Distinguishing Functions of Task Administration within the twenty first Century

The aim of the write-up is to investigate the present warm matters of project management. During the 21st century, there's a free online collaboration tool  very clear swift from really hard systems tactic of task management to tender variables, a requirement for strategic considering in challenge administration (Buttrick, 2000), new success elements (Atkinson, 1999) and venture uncertainty administration (Ward & Chapman, 2003). Broader project management theory and more intense research efforts are also a trend within the field (Winter & Smith, 2005).

Human beings have been executing projects from ancient times (Kwak, 2003). From relocating a tribe to constructing enormous buildings such as the pyramids, projects were a dominant element of history. Not long ago, those involved in projects understood that they needed methods and processes to help them manage these projects more efficiently. To meet this need, scientists and practitioners worked together to form a new concept which was called «project management». According to the PMBOK's definition "project administration is the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to challenge activities to meet venture requirements". (A Guide to Task Administration Body of Knowledge, 2004). There are many different views in the literature concerning the birth of undertaking management. Maylor (2005) mentions that "project management from the way that we would understand it today did not exist until the 1950s" and Wideman (2001) tracks the first use of undertaking administration within the UK's Institution of Civil Engineers report on UK post war national development first published in 1944.

Since then, there have been a lot of changes. "The challenging methods strategy, which treated the project as a mechanical activity, has been shown to be flawed" (Maylor, 2005). The soft skills of challenge administration are getting more attention because it is now apparent that "the ability to apply these skills effectively throughout the life cycle of a challenge will enhance the achievement of a task exponentially" (Belzer). In spite of the perfect understanding of planning, scheduling and controlling, projects have still a high rate of failure. Belzer points out that "more often they fail because of a challenge manager's inability to communicate effectively, work within the organization's culture, motivate the undertaking team, manage stakeholder expectations, understand the business objectives, solve problems effectively, and make apparent and knowledgeable decisions". To address these problems during the 21st century, a challenge team needs to develop a series of comfortable skills such as "communication, team building, flexibility and creativity, leadership and the ability to manage stress and conflict". (Sukhoo et. al, 2005).

In addition, challenge administration requires a stronger strategy orientation. "More than 80 per cent of all problems at the project level are caused by failures at a board level in firms to provide clear policy and priorities" (Maylor, 2001). The strategy that Maylor suggests is very different from the traditional link between strategy and projects, as he proposes a "coherent, co-ordinated, focused, strategic competence in venture management which eventually provides source of competitive advantage". This two-way methodology that relates organisational and venture strategy is illustrated in figure 1. To better understand the project's strategy, there may be also a need to analyse "the experiences from past activities, politics during the pre-project phases, parallel courses of events happening during project execution and ideas about the post-project future" (Mats Engwall, 2002).

Moreover, Maylor highlights a change in project's results criteria, from conformance to performance. In 1960s job managers seek to comply only with the documented specifications of the challenge, while existing projects require real performance. In other words, the accomplishment criteria of the twenty first century as indicated by Maylor have changed to as short time as possible, as cheaply as possible and towards a maximum customer delight. Other academics imply nowadays a much simpler view of achievement criteria which is focused only in keeping the client happy (Ferguson, 2005) in contrast with the 90s view of just finishing the job on time and on budget.

Changes in risk administration are also one of the hot matters of venture administration within the new century. Ward (2003) propose the term «uncertainty management» and recommends that a "focus on «uncertainty» rather than risk could enhance job risk management". Adams has an interesting view of risk as he describes it as "a reflexive phenomenon - we respond to perceived probabilities and magnitudes, thereby altering them", a definition that differs from the traditional quantitive analysis of risk. Green broads even more the scope of risk administration and includes the clients. He thinks that "the process of risk administration only becomes meaningful through the active participation of the client's task stakeholders". In his point of view there exists a new way of assessing risk management that "depends less upon probabilistic forecasting and more upon the need to maintain a viable political consistency within the client organisation".

The conventional theory of task administration consists of a narrow focus on projects as unique and totally separated units of work. But present projects tend to be integrated smoothly within the general context of organizations in order to "develop the «management of task portfolios» and «programme management» which are more strategically orientated towards «doing the right projects»" (Winter & Smith, 2005). It is common ground from the literature that the theory of project management needs more research. Koskela and Howell (2002) suggest that the theoretical base "has been implicit and it rests on a faulty understanding of the nature of work in projects, and deficient definitions of planning, execution and control". From their point of view, enrichment of challenge management with new methods and techniques cannot be done with any stable theoretical background. As a result, you will find there's trend of putting more effort in research and rethinking the way which «bodies of knowledge» is written so that complex projects' actions will be better documented