As a project manager, you are responsible for leading a project to completion, meeting all stakeholder expectations, and achieving the project’s objectives. A project is defined as a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. Each project aims to generate a specific outcome for an enterprise—whether it’s a business, social, or government entity.
The expected outcome of a project could be a new product, solution, process, capability, or service. Achieving this outcome involves adhering to a timeline, budget, and quality standards. Enterprises undertake projects for justifiable business reasons, seeking to address specific needs, problems, or opportunities. The project outcome must effectively address these aspects.
Every project is initiated by the business and operates within its environment. As a project manager, understanding the business and its environment is crucial before commencing any project management activities. This understanding is essential not only for practical project execution but also in professional certification contexts, such as the PMP exam, where business environment competency is a key focus, comprising about 8% of the exam content.
Note – In PMP exam, there will be 8% or 15 questions from this competency domain.
Insights about Business Environment
As a project manager, you need to be highly aware of the business environment and its various aspects, which will impact how you manage your project. The following aspects are important:
Following important aspects about the business environment are important:
Understanding the business purpose of doing the project
Understanding the place of doing the project
Understanding the organization structure of the enterprise where the project is happening
Understanding what kind of project governance will be present within the business enterprise
Understanding what kind internal and external compliances need to fulfilled from the business side
We will deep dive into each of the above one at a time in the next articles.
Summary (Business Environment or Business Acumen)
Business environment (or Business Acumen) is an important competency in the PMP exam. The PMP exam will test your understanding on the above.
To know more about the above, keep watching for our next detailed article in the same series.
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