Enhances Project Delivery Success - Assignment Example

Final Exam Identifying and Summarizing Benefits of project Portfolio Management Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is regarded as an effective setof practices that enable organizations to gain the capability of managing projects efficiently. The set of practices within the PPM ensures proper alignment of different project requirements and working elements in accordance with the predetermined goals and objectives of the projects being carried out by a particular company (Verzuh, 2012). A successful execution of PPM ensures numerous benefits to the organizations that brings optimal value and helps to align business strategies in order to achieve competitive advantage (Reyck et al., 2005). Few of the major benefits that are often observed to avail by the organizations through the implementation of PPM have been identified and summarized below. Enhances Project Delivery Success Increasing efficiency of the project delivery is one of the key benefits that an organization gains through an appropriate execution of PPM. An effective design and structure significantly helps organizations to minimize issues associated with resource allocation and execution, appropriate scheduling and required cost of project activities. Moreover, it also helps organization to perform project activities in line with the strategic decisions and facilitate to overcome potential risks or technical limitations (Reyck et al., 2005). In order to enhance project delivery success, project scope management planning in PPM involves a cycle of measures that determines an effective process to accomplish the goals and objectives of a particular organisation. These goals can be recognised as a set of strategic measures that are designed to successfully achieve each goal and address different problems associated with different phases of the project (Executive Agency for Health and Consumers, 2012). Helps Reducing Overspending Bringing a considerable reduction in overspending can also be regarded as another crucial benefit gained by the modern organizations. The appropriate strategy of activity scheduling and resource allocation process in PPM substantially helps organizations to grasp adequate control of the costs associated with the project activities. The effective execution of PPM toolset often enables organizations to decrease a considerable rate of the overspending that might result from any possible delay project activities (McNally, Smith & Morrison, 2011). According to the scope management process in PPM, it incorporates an effective set of scope elements that are linked with the prerequisite deliverables in order to achieve the desired objectives and outcomes of the project. Therefore, the scope elements in the PPM enables project managers to reduce lead time required to perform project activities (Schwalbe, 2008). Improves Decision Making The execution of effective PPM enables the efficient decision making process, which is one of the key benefits that an organization achieves in the recent business phenomenon. According to the strategic measures and practices of PPM, it provides a clear description of each project activities along with appropriate data of regarding the required resources, time and costs that facilitate leaders to strengthen their decision making capability. In addition, strong governance structure, timely reporting of workflows and effective standardized principles in the effective PPM also empowers organizations to improve its decision making functions (McNally, Smith & Morrison, 2011). 2. Benefits Gained from Enterprise Project Management Program and their Pitfalls An Enterprise Project Management (EPM) can be referred as an effective project management process, which incorporates a wide number of activities along with obligations than the individual project management approaches. The key benefits of EPM are to make effective positioning strategy for processes, activities, costs, resources along with people required to accomplish goals of each project management activity (Reyck et al., 2005). Moreover, delivering projects within postulated time and budget and ensuring wide utilization of the project resources can also be considered as a major set of benefits derived from an effective EPM. In the similar context, the execution of EPM also empowers organizations to gain better alignment of business objectives with the project activities and foster open communication mechanism within the people involved (McNally, Smith & Morrison, 2011). Positioning strategy of different project management activities can be determined as one of the key benefits that can ascertain by an enterprise while implementing effective EPM programs. It helps project management team to make an effective set of strategic plans of the activities associated with different project management stages. In addition, managing and controlling project management costs required for performing each activity is also a beneficial aspect of EPM programs. The cost management and controlling strategies help the enterprises to anticipate appropriate budget to perform different operational functions associated with the project management activities. Nevertheless, EPM programs also have major benefits in terms of planning of resources and activities needed to perform in achieving the predetermined goals. However, organizations should also need to focus on considering the potential pitfalls while executing EPM. In this regard, ensuring adequate compliance with standards and policies along with maintaining effective coordination and collaboration across the Project Management Offices (PMOs) are highly considered to be anticipated while executing EPM framework within the organization (Kenny, 2003). In addition, inadequate project level experience or deficiency in knowledge transferring activities to the enterprise often creates major obstacles for the organizations to successfully achieve the predetermined goals and objectives of the project management activities. In this context, inappropriate agreement among the project management team along with pre-defined goals of the enterprise can be considered as one of the major pitfalls in the EPM programs. Nevertheless, ineffective or unmatched activity plans in response to the postulated goals of the project can also be regarded as a major pitfall that can reduce the capability of the project team to achieve their assigned roles and responsibilities (Kenny, 2003). Lack of coordination or weak communication mechanism within the project management team has also been recognized to place obstacles for the enterprises to achieve their desired project objectives. Inadequate knowledge as well as lack of effective communication skills of the project managers or the executives assigned to different roles of the project management activities can also be considered as a major factor that can substantially lower the ability of enterprises to achieve their predefined project goals (Morris & Jamieson, 2005). 3. Describing Earned Value and How it Benefits Project Monitoring Earned Value Management (EVM) can be defined as one of the most effective techniques of measuring and monitoring progress along with the performance of each activity associated with project management. EVN is often regarded as an integrated system having substantial ability for combining appropriate measurement of project scope along with activity schedules and costs associated with project management activities (Czarnigowska et al., 2011). In relation to the role of EVM, the system tends to appropriately forecast potential problems or obstacles that can hinder project activities. According to the academic understanding, it has been revealed that the execution of the EVM tends to involve appropriate forecasting of the project activities and monitoring with respect to the ultimate goals and objectives of the organization (Marshall, 2007). According to the current project competitive business environment, organizations are likely to increase their interest to determine appropriate earned value relating to different project management activities. An effective strategy of implementing EVM includes a number of key preventive measures during the wide course of the project management activities. It helps project managers to easily determine the corrective strategies for resources, costs along with required human resources in order to increase project management efficiency. In terms of cost forecasting, EVM enables the project managers to clearly identify the value of Estimate At Completion (EAC) and Estimate to Complete (ETC) that helps to critically monitor the actual cost associated with the project activities (Czarnigowska et al., 2011). The implementation of EVM also ensures the project management team to develop an appropriate estimation of the cost variance which helps project managers to determine the actual cost that the organization will have to incur to accomplish the goals of a particular project. Moreover, the determination of Schedule Variance (SV) and Variance at Completion (VAC) can also be regarded as few of the major monitoring tools in EVM that substantially empower project managers to gain appropriate understanding about the costs associated with the activities (Furman, 2011). Cost Performance Index (CPI) is considered as one of the effective tools of EVM, which further enable project managers to justify costs that have been executed to perform any types of project activities. The analytical tool substantially represents a clear view of the project activities along with their costs required to achieve their stipulated goals. Therefore, it can be stated that the integration of EVM provides a major support to the project managers in terms of monitoring costs required for each activity (Kerby & Counts, 2009). Besides the benefit of monitoring costs, the integration of EVM also tends to provide objective evidences that further enable project managers to draw appropriate forecasting of the project activities. The objective evidences derive from the EVM technique enables project managers to identify overall delay as well as costs associated with each project activity. Therefore, forecasting the appropriate completion time along with the cost required to accomplish project activities can be identified as a major beneficial aspect for the organizations. 4. Recruitment and Management Strategy for Developing Productive Project Team In order to develop a productive and highly competent project team, it is essential for the PMOs to recruit and select individuals in accordance with their capabilities and skills. Therefore, the strategy of recruiting and managing individuals for the project should be focused on identifying relevant skills and experience of the individuals to deal with dissimilar scenarios associated with the project activities. Few of the major attributes to be considered while integrating individuals for a particular project have been briefly discussed in the following section. Appropriate Skills and Abilities Selecting individuals in accordance with their skills and abilities as per the project requirement can be duly accepted as one of the primary attributes for the organizations. In order to recognize the skills and abilities, examining the quality of each individual in terms of their risk management skills substantially helps to improve performance of the project team. Correspondingly, selecting individuals by examining their experience to maintain quality of the project activities can also be regarded as a major attribute for the organizations while recruiting staff members for any type of project (Dvir et al., 2003). The selection of the staff members in accordance with their skills and abilities substantially enables organizations to conserve adequate quality and helps the project team to accumulate desired goals of the project management activities. Cultural and Behavioral Traits Understanding cultural and behavioral traits of the individuals have also been recognized as a major part of the organizations while recruiting individuals for any type of project management activities. In this regard, the socio-cultural backgrounds including age, gender and racial background of the individuals are few major aspects of the organizations in terms of integrating staff members for any specific organizational project. In addition, recruiting individuals in accordance with their behavioral attitudes is also a major consideration while integrating people for a specific project team. In this regard, the members should be selected in accordance with their ability to cope with cultural diversity along with behavioral attitude. Such selection procedure can substantially help organizations to build a strong and relatively competent project team (Kenny, 2003). Communication and Technical Skills In order to successfully achieve the postulated goals of the project management activities, the selection of individuals in accordance with their communication and technical skills can also be regarded as a major set of attributes for the organizations. In this regard, the project manager is required to ensure that the staff members associated with project activities, maintain adequate openness in terms of communicating with other associated members (Dvir et al., 2003). Moreover, the organizations should also need to critically examine the communication skills of the members in terms of sharing information or technical ideas prior to recruiting them for a particular project. In relation to the recent phenomenon, the sharing of technical knowledge along with innovative ideas plays a critical role in the organizations while conducting project management activities. In this regard the recruitment strategy of the project team members by examining the communication and technical skills of the individual members is also an important attribute for the organizations to successfully accomplish the ultimate goals of a project (Englund & Graham, 1999). References Czarnigowska, A., Jaskowski, P. & Biruk, S. (2011). Project performance reporting and prediction: Extensions of earned value management. International Journal of Business and Management Studies 3(1), 11-20. Dvir, D., Raz, T., & Shenhar, A. J. ( 2003). An empirical analysis of the relationship between project planning and project success. International Journal of Project Management 21, 89-95. Englund, R. L., & Graham, R. J. (1999). From experience: Linking projects to strategy. J Prod Innov Manag 16, 52-64. Furman, J. (2011). The project management answer book. The United States of America: Management Concepts Inc. Kenny, J. (2003). Effective project management for strategic innovation and change in an organizational context. Project Management Institute 34(1), 43-53. Kerby, J. G. & Counts, S. M. (2009). The benefits of earned value management from a project manager’s perspective. Retrieved from http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/293270main_63777main_kerby_counts_forum9.pdf Marshall, R. A. (2007). The contribution of earned value management to project success on contracted efforts. Journal of Contract Management, 21-33. McNally, C., Smith, H. & Morrison, P. (2011). Improving portfolio, programme and project financial control. Retrieved from https://www.axelos.com/gempdf/Improving_Financial_Control_White_Paper_June11.pdf Morris, P. W. G., & Jamieson, A. (2005). Moving from corporate strategy to project strategy. Project Management Institute 36(4), 5-18. Reyck, B. D., Cockayne, Y. G., Lockett, M., Calderini, S. R., Moura, M. & Sloper, A. ( 2005). The impact of project portfolio management on information technology projects. International Journal of Project Management 23, 524-537. Schwalbe, K. (2008). Introduction to project management, second edition. New Jersey: Cengage Learning. Verzuh, E. (2012). The fast forward MBA in project management. New Jersey: Wiley. Read More