Project Management Sample Paper
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Questions are framed so candidates can demonstrate critical thinking capabilities and must be referenced using an appropriate number of resources. A general rule of thumb is one (1) resource per 150 words, however, please check with your supervising academic if you are unsure.Project Management Sample Paper Assessments must use the referencing style of APA.
During the trimester, you will be undertaking an industry project with your group with one of our industry partners. In order for your group to be successful and meet the outcomes set out in the Request for Service, it is important that you understand some of the practical challenges you and your group may potentially face in undertaking the project, and some of the techniques used to solve these challenges
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Question:
Reflect on the Project Management Process Groups (initiating, planning, executing, monitoring & control and closing) and discuss some of the potential challenges you may face from these groups. Also, suggest some mitigating strategies to overcome these challenges.
Format
.Introduction
.Body
-The potential challenges you may face from the specified groups
-Mitigating strategies to overcome these challenges
.Conclusion
Project management is a goal-oriented activity aimed at successfully tackling emerging issues. It is a temporary process which only exists for a specific time frame or life cycle geared towards achieving success and efficient running of an activity.Project Management Sample Paper These endeavor as stated earlier usually is time constrained, and funding to it is to a minimum or precisely the required amount. It is because their task is delivery of unique results at the end of its lifespan. Additionally, beneficial change and value addition is among its scope. It is usual for firms that are in a new product development cycle, rebranding, and revival of dead branches to hire a project management team to guide and help them in their transition. These tasks usually are either repetitive, permanent or semi-permanent hence hiring a team. Individuals included in this groups may constitute those from affected departments, individuals with specific skills for instance finance officers to handle finances or an outside body who sign a contract to manage the periods. Their scope includes initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and control as well as closing the specific work to achieve specific objectives in a specified timeline (Bakshi, 2017). There is constant need to indulge and expound extensively, to enable the above groups to work together as they are dependent on one another.
BODY.
Initiating.
This level is known to be the most critical. It is because here the nature and scope of the project are determined, if processes receive exemptions at this level, general success of the project is at risk. Understanding the business environment and ensuring required controls get incorporated into the project is at this level. A plan is devised from various proposals, breaking down of the workload, the setting of tentative schedules, analyzing business needs, reviewing current operations, financial analysis, present position analysis and swot analysis all get done in this stage (Kostalova et al, 2017). Initiation being the most critical stage, many projects fail even before they move away from this scene. After a severe evaluation and planning, the team develops a budget that is sufficient to run the project. However, they may lack support from stakeholders who may, in turn, reject their proposals and retract the funding needed. These may be due to it not professing cost effectiveness. Other challenges include lack of human resource. Hiring more staff or professional bodies to oversee the project is often a requirement. However these individuals are rare, the organization involved may also lack the required capacity of staff to handle day to day running of the company and even manage a project. 65% of projects get cancelled or fail at this stage. The main reason is that there is no business strategy to follow if the organization’s goals and objectives are not used as a benchmark by the team and making proposals in the initial stage, it becomes a problem. Acquiring of necessary investments and support is not done, and hence the feasibility of the project, cost-effectiveness, and budget allocations are impossible to set to realistic levels. These means the project is non- beneficial to the company and lack overall support.Project Management Sample Paper
Planning.
After the initiating stage, the project undergoes essential organization. These are processes where from time, cost and resources are organized in a specific manner to facilitate understanding of work. These also enhance risk anticipation for example delays, inadequacies, dangers, and losses likely to occur during the time of action. When one plans effectively such risks are evidently to be avoided, anticipated for better tackling and in the case where they are compulsory, insurance of risk. Planning mainly consists of how to plan, developing a planning team, identifying variables, identifying activities, work breakdown structure, estimating resources required such as cost, budgeting, risk planning and quality assurance and acquiring formal approval. In preparation, operations may run concurrently to save time and resources. In this stage infrastructure necessary is incorporated per the budgetary allocations. However, in this stage, human errors and malpractices cost good projects (Ravinder, 2017). Corrupt officials may allocate more in specific fields with the aim of colluding with suppliers and benefiting from illegal dealings. These lead to under funding of other areas critical to the success of the project, therefore, decapitating its ability to progress. In buildings for example when money is not used sufficiently to buy standard and quality materials, the quality of the construction is affected. In case of a natural disaster such as a quake, a building set out to handle a minor earthquake collapses causing a human catastrophe. In this stage, in organizations, if non-qualified quantifiers get hired it may end up hiking the prices of a project if risks such as inflation become ignorantly exempted (Oellgaard, 2013). Delays in planning especially in large organizations where the decision-making process is lengthy have cost many projects. Some managers are stingy in delegating duties to junior staff members and want to handle everything by themselves. These do not allow the manager to focus on the goals but is held back as they perform all duties individually.
Executing.
With a good base and foundation in its predecessor stages, execution becomes the most unadorned stage since it’s just following the laid down procedures and guidelines. This process involves managing various teams efficiently while balancing their workloads not to leave anyone behind and striving to achieve timelines and most importantly the bench marked goals. Project managers handling this group should possess various characters to deliver the expected result. Constant communication and deliberations, as well as quick thinking and solving emerging problems, are some of the activities entrenched here. Managers, therefore, must coordinate various groups, consult experts on challenges and show faith and perseverance at this stage. While it is referred to be most natural, it’s the trickiest process group to handle as results get determined by the level of input. Challenges on this stage include lack of a consolidation point. Managers cannot keep track of everything in their heads. If at the initiating phase no location gets agreed upon where they can meet with various team leaders of the groups and evaluate their progress and project the way forward, the project is deemed to crumble down. These may be due to an overemphasis on individual teams than others hence no balancing is done, this leads to some lagging behind for being lazy and dragging the project. For example, in a construction site, all activities have timelines, such as clearing takes three days for ground-breaking to start on the fourth day. When the clearing team delays by two more days it delays the whole process which translates to extra costs of paying workers and hiring the necessary machinery. Ambiguous plans get discovered at this stage this is where managers realize that a particular idea was not implementable. These can cause the cancellation of the whole project after massive investments (Wells, 2012). Consequently, going back to the drawing board in search of a new idea or upgrading of the existing plan is also a costly affair. Safety is a concern and a significant challenge at this stage. In high-risk situations, losses of finance in dealings such as con men or rogue contractors may cost the firm. In severe cases, the safety of working environment may cause deaths of colleagues who may be working in hostile environments.Project Management Sample Paper
Monitoring and Control.
In this process group, the main aim is to keep the momentum going and safeguard the project against stalling. These mainly involve acquiring foresight to anticipate emerging problems as well as solve ongoing budgetary constraints to prevent the project from stopping. In this specific stage strong resilient and seasoned managers are required. More hands on people who can detect a slight drop in morale and adequately solve the pertaining issues are necessary. Various activities are essential to take place such as measuring the project position. These will provide useful information as to whether it is on track or more needs investing to avoid completion delays. Monitoring of project variables against the project management plan is essential here, and this helps to ascertain where it is the project should be. Due to this monitoring control for instance changes are expected. Site conditions, material availability, design modifications are some of the factors expected to vary with time. These changes may result from requests by the contractor, value engineering, and impacts from third parties such as political instability affecting access to materials. These may negatively impact the project in that delays are inevitable while evaluation of new proposals are done, need to acquire more sophisticated equipment which skyrockets the prices and many others. In our example of a construction site, one is forced to maintain a construction management document indicating the changes and the extent of the alterations made. These increases legal processes associated with this stage as one is mandated to report any defect suspected. These legal shortcomings take a long process and incur a lot of costs not forgetting influencing timelines (GALLI, 2017). At this stage, the primary challenge is improper risk management. If all this were not anticipated and incorporated into the schedules, the auditors might consume unavailable time while assessing the project for feasibility. Leadership as a challenge occur at this level. Sharp intellectual minds are required to successfully guide project teams to monitor and control the risks adequately. Resolution of human conflicts arising at this stage may influence the direction and success rate of a project.
Closing.
Successful closure of a project is an achievement by itself. Timely completion is not entirely an individual process group’s effort but an overall success of all process groups. Closure in itself brings about good reviews and pride to the organization as well as achievement of set out objectives (BANICA et al, 2017). It consists of contract closure which involves the settling of every contract in place and project closure which comprises of finalizing all pending issues in all process groups. Post-implementation reviews are also undertaken to show what went wrong in the process of project management, what was done to mitigate the loses as well as what every individual learns from the whole process of project management. There are two main challenges on this platform human capital is one challenge. People coming from diverse cultures and upbringings, human beings are multifaceted.Project Management Sample Paper Each employee presents an opinion worth hearing if not well chosen and executed they may limit the success of closure of a group. The fact that skilled and semi-skilled employees work on a similar project team project the diverse opinions originating from the crowd. These lead to leadership as a challenge. Managing the groups without bias may bring up suggestions of nepotism and various conflicts. These leads to individuals thinking they are not valued and hence losing morale essential to practical completion.
Mitigating strategies to overcome the challenges.
From the above process groups, various challenges get identified as key and some very critical to the success of the overall project. They include organization, leadership, safety, planning, human resource, vulnerability and lack of consensus, no business strategy, and many others. Some occur in different process groups for varying reasons. It is, however, essential to overcome those to mitigate losses and ensure the project are successful. Companies and organizations make considerable investments in projects as they hope to reap their benefits in the future. Some of the products developed are of critical importance to the survival of the company. The most essential and vital strategy is for an organization to secure training for its employees on project management.Project Management Sample Paper These will enhance their skills and open them up to recognize challenges they are likely to face when carrying out project management. At this forums, they are likely to acquire skills that are pertinent to ethical leadership, conflict resolution as part of how to conduct a successful project management team. These imply that even if they are not the team leaders, they will be a significant boost as they will facilitate administration in the process groups. Additionally, project management training will enhance their consolidation and accountability skills which are essential in the initiating, executing and closure process groups. Bench marking as a strategy is adequate to ensure that an organization is aware of what is a must during project management (Miller, 2017). They can visit another organization during its project management and learn or adjust what they were doing wrong. Here, there is a constant exchange of information and afterward can communicate with each other to investigate more.
Safety is a challenge which may severely impune damages on any employee. Every organization must, therefore, ensure its employees are working under favorable conditions as stipulated in the Geneva Convention laws. Protective wears should be present and readily accessible to all employees who may be working for example, in tunnels with falling rocks. These wears include helmets, gas masks, hand gloves, overalls and many others. The area should also have adequate security from either government company employed security. In case of a safety concern, the organization should withdraw all staff in time to avoid loss of life. The human resource capital employed by agencies are required to be competent. These will help reduce the cases where handling of equipment injure the operator or risk their colleagues due to their incompetence. Risks anticipated must get insured to avoid loss when they occur. Insurances ensure that if a failure occurs individuals and the company can receive compensation and return to their initial position before the injury (Kachoka, 2017). Firms must form a committee or seek professional help in vetting ideas brought up in their organizations. These will mitigate the risk of methodology failure arising from impracticable suggestions and avoid schemes to dry its resources. Corporations must breed the spirit of constant feedback. These are essential especially when technical teams receive a proposal which they are expected to translate into an action or service. These will reduce the time consumed by non-practical suggestions which cost a project during implementation.Project Management Sample Paper
CONCLUSION.
Project management is the most secure plan to run with an idea to implement in an organization. Due to its subdivisions, one can meet all that is required to run a project successfully. The step by step approach ensures that no essential factor gets alienated from the process. Being a tried and tested process it is vital to ensure that competent individuals are employed to handle a project (Gadekar, 2017). As stipulated above the non-unavoidable risks must get insurance covers to avoid significantly major loses either to employees or the companies. Training programs on project management are also necessary to impart useful knowledge to employees. It also reduces the chances to hire professional bodies to handle one projects. Every big idea originated as a suggestion and was developed through this process to success. That is why large multinationals have established project management teams who work round the clock to ensure every project they generate is effectively and efficiently run.
References.
BANICA, L., RADULESCU, M., ROSCA, D., & HAGIU, A. (2017). Is DevOps another Project Management Methodology?. Informatica Economica, 21(3), 39-51. doi:10.12948/issn14531305/21.3.2017.04
Bakshi, S. (2017). Portfolio, Program and Project Management Using COBIT 5. COBIT Focus, 1-11.Project Management Sample Paper
Gadekar, M. (2017). Project Management For Public Goods -The Case Of Indian Railway. Aweshkar Research Journal, 23(2), 38-44.
GALLI, B. J. (2017). Risk Management in Project Environments: REFLECTION OF THE STANDARD PROCESS. Journal Of Modern Project Management, 39-49.
Kachoka, N., & Hoskins, R. (2017). Using Project Management Strategy to Evaluate the Challenges of Managing a Renovation Project at the Chancellor College Library, University of Malawi. African Journal Of Library, Archives & Information Science, 27(2), 189-200..
Kostalova, J., Tetrevova, L., & Patak, M. (2017). Project Management Methods in Projects Co-financed by EU Funds. Engineering Economics, 28(3), 301-310. Project Management Sample Paper doi:10.5755/j01.ee.28.3.13651
Miller, A. J., & Clark, B. (2017). Teachers as Project Managers: Leveraging Project Management to Build Exemplary CTE Programs. Techniques: Connecting Education & Careers, 92(8), 32-35..
Oellgaard, M. J. (2013). The Performance of a Project Life Cycle Methodology in Practice. Project Management Journal, 44(4), 65-83. doi:10.1002/pmj.21357
Ravinder, H., & Kollikkathara, N. (2017). Project Management in Operations Management Textbooks: Closing the Gap. Journal Of The Academy Of Business Education, 18307-324.
Wells, H. (2012). How Effective Are Project Management Methodologies? An Explorative Evaluation of Their Benefits in Practice. Project Management Journal, 43(6), 43-58. doi:10.1002/pmj.21302 Project Management Sample Paper