Project Management Involved an Opportunity in Process Improvement - Case Study Example

Organisations have recently realized that one of the methods of achieving superior performance in business will involve improving processes in the business environment. Andrew and Greene (2005) describe that practices involving process improvement include development of quality products through making the total quality management (TQM) change to visible actions and the continuous quality improvement (CQI) be taken into consideration. This study shows project management which will involve an opportunity in process improvement. It will also show the requirements needed in the process and the implementation plan for the project. The business case in this project management will involve process improvement opportunity which will involve understanding the processes and metrics to be used in the project. A. Business case The business case helps to show what the procedures are in a project. The to-be process will be designed in the way that it will best suit that particular organization. After this process the project manager should conduct a gap analysis in order to analyse the noted improvement which will include the benefits achieved and the risks faced in the process. The cost of operations should also be determined to avoid loosing money on the project. Extra budget should be put in place for the project and the expenses to be known and if they will yield much benefits. The benefits that come with the implementation of the plan should then be compared with the costs used in carrying out the project and in the implementation process. If the benefits are more than the costs then the project manager will be in a position of formulating recommendations for the project. In the process in developing a business plan it is important to consider the key performance indicators (KPI) because they are useful in measuring organisational progress and thus making a firm achieve its stipulated goals. Some of the key indicators in this project will include the rate of expenditure on the project. It will also include the productivity to be achieved once the project is implemented. The other indicator in the improvement of process will involve comparing the planned cost and the actual costs. The final indicator is the time to be taken for the project to be complete. These keys indicates that the organization is to achieve its goals of developing plans, tracking the proper progress and taking an action plan that will be in able to increase profits. The other goal to be considered in order to increase profits include using some data from previous project that had been carried out in order to evaluate what issues occurred and how they can be avoided. The purpose of this process is to reduce operational costs and to increase predictability in concepts such as schedule, quality and risks. For the organization to attain its aim of increasing market share and the time its products will take to be positioned in the market, it has to reduce on the cycle time. This will involve being perfect in the project which will avoid reworking thus consuming much time. If this is correctly followed, then the lapse time will be achieved as planned (Harvey 2010). The project execution phase comes after the project planning and it involves the actual activities to be carried out. The control phase compares what had been planned and the actual work. After the analysis of the differences, actions are then taken for correcting any problem that may have occurred for the project to suit the way it had been planned. At this stage, the team responsible for carrying out the project has various kinds of responsibilities. One is that they execute task according to what has been planned by the managers. The managers are responsible for determining the performance of the actual work that has been completed and comparing with the planned work. They also determine the costs incurred in the process as well as the time period that had been planned. The managers then provide a status report to all the stakeholders in order to update them about the progress as the report shows what has actually been completed. The stakeholders involved in the project conduct a review of the variances and therefore take actions to ensure that the project is completed with in the given time frame and within the budget that has been planned. C. Monitoring and controlling in the project life cycle Project management involves various stages which include the initiation stage, project planning stage, executions stage, and monitoring and control stage and finally is the closing stage. Initiation This stage tends to show the nature of the project as well as its capacity. This stage needs much attention as if the nature is wrongly determined then it will affect the whole project and will not achieve the organizational goal. The main factor to be considered in this stage involves the business environment and ensuring that all the activities are under control. In case some materials are missing it is the manager’s responsibility to report the matter and the issue to be solved as soon as possible to avoid delaying the whole project (Dennis 2007). The initiation stage involves a plan where the following activities are carried out; one is that business needs are analysed and then turned to goals that can be measured. Current operations taking place in the process improvement are evaluated and analysis about the costs, schedule and the benefits that are to be achieved after the completion of the process are budgeted. The organisational shareholders are analysed as well as the project support personnel. Planning and design Once the project has been initiated, it is then planned appropriately and designed according to what is desired by the stakeholders. The importance of this is to manage the time taken for the project to be completed, the cost to be incurred in the process and the resources needed. If these three are properly budgeted for then it will be easier to manage any kind of uncertainty in the process. The plan should consider measurable actions and be budgeted according to what the organization can offer to improve opportunities for process improvement. The planning process consist of scope statement, team members, a budgeted plan, deliverables and a plan that divides the project into segments and an legal approval of starting the project. It is also important for the managers to also include communication management in their plan as this facilitates the process. Executing The execution process involves those processes that assist in completion of the project through the use of the project plan. It shows the management how to achieve the organizational goals. Resources needed for the project and the people involved are determined at this stage. Activities to be performed in the project are also integrated to suit the plan. Monitoring process consists of the processes that are carried out in order to carry out the execution process. Monitoring of the project makes it easy to identify the possible problems that may occur in the process. These problems should be identified on time and a corrective action plan to be implemented as quickly as possible. This is because it makes it easy to control the process of execution. The importance of monitoring the project is that it makes it easy to measure performance regularly in addition to identifying inconsistencies that are not found in the project management plan. The monitoring and control process involves activities taking place at the moment and those that are in the process of taking place for example; the ongoing activities include where the project is at that time of monitoring. The other aspect contained in the monitoring stage involve managing the common variables that are needed in the project which include cost, scope and the effort needed for completion (Albert 2004). Corrective actions are also identified at this stage to facilitate progress and to tackle all risks occurring. This process should involve decision makers in order to avoid approving factors that will not be of help to the organisation. Changes should only be made in case there is much approval from the project managers. According to Lewis (2006) monitoring and control process helps to give feedback to the managers following the project life cycle. This feedback is necessary as it helps to implement approved changes to enhance compliance between the real project and the project plan. It is necessary to carry out project maintenance which involves correction of errors, improving the system of process management in order to ensure that the users are satisfied with the processes. D. Implementation plan For processes to be improved in the organization, the communication system will be installed the first two weeks after completing the project to ease the spread of information around the organization thus speeds up processes. To improve organisational processes, products standards have to improve and so the organization will implement a quality check on the second week. Training of employees will begin on the third week of July and the process is to run for one month. The time taken to improve processes of facilitating the rate products gets to the market will then be achieved after training and installing communication systems. References Albert, H 2004, Handbook of project management procedures, TTL Publishing, Ltd. Andrew, L & Greene, J 2005, Applied software project management, OReilly Media.  Dennis, L 2007, Project management, 9 ed. Gower Publishing, Ltd. Harvey, M 2010, Project Management, 4th ed. Prentice Hall. Lewis, R 2006, Project management, McGraw-Hill Professional, p. 110. Read More