Chapter 2 -- Key Ideas

1. Chapter 2 provides the fundamental principles of the Project management.  To understand these principles, we should give clear definitions for many of the key concepts in the project management, such as,  what is a project, what are the ongoing operations, and what kind of result can be regarded as a success.  The projects are all the work that is done in one time. It has two major characteristics: on one hand,  it must has a beginning and a end, on the other hand, every project has to produce a unique product.  The characteristics for uniqueness and temporary distinguish a project from any normal ongoing operations.
2. Managing a project will face various kinds of challenges.  First, one has to be able to work and motivate people with different type of skill set. Second, he has to provide accurate estimation about the cost and schedule of the project. Third, project manager sometimes has to work with people who are not directly under his/her authority.  Fourth, the project manager has to be able to control project progress, time schedule, and budget situation.  Finally the ultimate challenge for the project manager is to meet the cost, schedule and quality goal of the project without hurting your human resources.
3. How do we evaluate a project management is determined by how we are going to define the success for the project management.  Normally we believe that a good project management should deliver high quality product on time with great scope and performance, and also under the given budget.  However, in real practice, due to various pressures from customer, market schedule, limited budget and manpower, project manager will face great challenge in conducting the project management.  They have to balance the cost, schedule, and quality and to create the optimal cost-schedule-quality equilibrium.
4. A good project management requires high level techniques or the functions. These functions form the responsibilities for the project managers. Project manager should start the project with a clear definition, then make a good planning, and finally execute the plan with good control. Sometimes, new situation may happen that is not expected in the original plan. The project manager needs to constantly check the plan and the progress course of the project, and make the modifications for the plan when it is necessary.
5. Project has its own life cycle which contains four phases:  define, plan, execute and close out. Project manager should distinguish the project life cycle from the product development life cycle.  The product development life cycle should be industry- specific, it describes the work required to create the product. In contract, the project life cycle should be industry- independent, and it will focus on the managing the work.