What are the basic principles of IT project management?

Hi Sandro,
In answer to your question, there are three principles that are foundational to Project Management.

The first is Leadership. Projects don’t get done by themselves. There has to be someone who “conducts the orchestra”; someone who will organize the activities and the participants. Project Leadership also includes taking ownership of challenges that surface and resolving them in a timely manner.

The second principle is Communication. A project leader has to communicate at multiple levels. Here’s a brief list of the types of communication they provide:
- Realistic expectations to leadership and clients (project beneficiaries)
- Status updates to leadership/stakeholders/clients
- Escalate issues to leadership/stakeholders/client
- Task items to project team members with due dates

Project leaders must have strong communication skills both orally and written and they must be able to communicate to people at different levels, i.e. Senior Leadership, Management, Customer Leadership, Customer Users and Project Team members.

The third principle is Project Management. Although some people may put this under the category of leadership, I prefer to call this out separately. Project management consists of managing
- Tasks
- Timelines
- Project Members
- Leadership and Client expectations
- Scope Creep
- Resource Workload
- Budgets

Keep in mind these are basic foundational principles. A good place to look for additional information is the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK) available at many different web sites. You may also want to take a look at the Project Management Institute at the following link; www.pmi.org

Lastly I’d recommend a free e-book I’ve written titled “12 Reasons IT Projects Fail”. It can be downloaded at the following link. http://www.itanswers4u.com/Wordpress/?page_id=134

Good Luck.