Industrial Safety and Risk Management - Essay Example

? Multi Project Assessment Multi Project Assessment The Game The game was to help us practice some skills that we had learnt during our lecture sessions. Some of the skills we had learnt and required to apply during the game included communication, risk management and management change. The game involved the grouping of individuals into a number of teams to work together as a unit. The team’s main PMO was selected although each group’s PM had to be elected. The team to which I happened to be assigned to was the conglomerate group of which I was selected as the group’s main PMO. The successful completion of projects and tasks is found to often be as a result of the combined efforts of the various members of a given team. It is important for teams to ensure that they are able to work as a single cohesive unit so as to be able to be effective and successfully manage to achieve the team’s goals. Some of the good things that were seen to happen to the conglomerate team during the course of the game were that the team members showed good cooperation and were able to communicate effectively and unite to work as a team exhibiting sufficient harmony and trust in their work. The groups were also able to effectively deal with some of the risks such as the potential failure by suppliers to make deliveries in good time and the risk of faulty products. In addition to this, changes were well received by the team members who effectively adapted and ensured that that the processes proceeded flawlessly. Communication The open communication of both information and ideas is widely perceived to be an integral aspect of effective team functioning. Good communication between team members is seen to be associated with a number of outputs that are commonly attributed to positive communication between team members, these outputs are seen to typically include good project performance, innovation as well as commercialized products and patents (Neider, 2005). After having been assigned into our respective groups by the tutor, My fellow Conglomerate group members and I met to develop a possible strategy on how we would be able to tackle the exercise that we had been assigned. Having been selected as the group’s PMO, I was tasked with the key responsibility of ensuring that I offered adequate help to my fellow group members to help them calculate the overall and total budget. We managed to elect a PM for our group and the various pairs of the different member countries set off to discuss on the possible strategies that they would use so as to be able to effectively control the timelines and budgets of the country for which that they happened to represent as council members. During this initial meeting, considerable time was spent setting both the deadlines and milestones that the various council members in the different countries were supposed to achieve. In my capacity as the PMO, I also took time to painstakingly highlight individual project objectives for the different council members and upon ascertaining that all the group members clearly understood their assigned roles. All the conglomerate team members actively contributed to the general development of individual checklists that would be used by the team members so as to avoid any eventually of their overlooking critical aspects of their projects. The group had an efficient communication strategy as the team members, the PMO and the PM were able to communicate with each other during the frequent meetings that were scheduled to be held briefly on a daily basis. In the event that a matter happened to arise, it was possible for the members, the PM and the PMO to communicate via email and phone calls. The team members were able to debate on and unanimously agree on an agreed timeline for the different stages of the projects by different countries so as to minimize any eventuality of the country’s having to spend on the projects while at the same time avoid penalties resulting from reassignments and cancellations of bookings. Being tasked with the responsibility of helping calculate the overall or total budget for the group, I communicated with the different member country team members and set out a number of meetings with them where I sat down with the various individuals representing the groups so as to establish the budget for each individual country. In addition to this, I would periodically get into contact with them teams so as to ascertain and inspect the progress that they were making in addition to establishing the general impact of the country’s progress. This was important as it helped in assessing if a group risked exceeding its allocated budgetary reserves or if it happened that the country’s budgetary allocation and timeline were progressing as initially planned. Meeting with the various country representatives helped in communicating important developments through out the game. Communication also helped in accurately keeping track of the effects that the changes to the game had on the overall budget and timeline of the different projects. Risk Management The term “Risk” is found to commonly be used in reference to hazards and things that are essentially supposed to be avoided. However, risk can also be used in reference to opportunities. Risk management can variously be used to refer to the process that is seen to involve the identification of risks, their quantification, and subsequent management to more acceptable levels. It is typically a generally integrated approach that aids in the continuous reduction of the various risk that can potentially affect or impede the effectiveness of people, a company’s industrial production or even some particular environmental assets (Wilson, 2003). Some of these potential risks might be seen to variously include, operational failures, penalties due to regulatory violations, financial risks, strategic failures, environmental disasters as well as various disruptions in the market. Risk Identification, its assessment, Quantification as well as the subsequent response planning In the general course of the game, several key risks that were identified. Some of these risks included: Shortage of People: The shortage of people in my team was a possible risk to the team as the team’s different countries could potentially fall behind in the project due to lack of enough manpower. In my unique position as PMO, I was able to offer Nigeria, Canada and China some much needed help in calculating their own budgets after my having finished calculating my own budget. This helped my team in effectively dealing with the problem posed by its having a shortage of people. Uncertainty over the Suppliers: The ability of suppliers to be able to deliver as well as the reliability of the services and products was deemed as being essentially random. It was impossible to control when a fail would happen. However, in attempting to resolve the uncertainty associated with the possible failure of suppliers to deliver as per the expectations, some countries could opt to choose the low risk supplier although these suppliers would have the innate disadvantage of having a rather longer delivery time and in some instances they may also fail to deliver as well as they have it has been hoped that they will be able to deliver. Changes by the Tutor: The instigation of changes to the team’s structure by the teachers causing us to essentially loose the project manager as well as a Pakistani team member was seen to offer the probably risk of forcing us to reevaluate some of the budgetary allocations. Although the changes effected by the teachers served to essentially replace some of our key team members, the team managed to adequately deal with the situation as our receiving two team members from the W14 team helped us maintain our team’s basic structure. We were able to successfully keep our systems going. Management Change Change management is seen to refer to the making of a number of changes in a well-planned, adequately managed or systematic fashion. Change management is seen to provide a basic framework that aids in the effective management of recently introduced business processes, cultural changes or changes in organizational structure within a given business enterprise. Change management is seen to seek for possible avenues via which new systems and methods can effectively be implemented within an ongoing business organization (Harsh, 2011). Though out the course of the entire project, uncontrollable variables were seen to critically affect the budgets and deadlines that some of the countries had managed to set in place. These variables such as suppliers missing their deadline as well as product failures necessitated constant changes to the deadline and budgets of the different countries. Changes to the general project were also experienced when our project managers and one of the Pakistani team members were switched by the teacher and we ended up receiving a new project manager and council member from one of the W14 team. However, we were able to successfully adapt to this change and quickly managed to integrate into our team, the two new members who had been serving similar roles in their previous team. This helped the conglomerate team’s plans to effectively stay on course. However, while aiding the Pakistan council members, I happened to forget to fill out the required assembler, minimum resource number. This error had the effect of causing Pakistan to have to wait for an extra period before they could be able to do the assembly and had the general effect of causing Pakistan to be delayed by an extra four days from their initial schedule. As a result of the delay, the conglomerate team was seen to loose some money. Bibliography Harsh, P. 2011. Organizational Change. Pearson Education India. Neider, L. L., and Schriesheim, A. C. 2005. Understanding teams. Greenwich, CT : Information Age Publishing. Wilson, L. et al. 2003. Industrial safety and risk management. Edmonton : University of Alberta Press. Read More