Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, securing and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives. A project is a temporary endeavor, having a defined beginning and end (usually constrained by date, but can be by funding or deliverables), undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, usually to bring about beneficial change or added value. The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast to business as usual (or operations), which are repetitive, permanent or semi-permanent functional work to produce products or services. In practice, themanagement 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 separate management.

The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals and objectives while honoring the preconceived project constraints. Typical constraints are scope, time, and budget. The secondary challenge is to optimize theallocation and integration of inputs necessary to meet pre-defined objectives.

In development context, specific project goals have to address community (target beneficiary) needs and comply with partner and donor's interests and standards. The constraints are typically the same which is to implement all project cycle within agreed scope, time and budget.

Project Management Area within APMAS will focus on building capacity of project managers in IFAD's rural development projects in the following issues: