Core Managerial Skills For Successful Project Management

Managerial Skills for Project Management

Discuss about the Recent Development and Research Opportnities.

The project can be successfully completed with the application of effective managerial skills for handling tasks and flow of processes without any distraction, chaos, conflicts, and constraints. The manager should develop some key skills for implementing the strategic plan to resolve the potential constraints associated with the projects. In this paper we are looking forward on the core managerial skills which the project manager should adapt for handling the smooth flow of the business operation. The working structure of the role and responsibilities of the project manager should align with the project objectives so that he will be able to manage effective communication, handling of constraints and risks, follow up of negotiation procedures, and management of conflict at work place. During the course plan, I have been analysed that the operational plan of the project is equipped with three constraints which are categorised as time, cost, and scope.

I meet with the CEO of ABC cotton textile manufacturing industry to know about his working experience as the project manager. He shared his experience about the skills and expertise which is required to become a good manager. He stated that the capability of the manager can be judged on the basis of completing the project within approved budget and time. The supervision of the process activities by setting out their priorities in undertaken processes is the core responsibility of the project manager to get effective outcome of the project. He shares his some practical experiences to resolve the complexity at work place. The project process gets affected if the proper steps are not taken to manage he constraints related to time, cost, and scope. He suggested that the critical path of the process should be developed so that the critical activities should be carried out before non-critical activities so that no delay occurs in the project allocated time for completion. The interdependencies of the processes should be judged so that the completion of one process does not affect the working schedule of the other process. The identification of the complexity which is amalgamated with the project process should be judged and proper strategy should be planned to resolve the complexity proactively before the start-up of the project. This helps in completing the project without any distraction and chaos with the end product (Hamid, Ghafoor, and Shah, 2012). The long term sustainability of the project can be achieved by measuring the value of constraints and their effect on the business operational plan. The activities should be aligned in the direction of achieving the mission and goal of the organization.

Experience of CEO of ABC Cotton Textile Manufacturing Industry

The managerial aspect of completing the operational work flow of the enterprise is effectively highlighted by the CEO of the ABC manufacturing company. He focused that the quality of the product can be achive by measuring the project boundaries associated with the strategic plan developed for the betterment of the company. The strategic plan should emphasize the starting and ending date of the project, resources and equipment required for completing the task, budget required by analysing the cost associated with the processes, and development of the infrastructure which supports the organization plan for implementation. The flexibility and the dynamic nature of the organization infrastructure helps in comply with the constraints associated with the project and the project can be completed on time without any hindrance.

In his discussion he focuses on the triple constraints which can negatively affect the functioning of the operational plan undertaken by the company (Hall, 2012). The managerial skills of the manager can be measured by the capability of handling triple constraint effectively. The manager should gain expertise in three areas of concern which are known as development of time management plan, cost management plan, and scope management plan (Kjolhede, 2012). The aligning of the time, cost, and scope helps in completing the project with all success and without facing any failure. The satisfaction level of the customers can be improved by competing the product on time and good quality which in turn increase the profitability and long term sustainability of the enterprise. The balance should be maintained between th acitivities which are used for resolving the issues associated with the time, cost, and scope.

During the course plan of research study, we come across that there are four factors which should be focused and balanced for achieving goal of the project which are categorised as identification of the problems and associated requirements, determining the project activities and sub-activities, Aligning the processes and activities in terms of time and cost to get quality product with minimum efforts of the working employees, and lastly measuring the output of the undertaken process with the requirement specification plan set out by the project stakeholders (Passesheim, 2014).

The business strategy should be developed for aligning the processes undertaken with respect to minimizing the risks associated with time, cost, and scope (Catanio, Armstrong, Tucker, 2015). The constraints associated with the time, cost, and scope depend on the three managerial elements which are summarised in the table below:

Core area of the concern	Elements	Functional Unit
Resources	People	The functional unit for achieving the operational plan of the enterprise depends upon employees and workers (Vidal, 2014)
	System	The policies and standards should be used for implementing the required application to complete the given tasks
	Tool	The set of equipment, hardware, and software helps in completing the business activities on time and with minimum efforts (Lima, Fernandes, and Machado, 2014)
Financial Resources	Revenue collection	Revenue from investment Revenue from equity Revenue from assets
	Expenditure	Cost required to manage the labour and equipment
		Charges on freight and etc.
	Budget	The funds required for competing the business processes is approved on the basis of estimated budget for the project The estimated cost of the project should be estimated by the project sponsor for the smooth flow of business operational plan
Stakeholders	Project Sponsor	He is responsible for approving the budget of the project
	Project owner	Requirement specification plan
	Project manager	Supervising the functional unit

Triple Constraints and Managerial Elements

The inefficiency and unavailability on time requirement placed by the site workers creates the scenario of complexity. The following figure shows the interrelationship of the constraints:

The development of the scope management plan for the undertaken project is the core responsibilities of the project manager to align the requirement of the project with it associated processes. The manager focuses on pointing out the in-scope and out-of-scope activities required for the completing the project on time. The in-scope activities of the project depends on the management of time and cost factors associated with the process activity schedule. The number of days and amount should be allocated to every activity to notice the critical path of the project development activity schedule. Scope should be verified according to the requirement specification plan placed by the owner with the quality of the end product received at the completion of the project. The process of verification helps in measuring the success and failure of the project. The project is successfully completed if it is capable of completing the task within approved budget and allocated time without any delay.

The effectiveness of the project plan depends on the flow of communication between the participating units of the undertaken process. The communication should be established between the internal and external parties of the business unit for the transmission of the required information on time. The on-demand retrieval helps in increasing the operational capability of the working process. The communication at the work place helps the employees to resolve their grievances, chaos, conflicts, and distraction among them. The happy and the satisfied employees increases the productivity of the enterprise. The project manager aligns the communication plan according to the business pan by answering to the question like:

What information should be shared?

By whom information has to be shared?

Who are the receivers of the information?

When the information has to be shared?

What is the frequency of sharing information?

What are the means of communication used?

What are the impacts of communication management plan?

The success of the project can be measured by measuring the efficiency of managing time, cost, and scope in relation to the project activity schedule. The traditional view of the triple constraints highlights that the balance should be drawn between time, cost, and scope associated with the project completion. The three criteria should be fulfilled for the completing the task with success which are project should be completed with the prescribed duration, approved cost required for completing the processes, and scope should be aligned with the requirement specification plan. The effective management of the three constraints which are associated with the project helps in resulting with the expected quality of the end product. The central idea of the triple constraint is to satisfy all the requirement of the project which affects the quality of the end product. The satisfaction of the customers helps in measuring the success or the failure of the project.

Scope Management Plan

Time Constraint: The value of the project increases with the completion of the project within the approved time limit. The duration of the activities are set so that no hindrance should takes place and result into the delay of the project. The development of the project activity schedule helps in focusing on the critical path of the project activity. The completion of the critical activities helps in completing the project without any delay.

Scope Constraints: The development of the scope management plan should align with the requirement specification plan proposed by the project owner. The scheduling of in scope activities helps in providing expected quality of the product by the customers. The out of scope activities helps in eliminating the extra burden of activity schedule which can cause delay of the project. The determining of the scope helps in satisfying the expectation of the customer by handling them the quality product at the end of the project cycle. The scope management plan should emphasize the starting and ending date of the project, resources and equipment required for completing the task, budget required by analysing the cost associated with the processes, and development of the infrastructure which supports the organization plan for implementation.

Cost Constraints: The expected cost should be associated with every activity which helps in calculating the expected budget of the project (Wyngaard, Pretorius, and Pretorious, 2012). The cost should be determined by analysing the market price of the resources and equipment. The actual cost of the project should be less than the estimated cost. The over budget of the project causes the failure to the project completion life cycle. The difference between the budget cost and the actual cost helps in measuring the success and failure of the project. It can be determined if the budget cost is more than the actual cost than it clarifies that project is successfully completed within the approved budget of the project whereas if actual cost is more than the budgeted cost than it clarifies that the project is failed to handle its resources and equipment within the approved budget (Wei, 2014).

The project manager should periodically analyse the difference between the two costs and the critical path of the project activity schedule so that proactively effective action plan can be implemented for managing the requirement of the project within the approved time, cost, and scope.

Conclusion

The concluding remark of the project is that the core role and responsibility of the project manager is to determine the inefficiency associated with the project in respect to cost, time, and scope should be handled proactively so that the smooth operational flow of processes can be laid down to get quality product at the end of the project cycle which is capable of fulfilling the expectation of the customer demand placed in the requirement specification plan. The project process gets affected if the proper steps are not taken to manage he constraints related to time, cost, and scope. The central idea of the triple constraint is to satisfy all the requirement of the project which affects the quality of the end product.

References:

Catanio, J., Armstrong, G., Tucker, J. (2015). The effects of project management certification on the triple constraints. 1^st ed. (ebook). Available at: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/beac/f3536399bc5f6557ede240b18c2ed1b85096.pdf [Accessed 17 Apr. 2018].

Hall, N. (2012). Project Management: Recent development and research Opportnities. 1^st ed. (ebook). Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11518-012-5190-5 [Accessed 17 Apr. 2018].

Hamid, S., Ghafoor, S., and Shah, T. (2012). Work Environment and its impact on the triple constraint of project management. 1^st ed. (ebook). Available at: file:///C:/Users/acer/Downloads/1011-1-1011-1-10-20160308.pdf [Accessed 17 Apr. 2018].

Kjolhede, E. (2012). Project Management theory and the management of research projects. 1^st ed. (ebook). Available at: https://openarchive.cbs.dk/bitstream/handle/10398/6308/wp32000.pdf?sequence=1 [Accessed 17 Apr. 2018].

Lima, A., Fernandes, G., Machado, R. (2014). Project and program Management implications in the portfolio management of IT projects in applied R & D projects. 1^st ed. (ebook). Available at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7814553/ [Accessed 17 Apr. 2018].

Passenheim, O. (2014). Project Management. 1^st ed. (ebook). Available at: https://home.hit.no/~hansha/documents/theses/projectmanagement.pdf [Accessed 17 Apr. 2018].

Vidal, L. (2014). Understanding project complexity: Implication on project management. 1^st ed. (ebook). Available at: https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/03684920810884928 [Accessed 17 Apr. 2018].

Wei, L. (2014). Manager’s challenge in managing constraints. 1^st ed. (ebook). Available at: https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/managing-challenges-triple-constraints-6884 [Accessed 17 Apr. 2018].

Wyngaard, J., Pretorius, J., and Pretorious, L. (2012). Theory of the triple constraints : A Conceptual review. 1^st ed. (ebook). Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271455172_Theory_of_the_triple_constraint_-_A_conceptual_review [Accessed 17 Apr. 2018].