Over a 30-year career in IT, Ms. Cole has spent 20 of them as a project manager. She has served as a Software Delivery Lifecycle instructor where she incorporated project management principles for her students. She is currently an instructional designer (ID) / Project Manger (PM) for proprietary IT software applications. Ms. Cole is a member of Project Management Institute (PMI) nationally as well as her local Chicago Chapter. Ms. Cole also serves as a mentor to young professionals pursuing their PMP.
I’ve had a 30 year career in IT, with the last 20 years including the use of project management. I can’t image my IT career would have been so rewarding without including solid project management skills. Below are what I have found to be key benefits:
- Availability of up-to-date information regarding budget and timeline
- Risk and issue monitoring
- Resource Planning
– Availability of up-to-date information regarding budget and timeline
Tracking a project’s budget and tasks help keep a project on schedule and within budget.
When I inherited a project that was running behind in schedule, having up-to-date information regarding the timeline allowed me to “fast track” the project. I was able to get the budget increased by documenting cost issues and presenting the current state of the project to senior management.
– Risk and issue monitoring
One of my projects had a risk that could have caused a “show stopper” had I not designed a contingency plan. The company was selling the application overseas. The online help for the application being built needed to be translated in multiple languages. I was able to design a contingency plan to code the online help files that allowed the text for online help to be extracted and compiled separately in multiple languages. This saved the company approximately $400,000.
– Resource Planning
On a high level project, I realized that I did not have a resource with the necessary skillset. Working with management, I was able to get the needed skillset. If I had not effectively completed the project resource planning upfront, it may have been too late to get that resource when I needed it.
Project management is time well spent. I have found the old adage to be true.
I hope you find success by implementing project management principals to your projects.
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