Learning Objectives of This Book

Project management has become a career path for many industries. Not too many years ago, the way one could progress in the corporate structure was either through the finance or new business development ladder. Since the late 1980s, though, organizations have become more project-oriented in their approach to business, and project management training and certification have taken on a new meaning and importance. Many private and public sector organizations now require that their employees be certified before they can fill the role of project manager. The Project Management Institute is the certifying organization for the Project Management Professional (PMP).

The primary objective of this book is to provide the reader with a fundamental understanding of project management in the IT environment and the tools to successfully complete an IT project. Although project management tools and techniques are applicable to any type of project, each project has a unique requirement that can change how the tools are used. This book will discuss these different applications.

The second most important objective is to explain that the software development life cycle (SDLC) is a subset of the project life cycle and to show how they fit together. As a part of the discussion on SDLC, this book discusses the specialized tools of software development and how they fit into the project management techniques and tools.

A third objective is to demonstrate that IT is not just software development. It is important to IT project management success that we understand the components of the IT environment, how they all fit and operate together, and how to plan, implement, control, and deliver the IT product. This book will demonstrate how this is done.