Project Characteristic: The characteristics of a project make a project effective, useful and achievable. Every project has a beginning and an ending with a definite frame of time.The following five key defines the characteristics of a project:Unique deliverables of results, products and services creates a project (Todorovi? et al. 2015).A service is performthat creates a project.The project has to follow some step to develop.
Be specific: the specific project’s includes structure, benefits, cost, goals, and milestones. For this specific project expert, external consultants, involvement of project team and careful planning is required. All the respective parties have to perform some responsibilities with work, timeline and costs. They need to provide a detail report and planning that include personnel list, command structure, gantt chart, project cost and communication avenues. A meeting should be scheduledperiodically to discuss about the relevant matters of the projects.
Measurable:The project execution has derived in terms of tangible and intangible monetary benefits to analyze the project achievement.
Achievable:Every project has a meaning to make it achievable. The deliverables of the project if unachievable, it can affect the costs of the project.
Relevant:The cost of the product, efficiency in the operation or any of the purpose that isspecific for the benefits of the entity to be relevant. If any of this ail to address the entity of the project will not get the benefit which will result in resource wastage for entity and there stakeholders.
Time bound:The project should have a time framefor planning, development, fine tuning, execution that has bound within time. The parties has to justify if any adjustment made in the project completion with keeping in mind the cost of the project execution, opportunity and finance that are related to the project.
Taking the example of a company, that plans to build a desktop computerto make the work go faster (Sharon and Dori2015).For that, a team has assigned to different aspects in the building of the computer. One of the team will work on the chassis of the configuration and the other team will secure the components. The Work Breakdown Structure of the project determines the project success that provides the planning of the project, scheduling,cost estimation and allocation of the resource where the risk management is not required to mention.
Below is the full Gantt chart of the project that identifies the critical path.Task a, b, c,f and h are the critical path in the project planning (Landryand McDaniel2015).According to the project, it takes 22 days to complete the project.
The alternative techniquesfor the selection of the project investment appraisal are namely method of Payback Period, accounting ReturnRate, Net Present Value, Internal Return Rate, Index of profitability, Payback Period discount, Terminal Value(Liand Trutnevyte2017).
Risks are uncertain while planning a project. Project management risk includes the risk assessment and the mitigation strategy (Gatzert and Kosub2016). In the risk assessment, potential risk can be identified and the impact of it has evaluated. In the plan of risk mitigation, the event of risk has designed in such a way that it minimizes or eliminates its impact. Risk identification process includes the brainstorm session that creates everything that go wrong. Risk Management Plan is done in four ways:
Avoidance: the risk can be avoided by changing the project, scope objectives
Transference: Risk impact can be shift to third party. The responsibility can just be shifted but cannot be eliminated.
Mitigation:the risk impact and its probability is reduce by taking certain steps such as testing, monitoring, early action and many more.
Acceptance:If any risk occurs in the event and left with no choice except accepting the riskin the scope, cost, schedule and the quality that occurs with the event cannot be reduce.
Deferred:in each statement of the risk the process of risk assessment are summarized to report on monthly basis.
The aspects tomonitor the quality of a project are given below (Haz?r 2015):
– Success of the project is define well
– Proper Metrics to be chosen
– Measuring the progress
– Improve and refine
References
Gatzert, N. and Kosub, T., 2016. Risks and risk management of renewable energy projects: The case of onshore and offshore wind parks. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 60, pp.982-998.
Haz?r, Ö., 2015. A review of analytical models, approaches and decision support tools in project monitoring and control. International Journal of Project Management, 33(4), pp.808-815.
Landry, J.P. and McDaniel, R., 2015. Agile Preparation Within a Traditional Project Management Course. In Proceedings of the EDSIG Conference (p. n3429).
Li, F.G. and Trutnevyte, E., 2017. Investment appraisal of cost-optimal and near-optimal pathways for the UK electricity sector transition to 2050.Applied energy, 189, pp.89-109.
Sharon, A. and Dori, D., 2015. A Project–product model–based approach to planning work breakdown structures of complex system projects. IEEE Systems Journal, 9(2), pp.366-376.
Todorovi?, M.L., Petrovi?, D.?., Mihi?, M.M., Obradovi?, V.L. and Bushuyev, S.D., 2015.Project success analysis framework: A knowledge-based approach in project management. International Journal of Project Management, 33(4), pp.772-783.
Project managers successfully deliver project and learn new technologies to apply them in the next project. They develop their skills through knowledge and experience. Each time with the delivery of the project, a new experience is gain.This report cover the skills needed for a projectmanager. The report has some project planning, scope and expectations of managing the project and many more.The project manager will review the business case and their requirement to ensure the client receives the system that they need (Harmon 2015). The manager will plan and initiate the project by some change in control.The managers reach the target and achieve the goal by managing people, technology and certain changesto relocate the operation with minimum cost and with improved opportunities. The project staff is managing most effectively the skill and competencies. The organization will identify the skill to reach the next level of the corporate performance (Paolellaand Durand 2016). Once the skill is identified then the project manager can set priorities for the project, to meet the third party coverage. The report discusses the stages of the project life cycle and follows the processes, and managing the leadership skills to control the problem and manage the lifecycle.
As the company has to relocate, their U.K headquarters which involve closing of the existing headquarter, relocating the employees with the move, and relocating various operations that include finance and account, customer services and development and research laboratories (Mason and Brown 2014). In this case, the project manager will improve their skill and competencies to reduce the cost of operation and provide some opportunities that improve the scientific collaboration and customer service.The skills of the project manager cover the personality of the human with the entire spectrum (Medina and Francis 2015). This skill has divided into categories, namely:personal skills, technical skills and technical skills.
Personal Skills:The project manager tries to motivate and solve problems within the team and outside the team. The project manager has to approach in a contagious manner and has to be direct, honest, knowledgeable and straightforward to deal with people and the project. With a positive attitude project managercan overcome any obstacles, problem or difficulties in the project. For a project manager performance expectation is necessary to define at the start of any project. It is good that a project manager has to be considerate and direct to deal with all types of problem and appreciate their work and efforts.
Technical Skills: Some of the project manager prefers to have limited technical knowledge depending on the project type and size, structure, available resources and the environment of the project. For a large complex project, technical training is very useful to master for a project manager. For a small project, technical training might enhance the project managerabilities with technical contribution but it may not likely that the management skill will improve.
Management Skill:The key skills and competencies of the project manager changes considerably when introducing the project characteristics. The skill and competencies order of importance for the project managerchanges has provided in figure 1. For a very large scope of the project, top five skills and competencies of the respondent include; leadership, prior experience that are relevant, planning, skills of people, building strong team and verbal communication. The second impact of the context is with high degree of uncertainty for management of risk and expectation of management which reflect in figure 1. Finally, innovations required for a considerable novel project also require the leadership and skills of people with less-high-rated skills and competenciessuch asconfidence in self.
|
Skill Or Competence that are most important |
|||||
|
Characteristics Of A Project |
First |
Second |
Third |
Fourth |
Fifth |
|
1. A Project That Are Very Large |
Leadership |
Prior Experience That Are Relevant |
Planning |
Skills Of People |
Building Strong Team, Verbal Communication |
|
2. High Uncertainty Project |
Management Of Risk |
Expectation Of Management |
Leadership |
Skills Of People |
Planning |
|
3. Innovation Required For A Considerable Novel Project |
Leadership |
Skills Of People |
Goals, Purpose, Has Vision |
Confidence In Self |
Listening, Expectation Of Management |
Figure 1: The skills and competencies of the project manager that are most important
Source: Author
Characteristics of different project provide different skills and competencies of project manager. Many of the authorshave considered more than one characteristics of the project such as communication and team effectiveness. If these skills are added during the management of the project then the cost of the operation save and opportunities improve with customer services.
In figure 2, to align the strategies and the competencies of the work force, a road map has created by the enterprise vision from the vision to the execution. In a process of skill management, the enterprise vision is link to the technology forecast. The forecast then link to the required skills, the required skill to the inventory skill, the inventory skill to the staff’s competence level and from the competence level to the gap and finally to fill the time frame gap. The work force order is manage by the skill management for career tracks, workload balance, staffing allocation, resource management and learning.
|
Objective of the Enterprise |
Where the enterprise will stand in 36 months ? |
|
Inventory of Skill |
What skills are in-house (e.g., leadership, technical, management of business and project)? |
|
Forecast |
What information, technologies and skills it will need to get there? |
|
Definition of Skill |
What skills will it need in the months of 12,24,36 ? |
|
Valuation of Strategic Skill |
How much valuable today’s skills will be in the months of 12,24,36? |
|
Levels of Proficiency |
How much proficient are the members of the IS staff in the skills that are needed established? |
|
Portfolio of Learning |
What type of training and educational offer the enterprise provide, and how and to whom it will provide this? |
|
Sourcing |
What type of internal and external sources of IT skills use for filling the gaps? |
Figure 2: Skill Management Road Map
Source: Author
The project manager has to communicate in a professional manner. They will never abandon the expectations set for them. A project manager should keep learning new processes and become the biggest team fan. They know how to pull in a subject matter expert.
The project manager is responsible to deliver the project on day-to-day basis. The individual takes the responsibility to lead and manage the team of the project to run any type of project. One of the project management methods that can be applied to any project type is the Projects In Controlled Environment2 (PRINCE2) method (Nasir et al. 2015).The major role of a project manager has lead to interface between the area of business and the project. As it can transform the need to encourage, communicate, and bring some changes in the area of business. The readiness in the business is crucial for success. Without this, the business might not receive any benefit and there will be delay in plan.
There are some specific responsibilities of a project manager for a report structure. The standard project management has incorporated with the design and applyappropriately in the process. The manager manages the deliverable production to monitor and plan the project. Within the report structure,they agree to adopt the role of assuring a project.With the contingency development plan, the risk of the project has managed. It is necessary to monitor the overall progress and use the resources.
As a project manager, the individual follows the five-project group of project management life cycle (Zhang et al. 2015). For any successful project plan, all this stage is important and is better not to skip any of it. If any of the stage is skip then the project might not organized properly.
The project initiation phase creates an informal document to outline the overall goal of the project. Check the feasibility report of the project whether it is possible to complete the project, process or product with the resources that are available. The project manager and the team of the project will be assigned once the feasibility of the project is determined. The scope of the project determines what, how and why it will be done. Finally, in the project charter will demonstrate the project in charge, the critical success of the project and the project scope.
The planning phase of the project reviews and revises the scope of the project when necessary. It is important to make the scope of the project to grow or expand completely, reasonable, measurable and specific without making changes in the budget. The project work breakdown structure, depicts the project decomposition completely. With the creation of the work breakdown structure, the structure of the organizational breakdown is put together to involve each individual in the project. To allocate the resources, responsibilities will be given for the project, to use the budget and the required object of the project. Time will be taken to carefully plan the resources. The project manager will check for each task that is responsible for the project and will often communicate. They will plan the budget of the project to gather the resources. Risk assessment will be performing with the budget to complete the project. Communication plan is put together to analyze the stakeholder and finalize the plan of the project.
The project execution phase of a project management life cycle begins when the project manager assigns the task to the team members and the team member start working on it. Certain tasks are completed during the execution of the project. Project Manager ensures the Cost Management, Time Management, Issue Management, Change Management and Quality Management. The project manager ensures that the project is completed on schedule time with expenses are accounted. If the stakeholder specifies to change the plan of the project, the project manager needs to do it accordingly. During the execution of the problem if any problem arise the team and the project manager keep track of the project.
The project control phase involves changes and monitoring of the project. During this phase, the problem or the risk of the project force the project manager to replan the project. Some of the issues or risk are not seenand make the project incomplete. The success of the project can be monitor and control when the project manager will implement a system with the progress of the project.
The project closure phase in the life cycle of project management involve a writing a report for the project closure. In the project closure report, sign off of the project , staff releasing, management of the cost and scheduling the management strategies, learning some lessons from the project and results that are found in the project. The assigned project resources are redistributed and with regard to the project completion will file administrative paperwork. Further, the projects that are coming up stepping-stones is prepared.
Finally, when all this phases are complete then the it may happen that a defect might found during the control phase. In that case, the project manager has to return back to the execution phase to find out the defect and make the changes that is necessary.
Leadership is important for the success of a project as it plays a vital role in motivating the people. Project management is a flexible and structured process to first plan and then produce. In theproject-planning phase, the project leader makes some formal and some informal decision for the team and the stakeholder to achieve the goals and objectives. With this, the process formulates the strategy of organization and high degree interaction is involved which is challenging and takes time. For developing a team effectively,all the important issues involve intelligence gathering, visioning, compelling reasons were develop and with appropriately strategies. Thus, it is a right thing to effectively optimize the project planning.
|
Phase |
Major Attributes |
Leadership Style |
|
Feasibility Study (Pre – formulation |
· Big Picture · Analysis · Sense of Vision |
· Visionary · Expansive · Empowerment · Create Future |
|
Conceptual |
· Analysis · Alignment · Listening |
· Change Master · Listener · Convergence · Analytical |
|
Development |
· Cooperative · Commitment and Acceptance |
· Integrator · power and influence · Team builder |
|
Execution |
· Re-alignment |
· Trustworthiness · Work balance and fun · Team and synergy · Decision maker |
|
Finishing |
· product and information transfer |
· Administrator · Closure |
For a successful skill and competencies, there are three area need to be worked out (Rezvani et al. 2016)
The first is the employees have to adopt their own professional development program rather than dictate by a management.The second thing is that some of the employee developmentcontrols need to be surrender by the supervisors.The last is the professional development of the tool that the employee use which is ensure by the executives.
There are many factors to make the project success and the most important is the project manager. The skill and competencies of the project manager significantly change the environment and characteristic of the project. The key goal of a project manager is that the surprises is avoid that leads to bad news such as project cancellation, late delivery, overrunning of the cost, customer dissatisfaction, termination, outsourcing, and unemployment. As It is discuss above that project managers are the special breed for the people. The critical success factor is the actual culture of the organization. This culture is based on the project management commitment to deliver a quality project.
References
Harmon, P., 2015. The scope and evolution of business process management. In Handbook on business process management 1 (pp. 37-80).Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Mason, C. and Brown, R., 2014. Entrepreneurial ecosystems and growth oriented entrepreneurship. Final Report to OECD, Paris, 30(1), pp.77-102.
Medina, A. and Francis, A.J., 2015. What are the characteristics that software development project team members associate with a good project manager?.Project Management Journal, 46(5), pp.81-93.
Nasir, M.H.N.M., Sahibuddin, S., Ahmad, R.B. and Fauzi, S.S.B.M., 2015. How the PMBOK Addresses Critical Success Factors for Software Projects: A Multi-round Delphi Study.JSW, 10(11), pp.1283-1300.
Paolella, L. and Durand, R., 2016. Category spanning, evaluation, and performance: Revised theory and test on the corporate law market. Academy of Management Journal, 59(1), pp.330-351.
Rezvani, A., Chang, A., Wiewiora, A., Ashkanasy, N.M., Jordan, P.J. and Zolin, R., 2016.Manager emotional intelligence and project success: The mediating role of job satisfaction and trust. International Journal of Project Management, 34(7), pp.1112-1122
Zhang, Y., Marquis, C., Filippov, S., Haasnoot, H.J. and Van der Steen, M., 2015.The Challenges and Enhancing Opportunities of Global Project Management: Evidence from Chinese and Dutch Cross-Cultural Project Management.
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