Project Management Best Practices: Achieving Global Excellence, 4th Edition

1 Understanding Best Practices

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Project management has evolved from a set of processes that were once considered “nice to have” to a structured methodology that is considered mandatory for the survival of the firm. Companies are now realizing that their entire business, including most of the routine activities, can be regarded as a series of projects. Simply stated, we are managing our business by projects.

Project management is now regarded as both a project management process and a business process. Therefore, project managers are expected to make business decisions as well as project decisions. The necessity for achieving project management excellence is now readily apparent to almost all businesses.

As the relative importance of project management permeates each facet of the business, knowledge is captured on best practices in project management. Some companies view this knowledge as intellectual property to be closely guarded in the vaults of the company. Others share this knowledge in hope of discovering other best practices. Companies are now performing strategic planning for project management because of the benefits and its contribution to sustainable business value.

One of the benefits of performing strategic planning for project management is that it usually identifies the need for capturing and retaining best practices. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. One of the reasons for this difficulty, as is seen later in the chapter, is that companies ...