Why Is Project Management Important

Nowadays we can’t imagine business world without different projects. This is why the implementation of project management approach is becoming not only popular but vital and necessary. Since basic principles and techniques of project management haven’t changed dramatically for the past decades, different research and academic papers in this field can still provide useful advice and guidance. In this paper the article “The role of project management in achieving project success” (Munns, Bjiermi, 1996) is under consideration.

Authors’ position

Munns and Bjiermi argue that there is confusion between project and project management and the main message of the article is to distinguish these two terms. Project is a set of activities which are to

Basing on previous research (Kerzner, Avots, Wit) the authors claim that success of a project management does not always lead to the success of a project itself and vice versa the failure of project management (for example, over costing or delays in schedule) does not imply that the project would fail. Project lifecycle is longer compared to the implementation period of project management. Project can be decomposed to six stages which include conception, planning, production, handover, utilization and closedown. Project management is applied for planning, production and handover only. So success of the project management can be measured when the project itself has not been completed yet, but the results are delivered to the

There are several important stakeholders involved into project who have certain impact in determining success of the project. They are the client, the project team, the parent organization, the producer and the end user. The client is one of the major actors and he or she is responsible for conception phase of the project clearly defining scope and actively participating in planning and production stages. The main purpose of the client is to achieve the stated target in order to meet the need which had led to the initiation of the project. The project management team’s role is to implement the project. However, the project team can not be fully responsible for the results of the project if the client is not paying enough attention on each project stage. The project team is more focused on achieving the stated task. The parent organization provides resources and administrative support for the project team which is accountable for the effective use of them. The producer manufactures the end product and the end user is a party who literally uses this product.

All in all, one of the ways to evaluate project performance Munns and Bjiermi suggest to apply is to look at the following three indicators: the implementation and results of project management (stages from planning to handover), the user evaluation of the product during the utilization phase and client satisfaction