Essentials Skills for Business Projects - Essay Example

Essentials Skills for Business Projects Introduction Business projects require all-embracing project management skills to create effective systems, leading to the successful achievement of the project objectives. One does not require an official project management certification for creating a workable and compatible system. Proficiency in specific project management skills can propel business projects to long-term success. A number of business projects fail as a consequence of poor upfront planning. Business projects need proper project management from the beginning to their completion in order to create a quality business product and service. This overview affects all types of business projects excluding projects in distance education. Several project managers underutilize their skills about project management (Crawford, 2000). This paper evaluates the key skills required for the successful completion of business projects and reviews the common reasons for project failure. By acclimatizing with better project management skills, the modern-day project managers can improve their skills in executing and accomplishing the goals and objectives of business projects as defined by the senior management. For any business project to take off and cruise through all the obstacles and challenges, proper project planning is a key factor and skill in completing the imminent objective successfully. Project managers have to develop clear prospective outcomes as well as execute desirable tasks needed to accomplish the objectives. The most significant initial step is identifying the scope of the project (Lavell & Martinelli, 2008). By doing this, project managers can estimate the size, boundaries, and purpose of the project in such a way that they “create a box” that facilitates the real components needed “in the box” while distinguishing them from the ones “out of the box.” Consequently, skilful project managers must ensure that they deliberate on every executable task in order to unearth ideas that can propel the business project to the final stage (Remington & Pollack, 2007). After brainstorming, the tasks should be arranged in the most consistent order to get the business project running to its completion. However, new tasks might come up in the course of the business project, and skilled project managers should not hesitate adding them appropriately without changing the scope of the project (Fairholm, 2003). With the above measures, the budget of the business project needs accurate estimation. The budgeting requires realistic measures because making slight or huge mistakes on the conservative side can lead to negative effects in the end. The significance budget points towards the projected outcome during completion, since creating a precise initial budget helps business project managers to stay within the budget. Without proper planning business projects can fail miserably because currently, many factors fluctuate in the market (Hartman and Ashrafi, 2002). Team management is another key skill required by business projects to ensure that its completion is successful. Irrespective of using permanent employees or contracted project management team to run the activities, managers have to ensure to include all team members to play a part in the completion of the business project (Lewis, 2002). Unless project managers define the tasks every team member is required to undertake in line with their type of skills, the project might stall because it becomes unrealistic in its execution plans. It is important to have an in-depth overview of the business project tasks to define precisely the types of abilities needed to accomplish every task. As soon as a well-equipped team comes together, project managers should distribute the tasks to specific team members, along with the timeline and expected outcomes (Paglis & Green, 2002). The tasks need clear definition in order to eliminate potential discrepancies and dependencies among various team members. When any member is behind schedule on any of the scheduled tasks, this inconsistency can jeopardize the entire business project, hence, it is vital to delegate roles and accountabilities for every team member clearly. The best way is creating a database or a tracking form detailing the tasks, in line with team members responsible, as well as the timeline hat concurs with the project’s duration (Scott, 2009). Communication skills are very vital in executing business projects, and when working with multiple teams, it becomes important to communicate constantly with them about the aspects of the project. Therefore, project managers must label efficient topics, timelines, and people for specific communication guidelines, for example, weekly emails or team meetings (Michael, Kashiwagi & Sullivan, 2008). Apart from everyday communication regarding the project, project managers need both short-term and long-term techniques to contact and network with people. The goal is keeping everyone posted on the activities in the short term and solving any looming problems in order to stay focused on the long-term goal. Team managers should devise ways of setting up an agenda for communication undertakings, including both individual and team consultations. In a well-organized way of performing communication strategies and saving time, it is better to plan every meeting beforehand to help the project run more efficiently (Fisher, 2010). Communication requires consistent check-ins with the project team, maybe at least weekly for a long-term project or daily for one with a shorter timeline. It is also important to discuss the overall status of the business project while addressing any abrupt issues for resolutions (Leung, Chan & Yu, 2009). Conclusion To achieve extreme success in business projects, project managers should recognize that projects come across uncertain obstacles. The dynamism of business projects needs key skills in making timely changes in their detailed plans other than initiating makeshift processes as a defence against unseen situations. To avoid complete failure of complex business projects, managers can begin with a small-energized team that is open to change (Williams, 2002). Effective project planning gives a team of project managers a unified structure for monitoring business projects and facilitating their development tools used to evaluate the results. To speed up the adoption of appropriate skills, senior management team of an organization should train project teams by demonstrating different strategies spread across the development of a project.by adopting apt project management skills, the modern-day project managers espouse their capacity to properly execute and attain the goals and objectives set out by their senior management References Crawford, I. 2000. Profiling the competent project manager. Proceedings of PMI research Conference. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute. Fairholm, G. 2003. The Techniques of Inner Leadership. London: Praeger Publishers. Fisher, E. 2010. 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Retrieved on July 16, 2015 from http://www.gantthead.com/content/articles/249694.cfm Michael, K., Kashiwagi, D. & Sullivan, T. 2008. Leadership Based Project Management Model Tested On Food Services at Arizona State University. PM World Today. Paglis, L. & Green, S. 2002. Leadership self-efficacy and managers' motivation for Leading change. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 23, 215-235. Remington, K. & Pollack, J. 2007. Tools for complex projects. England: Gower Publishing Limited. Williams, T. 2002. Modelling Complex Project. UK. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Read More