Management Managerial Process - Essay Example

Management Managerial Process This paper discusses some of the important project management processes. The basic purpose of this paper is to discuss three concepts: project risk, reducing the project duration, and scheduling resources and costs. A project is a collection of several activities that are completed in conjunction with each other all the way through the project life cycle. These activities are interrelated with each other. This paper discusses some of the important activities. It is an admitted fact that a project can involve a wide variety of risks. In fact, there is no technique or method that could ensure that a risk would not occur during the project. In this scenario, every project manager is well aware of the fact that they have to deal with a variety of risk all the way through the project life cycle. In the context of a project, a risk can be an action or event that can have an effect on the project. However, the nature of this effect can be either positive or negative. Additionally, a risk can have a cause and it takes place in the result of an event. For example, a cause can be related to changes in scheduling which can affect other activities of the project. In addition, the majority of the project risks can affect project duration, budget, schedule and quality. Moreover, project risks are managed through project risk management approach. In this scenario, risk management is the process of identifying and managing project risks. Figure 1Risk Management Process, Image Source: (Gray, Larson and Desai 209) (Gray, Larson and Desai 207) presented a risk management model to deal with project risks. Figure1 presents a graphical representation of this model. This model is divided into different phases and each phase performs specific tasks. The first phase is risk identification where a detailed analysis is carried out on the project in order to determine the sources of risks. At this phase, project management team determines the holes that can cause any risk during the project. Once this phase is completed this process moves to the next phase that is known as risk assessment. At this stage, project management team further analyzes the identified risks. In this scenario, they analyze these risks on the basis of their severity level, probability and so on. For instance, if a risk occurs then what impact it will have on the project. After the completion of this phase, this process moves to the next phase that is known as the risk response and development phase. At this stage, a project management team develops the strategy or plan to deal with identified risks. At this stage, the project team finds the solutions to minimize the impact of these risks on the overall project. The last stage of this process is known as risk response control. This phase involves monitoring and controlling the project risk strategy (Gray, Larson and Desai 209). A risk is anything that may potentially hinder with successful completion of the project or business task (CIO Archive; Kerzner). A project can involve a wide variety of risks. Some of the well-known kinds of risk can include: Time Risk This kind of risks is very common in projects. In this scenario, the time duration for the completion of a project can increase, which can create various problems for the project management team such as the need for additional resources and budget. Cost Risk The majority of projects has fixed budget and the project team needs to complete a project within this budget limitation. However, in some cases project budget can increase which cause various problems for the project. Legal Risk International projects involve the execution of project tasks in various countries so it can require compliance with laws and regulations of these countries. In case of not following these rules and regulations can cause serious problems for the project and organization. Technological Risks Some projects involve implementation of latest tools and technologies, for which there is a need for skilled people and experts. In case of a project that involves the implementation of a most modern technology there can be a risk of unavailability of skilled personnel, which will ultimately lead to project failure. Managing Risks In order to deal with above given risks we need to make sure that we have developed a proper project strategy. In this regard we need to build the WBS (work breakdown structure) and CBS (cost breakdown structure). This will help in managing and organizing project working and resources. This will also lead to enhanced management of project resources. For the time and cost based risks we need to take care for tasks completion within the allocated time slot. Here we also need to make sure that the project conforms to the established standards of the quality and efficiency. All these aspects will lead us to the better management of the overall project. Quality Controls Quality is one of the main aspects of the project. In order to ensure the quality of a project we need to make sure the application of the enhanced quality controls at the different levels of the corporation. Project Management Quality The main quality assurance starts from the project management. Thus, in this project we need to ensure the effective and enhanced quality of the project. Scheduling Resources and Costs Without a doubt, both the effective utilization and accessibility of resources are believed to be the key problem areas of project management. In addition, awareness of these areas in creating a project schedule can draw attention to resource restricted access prior to the project starts. As we have seen a number of risks that can emerge due to ineffective cost and schedule management hence it is the responsibility of project managers that they identify with the consequences of not effectively establishing and maintaining the schedule for these resources. However, the consequences of resource scheduling are normally considerably diverse from the consequences of the standard CPM technique. Additionally, due to ever-increasing importance on time-to-market and massive developments in technology, ensuring and maintaining resource utilization as well as accessibility problems prior to the project begins can put away the expenditures of crashing project processes afterward. In this scenario, effective project risk management processes can help project team to rapidly record and note the effects of resource deviations from the schedule and plan that take place when the project is being implemented. On the other hand, without the implementation of an effective risk management approach this instantaneous update potential, the actual negative consequence of a change cannot be recognized until it actually takes place. In addition, binding resource accessibility of a multi resource and multiproject system strengthens a project priority practice that allows an organization to choose projects on the basis of their significance to the company’s strategic plan and goals. However, human resource allocation to projects cannot match well with those allocated through an automated or computerized process. Hence, changing the manual allocation processes with automated solution to support human resource allocation is believed to be an excellent decision. In this scenario, the decision regarding the development of a project schedule is critical to the project success for the reason that a project schedule works as a project time baseline. In fact, this baseline is followed by the project team in determining the time deviation between actual and planned. In the same way, project resource schedule forms the foundation for the development of time-phased project cost budget baseline. In view of the fact that there are a number of types of costs associated with every project, however the baseline cost schedule is frequently restricted to direct project costs (for instance materials, labor and equipment). These costs are directly under the control and authority of the project manager. However, other roundabout project costs can also be included to project costs independently (Gray, Larson and Desai). Reducing Project Duration Sometimes reducing the project duration becomes essential for the successful execution of some of the project activities. In this scenario, the need for minimizing the project duration can take place due to a number of reasons for instance time-to-market considerations, compulsory duration deadlines, inducement agreements, high overhead costs, key resource needs, or only unexpected interruptions or delays. In fact, these conditions frequently occur throughout the project lifecycle and are acknowledged as cost-time trade-off decisions. In view of the fact that crashing the project duration increases the risk of being behind schedule hence the intent to which project duration should be reduced from the normal time in the direction of the most favorable depends on the sensitivity of the project network. In this scenario, a sensitive network is one that is composed of a number of critical or near-critical paths. Hence, project management team must pay a great attention when reducing sensitive networks to keep away from various project risks (Gray, Larson and Desai). In conclusion, this paper has discussed three important project management processes. This paper has presented a detailed analysis of risk management process, resources and cost management and scheduling resources. These processes are critical to the success of a project. Works Cited CIO Archive. Project Management Planning. 1997. 19 August 2011 http://www.cioarchives.ca.gov/ITpolicy/pdf/PM3.10_Planning_Risk_Management.pdf Gray, Clifford, Erik Larson and Gautam V. Desai. Project Management, The Managerial Process. 4th. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. Kerzner, Harold. Project management: A systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. 10th. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2006. Read More