How the Company Manages Projects Which Span Two or Three Department - Essay Example

?Project Management Leadership Table of Contents Project Management Leadership Table of Contents 2 Discuss how your company manages projects which span two or three department? 3 2.Discuss how your company manages the two boss situation when a staff member is reporting to both the project manager and the functional manager. 4 3.As project manager, discuss how you would negotiate with the resource providers for the use of their resources on your project. 5 4.You have been appointed as the project manager to produce a marketing DVD of your company. The DVD should include every department’s scope of work. Discuss how you would manage this project using a matrix OBS approach. 6 Reference 8 1. Discuss how your company manages projects which span two or three department? Project management is the process to facilitate planning, scheduling and controlling of the different activities in an organization. Operating projects in a multi project platform is setting up projects at the same time at different departments in an organization. The team in different departments may share members and organizational support systems and clients and also may use same resources to some extent but the working styles of the different departments are completely different in most cases. Project management includes project portfolio management in which the different processes are selected according to their need, organization performance and the objectives with the controlling groups are selected. This includes a planning and budgeting process by consulting with the team members of the different departments for an effective utilization of the resources by the management. Co-ordination with the different departments with effective communication can address the risk issues from different departments and help the management to cope with the unexpected occurrences during the execution of the project. Resource allocation is another important issue of the management to look after while working with multiple departments. The collaboration between the different team members of the separate department are needed to be understood by the management otherwise it may lead to conflict in the work place. The project team should be build by the company keeping in mind the goals of the project and dividing the roles of the different departments with the individual roles of the tea members can ease the processes and its execution. Working together can build a better relationship amongst the employees and collaborative problem solving can help the departments identify and cope with diverse problems faced at work environment. Administering the daily activities of the departments and managing the performance of the organizational departments will optimize the different processes and help the company to effectively deal with issues arising from different departments (Portny, 2006, p. 287). 2. Discuss how your company manages the two boss situation when a staff member is reporting to both the project manager and the functional manager. Reporting to different bosses can be a challenging situation in management issues. But with proper communication skill and expertise in the business this situation can be handled very effectively by the managers. With consistent work and documentation of the work schedule this situation can be handled and the staff member will be able to impress two bosses of both project management and functional department. Few points are needed to be maintained by the staff to manage two bosses at the same time. First step is to know the two managers and their relationship amongst them. Knowing the style of working of the two different managers will help the staff to communicate effectively with them in their way of working. If the managers need to be reported every day or weekly or after project completion the staff should work accordingly. The communication process is also needed to be understood by the staff. Knowing whether there is any communication between the two bosses is an important task. Otherwise staff needs to communicate same amount of data with the two managers at the same time. Another issue is managing time with two managers. Giving priority to the required work and meeting bosses expectation and understanding the available resources are keys to success for balancing time. Communicating with the two managers when they are not interactive in nature is the most challenging aspect for the staff. Considering the nature of their work and attitude can help the staff to cope with the differences in their attitude and critical situation and conflict at work place. Lastly dedication towards work and meeting deadlines with interaction and concentration towards two bosses can maintain a healthy relation with the two bosses of project manager and functional manager (Nickerson, 1999, p. 15). 3. As project manager, discuss how you would negotiate with the resource providers for the use of their resources on your project. In modern business techniques the project management technique is one of the vital activities every company is looking after. Project management is a multiple boss activity of the different departments and everyone is in need to allocate resources to the particular project. Proper knowledge of the project and the functionality with the skills of the different employees in their domain is the vital requirement for the project manager. Whether to allocate resource in full time or per time basis can help the management to save resources and on the other hand different departments can utilize a particular resource at the same time. The knowledge of the skills of different resources and allocating them accordingly can help in proper utilization for better management. Having good command over technology is not that important for the project management rather understanding of technology and utilization of that technology is more important for the manager. Negotiating the delivery of the product rather than the people is more important for the project manager (Kerzner, 2009, p. 235). Efficient resource allocation can also reduce the time of the project and also can improve the performance of the project. Improper resource allocation will result in increase of cost for the firm. But negotiation can also lead to the conflict between the managers of different departments as everyone is in need for the resource. Understanding the need of the resource in another department and utilization to its optimum level can help the company to benefit from the allocation as well as efficient project performance. For most favorable performance the managers should recognize the work to be performed and locate the ideal resource with appropriate skill for the particular work. 4. You have been appointed as the project manager to produce a marketing DVD of your company. The DVD should include every department’s scope of work. Discuss how you would manage this project using a matrix OBS approach. The organizational structure can be broke down into several task for an effective control over the resources based on cost, location and the functional activities of the firm. This approach is known as Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS) which helps the manager to break down the different activities of the organization and allocate resources to the different activities understanding the needs of each department. Project can be divided into several small manageable tasks which can indicate the cost involved into each department and proper evaluation of the cost can help the management to understand the total cost of the project. Dividing the activities can also assist to allocate required resources for a particular activity (Heck, 1991, p. 67). The OBS approach will make official staffs for the project and the individuals will be assigned with responsibilities through Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM) in accordance with their skill sets. Figure 1: Example of RAM (Source: Heldman, 2011) At first the manager should break down the task into departments like manufacturing, information providers, packaging and logistics. Then each division is farther divided into sub levels and resources are allocated according to their skills and performances. The budget for each division is set to keep track of the cost incurred in the different processes. The processes should be only broken if it can generate some advantages from the activity (Harrison, Lock, 2004, p. 110). The information is maintained in a hierarchy breaking the whole organization into levels of departments and then groups or members. All cost related structures are also included into the flow of matrix. The manufacturing, information provider and packaging division are concerned with the making of the product whereas the logistic department is concerned with the distribution of the final DVD. Reference Harrison, F., Lock, D. (2004). Advanced project management: a structured approach. Gower Publishing, Ltd. Heck, M. (1991). InfoWorld is targeted to Senior IT professionals. Content is segmented into Channels and Topic Centers. InfoWorld also celebrates people, companies, and projects. Vol. 13, No. 30. InfoWorld Media Group, Inc. Heldman, K. (2011). Project Management JumpStart. John Wiley and Sons. Kerzner, H. (2009). Project Management Case Studies. John Wiley and Sons. Nickerson, P. (1999). Managing multiple bosses: how to juggle priorities, personalities & projects, and make it look easy. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn. Portny, S. (2006). Project management for dummies. For Dummies. Read More