A project is a temporary venture aimed at creating a unique product, service, or result. Despite the notable progress in project management, the share of unsuccessful projects is still quite high. Thus, in this article, we will analyze common project management issues log templates.
The essence of project management
The essence of project management is to manage the goals of the organization, which will allow the company to be successful in competition, respond quickly to external and internal changes, save time and money. Under the constant attention of the project manager are three points: time, budget, and quality of work.
Project management is the process of managing a team and project resources using specific methods that help the project complete successfully and achieve its goal.
The use of project management is really necessary and depends on such basic factors as:
- the scale of the project, scope of work, their cost;
- the complexity of the project;
- number and relationships of internal and external project participants;
- the presence of competitors;
- the conviction of the top management in the need for a special organizational structure and a person who will be responsible for the overall work on the project.
Project management, along with other processes that are part of it, also includes management of integration, project timing, cost, quality, human resources, communications, risks, and change and deviation management, ie ensures compliance with the principles of complexity and systematization, provides an opportunity to manage the project in many ways.
Project management can act as a tool for performing certain tasks of strategic or tactical management, the implementation of which is impossible or problematic within the normal activities of an industrial enterprise.
Project documentation in management issues
Some problems may arise at the stage of project implementation, so it is necessary to analyze their causes, the degree of negative impact on the project, to make decisions on how to overcome them. Some of the problems may be due to risks that could not be reduced at the planning stage. Defining work tasks and solving problems make up the largest part of the work in the project life cycle. Most of the problems that arise are related to the time limits, cost, risks, and product of the project or are at the intersection of all four factors.
Problem is an issue or subject of discussion on which no decision has been made and discussions are taking place or an issue or subject of discussion on which there are opposing views and differences. Problem management – identifying emerging issues, their analysis, decision-making and implementation, formal closure, and monitoring of project problems. This process begins in the project development phase and continues until the end of the project. But at the project planning stage, approaches are developed to register, analyze and respond to problems that may arise during the project implementation phase. It is impossible and unnecessary to predict future problems in the project, as they can affect any project structure and can be unpredictable.
The project management standard in the problem management section should reflect the formal side of problem management:
- Procedures governing the main stages of work with problems – problem identification, monitoring, and analysis of the problem, decision-making and implementation, closing the problem.
- Templates of documents that reflect the process of working with problems – problem card, project problem log, etc. The problem log consists of problem cards (card status – open / analyzed / in progress / closed).