Critical Thinking Questions - Project Management Essay

Critical Thinking Questions - Project Management - Essay Example In studying a project life cycle, one will find that the phases within a project create deliverables and these deliverables allow the project to move forward to the next step or allow the project to be terminated based on quality outcome or condition of the phase deliverable. If we consider the project life cycle, with its one or more intermediate phases, we would find that projects do share many characteristics. A project is a unique endeavor to produce a set of deliverables within clearly specified time, cost and quality constraints. It is different from standard business operational activities as well as from processes as they: 1) are unique in nature without any repetitive processes; 2) defined by a timescale; 3) have an approved budget; 4) have limited resources; 5) involves an element of risk; and, 5) achieves beneficial change. (Westland 2006, p. 2) Meanwhile, all projects, from technology to architecture, are composed of processes – the series of actions with a common, parent goal in order to create result. It is important to highlight the aspect that people perform processes. Processes within project management monitor and move the project phases along. There are two types of processes. These are the product-oriented processes, the activities that complete a project’s phase and life cycle; and, the project management processes, which are the activities that are universal to all projects. (Phillips 2003, p. 85) One of the major problems in project planning is identifying how long tasks will take and what it will cost to accomplish them. Inaccurate estimate is a major threat to a project’s success and that missed cost targets could cause trouble and recrimination in project management. The Work Breakdown Structure or WBS is the most useful tool in addressing these problems. The idea of this method is to subdivide a complicated task into smaller tasks, until one reaches a level that cannot be further subdivided. Through this