Project Charter

Project charter can be considered as the document which describes a project comprehensively. Project charter identifies the need for a project to exist and to be executed. Through project charter the sponsors of the project initiate it. Through project charter, the sponsors authorize the use of organizational resources for the successful execution of the project. The project manager may or may not have been identified till the Project Charter is defined but it outlines the authority to be bestowed on the Project Manager. Also Project charter outlines the outcome that needs to be achieved and the criteria that will define the success of the project.

Expert Judgement

The success of a project depends on taking the right direction and that requires input from people who have specialized knowledge in the domain in which the project is being undertaken. Also, you don't want to reinvent the wheel if the knowledge can be accessed and used by engaging an expert.

The key is to identify and engage right expert or sets of experts. Also, they need to be engaged at right time otherwise engaging them to do a post-mortem of the failure of the project is of no use. The key to the success of expert judgment is to identify the right expert. There is no dearth of self-proclaimed experts in every field. Just don't depend on how good a speech they give, look for what they have delivered in the past. The challenge is to find the authentic one for your set of problems.

Some of the techniques that can help in identifying the right expert are:

Project Integration Management

As we know that to manage a project we need to do many different things, many times simultaneously. For example you have to communicate to all stakeholders and need to manage the scope at the same time. Have an eye on cost and time and see if some procurements need to be done. Human resource management keeps on happening and at the same time no untoward risk should be left unmanaged. To do all these things at the same time, we need a glue which holds everything together and that's where Project Integration management comes into picture. 

From PMP methodology perspective, Project Integration Management contains 6 process and have at least one process in each process group.

Project Management Fundamentals

The first question that comes up is: What is a Project? Project is considered a temporary endeavour whose aim is to deliver a product or service or result. The temporary nature of project does not means that the duration is short. It just means that there is a beginning and an end in the project. It has a start and an end. It's transient in nature. So on time scale, you would really see a project having a distinct start time and end time. Projects are also different from operations as operations are repetitive in nature. For example, going to office daily is an operation. However building a house is a project. Even building multiple houses is a project as each house even if they are same in design, still will involve a unique outcome. 

A project outcome may be a product like a new car. It could be a service like painting a house. It could be a result like reorganization in a company. 

From PMP perspective, three aspects are very important to the landscape of Project management.

1. Process groups 
2. Knowledge areas
3. Processes