Project Management

When you enter into a group project, it’s always important to have effective project management. That might involve project plans, good communication and having fine tuning sessions to gauge where you are in your progress of the production. I am currently performing and executing a group project of my own at the moment, and this group experience has given me a stronger understanding of the importance of planning.

A project plan is supposed to be a guiding mechanism, not a document that you fight with. It is implemented in group scenarios to be used as an advantage and a schedule planner. I know a lot of group projects that have gone and produced quality productions without ever touching their project plan or even making one. However, the actual process of the production always turns out to be messy and unorganised.

Without having a plan, schedule and back-up plan, everything within the scope of the project can turn into chaos in the blink of an eye. Thats why it’s important when forming a group, to establish the basic positions of authority, namely, the leader of the group. Leadership is a crucial part of any group context, if not the most important, as it’s their job to drive and motivate the production team. In the end, the project manager’s work will ultimately determine if the project fails or not. It’s there job to follow the project from the beginning to the end to ensure that it will be finished before the due date. The project leader is responsible for keeping members accountable for their individual work as well, and effective accountability can keep a project on track. Once a leader is in command, everything should fall into place quite nicely, as the leader will be following the project plan extremely closely as a guiding mechanism.

Everyone has a plan: until they get punched in the face.
~ Mike Tyson

Good project management also incorporates quality control. This is to ensure that anything and everything that is being released, is of the exact same quality and no lesser quality than the previous release. This will help with having a similar group mindset as everyone will work to achieve the same consistent high standard.

Effective project management allows for stronger teamwork and communication within a group. Once a production group knows what they have to do and have specific roles assigned to them, they start to rely on other members of the group a lot more than they previously did. By the end of the production, the teamwork and communication within the group should be seamless. 

Once the project is complete, there is always knowledge to be gained in a post-mortem discussion about the project. This allows for any issues that arose in the project, to be worked on so that it doesn’t happen again to a project in the future.

Furthermore, project management is extremely critical when working within a group context. A leader needs to be appointed to guide the group through the whole process, to ensure that the end goal is reached. Group situations are a great learning tool, as there are so many things that you can take away from them. Therefore, effective project management is the thing that makes most projects run smoothly and produce a quality project.

References

Aston, B. (2017, May 22). Why is Project Management Important? Retrieved December 06, 2017, from http://www.thedigitalprojectmanager.com/why-is-project-management-important/

Mar, A. (n.d.). Why Project Management is Important. Retrieved December 06, 2017, from https://management.simplicable.com/management/new/why-project-management-is-important

10 Reasons why Project management matters Project Management. (2015, October 21). Retrieved December 06, 2017, from http://2020projectmanagement.com/2015/10/10-reasons-why-project-management-matters/