Project Management

The Association for Project management (2017) defines project management as ‘the application of processes, methods, knowledge, skills and experience to achieve the project objectives. A project is a unique, transient endeavour, undertaken to achieve planned objectives, which could be defined in terms of outputs, outcomes or benefits.’ It emphasis the fact that project objective will only be met if the project management is successful. Your objectives are the goal of the project and our title.

Our objectives of our project where to:

·         Raise the achievement of boys in reading at St Mary’s Catholic School

·         Improve the library and maintain it

·         Create a display

·         Create a partner reading scheme for Key Stage Two

To help manage the project and organise our project we created a schedule. At first we used a Gannt Diagram however, we found this unclear and felt a schedule and project plan worked better for us and was more effective to use. O’Reilly (2008) states that a schedule is a contact between the participants of the project. It helps confirm what each individual has to do and by what time they had to do. Our schedule was colour coded so it was clear which tasks was each person responsibility. We also had a column which had a date of when the task had to be completed, this helped with time management. O’Reilly (2008) argues that having a schedule helps individuals see the effort and time invested and therefore, encourages individuals to link together their work and not let their team down by not completing the individual activities.

When planning a project is important to understand the customers perspective (O’Reilly, 2008). In 

our project the Deputy Head teacher was our customers and we met with him on the 16^th October to discuss his needs which then allowed us to set the objectives of our project.

Young (2003) states that before the project starts the most important thing to do is create a project title. The title of our project was ‘to raise the achievement of boys in reading at St Mary’s Catholic school.’ Setting this title allowed us to identify the purpose of the project and refer back to it. Throughout the project we would continue to ask ourselves whether the outcome of what we were doing would raise the achievement and gain the interest of male pupils. I feel this was key to our project.

We also identified Sienna as the project manager. Appointing a team member to become a project manager allows them to oversee the project, ensure it is running smoothly and on time, control the project and delegate the tasks fairly (Young 2003). As project manager Sienna decided to set weekly team meetings. Meetings allow you to keep on top of things and communicate effectively to complete the project (Greer, 2003). Sienna would use the schedule during the meetings and highlighted what had been done since the previous meeting. We were then able to discuss what we had done, read each other’s work and delegate the next week task. Communicating using the schedule worked extremely well and created effective project management.

Overall we feel our project management was successful as we met three out of the four objectives. A strength to our project management was the schedule and weekly meeting. Without communication our project management would not have been as successful. Our research on communication helped with this and realised how dominant it is in a project.