# What Is Project Management?

Managing projects is a matter of keeping scope, schedule, and resources in balance. Generally this means planning, organizing, and tracking a project’s tasks and identifying and scheduling resources to accomplish those tasks. Scope is the range of tasks required to accomplish project goals. A schedule indicates the time and sequence of each task, as well as the total project duration. Resources are the people and/or equipment that perform or facilitate project tasks. Resources usually have costs, such as wages or operating expenses, that you may want to track.

When scope, schedule, and resources are in balance, you have just the right amount of resources to accomplish all your project tasks on or before the project deadline.

When you manage projects, you want to be sure that specific project goals are met as efficiently as possible. The primary project management tool for achieving this purpose is a project plan. But if managing projects isn’t the main part of your job (or your favorite part), you might shy away from creating and using a project plan. That’s an option. But there is a downside to this approach.

Without a formal plan, you reduce the likelihood of accomplishing project goals, such as staying within budget or on schedule. If you can’t easily track who’s doing what, or when tasks should be finished, you jeopardize your chances of meeting those goals. And if something goes wrong — a deadline is missed or a task takes longer than you thought it should — you may encounter needless difficulties in determining the problem’s source, as well as its impact on the schedule.

Good project management helps you succeed. Everyone on the team will benefit from improved coordination and communication, resulting in a stronger focus on results. You will earn that reassuring sense of having everything under control.

©1996-1997 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.