Organizing for Project Management - Essay Example

Organizations undertake projects all the time. But how often is the decision to undertake a project based on a strong business case? How often are proposed projects reviewed and approved by executive management? How often does management review the purpose, direction and progress of a project during its lifecycle? How often does management end up asking itself “Why did we take on this project in the first place?” The answers to these questions, respectively, would probably be: “Rarely,” “Sometimes,” “Occasionally,” and “Because it seemed like a good idea at the time.” In fact, says Mike Peterson, Executive Manager of PriceWaterHouse, many organisations have difficulty turning their business ideas into reality. So, project management is the art of directing and coordinating human and material resources throughout the life of a project by using modern management techniques to achieve predetermined objectives of scope, cost, time, quality, and participation satisfaction. Introduction. This topic “Project management” considers practices in project management within local Government, and Conceptual Model of Organisation, Organisation’s measures are provided with project management. Project management helps to develop various applications for local Government, Banking system, helps to provide IT services including operating a large wide area network, generating government statistic, helps to plan and draft various Government initiatives and policy. This project provides conceptual Model of Organisation with the descriptions of two models Price Water House. Price Water house conducts an assessment of the economic impact, examines potential options and strategies for attracting alternative aviation-related activities to the base. These days, the traditional measures of a project’s success extend well beyond “On time, on budget, and to specifications” to include such criteria as “Delivery of anticipated benefits, engagement of stakeholders, and organizational adoption.” Easy to say, of course, but it is hard to do in practice. In project management, the metrics of on time, on budget, fit for purpose, and they are dependent variables. For example: a decision to cut cost (budget) will shorten the work (time) allowed to complete the project and (potentially) reduce the quality of the work. Similarly, a decision to improve the quality of a project will increase the cost and time required to complete the work. To avoid project “belly flops,” management can create and control projects in such a way that they have the best possible chance of success. It may seem obvious, but any project undertaken by a company should be driven by business objectives; projects that do not clearly advance the aims of the company should simply not be undertaken. Many organisations review their business aims on a regular basis and adjust them for a variety of reasons. The review and approval of projects should be fully integrated into this process. The objective of project governance is to plan and manage the project throughout its life. This involves the realisation of project outcomes, with high levels of productivity and quality, and with manageable levels of uncertainty (risk). Main body. The development objectives of the project is to contribute towards the alleviation of poverty by improving governance through improved broader citizen participation in decision-making and the enhanced performance of local government in district development. To attain this development objective, the local Government needs to have some immediate objectives: 1) to strengthen the capacity of local government to formulate and implement policies; 2) to strengthen the capacity of district and local communities in the planning and management; 3) to institute appropriate procedures and processes for financing of local authorities in support for decentralized sector. There are some project achievements: a) policy development, the project is successful in contributing to the area of policy development; b) development planning and management, progress will has been made in establishing an institutional framework for planning and management. Nowadays, demands on corporate strategists are increasingly heavy, as strategic implementation in becoming more complex in the real world. Therefore, there is a need to develop a Conceptual Model to integrate and make the theory of strategy implementation easier to understand and apply. For smaller projects the following Conceptual Model of organization can be used: for example, on a smaller project with stakeholders primarily within a single business unit, an appropriate governance structure might be: Project Sponsor - Deputy Secretary responsible for Business Unit Project Manager - Manager of Business Unit Project Team - 2 nominated staff from Business Unit Reference Group - Departmental Business Unit Managers Independent Quality Review - employee from a related Business Unit. For multiple related projects, or a large project with multiple sub-projects, a single governance structure may be employed. At a minimum, a core Steering Committee with responsibility for overall outcomes is recommended. The governance structure may be largely stable for all these projects (for example same Steering Committee members, single Reference Group, same Quality Review Consultant across all sub-projects, etc), or be quite different for each sub-project. The set-up in these cases will be largely dependant on stakeholder diversity among sub-projects, project size and the differences or similarities in the nature of the sub-projects. As projects evolve, their model of governance may change. For example, Project Team members, working parties and/or reference groups may move in and out of the immediate governance sphere of the project as the nature of the project tasks change. Talking about organisation’s measures, there are four elements that have to be taken in account: processes, structure, people and system. 1. Processes According to the Price Water House project management conceptions, project management is essentially a systematic and organised set, it is also processes that bring order and efficiency to the logistical details and it has team management for any size of project and portfolio of projects with a definable end. Therefore, the existence and the systematic application of well-defined project management processes - often grouped into a project management methodology -differentiate those companies that are able consistently to deliver high project results from the rest. 2. Organisational structure The way an organisation is structured is fundamental to the outcome of their project management performance. The alignment of the organisational structure to the degree of importance of project management within the organisation is decisive in overall project performance. More often than not, this element is underestimated, or completely ignored, by management, as organisations have not evolved (or adapted themselves) as quickly as the business has, hence a large proportion of projects fail. 3. People Project management is all about working in teams and, therefore, the people management skills of a project manager are essential. Special emphasis is placed on project or programme managers, but the people (i.e., project sponsors, project team members) who are above or below them also play a significant role in project success. Therefore, overall competency-building is fundamental to increase the maturity of an organisation. 4. Systems and Tools Organisations use systems and tools to automate part of their project and portfolio management processes. These tools support project managers in managing projects and allow top management to measure performance, to take critical decisions and to optimise the returns of the overall portfolio of projects. What we often see is that large amounts of money are spent on systems that are not actually used by project managers (and the other levels) involved in project implementation. Recommendations Many organisations lack the kind of structured process that should be followed when deciding to approve and initiate a project. Projects are often approved haphazardly, or without a clear understanding - and articulation - of the intended aims. To avoided many mistakes in process of project management, it should follow the next steps, these steps help to ensure that proposed projects are properly reviewed beforehand: Formally review potential projects: Compare all proposed projects with the organisation’s strategy to determine whether or not they are properly aligned. Since available budget dollars are usually fixed, it is imperative that they be allocated to the projects that will provide the greatest payback to the organization. Senior management should determine appropriateness. Potential projects that are in line with business objectives and which promise the greatest benefits move to step two. Develop a business case: Each organisationally strategic project should have an associated business case. The business case should be compelling enough to justify the budget dollars. The business case should include a quantification of benefits, and as much supporting evidence as possible. If senior management reviews and approves the business case, then the project moves to stage three: developing a project charter. Create a project charter: The project charter should be a document, among other things, which the business needs for the project, expected benefits. (1) Conclusions. Well, analised the information of this topic, some conclusion can be provided: project management is distinguished from the general management of corporations by the mission-oriented nature of a project. The general management of business and industrial corporations assumes a broader outlook with greater continuity of operations. Nevertheless, there are sufficient similarities as well as differences between these two kinds of management, so modern management techniques developed for general management may be adapted for project management. It is important to say that the Project Management focuses on nine distinct areas requiring project manager knowledge and attention: 1. Project integration management to ensure that the various project elements are effectively coordinated. 2. Project scope management to ensure that all the work required (and only the required work) is included. 3. Project time management to provide an effective project schedule. 4. Project cost management to identify needed resources and maintain budget control. 5. Project quality management to ensure functional requirements are met. 6. Project human resource management to development and effectively employ project personnel. 7. Project communications management to ensure effective internal and external communications. 8. Project risk management to analyze and mitigate potential risks. Project procurement management obtains necessary resources from external sources. Present-day project management professionals are required to overcome many challenges to ensure the completion of a successful project. Accurate information allows management and all project stakeholders to stay informed of changes, risks or issues. Staying on top of project issues, it allows analysing better overall impact to all projects in the portfolio. Selecting proper resources are available for every project. Without a coherent system, established standards cannot be implemented to serve as a template for future projects. Project Management in collaboration with Business Management learn how introduction of Organisatuional Project Management requires Project Management to understand the complexity of Business Management, it gives opportunity for Business Management to be successful. Business Managers must learn that executive sponsorship is important, but not enough. Introduction of Organisational Project Management (OPM) must be sold to the whole organisation. Introduction of OPM as leadership philosophy is much more complex than it may appear at the first glance. Project-based business differs a lot from the traditional Business Administration set-up. In fact with a project-based business set-up and application of supporting tools, the effort of Business Administration may even be reduced. There will be a shift in power and it may be experienced as a threat by middle management. The existence of executive sponsorship is vital for the successful introduction of any OPM, but it is not enough. Works Cited 1. PricewaterhouseCoopers home page. www.pwcglobal.com 2. Clarke S. Project Management for a change. http://congresses.pmi.org/EMEA2005/TheCongress/AOF/AOF.cfm?TrackID=11 3. IBM GLOBAL SERVICES. PriceWaterhouse Coopers Global Internet. http://www.scguild.com/Resume/8259R.html 4. What is project managemen? http://www.projectmanagementsurvival.com/ProjectManagementInformation.html 5. Organizing for Project Management. http://www.ce.cmu.edu/pmbook/02_Organizing_For_Project_Management.html 6. 11th GCC e-Government Forum. http://www.datamatixgroup.com/agenda/speakersprofile.asp?id=167 7. External Consultants. http://www.defence.gov.au/budget/02-03/dar/04_03consultants.htm 8. Burke, R. (2001). Project Management. 3rd edition. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Read More