just in the time it’s taken me to type this out. Meanwhile another memo is going around asking people to donate either money or school supplies for needy children. Am I the only one who sees the hypocrisy in all this? Maybe if the corporate bigwigs would put the kibash on all this paper squandering there’d be a few extra shekels to go into the little crayonless kids coffers. I swear, this company gives a new meaning to the words wastepaper basket.

You know, that reminds me. I need to take all my old scattered paperwork and dump it in the bin to be shredded. Yes, we actually pay a document disposal company who comes around, collects the top secret trash from the specially appropriated locked bins and shreds it on site. The bins are located right next to the large boxes labeled STYROFOAM PELLETS, DISPOSABLE DIAPERS AND OTHER NON-BIODEGRADABLES. Those I think they just throw into the nearest estuary.

Oh well, at least I’m up to date on the web and telephony security vulnerabilities.

Origami, anyone?