Project Management 101: What is Project Management?
The art and science of herding cats
What’s a Project?
Let’s get out the jargon book as defined by the Project Management Institute and hereby declare (warning The Office reference) that a project is:
Temporary: it has a defined beginning an end. This means you can define resources and scope.
Unique: It’s a “specific set of operations designed to accomplish a singular goal.”
Examples: Building the Golden Gate Bridge, responding to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, developing the new AirPods at Apple etc.
What is not a project? This gets tricky as non-project work is typically defined as Business As Usual (BAU) routine work that your organization does (that is ongoing and continuous). For example, if you’re a frontend engineer your BAU could be prioritizing site bugs and triaging, but you also could be working on a project of launching an exciting (relatively) API-driven feed on your company’s website.
What’s Project Management? (Formal)
It’s the “application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements.”
What’s Project Management? (Informal)
It’s herding cats to get sh*t done.
So…what’s “Herding Cats” all about?
It’s about getting things done with cross-functional teams. This publication will be focusing on the ins and outs of project working, building teams, managing projects, but also diving into specific knowledge in fields across technology, real estate, and more. I’m excited to start this journey with you! Subscribe here.