“The better they define what they want, the more effortless it becomes for them to get what they want.  They give themselves over to an idea which they feel is just right for them.  The power to choose anything is a profound knowledge of the human mind.  How unique and how special you are is often less important than how you perceive your own uniqueness.  Experiments corroborate this a lot more then most would have thought” –  Dr. Einstein. If only Einstein has taken a PRINCE2 Foundation Course eh? haha.

Many project managers know the prime aim of management is to control, monitor and optimize the resources of a project with an objective to produce goods and services that exceed the expectations of the client.  The various departments that contribute to the management of the project should have a visible mandate to  prevent and take corrective actions when required.

Many of the project has a requirement of two or more departments.  However as the project progresses, there is the inevitable that many supporting departments will take independent stand on their own and it will make little difference to the larger project team with respect to third party entities.  This is why project managers should educate and include the customer in their project process.  Many times it is those supporting departments which have the least to contribute to that project that wonder why they are working on a project at all.

There are many areas of project management and different skill levels and experience for the various players.  Each player has varying levels of expertise in order to efficiently manage the process.  The project manager should educate their team on the various areas of the project.  Every team member should be given the task of educating other team members.  By establishing the culture that the project is important to both the customer and the team in as much as is possible, the project manager can begin to reap the benefits of commitment.

A competent project manager should conduct project monitoring on a routine basis.  The project monitoring procedure can be employed by the project manager in conjunction with his project team in enhance the communication process.  The second way to manage and measure the projects progress is through the use of metrics.  Metrics:

o    Use metrics to monitor project outcomes.

o    Create benchmarks and deliverables to explain milestones and other key areas of the project (this point of concentration is specific to project management knowledge.)

o    Metrics produce objectives on and show what each metric is.

o    It allows for effective communication with the project team.

o    Metrics and deliverables assist in defining the scope or extent of the opportunity.

o    Metrics and deliverables are not limited to the project.  They can be incorporated in enterprise wide vision into the overall strategic goal of the company.

o    Metrics and deliverables assist with risk management.

o    They can be established at any time within the project.

o    The metrics are accountable for the defined areas of the project.  The metrics rest on previous work done by the project manager in the past.

o    Metrics enable assessment and progress to be evaluated on existing processes and other team members.

o    It can gain team morale and commitment.

Metrics can also be a key component in the management of scope definition.  Metric and deliverable definition are the voice of the customer, quality reassurance.  There is also a real benefit to more effectively communicate the scope of the project to every member on the project team.

Many processes and products utilize metrics as the source of their metrics.  This is an excellent way to create an awareness on a new process however, as much benefit is derived from team building, there is a little more effort involved in establishing metrics as the accompanying tools of the process.  Using metrics as the basis of project metrics increases progress.  Metrics can be defined success factors as a means to develop the ten-annum metrics prospect.

The use of metrics can help with decision making.  Metrics gain commitment and increase involvement.  These metrics are often a key component of Goals- setting in conjunction with the overall vision of the company.