Discuss about the Managerial Creativity and Innovation Management.
The aim of the paper is to delve into the expanding areas of project management, which is undergoing huge evolution due to changes in science and dynamic market conditions. The assignment takes Federal Water and Electricity Association of the United Arab Emirates as the crux of the study. The paper is divided into three sections. The first section studies the newly evolving concepts of project management like agile concept, value –driven projects and managing projects for innovation. The author has reviewed each of these new project management techniques based on several advantages and disadvantages to the companies. The section also delves into the competencies and qualities the project managers of today are expected to have in order to match up to the demands of the current market. The second part delves into FEWA, its operations, projects and organisational structure. The third section studies the difficulties of modern project management ending with recommendations.
The field of project management has undergone drastic evolution with new areas like agile concept, value driven projects, new emerging competences and increasing complexity within projects. These new areas have also caused changes in the roles of project managers which demand new competencies.
Agile concept is a modern approach of dividing and large complex projects into sections called iterations. The companies today handle complex projects to satisfy the diverse demands of their clients. The project managers lead the project team and take the responsibility of dividing the projects into divisions using a group of software called agile software. The project management functions under the agile concept divides the production activities into three components namely, product owner, scrum master and the project team. The product owner supervises the production from business perspective while the scrum master helps the different sub teams to collaborate to achieve the target (Landry & McDaniel, 2015). The team under the supervision of these two people and the team members take up different responsibilities of achieving the targets. The project manager assumes the role of scrum in the modern project management and leads the team towards achievement of the target.
A review of the agile system of project management reveals several advantages and disadvantages. The first advantage of agile concept is that the task is divided into portions which makes it relatively less complex. This results in more efficient executions of the project strategies. Secondly, the production is controlled by software; hence it is accurate and free from human error. Thirdly, here the project managers have very deep knowledge of both the business and the technical aspect of the project. This enables him to exercise more efficient control over the project (Schwalbe, 2015).
The agile system of project management has several disadvantages as well. First, it is very expensive and requires heavy initial investment from the business organisations, which use or plan to use it. This show, that agile can only be used by multinational companies, which are financially very strong. The second weakness of the agile system is due to excess dependence on software, the project managers or scrums have limited knowledge about cots, personnel and risk management. This impedes efficient decision-making actions by the project managers. Thus, it can be reviewed from the above discussion, though agile facilitates automatic control of projects, it is expensive and often results in project managers becoming over dependent on technology and losing their competencies like risk and personnel management.
The value driven projects refer to the modern development in project management which demands the project managers to complete the projects to the needs of clients or customers. This completion of projects according to the demands of consumers are perceived as value creation. The project managers today have to adopt total quality management approach and ensure value to the customers in terms of money, time specified by the customers and quality demanded by the customers (Schwalbe, 2015).
A review of modern approach of value driven projects reveals several advantages, which make the process significant to project managers of today. First, the value approach driven requires the project managers to produce according to the needs of the customers. As a result value driven approach more revenue for the companies compared to the traditional project management approach. Moreover, in order to ensure high quality, the project managers have to allocate the resources available in the most efficient ways. This results in efficient usage of resources and minimises wastage. In order words, value driven concepts lead to sustainability. Third, when the projects are executed as per the requirements of the clients, it earns more revenue.
There are certain disadvantages of value driven concepts of project management as well. The value driven concept like any other modern project management concept is heavily dependent on technology. Thus, the multinational can invest in the technology to align the demands of the customers with production to maintain high quality. The second shortcoming of this approach is that project managers often become heavily dependent on technology which impedes their decision making power (Jeston & Nelis, 2014).
The project managers today require to be innovative in order to manage their production strategies with the market conditions. The project managers and the apex management of companies have realised that the traditional practices like production as per norms of the company without consideration of the clients’ requirements and making one product for all the markets are no longer suitable for the present competitive scenario. This has led to the project managers of different companies carry out open innovation to discover new methods of managing projects more efficiently. The project managers today partner with overseas firms like laboratories in order to bring about more innovative products which are able to meet the new demands of the consumers. A review of managing projects for innovation shows that entering into partnership to manage projects for innovation is more feasible for the multinational companies because it requires huge capital investment. This disadvantage of managing project for innovation prevents the smaller firms with limited resources from adopting the method (Kerzner, 2015).
A review of the method of managing projects for innovation reveals that though managing projects for innovation is expensive and may largely restricted to large corporations, it has multiple positive aspects. First, managing projects for innovation lead to companies carrying out projects to meet the customer demands. This means that the companies executing those projects earn huge revenue. Secondly, the firms innovative projects leads to the manufacture of products which are more useful to the consumer needs, thus giving the firms more market penetration. This innovation allows firms to collaborate with each other to improve their existing projects and to introduce more market oriented products or products. This analysis points out the third advantage of managing projects for innovation, which is, the companies can share their resources and diversify their losses. This in turn augments the competitive of both the participating firms (Verzuh., 2015).
Project initiation context refers to the steps, which leads to initiation of projects. The project initiation context comprises of planning, analysis, design and implementation. The company carrying out the project carries out feasibility tests to find out whether the project would be feasible, profitable and sustainable.
Ziadat, Kirkham and Gardiner (2017) state that project management have become extremely complex in order to cope with the fast changing demands of the market. the consumers today demand more advanced, economical and high quality products. The project managers managing the manufacturing projects in the companies have to integrate their production methods with this changing needs of the customers. The project management methods as discussed are heavily dependent on technology and collaboration between multiple business concerns and laboratories. This according to Marle and Vidal (2016), has made the production methods and project management extremely complex.
The growing competition and the need to manage projects strategically has led to the project managers develop new competencies and roles. The project managers were traditionally mere employees managing the production activities of companies (Serrador & Pinto, 2015).Serrador and Turner (2015) point out that project managers are not mere employees. The companies today regard them as business partners of strategic importance. The project managers in order to cope with the ever-changing world have developed new skills like communication, strong knowledge of advanced technology, team management and negotiation. These newly emerging competencies help them to lead their project teams towards attainment of higher productivity (Lenfle, Le Masson & Weil, 2016).
The core business activities of Federal Electricity and Water Authorities is to carry out duties entrusted on it by the Ministry of Electricity and Water. The main business activities of it are to provide electricity to the people living in the Northern Emirates. The body uses balancing between cost of production and distribution prices. It also conducts consumption behaviour and creates awareness among the public regarding using water and electricity sustainably.
The current project management strategies of FEWA revolve around achievement of sustainable existence in the Emirates by using water and electricity sustainably. The body’s current project management strategy also consists of controlling demand and supply of electrify and water in the country. FEWA also manages desalinated water in excellent and sustainable manner. The body also aims to rationalise the use of water and reduce wastage of resources. FEWA also supervises administrative services with high quality standard, efficiency and transparency. It also encourages innovation in terms of corporate environment (fewa.gov.ae, 2017).
Chairperson, Ministry of Energy, leads the organisational structure of FEWA. He supervises the Vice Chairperson and the directors. The other departments like finance and marketing work under the supervision of the directors.
This has a strong influence on the management practices and project management. The chairperson of the Ministry of Energy leads FEWA, which ensures that the electrical bidy works under total control of the government. This project management system also leads to trust and customer preferences get priority.
The current organisational project management practices of FEWA come under direct control of the government. The strong leadership of the government in the project management practices ensures high standard of services to the customers. The government also encourages innovation and sustainability in electricity and water supply. This ensures that the body conducts operations and manages its projects in the most efficient ways.
The current project management practices have become very diffcult and challenges . The following are the main difficulties and challenges project management practices encounter:
The project managers while continuing projects to produce goods have to face threats from the strong market competition. This strong market competition forces the companies manufacturing and marketing products spend a high amount towards caring of innovation on regular basis. Moreover, innovation and experimentation in certain sectors like energy is every expensive. These innovations often do not guarantee high returns, thus causing losses to the organisations. Today most of the manufacturing companies enter into collaboration with laboratories all over the world to carry out open innovation. This increases their cost of operations by manifold.
The stiff market competition demands the companies like FEWA to offer more innovative and customer friendly products. The companies as a result do not restrict themselves to their core products. They extend their product lines to serve more diverse needs of customers. Thus, this extreme competition makes companies like FEWA launch projects, which satisfy these core and additional product strategies. For example, FEWA provides electricity and water, which requires huge investment from the company. This makes the management of the projects extremely complex and difficult. This puts extreme pressure on the project manager and the project team. They require investing huge amount in technology to support their core product, electricity and water and their allied products, online payment of bills. This increases the cost of operation of projects and put hug pressure on the existing resources. The project managers of multinational corporations like FEWA require having expertise in various areas like business execution, marketing and production technology of both electricity and water. These diverse needs put intense pressure on the project managers of FEWA and his team.
The discussion shows that modern project management has enabled project managers to handle bigger projects. The project managers today are not mere managers of projects but business partners who ensure that the companies produce goods according to the requirements of the customers. They, in other words align the projects towards business generation. Technology has enabled better handling of projects using software driven systems value-driven and agile. However, the discussion also reveals that project management has become very expensive and complex. The job of the project managers have become more challenging which has led them to develop new qualities and skills to cope up with the situation. The following recommendations in the light of the above discussion aim to help in improving project management practices and activities in the organisations:
The business organisations should invest in sustainable project management techniques and procedure. The clients today are increasing stressing on sustainability and environment friendly products and services. Hence, the project managers should stress on acquiring raw materials for the projects from suppliers supplying with eco-friendly goods.
The increasing complexity of the projects in companies like FEWA requires the project managers to outsource the less important portions of the projects to sub contractors or smaller firms. The project managers in the principle company handling the project should ensure that these small firms use the same method of project execution and parameters.
The discussion indicates that projects have become extremely expensive and complex. The project managers can deal with the exceeding cost of project execution by two ways. First, they can acquire supply chains both with the country of operation and overseas. They as a result would be able to choose from a large number of suppliers supplying a particular material. They can buy the materials for the projects from the suppliers, which satisfy the quality parameters of the company and offer the materials at economic rates. Secondly, they can acquire materials available locally from local suppliers. This method would enable them to save expenditure they incur on exporting and importing raw materials. Thus, these two methods can save expenditure to continue with and execute the projects.
The project managers should emphasis on reduction of wastage and recycling of the resources to minimise expenditure. For example, the wastewater can be recycled and reused in the projects. Thus, the companies can save the expenditure they incur after acquiring water from outside and paying taxes for the same. The project should mandate installing and using of recycling as a compulsory of their project management practices. The companies can allocate the amount saved towards other important functions like marketing. Thus, recycling of wastes can help the companies in lowering the project costs and making them more profitable.
References:
Jeston, J., & Nelis, J. (2014). Business process management. Routledge.
Kerzner, H. (2013). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Landry, J. P., & McDaniel, R. (2015). Agile Preparation Within a Traditional Project Management Course. In Proceedings of the EDSIG Conference (p. n3429).
Lenfle, S., Le Masson, P., & Weil, B. (2016). When project management meets design theory: revisiting the Manhattan and Polaris projects to characterize ‘radical innovation’and its managerial implications. Creativity and Innovation Management, 25(3), 378-395.
Marle, F., & Vidal, L. A. (2016). Assessing Complexity of Projects. In Managing Complex, High Risk Projects (pp. 75-118). Springer London.
S.A.L. (2017). Federal Electricity & Water Authority. Fewa.gov.ae. Retrieved 1 November 2017, from https://www.fewa.gov.ae/en/Pages/default.aspx
Schwalbe, K. (2015). Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.
Serrador, P., & Pinto, J. K. (2015). Does Agile work?—A quantitative analysis of agile project success. International Journal of Project Management, 33(5), 1040-1051.
Serrador, P., & Turner, R. (2015). The relationship between project success and project efficiency. Project Management Journal, 46(1), 30-39.
Verzuh, E. (2015). The fast forward MBA in project management. John Wiley & Sons.
Ziadat, W., Kirkham, R., & Gardiner, P. (2017, June). On the Edge of Chaos: Complexity Offering Value Expectations on O&G Projects. In SPE Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Annual Technical Symposium and Exhibition. Society of Petroleum Engineers.
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