Just through with our monthly Training and Development, and this month on Project Management Professional (PMP). Though lots of the participants were interested in enhancing their careers, especially in the areas of promotion and increased income at their places of work.

PMP also suits the enterpreneurs and business owners. In fact, they stand to benefit more from the knowledge of PMP because business owners can immediately apply these things to their businesses. The advantage of this is that they get to apply best practices in the execution of their business projects.

What is a project? A very simple definition is that "It is a temporary organization." Temporary in the sense that all projects have a life span, and being an organization means that their are objectives, people, roles and structures in place to achieve the objectives.

PMI definition of a project is that "A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result."

The endeavor could be building a house, carrying out a marketing campaign, organizing a church program, creation of a new product or service to be introduced into the market. There are no restrictions based on size, or number of people involved in the project. The important thing is that the endeavor is worth investing time, money, and human resources into it.

The end result of a project is the creation of a unique product, service or result. This is where a project differs from operations in an organization. In our everyday business activities, we have people who are creative in organizations, and these people most often have problems translating their ideas into tangible results. With Project Management knowledge, these ideas can be nurtured from infancy, using proven tools and techniques, into finished products.

No matter how well thought of a concept or idea is, with proper project management, you wouldn't know the metrics to measure its success. Agreed, not all project results are measured with respect to expected earnings, they can be measured based on cost-benefit, time, scope, quality.

Project Management addresses key knowledge areas that help to improve success rates of your projects, they are:

1. Project Integration Management
2. Project Scope Management
3. Project Time Management
4. Project Cost Management
5. Project Quality Management
6. Project Human Resource Management
7. Project Communications Management
8. Project Risk Management
9. Project Procurement Management
10. Project Stakeholder Management

For those who are comfortable with "normal" everyday activities, project management knowledge would offer very little help. But individuals and businesses involved in creating new products and services, PMP would be of tremendous benefits to them.

Just in case you're thinking of the next path to take as regards your career, or business, make it Project Management and you're sure to get commensurate value for your investment in the knowledge and certification

Project management is vital part of every business indeed. Every business leader should have a good project management for his company. As for me, I am running a web development company. I prefer using some PM software as Tracker from Comindware company. It helps greatly in managing my processes and projects. I am pleased with the result really.