The Art of Project Management - Essay Example

Project Planning Many people argue that planning is wastage of time? No sooner is the plan completed than someone comes along to change it. These same naysayers would also argue that the plan, once accomplished is disregarded and merely put on the shelf so the team can get down to doing some real work. To people management, we mean the planning doings that involves deciding on the types of people in form of resources that are required to perform the requirements of the project. In other words the types of skills and number of workers we need to complete the project (kwysocki, 1997). Whenever we talk about the methods occupied in the project management we in general pass on those methods towards the management of people as well as resources. The management of people is the management of workers. Management of people guides us about the roles and duties that a worker can perform in a project for making a project successful. It also guides management what type of staff should reserve for a specific project (Kerzner, 2003). In this paper I will present generic skills of project planning those can be applied successfully to any project irrespective of the size, aims or context of a project. The project planning is an important and basic step towards project achievement. It provides a roadmap to management for performing the tasks. It also helps in making decisions swiftly. Planning gives us details what alternative choices we can prefer during the project continuation. A complete plan undoubtedly states the actions that need to be done, why these actions are required, who will perform these actions, when it will be achieved, what resources are required to achieve the objectives, and what actions very essential in order for the project to be acknowledged complete and successful (Chamoun, 2006). Different industries face diverse challenges during management of projects. For instance software development organizations have to tackle with elevated technology indecision, though construction organizations are typically additional troubled with engineering or finance troubles. Furthermore, comparable processes may have diverse boundaries in a number of industry categories. These dissimilarities terminate with as much as 30 percent in project cost and schedule among industries. If we give attention to on the planning phases of the project then we can save lot of time and money because it provides us a roadmap by which we can have better implementation (Ibbs et al, 2000). Globalization of markets and innovative business practices are prompting firms to think again about their competitive policies. Between varieties of influences on plan, the increasing difficulty of technologies and short product life cycles are obligating firms to depend additionally on better and efficiently planned policy of stagey for business. In particular, corporations operating in particularly indecisive and swiftly changing environments require maintaining their technological capability, while their competitiveness relies on product innovation from their project planning and policy implementation activities (Meredith et al, 1995). The excellence of planning was considered as the weighted average of the occurrence in which each planned policy was executed, as execution frequency is an indicator of quality of planning. Comparable performance ranking on project's accomplishment that was found amongst industries was frequent in ranking the businesses on the stage of quality of planning. Engineering and construction organizations, those achieved the maximum on project success, as well as obtained the highest achievement on value of planning. Maintenance and production organizations, those achieved the lowest on project achievement, established the lowest planning quality score as well. This performance discrepancy amongst the industries is almost certainly because to the dissimilarity in the nature of their operations. Though construction and engineering companies are project oriented, as the majority of their work engages initiation and execution of innovative production, projects, and maintenance organizations are occupied typically with routine operations, and their planning is oriented to that slightly than to project planning (Newton, 2006). But there is another point that good planning always not assures the success of project. It may be astonishing to note that in spite of an elevated quality level of planning in software and communications associations, these organizations yet commonly come to an end projects with poor results. The causes for this may be due to a riskier technology and environment, deprived control or as well ambitious commitments taken throughout the initiation phase (Newton, 2006). In this section I will discuss project planning generic skills with respect to its execution point of view and then present the effective steps for project planning, because my topic is to discuss the generic skills of project planning, irrespective of the size, aims or context of a project. So it is more important to discuss the project planning stages, and the need qualities skills and efficiency required to have better planning. The quality of planning was associated with each of the project's concluding results and with the individual assessment of the project manager in relation to the quality of planning. In the below section I am going to discuss the project planning phases and needed generic skills for each phase. Given by (Berkun, 2005) Data collection The questionnaire or any analysis practice is carried out to access the main requirements, and basic knowledge regarding the project devilment and its planning. In this phase we need more deeper and effective analysis to gather the exact and more precise requirements, because the data that is gathered is the input for further planning. The good quality produces effective plan and better project implementation. Results and discussion As the questionnaires or any analysis techniques implemented, the data gathered and the results that have acceded are analyzed and discussed among the planning panel. This phase resolves any uncertainty on the subject of project requirements so that there is no conflict in the project planning decisions. At this stage we have to concentrate on more critical facts to conclude that no feasibility problem can happen in later phases. In this section, the utilize intensity analysis of the planning processes will follow the comparison of project success among the industries. Project success analysis This section introduces on the whole achievement analysis of project by having a comprehensive and more critical analysis of gathered requirements. At this stage we point our all feasibility problems that can be cause of hurdle in our project success. The analysis of technical performances and customer satisfaction indices will chase the analysis of cost and schedule performance of projects. We have to use some good project feasibility analysis tools to access the better project success analysis (Berkun, 2005). Plane execution This phase will finalize the overall plan of the project. Now days several project planning tools are available to facilitate this phase. These tools have shown better results and processing and estimation power. It is more effective to utilize project planning tools like most popular tools of such type is MS Project. In this section I will discuss the skills needed for effective project planning in scenario of project management. Manager's knowledge practices are carried out by project managers and are consist of the nine knowledge regions précised and presented in the PMBOK. It was instituted that the maximum quality of planning was made by project managers from the service business, though associations belonging to the production and maintenance industry carry out planning in the lowest quality. The excellence of “cost” and “procurement” planning was conventional to be alike magnitude for all businesses. This may be a consequence of the high significance of financial features in all organizations. The authenticity that a knowledge area like “time” gained a achieve superior than “cost”, is most likely due to the straightforwardness of dealing with planning of time as contrasted to planning of cost (Berkun, 2005). The major dissimilarity in planning quality amongst industries was recognized in the “risk” knowledge area. The deprived superiority in this knowledge area may effect from shortage of easy supporting tools to analyze and direct the processes comprising this area. A great dissimilarity in the quality of “combination” planning was established as well. This may consequence from the nature of integration, which needs a collective organizational endeavor as it is not promising to attain if a company does not uphold an appropriate infrastructure for project administration organizational support. The arrangement of the model, where every knowledge region contains numerous planning products, permits identifying the strongest and weakest products for every industry. For instance, the weakest planning course of action in the construction and engineering business is “risk management plan”. This might consequence from the nature of construction projects, which are mistakenly apparent as not risky, and are characteristically managed by individuals who may not have the similar mathematical background as project managers from the high-tech engineering (Berkun, 2005). Here the project manager has also the following skills to deliver more effective plan: (Globerson et al, 2002) Recognize individual accomplishments Ask questions, to motivate opinion Elucidate roles, expectations Institute expectation Listens to others Build up a sense of collaboration The ad hoc study team approach is usually involved when a definite one-time intention is defined. This objective is typically to make possible management planning purposes, such as determining the capability of at hand equipment to handle future projected workload requirements. Once the required determinations have been made the study team is disbanded end personnel return to their previous responsibilities (Newton, 2006). In this section I will discuss the overall planning qualities that are needed to deliver a good Testing and Quality No plan is inclusive lacking explicit condition for testing and quality. As an intelligent manager, we have this information that effective plan is a component of every individual phase of the project. This shows that no action is completed in anticipation of it has passed the defined plan which establishes its quality, and these are most excellent defined at the beginning as part of the planning (Ibbs et al, 2000). When planning the schedule consequently you have to comprise allocated time for this fraction of every action. Therefore your question is not simply: "how extended will it take", other than also: "how extensive will the testing take". By asking equally questions together it can be lift up the matter of "how do we make out we have prepared it accurate” at the extremely beginning and so the testing is likely to be done in equivalent with the implementation. It should institute this philosophy for the team by contain testing as a justified cost plan (Berkun, 2005). Fighting for time As a manager, it is compulsory to regulate the stress and work load which is forced upon the team; it is necessary to guard them from the difficult demands of the rest of the corporation. Once it has arrived then we can consider a realistic plan, fight for it. By no means let the outside world redirect the plan. For this we have to establish more effective plan to cope all type of difficulties (Newton, 2006). Planning for error The most widespread mistake in planning is to assume that there will be no errors in the execution: in effect, the schedule is ensuing on the basis of "if not anything goes incorrect, this will take". Certainly, acknowledging that mistakes will take place is the cause for implementing a monitoring plan on the project. Therefore when the predictable does occur, you would be able to respond and familiarize yourself the plan to recompense. Though, by watchfully considering mistakes in advance we can create modification to the innovative plan to improve its tolerance. Pretty basically, our planning should comprise time where we locate back from the design and ask the question: "what be able to go erroneous?"; certainly, this is an outstanding way of asking our team for their analysis of our plan (Meredith et al, 1995). Here I have collected few effective skills need to have a better project planning. Offered by (Ibbs et al, 2000) A business durability project planning process comprises the following components and should be utilized in conjunction with a broad risk management process, Develop the testing criteria and rules. Examine the business recovery process and estimate test consequences Have a service level agreement Carry out business effect analyses. The business recovery rules and templates Prepare business permanence strategy and its implementation plan for top management endorsement. Set up a business continuity planning (BCP) committee. Put together business recovery plan templates and utilities; bear out data gathering and put in order/develop the business recovery procedures. Gain top management approval and hold up Estimate critical needs and set priority business requirements. Come to a decision for the business continuity strategy and related recovery process Conclusion By concluding the whole discussion I have analyzed that there is a correlation between the quality of planning and the success. The impact of improving project plan may develop and enhance project management at the whole life cycle of the project. Once processes are performed properly at the planning phase, it will be easier for the project manager to carry on manage the other project stages in a better way. References 1. Berkun, S. (2005). “The Art of Project Management”; O’Reilly Media, (Questions some of the assumptions of Project Management) 2. Chamoun, Yamal. (2006). Professional Project Management, the Guide”; 1st.Edition, Monterrey, NL MEXICO: McGraw Hill. 3. Globerson, S., Zwikael, O. (2002), "Impact of the project manager on project management planning processes", Project Management Journal, Vol. 33 No.3, pp.58-64. 4. Ibbs, C.W., Kwak, Y.H. (2000). "Assessing project management maturity", Project Management Journal, Vol. 31 No.1, pp.32-43. 5. Kerzner, Harold. (2003).” Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling”; 8th Ed., Wiley. 6. kwysocki, (1997). “Effective Project Management”; McGRAW Hill. 7. Meredith, J.R., Mantel, S.J. (1995). “Project Management – A Managerial Approach”; Wiley, New York. 8. Newton, R (2006) “Project Manager: Mastering the Art of Delivery in Project Management” ;Prentice Hall, London. Read More