Analysis of Important Project Management Factors - Essay Example

?ANALYSIS OF IMPORTANT PROJECT MANAGEMENT FACTORS Analysis of Important Project Management Factors Affiliation Introduction A project is an impermanent task that has a particular starting and ending date and resources. In the past few years, the majority of organizations have started carrying out their critical tasks in the form of projects. In this scenario, they use project management techniques to manage these projects. In fact, the success of organizations heavily relies on successful delivery of these projects. In view of the fact that a project is a team based activity and people (stakeholders) from different areas work together to achieve some common goals hence the management of these projects is a very challenging job. Additionally, there are many factors that can have serious effects on projects delivery. Hence, in order to make a project a success there is need for effective management of these critical factors (Cooke-Davies, 2002; Cleland & Ireland, 2006). This paper presents a critical analysis of the most important project management factors that contribute to the successful delivery of projects. Though, there are a number of factors that contribute to the successful delivery of projects however, this paper will manly focus on ethical and environmental factors, team building factors and outsourcing factors. Figure1 demonstrates that these factors are closely linked with each other. All these factors are linked with each other at various levels of project management. Figure 1Critical Factors that Contribute to the Successful Delivery of Projects Impact of Ethical and Environmental Factors Without a doubt, ethics and environmental factors have always remained one of the most important aspects of project management. However, the literature on project management does not provide a great deal insight into the ethical aspects involved in project management. It can be dues to the fact that nature and environments of project management methodologies vary from project to project. In this scenario, it is difficult to define a common ethical framework for different project management methodologies and environments. On the other hand, with the passage of time and advancements of technology there have emerged a large number of new trends which raised various ethical concerns. Though, many researchers have presented a wide variety of ethical theories for other disciplines. But still there is not considerable progress in the field of project management (Siguroarson, 2009; Mingers & Walsham, 2010; Stahl, 2008). In the past few years there have emerged massive changes in the field of information technology. In fact, it has changed the world considerably and at the present we have started believing that the majority of business organizations are well aware of the fact that their significant liability to global and local societies is further than only generating and maximizing profit. In other words, there is at the present a rising concern with the question of how organizations and their project teams should react, as well as this situation leads us to think about ethics as the suitable academic and idealistic area. Additionally, it is predominantly significant for the project management of IT projects for the reason that they involve a wide variety of social and environmental effects. These effects can emerge in result of project management of latest technologies and the organizations that have power over them. On the other hand, researchers have not paid considerable attention in putting into practice a practical implementation of ethical information system mechanism (Siguroarson, 2009; Mingers & Walsham, 2010; Stahl, 2008). In addition, (Couger, 1989; Laudon, 1998), believe that there is no methodical study or literature which can be acknowledged as one discovery, for instance, project management ethics, IT ethics, information system ethics, business ethics, and in medical and legal ethics. There could be many reasons behind it for instance the current and past literature on information system ethics is not well grounded in the traditional or modern theories and language of ethics. In this scenario, early literature paid a great deal of attention to projects failure, deadline overrun, poor quality projects, and the similar to give the IT ethics literature an unsystematic topology. In some cases, the literature also demonstrates a particular unfairness on the way to the issues of influential teams, for instance the concern for project management teams regarding ethical choices and decisions with the intention of dealing with concerns and issues about organizational and management ethical choices. However, there are no particular ethics area that determines main ground stacks, scope guidelines, depth of examination, or suggested directions to reach from one point to Ethics as it is all about the actions and decision making of free human beings (Laudon, 1998; Couger, 1989; Gotterbarn, Miller, & Rogerson, 1999; Luegenbiehl, 1992). In addition, project management is all about effectively dealing with employees, business firms, and societies as an “intended” realism, offering clear and distinct benefits and opportunities for acts and limitations on its use with regards to a project at a specific time, in a specific civilization. In this scenario organizations should deal with, regulate, and get used to these facts with the purpose of surviving in this ever-increasing competitive business world. Additionally, social entities pose various restrictions and choices from time to time alone and in some cases in larger universal society such as industry alliances, trade associations, governments, and professional teams regarding what objectives need to be achieved through the completion of a project, what sense it makes for the organizations (customer and development firm), what project management mechanisms will be adopted, and what social, ethical and political results are acceptable, ethical, and suitable (Laudon, 1998; Couger, 1989; Smith, 2002). Some of the well-known ethical theories consist of utilitarianism, (Kantian) deontology and virtue ethics. The main idea of utilitarian ethics is to weigh against the collective disutility and utility of every choice whenever a situation of decision making occurs. In this scenario, the ethical decision will be based on the maximum total utility. In view of the fact that this theory focuses on the results or outcomes of decisions, hence it is typically acknowledged as 'consequentialist'. On the other hand Kantian deontology follows a basically different idea and determines the ethical superiority of a decision in keeping with the purpose of the decision maker. In this scenario, the ethical assessment of a maxim relies on whether it can be imagined or universalized as a general rule. In view of the fact that this approach focuses on the duty bound intention of the decision maker with little focus to consequences hence it is acknowledged as deontological. In addition, a set of ethical theories frequently discussed in the context of project management paradigm minimized both the significance of responsibility and consequences, however focuses on the decision maker. The third ethical theory is known as virtue ethics, which does not take into consideration hypothetical difference between right and wrong on the basis of outside features of an act however it is actually foundational upon the way in which a certain act focuses on the character of the decision maker (Siguroarson, 2009; Walsham, 2003; Charlesworth & Sewry, 2002). All the ethical theories are implemented on humans for the reason that they all guide the people to differentiate between right and wrong. In addition, all the theories demonstrate that we should do good and avoid bad activities but their way of explanation is different from one another. Basically, this is the responsibility of higher authorities or project sponsor that they establish an authoritarian structure and the infrastructure to follow and practice ethical theories to be considered in their organization and especially within project management discipline. Moreover, the business organizations should train their project teams particularly project managers regarding ethical and unethical actions so that they could make effective use of their skills for the betterment of the business firm Impact of Outsourcing Sooner or later on, almost every organization asks a basic question: “is there a method that we can acquire the software and other systems we need at a lesser cost?” The answer to this query is not clear-cut, and the moving conversations or debates that take place in answer to this question always direct to a single word: outsourcing. The outsourcing is the eventual selection of the all the businesses and working organizations for the possible improvement for their business. In fact, approximately ninety percent of the organizations of the United States economy decide the outsourcing option for the system development and IT services (Pressman, 2001). Organizations can complete their projects (IT projects like software development or installation) in-house by building their own project teams or outsource it, which means they hire an external firm to build it for them. By outsourcing, organizations can pay attention on their interior business at the same time as letting others with extra expertise to carry out some portion of their project. Some organizations outsource just the software development portion of their IT operation. On the other hands, remaining outsource more or every part of their IT operations. The reason of doing this is remain competitive in this era of continuously varying technology. All this depend on an organization’s needs, external organizations can handle as much or as little of the IT needs as indispensable or desired. Mostly external firms can provide hardware and software. Others offer an assortment of services encompassing Web design and development, Web hosting, customer service, billing, sales, marketing, and officially authorized support, an internet solutions provider is a corporation that offers web hosting services that consist of administration of shopping carts, inventory, and credit card processing (Shelly, Cashman, & Vermaat, 2005, p.638). In addition, a large number of organizations sign up an agreement with an external consulting company that specializes in management of software projects to conquest few or the entire of its development processes. For instance, American Express took services of IBM for approximately 4 billion dollar over 7 years to run its web based system, data storage, network servers, and help-desk related activities. In addition, the contract also moved more than 2,000 American express staff members to IBM’s Global Services division. Also, in another deal regarding outsourcing, AT &T has decided to pay ‘Accenture’, a computer consulting firm, approximately 2.6 billion dollar to offer supervision on enhancing performance and reducing costs for AT&T’s long-distance division. However, the reasons for which outsourcing is used include, demining costs, accomplishing modern and up-to-date technology, improving technological performance, and decreasing the number of employees and personnel problems. Below given Table outlines the circumstances in which outsourcing is a good idea (Stair & Reynolds, 2003, p. 522): Figure 2Outsocuring Process In the figure2, Firm A is working on some parts of the system development while it has outsourced some parts to the Firm B. In idea, outsourcing is tremendously straightforward. In this process, software development firms sign a contract with a third party that carries out the activities at reasonable cost and, optimistically superior quality. In this way software development activities carried out inside an organization are reduced to a contract management activity. However, decision about to outsource or not can be both tactical and strategic. At the tactical level, a firm determines whether the entire project can be best accomplished by subcontracting the software work. On the other hand, at the strategic level, business managers think about whether a major part of all the software work can be contracted to others (Dibbern, Goles, Hirschheim, & Jayatilaka, 2004; Pressman, 2001). In addition, the subcontractor may have access to modern and up-to-date technology or knowledge that will increase the speed and quality of delivered products. For instance, if a firm is expert in development but does not have quality assurance department to test and ensure the quality of their products. They can outsource their quality assurance activities to an outside firm. In this scenario, they can only focus on their key area of expertise and can reduce the price by not hiring software quality experts (Gray, Larson, & Desai, 2010, p. 284). Though, outsourcing is not useful and functional in all the situations for all the organizations and the negative aspects of outsourcing can produce serious troubles for organizations if they are not well understood and effectively managed. One drawback of outsourcing in the IT is that when an organization assigns the job for managing its project completely or any part of the project to other organization then it can lose control over its project. As discussed above, if a firm outsources its software quality assurance department to other organization then it will need to show its projects to other organization which can be misused by the vendor (Laudon & Laudon, 2005). Outsourcing can be beneficial to the vendor for the reason that the client has to agree to no matter what the vendor does and pay no matter what fees the vendor charges. If the company lacks the proficiency to discuss a sound agreement, this reliance sooner or later could appear in the forms of high costs or loss of management or authority over technological path (Laudon & Laudon, 2005). In the same way, client organization’s secret information can be accessed by competitors when an organization’s projects are managed or completed by external organization. This could be damaging or critical, if an organization allows outsourcer to build up or to drive applications that present it various type of competitive gain (Lee, Huynh, Kwok, & Pi, 2003; Laudon & Laudon, 2005). Team Building Sometimes successful project management cannot ensure the successful delivery of a project untill project team is skilled enough to execute project in an effective way. In addition, ineffective project management normally causes project failure in many forms, such as the project is completed but not on time, the project has taken too much cost as compared to its actual cost, the completed project is not according to requirements or standards, and poor quality or some requirements missing in the completed project as well various other bad outcomes (Sommerville, 2004, p. 115; Meredith & Mantel, 2006, p. 13). A project team is a set of people who work together to complete a particular project. In this team, a project manager is responsible for working with different categories of outsiders for instance, suppliers, vendors, contractors, clients etc. Furthermore, a project manager is eventually responsible for project performance (good or bad) (Gray & Larson, 2006, p.7; Kerzner, 2006, p.12). In fact, project manager is the most important person and the success of the project heavily relies on the shoulder of a project manager. According to (Bista, 2010), a project manager’s role in a project is to fulfill three sets of needs, first set is task needs, second set is team needs, and third set is individual needs: Figure2: Role of a project Manager: Source (Bista, 2010) Task Needs To fulfill this set of needs a project manager needs to perform various activities such as, creating tasks, planning and scheduling tasks, achieving team goals, assigning resources, assigning responsibilities to team members, managing and determining project quality, managing and determining project progress, and determining performance etc (Bista, 2010). Team Needs To fulfill this set of needs a project manager has to perform a number of team related activities such as, hiring secondary leaders, developing and maintaining team courage, establishing and maintaining standards and regulation, providing guidance and training to the team member, building a platform to improve communication with the team members, and building ways to enhance the skills of team members (Bista, 2010). Individual Needs To fulfill this set of needs a project manager has to perform several individual work activities such as, offer the effective effort, manage team members’ expectations and task needs, manage associates’ needs and individual needs, admire others’ good work and give rewards, and facilitate other team associates in their personal troubles (Bista, 2010). In view of the fact that building an effective project team is critical to the success of a project. In this scenario, successful team building involves regularly recognizing and improving the competence of the project team members. Some of the important steps that need to be followed for effective team building can involve (Barkley, 2006, pp. 135-138): First of all, all the team members must be aware of project goals and objectives In light of these goals and objectives they should be assigned roles and responsibilities. They must be aware of team dynamics Team members should possess skills to effectively handle issues and conflicts Successful team members should be cooperative to one another Establish the team As discussed in the outsourcing section, in the past few years trend of outsourcing has increased to a huge extent. In this scenario, project teams are managed in different locations. It has further changed the scope of project management. The concept of a virtual team is a practical example of such kind of project management. A virtual team can transform and modernize the infrastructure of the place of work as well as provide the organization with extraordinary levels of power and awareness. In view of the fact that the technology support required to manage virtual teams is at the present greatly on hand, however a great deal of research on a wide variety of issues associated with virtual teams is necessary in order to better gain knowledge of how to manage virtual teams successfully. In this scenario, the results of the researches carried out on team performance in the traditional infrastructure can offer helpful pointers (Powell, Piccoli, & Ives, 2004; DeRosa & Lepsinger, 2010). Conclusions This paper has presented a detailed analysis of different project management factors. All these factors are interrelated and normally overlap in overall project management process. For instance, ethical aspects need to be considered while working in teams. In the same way, cooperation among team members is essential while working with outsourcing firms. Ethical aspects tell us about right and wrong actions. In order to make a project a success it is essential to perform actions which are in favor of project and organization. In addition, outsourcing has become a common trend among organizations. There is need for the careful measurements before choosing a firm for the outsourcing. Moreover, these rules are applied to team members and employees. It is essential for the organizations to recruit people who are skilled and qualified. Once an organization deals effectively with these factors it can deliver projects successfully. References Barkley, B. T. (2006). Integrated Project Management. McGraw-Hill: Columbus, OH. Bista, B. (2010). Project Manager: Roles and Skills. Retrieved March 05, 2013, from http://www.buzzle.com/articles/project-manager-roles-skills.html Charlesworth, M., & Sewry, D. A. (2002). 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