Project Management is the business process of creating a unique product, service or result. A project is a finite endeavor having specific start and completion dates undertaken to create a quantifiable deliverable. Projects undergo progressive elaboration by developing in steps and predictable increments that are tied to benchmarks, milestones and completion dates. This finite characteristic of projects stands in sharp contrast to processes, or operations, which are permanent or semi-permanent functional work to repetitively produce the same product or service. In practice, the management of these two systems is often found to be quite different, and as such requires the development of distinct technical skills and the adoption of a separate management philosophy.

The primary challenge of Project Management is to achieve all of the goals of the project charter while adhering to three out of the four classic project constraints sometimes referred to as the "triple constraints." The four constraints are defined as scope, time, cost and quality. The more ambitious goal of Project Management is to carry the project through the entire Project Management life cycle. The Project Management lifecycle consists of five phases called Project Management Process Groups: Project Initiation, Project Planning, Project Execution, Project Monitoring and Control and Project Closeout.

Each Project Management Process Group utilizes nine Knowledge Areas which are: integration management, scope management, time management, cost management, quality management, human resource management, communications management, risk management and procurement management.

Monitoring and Controlling

Monitoring and Controlling consists of those processes performed to observe project execution so that potential problems can be identified in a timely manner and corrective action can be taken, when necessary, to control the execution of the project. The key benefit is that project performance is observed and measured regularly to identify variances from the project management plan.

Monitoring and Controlling includes:

• Measuring the ongoing project activities (where we are);
• Monitoring the project variables (cost, effort, ...) against the project management plan and the project performance baseline (where we should be);
• Identify corrective actions to properly address issues and risks (How can we get on track again);
• Influencing the factors that could circumvent integrated change control so only approved changes are implemented.

In multi-phase projects, the Monitoring and Controlling process also provides feedback between project phases, in order to implement corrective or preventive actions to bring the project into compliance with the project management plan.

Project Maintenance is an ongoing process, and it includes:

• Continuing support of end users
• Correction of errors
• Updates of the software over time

In this stage, auditors should pay attention to how effectively and quickly user problems are resolved.

Over the course of any construction project, the work scope changes. Change is a normal and expected part of the construction process. Changes can be the result of necessary design modifications, differing site conditions, material availability, contractor-requested changes, value engineering and impacts from third parties, to name a few. Beyond executing the change in the field, the change normally needs to be documented to show what was actually constructed. Hence, the owner usually requires a final record to show all changes or, more specifically, any change that modifies the tangible portions of the finished work. The record is made on the contract documents usually, but not necessarily limited to, the design drawings. The end product of this effort is what the industry terms as-built drawings, or more simply, the requirement for providing them is a norm in construction contracts.