The New Aircraft Delivery Project - Literature review Example

The New Aircraft Delivery Project Name: Instructors Name: Course title: Institution: Date: Executive summary The need of an effective project management is important for over all success of any given project. As indicated by Stevens (2002) project managers’ plays significant duties in creating cohesive workforce, mostly in projects where large number stakeholders are involved. From studying the case of the New Aircraft Delivery project, one can clearly see that the failure of this project arose due to the failure of Reichart, the project manager. He failed to organize the entire workforce, time management and t poor documentation of the required job. In the New Aircraft Delivery project, the project manager failed to effectively schedule the project resulting to failure during the initial stages. Through proper scheduling, a project manager can be able to predict duration of a particular project. Staffing is another vital factor, which enhances success of any given project. Adequate communication, project control, and effective reporting methods are some of important factors that Reichart should have looked into for a successful completion of this project. In order to rectify the problems facing the New Aircraft Delivery project, there was need of crashing the schedules, reallocating resources as well as enhancing communication channels among the stakeholders. In conclusion, one can see the urgent need of project reorganization, once a project has failed in order to slip the project back on track of success. Introduction The success of any given project largely depends on the efficiency and effectiveness of the project managers, members of the team among other stakeholders. Managers should emulate the appropriate strategies in organizing, planning, procuring and management of the necessary resources to attain the desired result in timely manner. Some of the major challenges facing many project managers is the lack of proper allocation of financial resources, time management, and ineffective communication channels among other factors. In this regard, it is crucial for the senior company executives to assign duties of managing projects to skilled as well as qualified personnel in order to ensure effective and timely delivery of projects (Stevens, 2002). The main problems facing the New Aircraft Delivery project as indicated in the case study relates to lack of control and monitoring of the project and improper time management. This paper will critically analyze the role played by monitoring and controlling aspects of the project management. Initiating a project Initiating project involves as an early stages where the managers should adopt prior to commencement of the actual project. This includes analyzing the benefits as well as the costs to be incurred by the project. In addition to this, it entails allocation of duties to personnel responsible for executing the project and scheduling the project. In the New Aircraft Delivery project, the project manager, Reichart, did not schedule the project as required, thus leading to project failure at the initial stages. Through proper scheduling, project managers are able to predict duration a particular project will consume. It also involves acceleration of some activities to meet the deadline. It was vital for Reichart to come up with Gantt chart, a graphical representation of the activities to be undertaken to completion of a project. Through provision of a Gantt chart to his functional managers, he would have avoided their increased laxity causing them to divert attention to pet projects. Budgeting plays a fundamental role as far as management of any given project is concerned. Bjarne (2007) proper allocation of resources form a primary duty for project manager, if the desired results is to be attained. Due to failures of the project manager to manage the available resources in the New Aircraft Delivery Project, initial expenditure increased by at least 40% (Witzel, 2003). Even though the functional managers are important in a project, roles of the project manager in preparation of budget and monitoring the use of funds should have avoided the high costs incurred by the project (Stevens, 2002). Staffing Bjarne (2007) there is need to put in place an efficient team which will overall success of a project at hand. It calls for proper methods of recruiting the team members, having the required skills of undertake numerous activities in the project. One of the problems, which faced the New Aircraft Delivery Project, was lack of staffing. Most of the line managers lacked efficiency in their duties as indicated by the time wasted without making up for time wasted. Consequently, this resulted to the delay of entire project as well as raised the cost of the project. During this project, the project managers should consider staffing as one of the most important area for the success of the project. First, it is vital to take into account the skills required to undertake the project. This would ensure that team members are fully aware of the various concepts relating to the project. Secondly, project managers should consider the kind of training required prior to the start of the project. Lack of properly trained staff in the field of computer programming led to delay of the New Aircraft Delivery Project (Witzel, 2003). Even though the project manager was provided with twelve members of staff, it failed have much effect on the completion of the project. It is also crucial to consider the budgetary allocation, which is adequate to maintain the staff. As a result of failing to hire skilled computer programmers during the initial stages, the project managers delayed the entire project for two months while at least $ 15,000 extra money was required to cater for purposes of storage and computer programming (Stevens, 2002). Reporting It is important for project managers to frequently report to the executive on the progress of the project. The reports should entail all the issues, which may affect the completion of the project. For example, if more funds are required, project managers must inform the executives in advance, instead of waiting until the project comes to a stop. In the same ways, managers must adopt variance requests. These are documents indicating any risks or changes, which might affect the completion of the project in the specified time. Being signed by project managers, the client and the project sponsor, variance request indicates the impacts of the variance particularly on the schedules, budgets as well as scope of the project. By using the variance requests, Reichart could have informed the executives and the Airline International pertaining the adjusted final budget and completion dates (Witzel, 2003). Control Project control is important area, which the project managers must emulate. Phillips (2003) project control does not imply having authorities over the other members of the team. In centrally to this, it involves guiding team members to achieve the set goals. According to cooperate vice president, Reichart, the project manager was responsible for the success or failure of the project. Reichart failed to control the duties of functional managers causing the delay of the project. Effective project managers should evaluate their prevailing position as well as how far they have diverted from the project objectives. Evaluation is then reported to the firms’ executives or any other noted problem. To achieve the goals of the project, project control ensures that proper management of the entire project is achieved in the long run. On the other hand, it can be indicated that planning and monitoring acts as the main cause for most of the project failures (Lock, 2007). Despite the continuous evolution in project management fields, it is clear that traditional approaches of project management still indicate lack of utilization of the project controls. Presently, it is estimated that, majority of project control costs ranges from 0.7% to 3.2 % of the whole project that includes cost accounting (Witzel, 2003). Project controls require improvement of cost effectiveness by 2.2%, in order to breakeven. It is also notable that NPV (Net Project value) also rises from improvement of schedules. Generally, the success factors of entire project is based on good project control practices, which results to healthy scheduled outcomes and cost. Due to the improper project control methods adopted by Reichart, the entire New Aircraft Delivery Project almost became largely attainable. For example, Reichart reported to operations manager instead of project office, responsible for the success of the whole project. As a result of this, corporate staff interests in the Project become intensive, requiring 7:00 am meeting every Monday morning. The main aim of the meeting was to review the status of the project and deliberating on recovery plans. Reichart found himself spending most of his time preparing for paperwork, p and reports for these meetings, instead of administering the project (Witzel, 2003). Improving the Performance of the New Aircraft Delivery Project Phillips (2003) argues that there are many reasons, which can move projects past their stipulated deadlines. It is common for some work to become hard more than originally accepted or as a result of having turnover requiring the project manager to bring in new employees or hire expatriates. However, if the project delays become more evident, it is crucial to initially determine the cause, then the appropriate remedies, failure to which the situation may recur, thus hindering the success of the project further. In the New Aircraft Delivery Project, the main problem facing this particular project was poor communication from the project manager, poor management of the available finances as well as poor participation from the functional managers. Despite the great support awarded by the Airline International to Reichart in the New Aircraft Delivery Project, he failed to appreciate it. For instance, the Airline International, who were the customers, decided to assign one representative in Reichart department to monitor t he progress of the project on daily basis. The representative was also to act as the interface of the interface of Reichart and his staff as required. As a result the project was required to undergo massive changes at no any extra costs, in order to be complete within the scheduled period. Instead of supporting the representative, the project manager openly disagreed with the representative, leading to further deterioration of the relationship between the customer and producer. To prevent all these problems, the project manager, should have earlier taken up measures aimed at slipping the New Aircraft Delivery Project back on track (Phillips, 2003). Proper communication Phillips (2003) indicates that ineffective communication among the staffs, customers among other stakeholders such as the suppliers within any given project can result to misunderstandings, thus negatively affect the overall performance. Project managers must be bridge among the diversified branches of project undertaking in order to enhance communication channels. To most of the investors, they prefer investing their money and other form of resources in those firms that delivers projects in time as well as keeping them informed about the progress and updates of particular project. If customers, such as Airline International, feel satisfied with the project performance, they are highly likely to return or give referrals probably having much larger projects. It is therefore advisable that, project leaders, should often hold meetings to make sure that the stakeholders are aware about project plans and the responsibility of members of the team. For the New Aircraft Delivery Project, there was lack of communication from Reichart, the project coordinator. For instance, when the corporate vice-president visited Reichart, one Sunday morning and found him compiling results for Airline international, the vice president indicated dissatisfaction on the way this particular project was run (Phillips, 2003). Further, due to miscommunication, it became hard for the project manager to create harmonious working environments with the functional managers, whom he pointed out to be creating problems in this particular project. Reallocating resources As earlier indicated by this case study, establishment of activities considered as vital for to achieve project success was not present. Witzel (2003) if a given project trends over the deadline, the critical path is late, hence great need of moving resources to other activities that are more essential for the purpose of recovery. This enables the project manager to acquire the project back on track though stretching out work or delaying the other. For example, Reichart must have allocated more resources to team building activities. Consequently, this would have resulted to a more cohesive workforce, improved communication channels to all the stakeholders, thus more output. Ultimately, the delay of project submission by one year and 40% cost overrun would have been highly avoided. Crash the schedule Crash the schedule means applying resources to the critical path, sequence of activities that must be completed in schedule for the entire project completion as per expected duration. It is crucial for project managers to not only throw more of the projects resource to critical path but also trying to get the big schedules again for the lowest amounts of incremental costs. For example, if employees are assigned to complete given activity in two years, the project manager should try whether two people can complete the project much earlier. The additional type of resources may also be sourced from outside as witnessed in case of the New Aircraft Delivery Project, where staffs from the Airline international was hired to head the project (Witzel, 2003). Conclusion From studying the above, we can clearly see the need of monitoring the success of given project. If this is not done, chances of project failure or delays of competition becomes evident coupled with raised cost of operations. For the New Aircraft Delivery Project to succeed there was need of project reorganization in order to encounter the factors leading to deprive the overall performances of this project. In conclusion, the New Aircraft Delivery Project was affected due to lack of time management that resulted to the completion of the project behind the schedule. It is also evident that lack of commitment by managers is also a factor that delays the delivery of a project as depicted by the functional managers in the case study. References Bjarne, K. (2007). Project Management‎ –Theory and practice. New York: Sage Harrison, D. (2004). Advanced project management: a structured approach‎. Gower Publishing, Ltd. Lock, D. (2007).Project management (9e ed.) Gower Publishing, Ltd. Phillips, J. (2003). PMP Project Management Professional Study Guide. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional Stevens, M. (2002). Project Management Pathways. Association for Project Management. APM Publishing Limited Witzel, M. (2003). Fifty key figures in management‎. London: Routledge. Read More