The 4 Essential Elements of Project Management

As a project manager, it’s your job to ensure the success and smooth sailing of whatever you’re working on at any given moment. From preventing overblown budgets and missed deadlines to ensuring stakeholder satisfaction and compiling the right team for the job, the responsibilities are endless and the pressure is high.

To be great at project management, you must have an in-depth understanding of the 4 key elements that will make up each project you work on. These 4 elements are all interrelated and their success is dependent on every step being carefully planned and expertly performed. Using the four basic elements, you can prepare appropriately for the road ahead and put together a project with realistic goals, appropriate objectives and hopefully, impressive results.

1. Resources

The resources you’ll need for your project comprises of much more than the materials and tools that will be used, but also the team, equipment, software and more. Anything that will be used to aid the project and achieve its objectives can be considered a resource, and it’s important that you have a thorough understanding of the resources at your disposal so you can plan the rest of the project accordingly.

Getting your resources in order will also help set the tone for the duration of the project and make clear the expectations from you and your team. Choosing an appropriate SAP project management software, curating the right team and having the relevant tools and equipment at your disposal are all absolutely essential in enabling the success of the project and your ability to see it through to the end.

2. Time

Once you’ve established the goals of your project and the resources at hand, you need to create a timeline required to achieve these goals. Most of the time, for certain goals to be met it is essential that your project remains on time. It’s also worth noting that the larger the goals of your project, the more work will be required from you and your team.

Through the use of project milestones, task durations, project progress and more you can assess if things are progressing fast enough and whether any changes to the timeline need to be made.

3. Budget

Arguably even more important than the time and resources of a project, money will be the defining factor in every aspect of your project. From paying your team members to affording the required software, without the appropriate funds any project will struggle to reach its goals and have the resources it needs to progress forward.

As a project manager, it’s your job to stay within your budget and delegate funds to each area of the project fairly and economically.

4. Scope

The scope of a project is a little harder to define, and in essence, can mean anything. But what it generally tends to come down to is the requirements of a project, its goals and its size. If you’re unable to manage the scope of your project, it will be virtually impossible to manage its time and budget effectively.

Prioritising tasks appropriately will play a major role in your ability to successfully manage the scope of your project, allowing you to plan and assign your resources effectively. While scope has a somewhat fluid definition that’s open to interpretation, it is one of the most important elements of any project and will greatly impact every single element you’re responsible for. Here are a couple of tips to help you improve your project management skills.

The management of these core elements will come down to you and your ability to effectively communicate and work with your team. It’s essential that everyone involved in your project understands the expectations that you and the stakeholders have of them, as well as how the goals of the project are going to be met.

It’s also up to you to stay in constant communication with your stakeholders and other relevant higher-ups to keep them updated on the progress being made and any adjustments that may need to be made. Changes to the budget and timeline will need approval, so make sure not to blindside anybody by these requests too late into the project.