by Olufemi Oyedele

Created on: February 13, 2009

Since project management was first used in the 1950's in the USA military to execute projects, it has been used in various projects from engineering to business, manufacturing, information technology, media etc. Businesses now employ project management approach in their operations because of the apparent success it recorded in other areas. The basics are:

1. Project management concept: What is a project? What is management and what are the qualities of effective project managers? Project Management Institute (PMI) issued a standard, a guide and a methodology called "A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), pronounced (PEMBOK). PMBOK (2003), said "a project is a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product or service". The critical issue with this definition among a school of thought is that it does not say how the 'temporary endeavour' which creates the 'unique product' is done.

A later definition by (Muller and Turner, 2003) said "a project is a temporary organisation for which resources are assigned to undertake a unique, novel and transient endeavour managing the uncertainty and need for integration in order to deliver beneficial objectives of change". This novel idea shows that a project must be organised and that there must be resource, that is, time, material, labour or money, allocated for its purpose. Mount Everest will therefore not qualify as a project but the artificial hills at Chicago north which were developed through conversion of remnants of wastes recycling to landmarks can be described as projects. A project can be defined as a one-off task that has a begining and an end an in which resources has been commited to undertake it.

Management has been variously defined by different writers with the same connotation. (Fayol, 1949) said "To manage is to forecast and plan, to organise, to command, to coordinate and to control". E. F. L. Brech (1957) said "Management is a social process...the process consists...of planning, control, coordination and motivation". Koontz and O'Donnell (1984) said "Management is an operational process initially best dissected by analysing the managerial functions... The five essential managerial functions are: planning, organising, staffing, directing and leading, and controlling".

Globalism and the use of information technology have put pressure on the project team because of the challenges of the numerous requirements of the project owners and the project environmental issues. A project

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