At its core, project management is all about setting and achieving reasonable and attainable goals. It is the process of planning, organizing, and overseeing how and when these goals are met. Unlike business managers who oversee a specific functional business area, project managers orchestrate all aspects of time-limited, discrete projects. For instance, a project manager overseeing the development of a new product or service may manage folks from departments as disparate as marketing, IT/web design and human resources.

The project manager oversees the planning, implementing, quality control, and status reporting on a given project. He or she manages the project team, which typically consists of people from all the areas of the PM’s organization. The project manager is responsible for precisely defining the scope of the project; from the initial plan, to then managing the project including human resources and costs, identifying and minimizing potential risks and delegating effectively.

Effective risk and cost management is essential for any successful project manager. Potential risks and costs should be assessed from the outset of your project; otherwise you will undoubtedly encounter difficulties. Any professional company makes risk management part of their day-to-day tasks and include it in project meetings and the training of staff. Emulating this can only be a wise move.

The most efficient way to reduce costs and risks is to have an extensive set of contingency plans in place for any foreseeable problems. In this way you are better prepared to minimise the negative effects of any divergence from your plan. The plan, together with a solid contingency plan, will enable you prioritise and understand risks, and adapt accordingly.

To deal with threats you esentially have three options; risk avoidance, risk minimisation and risk acceptance. Avoiding risks means you organise your project in such a way that you don’t encounter a risk anymore. This could mean changing supplier, adopting a different technology or, if you deal with a serious risk, terminating a project. Wasting more money on a doomed project is clearly a bad investment.