Chief Product Team 
Let us have a Project Management overview in this section. We will also discuss how Project Management gives an impact in today’s industry. Let’s find out.
Project Management Overview
Project management is the process of managing a team and its resources to complete a task successfully from beginning to end. Planning activities, tracking progress, allocating resources, recognizing limits, and completing the work within those constraints are all part of the process.
In addition, project management emphasizes the need to control costs and schedules, while maintaining quality and customer satisfaction. Project managers have a great impact on development and critical tasks. They are responsible for project schedules, budgets, and resources.
They have to make sure that their projects are completed within time, cost, and quality expectations. To achieve this, they have to consider the following main functions:
- Estimating and forecasting
- Planning
- Organizing resources
- Initiating work
- Directing work
- Controlling progress
- Closing out work
Project Management in Today’s Industry
Project management is a critical aspect of IT projects. It ensures that the project is completed within time, cost, and quality expectations. With the recent project failures in industries such as banking, healthcare, and insurance, project managers play a critical role in the success of projects. Project management is not just about managing people and resources; it is also about managing information. It means defining the scope, establishing a baseline for the project, and then controlling the project to meet its goals.
Tools for Project Management
Project Management uses various tools to achieve success. Some of them are discussed here:
1) Microsoft Project
To plan and control projects properly over time and cost, Microsoft Project is the best tool available on the market. It enables you to schedule multiple resources and work streams concurrently. Also, it tracks progress throughout the entire project life cycle, assigns resources to tasks or changes resource assignments quickly, plans and tracks your budget effectively for each task or the entire project or an entire portfolio of projects at once. It helps you to plan and manage your resources effectively by providing you with comprehensive reporting capabilities that allow you to control your entire project from beginning to end.
2) MS Excel
MS Excel is a computerized spreadsheet program that helps users to analyze data and perform calculations quickly. Excel also comes with hundreds of built-in functions that automate most math, database functions, engineering calculations, financial modeling functions, etc., which makes it very easy to create sophisticated spreadsheets without any programming knowledge or experience. Excel has now become an integral part of most business operations as well as business applications like CRM (Customer Relationship Management), ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), etc. The use of Excel has also become vital in Project Management as it can be used by Project Managers to create Gantt charts easily which are widely used in most PM tools.
3) PowerPoint
PowerPoint is a presentation software developed by Microsoft for Windows. Originally designed for Macintosh computers in 1987 under the name Presenter, it was eventually ported over to Windows PCs in 1989. PowerPoint offers many features that are not available in other Microsoft Office applications or most other presentation software. It is especially useful in the creation of slide shows, which may be used for presentations to a live audience or may be saved as files and sent by email or posted on the Web. In addition to creating slideshows, PowerPoint enables users to create charts, animations, sounds, and videos to include in their presentations. It also has tools for creating diagrams and flowcharts. With PowerPoint, it is easy for users to create online presentations for live audiences or for posting on websites and sending through email.
