Project Management

That's a pretty nebulous question. Having had project management responsibility in a variety of fields I can tell you that it is not one thing.
Mainly the project manager keeps the project moving forward, keeps the goals in mind, motivates people, organizes, keeps timetables.
The project manager maintains the focus of the project, drives it so to speak.
So I guess the key point for project management is to key the project moving toward the goals and adjust the goals if it becomes apparent that the original goal were incorrect/incomplete/unattainable/frivolous.
Hope this helps.

Hi:

In my experience Project Management has two characteristics it is an art and at the same time it's a science. In consecuence there is no one single key point regarding PM.

According to Project Management Institute (PMI www.pmi.org) there are 10 knowledge areas involved in PM some of them address the art issues and some other the science stuff.

In the other hand, one of the key points to unexperienced people in Project Management is to know and understand its life cycle which is different from process or repetitive operational activities.

The Project Life Cycle lies in its process which according to PMI is

Opening, Planning*, Tracking*, Control* and closing

(*) This phases are iterative until the objectives are meet.
Hope I'm helpfull

According to me, Project Management is nothing but managing "PEOPLE".

PEOPLE = Team members
PEOPLE = Client/s (or their reps)
PEOPLE = Your management.

That's it !!!

Really, there are a lot of jargons for Project Management and also the exams from PMI, but practically all these wont help a lot (yes it does to some extent), all the successful prject managers are the ones who are popular amoungst their PEOPLE.

Hope this absolutly different answer helps......
Learn people management...thats IT>>>

Vidya Nag