Identify and Discuss Examples of Good/Bad Practice in the Management of

According to the UK Association of Project Management (APM) quoted in Atkinson (1999), it has produced a UK Body of Knowledge (BoK) which provides a broad definition for project management as: â€Å"The planning, organisation, monitoring and control of all aspects of a project and the motivation of all involved to achieve the project objectives safely and within agreed time, cost and performance criteria.† The planning of the project firstly consists of identifying and clarifying the tasks and necessary resources required for completing the project; the organisation phase or scheduling then allocates how much time is needed to complete each task, and finally the monitoring tracks progress and analyses performance and quality (Spinner, 1997). Time and cost management are both the most commonly used and important project management functions and are strongly linked with the level of success of the project. These are predicted during the planning phase of the latter; time, cost and quality are so closely linked that they form what is called the â€Å"Iron Triangle† (Atkinson, 1999). This assignment will thus first shed light on the Fourth Bridge and Bath Thermae Spa case studies respectively, and will then be structured around three primary skill and managerial elements contained within the Project Management Body of Knowledge. According to Cramb (2008), renovating the bridge located near Edinburgh is a â€Å"never-ending job† due to its length, given that as soon as maintenance crews have finished renovating it, it is time to start again. In 2002, civil engineering company Balfour Beatty signed a maintenance contract of  £10 million per annum for Network Rail till the estimated end of contract in 2009 (Forth Bridges Visitor Centre Trus... ...rison, F. and Lock, D. (2004) Advanced Project Management: A Structured Approach. 4th edition. Aldershot: Gower Publishing Hendrickson, C. and Au, T. (1989) Project Management for Construction: Fundamental Concept for Owners, Engineers, Architects and Builders. 1st edition. New Jersey: Prentice Hall McManus, J. (2010) ‘Keeping projects under cost control’, The Chartered Institute for IT [Online]. Available at: http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=conWebDoc.5912 (Accessed 01 December 2010) Spinner, M. P. (1997) Project Management: Principles and Practices. London: Prentice Hall International Thermae Bath Spa (2010) Project History. Available at: http://www.thermaebathspa.com/newsandinfo/projecthistory/ (Accessed: 30 November 2010) Wikipedia (2010) Forth Bridge [Online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forth_Bridge#Maintenance (Accessed: 24 November 2010)