Project Management of XYZ Investment Company - Case Study Example

CASE STUDY OF THE XYZ INVESTMENT COMPANY of Potential Stakeholders Company stakeholders are defined by the fact that they have to have interest in the objectives of the company. XYZ is a company that provides technology, mutual fund and services in the asset management services. This is provided to institutions, investment advisors and high net worth individuals like families. The customers to this company are banks, assurance firms and other theory companies. Therefore, the stakeholders that define XYZ Company are all the people that directly or indirectly benefit from the operations of this company. Stakeholders are very key factors in project management (Demeulemeester, Kolisch, & Salo, 2013). They are the driving force behind all the projects that are performed as well as the reactions to the projects so performed. In the case of XYZ Company, Carl was a very important stakeholder where most of the activities rotated around him as the key man with the post of the executive president. He has the control of all activities that go on at the company and in one case or another summons the different other stakeholders such as the accountant to negotiate on some deals that would oversee the company pushed to progressive levels. Stakeholder groups may involve individuals, groups and formal organizations. Stakeholders are the most important people that make sure that the execution of the project is carried out effectively. In fact, to a more basic level, a stakeholder to the company would be anyone who stands to gain or lose in effect of the project being carried out. In the case of the XYZ Company, the project team, the strategic partners, customers, alliances, vendors and the senior management team make up the stakeholders associated with the company. When all these stakeholders come together for the purpose of realizing the project objective, influence and collaboration must be adhered to in taking care of realization of the final objective. This is because effective success in the project implementation requires understanding and co-corporation between all the stakeholders. The customers (banks, insurance companies and investment companies) are usually the beneficiaries of the project that is created as the final consumers. Therefore, they are a very primary group to the operations of the project. Implementers (like the FS business unit) are the driving force behind the operations of the company and are equally very important. Stakeholders on the prime side can be divided into internal and external stakeholder groups. Internal Factors There are several internal factors that affect the outcome of a project. Apart from the top management and the actual direct internal factors as included in the case of Terry, there are other internal factors that were not included yet were very important in the operations of the business. The first internal factor is the culture of the business. This was independently not considered. There is no mention of prior orientations of operations in the business which would have influenced the current operations. Many companies highly rely on the cultural atmosphere of operating that they almost become conservative about these. In application to this aspect, culture is missing. The second internal factor is the internal risk. In this case, there is consideration of the elements that are affected by the risk drivers in use. Deliverables, functional systems, components and their integration help in strategizing on the costs, resources and the whole buy process. Deliverables for instance are tangible or intangible parts of the project management process. They are thee actual and specified functions of the whole process. There are very many deliverables in the case which terry would have referred to but he initially refers to the people who are important in implementing the project. Each one has a direct and specific function. The functional systems are the co-ordinated sections of the systems that make it possible for all the activities of the whole company to take place. In essence, these are the driving forces of the implementation process of the project. The last internal factor is the human resource collection that does not make up the top management of the company. As can be seen from the case, there is only consideration of the top management team that helps carry out the most important tasks in the company. Don Jyh-Fu Jeng (2012) however believed unanimously in their work that in some cases, all sections of the company carry out equally important functions in any company. PM Tools for Case Assessment One of the problems that were encountered was staffing problems in the company. There was a situation where Barbara had given Terry an individual that was well committed to the job he was doing. However, terry was having problems maximizing this person as a resource to gain more for the company. This PM problem can be resolved through the PM tool of planning. Being a human resource, it can be planned in that the individual can work well within the instructions of Terry and not directly from Barbara. This functional approach would enable Terry to plan with the individual and execute the plans effectively as per the time allocated for the work. The second problem which is the unexpected change in scope is brought about by Carl introducing Fund Operations in the project scope. Initiation is the change driver that can be used to solve this issue. Initiation refers to effective planning where external factors are harmonized with the internal factors. Moreover, the list of change drivers and objectives are drawn before the implementation stage starts. In this case, there would be no need to introduce new ideas into the process as it was done. This introduction destabilizes the whole process because the stakeholders must be able to adapt to it as it was not part of the starting plans. The third issue, the inability to get a decision on the operations of the tracking customer volumes. This squarely lies in the executing/controlling section. There controls were not made in a clear way as to monitor the system effectively. When effective monitoring is not done, there is a possibility like the one being experienced where there are lapses in the operations. The system is not able to track the customer volumes because the plan was not well executed and therefore requires modifications to be able to effectively function in view of the requirements as per the objectives. There is a direct relationship between the problems and the objective plans of the company (Demeulemeester, Kolisch, & Salo, 2013). When there were plans to develop the company, there were also problems as indicated above. Hard decision making comes when there is lack of agreement between two stakeholders. Moreover, when there is a plan that is put into the already existing plans without considering that there was an initial plan, then lack of balance during the process leads to lack of understanding between the stakeholders (Atkinson, 1999). References Atkinson, R. (1999). Project management: cost, time and quality, two best guesses and a phenomenon, its time to accept other success criteria. International Journal of Project Management, 17(6), 337-347. Demeulemeester, E., Kolisch, R., & Salo, A. (2013). Project management and scheduling. Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal, 25(1), 112. Jeng, D. J.-F. (2012). EVALUATING INTERTWINED EFFECTS OF TEAM INTERNAL FACTORS ON PROJECT SUCCESS: A HYBRID METHOD COMBINING EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS AND THE DEMATEL TECHNIQUE. International Journal of Innovative Computing, Information and Control, 8(10B), 7452-7471. Read More