Project Management and its Practicalities - Coursework Example

Your full January Project Management and its Practicalities Introduction Before going intothe niceties of the subject matter and the details of the project I am applying my technical and interpersonal skills in, let’s first introduce the concept of project management in relation to perceived best practice and the phases involved in it. Project Management is the “planning, scheduling and controlling” of limited resources to achieve certain goals regarding “cost, schedule, performance and scope” (Lewis 8). It deals with defining the problem, scheming out a plan, and managing the job in accordance with the plan (Entrepreneur Media). Project management ensures successful completion of a project while meeting the constraints of time, cost and quality. It brings together the resources needed to complete the project which includes the project members’ technical skills, interpersonal capabilities, collaborative efforts, material facilities like information systems, and funding. The main task of project managers is to choose appropriate PM tools to make the project work advance efficiently, assess project information and supervise project team activities (Hill 56). Project management focuses on the completion of the project’s life cycle that includes initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and controlling, and closing of the project. If these main phases are broken down into detailed ones, then, as asserted by Lock (9), the project’s life cycle includes original concept, feasibility study, business plan, risk assessment, public enquiry, authorization, organization, planning, design, procurement, fulfillment, test, handover, economic life, and disposal. Project management makes sure that each and every of these phases are properly dealt with. However, in this report, I will discuss the main phases of project management. Technical and interpersonal skills both combine to take care of project parameters which include specifications (quality), budget (cost), and schedule (time) (Haynes 7). According to Haynes (7), “a successfully managed project is one that is completed at the specified level of quality, on or before the deadline, and within budget.” Importance of Technical Skills Technical skills, which are the project-task-related skills, are a pre-requisite for the project management phases. For the team members and the project member, alongside possessing required educational qualifications, it is important to be fully equipped with the necessary information and guidelines that will lead the project toward completion. Knowledge about the latest tools and equipment, hardware and software, and the most modern information technologies, is very crucial to meet the project requirements. Importance of Interpersonal Skills Just as important, interpersonal or group harmonizing skills “is the ability to help maintain the relationship aspect of the team”, says Ghattas (116). The project manager must be able to establish healthy workplace relationships and should hire people who have the capability to work in teams and communicate properly. Collaborative talent is a precious ability that guarantees that the project will be completed without confusions both at the developers’ side and the client side, and between the both parties as well. According to Ghattas (116), interpersonal skills include “skills in communication, conflict management, group problem solving and peer relationships.” Sometimes, project managers choose people looking at their technical qualifications and expertise and tend to ignore their personal skills; and, sometimes project managers choose such people who they enjoy being around and forget about their technical skills. Both situations lead to the deterioration of the essence of project management. Technical and interpersonal skills are interrelated and cannot survive without one another. These skills are not at the same level in each person; however, it is the responsibility of the project manager to be able to properly manage his team members’ skills into a productive result. My Project The organization I work with is Combat Services, Canada. It deals with the provision of security guards and surveillance equipment to the customers. Licensed by the Government of Canada, it was established in year 2000. Security guards are provided at rent for a specific time period. Surveillance equipment is sold. A full fledge computerized database is maintained that records information regarding employees, customers, security guards, inventory, companies from which equipment is bought and employees’ salaries. The mission of the organization is to empower the safekeeping marketplace by providing extremely trained security guards and highly professional security equipment. My organization initially had a manual database which the chief wanted to convert to a computerized one. I have been appointed as the project manager for the project of computerizing the company’s database. Here, I will describe in detail all phases I am managing, and my strong and weak areas in the project management. I have completed the initiation, planning and execution phases, and am currently in the monitoring and controlling phase which will be followed by the closing of the project. Initiation I defined the purpose and the stakeholders; selected a group of competent system administrators based on both their technical knowledge and interpersonal skills; and, provided them guidelines about how the project will be led from start to end and what deliverables we needed at the end of every phase. I made sure all of them had good knowledge about information technology and databases. Project planning is my strong area of expertise. Planning During this phase, I prepared a basic outline of the organization’s biases, limitations and initial requirements, and the deliverables. I analyzed the executive requirements, business benefits and goals, implementation requirements, functional and financial requirements, infrastructure requirements, and technical analysis and design which included an analysis of the hardware and software tools needed. I, along with other members, wrote down the briefs, set the milestones, and assigned tasks. After briefing the client visually (phase review), I laid down basic components of the database and plotted out how they were going to work along. After recording the specifications, I broke down the project into tasks so that they could map over the timeline. Risk evaluation was one important step in which I balanced the project’s time and cost. I consider this phase as my weak area as I take much time in balancing out the scheduling and budget. Execution I served as the liaison to internal and external auditors. I chaired the monthly patch review meeting. I directed the system administrators make a journal that would record all changes being made to the desktop systems so that we could recover in case of a mistake. I conducted meetings with my team members and discussed with them whether the computerized software will be able to meet all the requirements or not. I made sure there were no hardware and software clashes. I gave much importance to communication and making sure that all resources were available all the time. I used my management skills to implement the cost and quality plan. I held meetings with team members and the client, and kept a constant track of project’s cost, schedule and scope. I feel that I am not very strong at communicating with the client and giving him a review of the phase. Thus, I consider this area as my weakness. Monitoring and Controlling I am currently conversant with this phase. I am monitoring the status of the project using recognized procedures, analyzed risk issues, and, in case of any discrepancy that I am catching after reviewing and interpreting the data, I am performing re-planning actions. I am keeping a track of that no project action deviates from the original project plan. I am controlling the development of quality metrics and testing benchmarks for computer systems and equipment. I am keeping track of the project’s planning parameters and assessing the involvement of the stakeholders. The planning parameters which I am most importantly monitoring include the project’s task and activity attributes, effort, cost, budget, schedule, resources provided and used, and deliverables. I am verifying the implementation of all processes and also keeping a check on the team members’ commitment to the project. For this, I am evaluating the personnel’s knowledge and skill and am performing capacity planning to make sure that project deadlines are being met. I am taking necessary corrective actions, managing them to closure, and resolving coordination issues. I am tracking the process of risk resolution and communicating them to the stakeholders. I am monitoring data management and conducting regular progress and milestone reviews. I am also identifying the best testing strategy for the project’s outcome. In short, in this phase, I am making records of project performance and any significant deviations from the basic plan. I find this phase very interesting and am strong in monitoring and controlling the project. Closing Another of my strong areas is the project’s closure phase in which I plan to organize a formal closing ceremony to give the project development an emotional conclusion. But before the closing celebrations, I plan to utilize my project management software to supply comprehensive summary reports of the whole project like missed deadlines, budget spent and saved, and whether or not that outcome corresponds with the initial project plan. Addressing My Weak Areas and Getting Familiar with a new Area Balancing out Budget and Schedule As I said, I feel that I am not strong at planning and balancing out the project’s cost and budget. I need to address this weakness as this will hinder with my future prospects. Scheduling and cost control are crucial project tasks that need to be addressed painstakingly. I plan to take some short courses to help myself learn how I can effectively control the cost and budget of the project. I will go through informative books and journals to improve my knowledge and will consult my senior supervisors as to what steps are necessary to plan out which modules of the projects need more monetary resources and which need more time to reach completion. I plan to speed up my process of schedule the project and planning out the deadlines. For this, I need to work on more projects as practice makes man perfect. External Communication Since I feel that I am not comfortable talking to my client and giving project briefs, I need to address this issue through proper training. I know that this problem of mine can lead to serious misunderstanding between my client and I, which can lead to disastrous situations and is not profitable for the company. Communicating with the stakeholders is crucial to understand the project requirements and makes them comprehend the deliverables and project specifications. Communication also helps in building good relationship between the two parties which is beneficial for the progress of the company. Hence, my aim is to improve my communication skills through proper training like attending seminars and scheduled classes that are intended for people who are shy at communicating their ideas to others. I also plan to hold more meetings with my clients so that I am able to remove the hesitation. Testing Testing phase is done by a separate team and is done after the implementation phase is complete and the software or project is ready to be used by the client. I am not very familiar with this phase but I feel capable of learning and being able to perform the testing phase. It will be helpful for my own development and will also save cost for the company because we will not have to hire separate teams for performing the testing task. I would like to write down the test cases myself and run them on m software so that I get to better understand the functionality the product and an errors that it might have. Conclusion Project management brings together the technical and the interpersonal skills of all members involved to achieve accurate results while ensuring a good and healthy environment where ideas are shared and mistakes are removed with complete understanding. An error free product is obtained when these skills are combined and a communicative platform is guaranteed. I have got many strengths in the project management field which I plan to utilize to achieve the project objectives; and, I have some weakness too which I plan to address immediately to save myself from any problems that may arise due to may lack of knowledge or expertise in areas of budget control, scheduling, communication, and testing. Works Cited Entrepreneur Media. “Project Management.” Entrepreneur. N.p., 2010. Web. 4 Jan 2010. . Ghattas, RG. “Skills.” Practical Project Management (with CD). India: Pearson Education India, 2008. Haynes, Marione, E. “Project Parameters.” Project Management: Practical Tools for Success. Canada: Cengage Learning, 2002. Hill, Gerard M. “Project Management Tools.” The Complete Project Management Office Handbook. USA: CRC Press, 2007. Lewis, James P. “A Brief Review of Some Project Management Concepts.” Team-Based Project Management. USA: Beard Books, 2004. Lock, Dennis. “Project Life Cycles and Life Histories.” Project Management. United Kingdom: Gower Publishing, Ltd., 2007. Read More