Mastering Task Management to Bolster Project Management
Do project managers truly, in all essence, manage projects? This is a rather tricky discussion as, ultimately, all project managers really do is manage a collection of simple to complex tasks. When you really analyze the matter, though, this is not something to simply be taken for granted, because it is in these tasks that all the vital actions take place and transpire.
Managing Tasks on a Project
The function of scoping, planning, controlling, managing risks, and more is all about figuring out what tasks are to be done and making sure they get done (at the right time and in the right order). But without the execution of those tasks, any upstream job function, such as the planning and so forth, are a waste of time. Getting the tasks done is what it is all about; and anyone aspiring to get into project management needs to know how to get tasks done — and how to lead others to do so.
Managing Tasks in a Department
Keeping a department going on a day to day basis involves spending time “at the edge”, or on the exception. It involves being both reactive, as processes are monitored and adjustments are needed, and it involves being proactive, as projects are undertaken to improve and advance the processes that exist within the department. Being good at managing change is being a good planner; but sound task management, at the end of the day, is where all the action that matters takes place. If the task does not require action, then there really is no need for management.
Managing Tasks in an Organization
Action in an organization is a collection of executable tasks within the organization. Making that action take place where it counts the most is the job of upper management. Understanding how to get things done, as well as what, why, when, where, and who, is what leadership is all about. All executives must be good at task management in order to perform effectively.
The Knowledge Economy and Task Management
The knowledge economy has a close relationship with task management; but, unfortunately, people often lose sight of the relationship. In the distant past, it used to be that an individual would be responsible for many tasks, and that is still true in many small businesses. For example, even today, a small proprietor of an auto body shop is usually intimately familiar with every detail of operations, from estimating and business development, to repairing auto bodies, to administration and finance. Much of the high-level-knowledge management work, because it is in one head, is simply executed.
In larger organizations, by contrast, a great deal of collective effort might be put into the process of just turning a bolt. For example, on a manufacturing production line, a worker may need to place a panel and connect it using a couple of bolts. The action of performing this task ends up being a small fraction of the total cost of completion. Behind the task, we will likely find work studies, statistical analysis, much planning and coordination, product design scenarios, and more – all culminating in someone tightening a couple of bolts. Without the tightening of those bolts by hand, all of the upstream work is for naught. Everyone working in “knowledge management” needs to recognize the ultimate goal of their efforts — maintain perspective on the main objective.
Personal Time Management and Task
It is easy to become frustrated with personal time management and, sometimes, even more frustrated with much more complex challenges. It always comes back to task management, no matter what level is being worked. For example, managing a project is simply an umbrella over a more complex set of tasks, and the only thing that really moves the project forward is the completion of those tasks. A similar statement can be made about department management or organization management.
A more complex situation, such as building a system, or building a building, proves the point. In the end, after all the planning, meeting, discussion, and thinking, what is left is a set of tasks that, if completed on time and within budget to proper quality standards, brings about a successful project. So it is simply a collection of everybody’s task lists, alignment with the strategy, and properly prioritizing and sequencing what ties together time and task management. And, in the end, it’s all about task management.
Watch the video related to Knowledge Management
Dr. Bob Neilsen, knowledge management advisor to the Army’s CIO, explains the end state envisioned by the Army Knowledge Management Principles at the Collaboration Project meeting on November 3, 2008.
Help answer the question about Knowledge Management
what is the best university to study PHD in the knowledge management field?
About Author
John Reiling, PMP, has experienced portfolio, program, and project management in organizations of all sizes. John’s web site Project Management Training Online provides numerous courses on these topics for PDUs, PMP Prep, and PgMP Prep. See John’s related article on Program Management , with a nice graphic on the topic, at John’s blog, PMcrunch.com.
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Someone needs to spend time with the assigned reading homework.
Use your mind. Think. Push those gray cells to communicate and share their thoughts with each other to form new ones. Or choose to be mediocre; the latter course will put you in a very large group.
Ask your tutor for help. I am sure they would prefer it if you went to them because you do not understand rather than not attempt it at all.
Sorry it is way above me, but good luck
Data are mixed up.
It is an interesting speciality, sort of a cross between a business degree and a library degree. The upside is that it will prepare you very specifically for a certain niche in an organizational hierarchy. The downside is that it might not give you enough big-picture training to move up that hierarchy. But like most undergraduates degrees what you do with it depends mostly on you, not on the degree.
Good luck.
No, it is not needed. Companies survived for hundreds of years without it.
Try ibm.com for statistics.
Before attempting to address the question of knowledge management, it's probably appropriate to develop some perspective regarding this stuff called knowledge, which there seems to be such a desire to manage, really is. Consider this observation made by Neil Fleming
A collection of data is not information.
A collection of information is not knowledge.
A collection of knowledge is not wisdom.
A collection of wisdom is not truth.
The idea is that information, knowledge, and wisdom are more than simply collections. Rather, the whole represents more than the sum of its parts and has a synergy of its own.
in summary the following associations can reasonably be made:
Information relates to description, definition, or perspective (what, who, when, where).
Knowledge comprises strategy, practice, method, or approach (how).
Wisdom embodies principle, insight, moral, or archetype (why).
The value of Knowledge Management relates directly to the effectiveness with which the managed knowledge enables the members of the organization to deal with today's situations and effectively envision and create their future. Without on-demand access to managed knowledge, every situation is addressed based on what the individual or group brings to the situation with them. With on-demand access to managed knowledge, every situation is addressed with the sum total of everything anyone in the organization has ever learned about a situation of a similar nature. Which approach would you perceive would make a more effective organization?
There's some really good articles on management at http://management.hammocksurvivalguide.com/
I don't know if it will solve your issues but there's some good stuff there.