Project Management Process - Essay Example

?INTRODUCTION: Recently, one of projects that have been abandoned after it started was of National Program for IT and there have been several reasonswhy the project has been failed. The failure of this project highlights the importance of project management which has become one of the most important fields in today’s complex business environment. Project management is defined as the planning, organising, leading and controlling of the resources that a project manager has to complete the project within the cost and time (Atkinson, 1999). As the role and importance of project management has increased and inappropriate project management leads to waste of resources and time as if the project is not managed appropriately then it will lead to cancelation of the project like the case of NHS project. This report is based on a case related to National Program for IT that has decided to abandon the ?12.7 billion project after years of delays (Campbell, 2011). NHS project has been cancelled because of lack of planning as improper planning has been identified as the most important reason for the failure. There have been several problems throughout the project that will be discussed in the report. This report will highlight the importance of project management techniques, processes and planning in order to accomplish the goals of the projects and will apply the technique with respect to NHS project. Furthermore, this report will discuss about the differences in managing a small project and a large project. Also the report will critically evaluate how the management of NHS managed the project and how the project was planned and how it has been carried out. In addition to this, the report will also analyse the execution of the plans by the management and how risk management techniques and proper costing and staffing techniques would have appreciated the project value. The report will then critically evaluate things that went wrong and became the reason for the abandonment of the project and then suggestions and recommendations have been given that could have improved the process and increased the chances of successful completion of the project. PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROCESS AND PLANNING: There are different techniques that are used by project managers in order to successfully complete the project. Project life cycle is the most widely used concept in project management and it is defined as different phases that a project would undergo throughout its life. The project life cycle will also be applied on the NHS project and then it will be analysed whether the project went through its different phases properly or not. A typical project has five phases and these phases include (Bedford and Cooke, 2001): 1. Initiation 2. Planning and Design 3. Executing 4. Monitoring and Controlling 5. Closing (CostField) Initiation is the first phase of the five phases of the project lifecycle and during this phase of the project lifecycle, the strategies along with the targets and objectives of project are defined as to what the project is about and what the project manager would like to achieve from the project. There were flaws when it comes to the NHS project as the goals and objectives were not clearly defined and the strategies were also ambiguous thus the problems can be seen from the very first phase of the project life cycle. After defining the goals and objectives of the project, the project manager in the second phase plans and designs different tasks that he or she would like to accomplish in order to complete the whole project. Work break down structure is one of the most widely used techniques in order to define and break the whole project into different small tasks (Cleland and Gareis, 2006). Although the project was divided into different tasks but the management was not able to achieve the deadlines of these tasks and thus it lead to delay in the overall project duration. By dividing the whole project into different tasks, the project manager is also able to assign these tasks to different employees and manage the resources available on hand at different tasks. Using work break down structure, the project manager would be able to allocate different tasks to different groups or teams or individuals and then analyse the process of each of these tasks in order to make sure that the project is completed within the given time, resources and funds (Cowie, 2003). The management of the NHS project though signed contracts with different parties to accomplish the project however as the objectives were unclear and the team had improper plans, it resulted in waste of resources. The third phase of the project life cycle is the execution and during this project, all tasks that have been planned and different resources that have been allocated to completion of different tasks would be executed. During the execution process, it is important for the management to monitor the execution and make sure that things are going as it has been planned and if things are not on the right track then the management needs to take measures and control the overall process (Hamilton, 2004). The NHS project was executed poorly as the deadlines of the small tasks were not met. The management were unsure what and how things need to be done as technology to be used for the project was changed several times. There were delays in making decisions that also halted the project even after a substantial amount of investment has been invested on the project. Therefore not only the planning of the project, the execution was poor as well. However if the planning is not done properly, then it would be difficult to complete the project successfully even with proper execution. As the project is controlled according to the plans, then the final phase of closing arises. But with respect to NHS project, the team had no plans of what has to be achieved. So, at the time of execution, there were no criteria of how to monitor things. At the closing phase of the project, the deliverables are delivered to the customers, terminating the contracts with suppliers and others if a temporary contract has been made, releasing the resources acquired by the project and communicating the concerned parties regarding the completion of the project (Harrison and Lock, 2004). As the project of NHS has been cancelled, therefore the government has to pay to its suppliers the cost of cancelling the contracts and the other investment would be wasted as well. The planning has an important role to play in overall project management. Proper planning allows the project manager to analyse what can happen as the project is started and then they consider different hurdles and obstacles that can hurt the project to complete within the cost, time and given resources (Kerzner, 2009). HOW MANAGING A LARGE SCALE PROJECT DIFFERS FROM SMALL SCALE PROJECT: Managing a project is important regardless of the size of the project. Although, larger projects would require more planning, more allocation of resources and more time and more complications but still managing both the projects is critical as improper management of the projects might lead to failure (Lewis, 2006). Larger projects such as projects that the NHS National Program for IT are decisive and needs to be planned accordingly. Projects like these have larger time duration and therefore it is important that the project manager and the management that has decided to accept the project, consider different factors that would influence the project throughout its project life rather than at that particular time. For instance, the cost of the resources has increased with the passage of time in this project and this has been one of the reasons because of which the project has been abandoned by the management. As the project life was longer and therefore the management should have considered this point at the planning stage that the cost of the resources would increase and for this reason impact of inflation should have been considered as the rising cost of resources would have reduced the profitability of the project and the project instead of giving positive cash flows might have resulted in losses. Therefore with longer projects, it is important for the management to consider different aspects that could have an impact on the profitability. Comparing the situation of NHS project with another small project having duration of only a month then in such a short duration impact of rising prices of resources and goods might not have influenced the profitability. For this reason, different factors need to be considered and more planning is required for projects having larger duration than the projects having smaller durations. A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF HOW THE PROJECT WAS PLANNED AND INITIALLY EXPECTED TO BE CARRIED OUT: The project of NHS has been discontinued and the cancellation of the project clearly shows the mismanagement of the management from the day one they have started working on the project. Contracts with different contractors were already signed and after doing all this, the management had decided to cancel the project. The planning of the team involved in the project was highly unprofessional as according to the Health Minister Simon Burns who was responsible for the NHS said that at the moment there is no need for such a system as it is not necessary. So if the head who was responsible for the project claimed that there was no need, then why they first approved the plan and started signing contracts with different suppliers and vendors. Not only the contracts were cancelled, the government had to pay these contractors for cancellation of the contracts and instead of getting benefits from the project, they had to pay contractors. In addition to this, such cancelation of the project would also hurt the goodwill of the government. As described in the report, that the first phase of the project life cycle is about the initiation and then the second one is about planning. In the first step, the management needs to analyse whether there is a need for such a project or not and whether the project is beneficial or not. If the project is not worth spending so much money, then the management should have rejected the project then and there rather than starting the project and dragging it somehow. The project clearly reflects the improper planning of the government as the proposed idea was accepted and initiated without analysing the benefits that the project would yield. Also the required resources of the project should have been identified along with their costs at early phase of the project and if factors like technical expertise, inflation and others have been identified previously then the project would have been cancelled by the management by now. AN ANALYSIS OF HOW IT CAME TOGETHER IN THE ACTUAL EXECUTION: The execution of the project was not up to the mark. The management did not consider the project as it should have been considering the complexities involved in the project and the investment that has been made. The execution of the project was poor as the management was not able to meet the original targets within the time frame plus the functionality remained a major issue because of which the project has to be cancelled. In addition to this, the level benefits have been delayed as well as reduced. The cabinet office’s major authority that analysed the value for money of major public spending analysed the progress of the project and concluded that current management cannot complete and deliver the project according to the targets and it should be restarted under a new management and under a new team. Another problem with the execution is that the team had kept on changing the technology they used for the project. With the changing in the kind of technology to be used for the project, it increased the cost and therefore instead of getting benefits from the project, the investment has been wasted. APPRECIATION OF THE ROLE OF RISK MANAGEMENT, TIME FRAMES, STAFFING, COSTING AND THE EVALUATION OF THE PROJECT: The role of risk management cannot be neglected as by identifying the risks and analysing it, the management is able to do its home work and make sure that the project would be completed within the given time, cost and resources (Meredith and Mantel, 2012). Management changed the technology more than once for this project and this increased the overall cost of the project. The project team should have laid down what is needed and how it would be done and then should have started the execution instead of starting the execution and then identifying and analysing the needs as they arrive. Proper risk management techniques would have allowed the team to analyse whether the project should be avoided or accepted. Also by using risk management techniques, the management would have been able to identify the risks and then take one of the four measures to mitigate or manage the risk (Phillips, 2003): 1. Reduce the impact of the risk 2. Transfer the risk 3. Avoid the risk 4. Accept the risk Time of the project is also critical and the project management team should have analysed the time required for this project. In order to accomplish a larger project within time the project manager could have divided the whole project into small tasks and then these small tasks should have lead to the completion of the project. If the project duration was longer, the management should have considered the issues of human resource as well as other resources to make sure that the project is completed within the time. To minimise the issues from the human resources, the management could have given them contracts so that they would be bound to not go anywhere else. And the management should also have considered the impact of increasing prices considering the duration of the project and then should have taken the decision whether the project should be started or not (Lock, 2007). A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF WHAT WENT WRONG: There were several things that went wrong and lead to the cancelation of the project. There have been several problems such as technical issues, contractual problems and disputes and increasing cost which have become the main reasons for the cancellation of the project. One of the major problems of this project was that the team did not identify whether such a high investment was required and whether this investment would have been profitable for the society or not. Or in other words, the cost to benefit ratio of the project should have been analysed and then the decision whether to accept or reject the project should have been taken. Project appraisal techniques such as Net Present Value (NPV) could have been used to measure the value of the benefits at present (Milosevic, 2003). In addition to this, the other thing that went wrong was the planning. The team did not identify what had to be achieved with the project and how it would be achieved. Continuous changing of technology also resulted in increasing the costs. Management could have stick to one plan and then they could have focused on that rather than continuously analysing different technologies. Besides the planning, the execution was poor. The project was a large project and therefore it should have been divided into smaller tasks so that the progress of the project could have been analysed and monitored. As the project was not divided into smaller tasks therefore the management was not able to achieve the deadlines and they kept on missing the targets. The usage and functionality of the required project was not the same as it was desired and this showed poor execution of the management. RECOMMENDATIONS OR SUGGESTIONS AS TO HOW THE PROCESS COULD HAVE BEEN IMPROVED: There were several problems in the project and how it has been handled because of which the project was cancelled. There can be several recommendations and suggestions for the team that was managing the project and these suggestions could have allowed the team to ensure that the project was completed on time within the required resources the team was provided. One of the suggestions to the team is that they should have used the project life cycle as it has been used by different project managers to ensure the completion of the project. By going with the project life cycle, they would have been able to identify the objectives of the reject and then plan things accordingly (Taylor, 2008). Once all the planning has been done, they would have been able to execute things in a professional manner. By having a plan, the management would also have been able to monitor and control the progress of the project and if things started deviating from what has been planned then they could have taken steps to make sure that the project team is right on track. Therefore, this would have ensured the completion of the project. The other suggestion is that project team should have identified the kind of resources that would be required that includes the human resource as well as other resources. Work Break Down Structure should have been used for this purpose. The team should have identified the kind of technology should be adapted for this project and then steps should have been taken accordingly rather than changing the technology after the project has been started. Also the management should have carefully analysed the duration of the project and then should have considered different factors that would have influenced the project throughout its life rather than at that particular time. Work Break Down structure could have served this purpose as well. Also if the management would have been able to analyse the cost to benefit ratio and if the project was not beneficial then the government should not have spent so much investment on the project as the health minister said that the project was not necessary. Project appraisal techniques such as Net Present Value, Internal Rate of Return, Average Rate of Return etc should have been used to analyse whether project is feasible and whether the benefits of the project are greater than the costs. 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