Key Aspects of the Project Management Strategy - Coursework Example

Project Management Table of Contents Introduction 3 Project Scope 3 Cost Estimation Table 6 Gantt Chart 7 Key Aspects of the Project Management Strategy 8 Earned Value Analysis 13 Risk Management 15 Risk Attitude 17 Risk Break down Structure 17 Risk Register 19 Quality Management 21 Conclusion 22 References 23 Introduction Project Manager has various roles and it is essential to consider various factors such as total budget, duration and many more before designing proper plan. A project plan has to be designed with respect to the main object that is to review and to redesign meal tray for the economy class of airways. For any service sectors, it is essential to satisfy customers that determines the success of the organisation in the long run. An airline industry receives complaints from customers regarding the products offered to the passengers during their journey. The main objective of the paper is to analyse and to redesign the meal tray set up to enhance customer satisfaction. Project Scope The scope of the project is to reduce the numbers of customer complaints by improving the services provided through enhancing the meal tray. Project Time scale: The project will start from 1st March 2015 and it will be completed by 29th February 2016. Total Budget: The total budget of the project is 30,000,000 Dirham’s. The allocation of the budget amount has been made by keeping in mind the changes that has to be made in the food and beverage department. Apart from this, the project also aims at improving the toilet amenities to provide better- enhanced facilities to the passengers in the airways. The budget is sufficient to cover the total cost and expenses involved in implementing the project. Apart from the allocated budget, a cash reserve is to be maintained to meet the future uncertainties faced during or after completion of the project. With the increase in competition, it has become essential for the airline sector to provide better- enhanced service to customers and meet their changing demand. The main objective of the service sector should be to provide quality and value added service to customers. The quality of service provided by the airline industry influences the loyalty of customers towards the organisation. Maintaining the quality of the services also assist to remain in competition. Therefore, as a project manager the main responsibility is to review the quality of the existing products offered to the customers in order to gain profitability and allocate the further resource to improve the quality. The meal service provided to the passengers of the economic class can be enhanced by providing additional service to the customers along with the existing services. For example, improving the table service and providing innovative design of the tables. Quality of the product along with new attractive table design is likely to enhance the customer’s satisfaction and loyalty. In order to improve the meal tray set for the economy class of airways it is also crucial to renovate the kitchen structure. Apart from this, advanced technology can be implemented in the process and methods used by the chefs. For this purpose, the airline industry may require to import new machineries from other countries that also involve huge expenses. A proper meal tray includes quality food as well as should have proper space efficiency. The meal tray design is the first factor that is being observed by the passengers and so the implementation the project enhances the quality of service. The delivery of service is another crucial aspect that has to be considered for the success of the project because employees or the staff members serve as an intermediary between passengers and the airline company. For this purpose, it is essential for the company to recruit talented staffs that are able to offer better service to the passenger travelling. Human resource plays vital role for the success of a service sector. It is essential for the service industry to retain the existing staff members because recruiting new member involves more cost as compared to retaining the existing one. In addition, the airline company may have to pay high salary to the staff members that also involve huge expenditure to enhance the quality of service. Therefore, allocation of the resource for this section has to be made carefully in order to meet the expected result. For this purpose, labours and specialist for work have to be recruited from outside the home country and so the airline company need to bear the additional travel cost. Apart from this, the company has to bear the return fare of the employees working as an additional benefit. Moreover, the airline company may have to bear the additional costs involved in proving accommodation facilities to the employees. It is essential to redesign the service routines with respect to the food and beverage provided to the passengers. Hence, for all these activities budget is an important aspect. Cost Estimation Table Products To Be Added Cost Estimation Meal Tray Service Dirham’s -Improved table service 11,200,000 Dirham’s -Innovative design of table 9,900,000 Dirham’s -Renovate kitchen structure 3,990,000 Dirham’s -Import of new machineries 1,960,000 Dirham’s -Hiring new suppliers/ vendors 1,498,000 Dirham’s -Recruitment of employees/staff members 465,000 Dirham’s -Compensation 905,000 Dirham’s -Additional cost involved (accommodation facilities) 82,000 Dirham’s Total 30000000 Dirham’s Gantt Chart Project Team: It is the responsibility of the Project Manager to develop a team according to the requirement of the project for effective service deliverance. The Project Manager and team members are responsible for accomplishing the objective of the project. Employees are to be recruited in different department, which is administration who will be responsible to deal with various customers services provided to the passengers. Material and procurement department requires talented employees to manage the total resource to be allocated in the airways to increase customer loyalty by reducing issues. It is very essential to make sure that the project management team executes all the work allocated to them efficiently. The team members should work together to give high level of performance and to achieve the ultimate goal of the project. It is the responsibility of the project manager to monitor the work performed by the team members and to take the required steps needed to improve the overall performance. Apart from this, it is essential for the project managers to encourage and to motivate the team members by providing them incentives and other additional facilities so that the service delivered prove to be effective. The quality of meal largely depends upon employee and the suppliers of food. Hence, providing benefit to employees will help to mitigate the issue. Key Aspects of the Project Management Strategy An airline company receives complaints from the passengers of the economy class regarding the quality of service provided to them. Some of the key issues identified include Redesign the economy meal tray set up Quality of food items Redesign the service schedule to improve customer service Product consistency and enhancement Redesign toilet amenities Project management structure: A project management structure is to be designed in such a manner that facilitates effective implementation of the project related activities. The main aim of the structure designed is to develop an environment where the team members are able to coordinate effectively with minimum disruptions or conflicts. The project management structure defines the relationship between the external environment and the team members. Apart from this, a well-designed WBS defines the level of authority and the success related to the aspect as shown in figure-1 Figure-1 Work Break Down Structure Human Resource: For the success of an organisation, it is essential to select right personnel for the execution of project tasks. Another major challenge faced by the airline industry can be to provide proper training facilities. The quality and progress of the project depends on the performance of the workforce. On the other hand, unskilled and insufficient team member’s results delay in completion of the project and customer dissatisfaction. It is the responsibility of the human resource department to provide sufficient training to the team members to improve the quality of service provided to the passengers. This will further assist the staff members to deliver quality meals to the passengers and identify the needs of customer. The employees of the organisation are the one who communicates with the passengers directly, so initiatives should be taken to enhance the communication skills as well. Production & Material: The production department is required to analyse the quality of the products being served to the passengers. The staff members are responsible to deliver the meal to the customers, but it is the responsibility of the production department to analyse the quality of the meal served and to implement the necessary changes required. The production department also has to communicate with the supplier and to control the quality of the raw materials supplied by them. A proper supply chain management has to be maintained while the execution of the project to manage the additional requirement. It is essential for the project to coordinate with the supplier of the raw material regarding the quality and delivery schedule. The raw material will have a great impact over the meal tray provided to customers. Finance: Finance is the foremost need for the success of any organisation in long run. The finance department is responsible to handle the tasks related to managing and to control the flow of additional funds. For the success of any project, it is essential for the finance department to allocate the funds appropriately so to reduce the overall cost involved along with improved quality of service. Research & Development: This department plays a crucial role for the airline industry as it assist in identifying the new changes implemented by the other airline competitors and so accordingly implement changes in the concerned airline (Longman & Mullins, 2004). Communication Plan and Stakeholder Analysis: A communication plan is designed to effectively communicate the activities that are to be performed by the members of project team. In order to design an effective communication it is crucial to identify the major role players of the airline industry. The major stake holders considered for the execution of the project is represented below with the help of figure-2. Figure-2 Source (Jones, 2007) The provider of the service that is the caterers are responsible for delivering the quality of foods to the passengers. Supplier plays a crucial because the quality of the meals depends on the type of raw materials supplied. The suppliers receive orders from the concerned airline industry and deliver the raw goods to the in-flight kitchen via contracted caterers of the project. However, to control the overall cost involved in the project the airline industry may directly communicate and buy from the suppliers. This will help to reduce the cost as it enables the airline authority to negotiate with the suppliers in respect to discount offered. The distributors are the one responsible for moving the product from one place to another. The distributer’s of materials serves two main tasks of the concerned airline industry. They are responsible for delivering the material from the vendors to the caterers of the flight. On the other hand, they are also likely to manage the flow of raw materials form the suppliers to the kitchen and vice versa. The communication plan has to be designed in proper manner to communicate the main objective of the project to the internal as well as the external stakeholders. A plan has to be designed in such a manner that it helps to indentify the needs of information and methods used to communicate. For external communication regarding the project, it is crucial to identify the general people and the other groups who will be benefited from the execution of the project. The external stakeholders of the airline industry comprise of the distributers, supplier and the customers. In order to communicate with the external stakeholders it is essential to identify and to implement appropriate communication methods. Some of the external communication methods that can be used for this project are the web-based technology to inform the customers regarding the various amendments that are too made for better customer’s satisfaction in the meal tray. Apart from this, online feedback system can be offered to the customers so that they can also directly share their positive as well as negative experiences in the airways. On the basis of which, further changes can be made to enhance the overall service provided by the airline industry and quality of food. Moreover, it is crucial that the company directly communicates with the supplier and the distributers. Apart from this, the reports published by the company are also good source to inform the external stakeholders regarding the execution of the project. For the successful implementation of the project, it is necessary for the project manager to design key message that is to be communicated to the stakeholders along with the benefits they are going to receive from the completion of the project. Internal commutation is also required to inform and to make aware employees reading the project. For the success of the project, it is necessary that the goals and objective are clear to the employees. Internal communication requires identification of time and the location where the project meetings are to be communicated. A proper document management protocol including emails can be used to communicate with the internal stakeholders of the airline company. The main aim of the project is to improve the quality of food for the enhanced services. Earned Value Analysis Earned value analysis method can be used for the project to measure the overall performance of the airline industry. Measuring the performance helps to improve the quality of service provided to the customers. Apart from using the earned value method, a proper feedback system can be maintained for the passengers. The feedback system can be used to analyse the performance of the internal staffs as well as the quality of the products supplied to them (Nagrecha, 2002). This will help to gain a better insight about the service delivered. The project performance can be managed with the help of comparison between the actual and planned costs. This method is suitable for the project because it can be used further to predict the future performance and completion date of the respective project. ‘Programme management technique’, is implemented when the task is in progress that further assists to estimate the future performance. This method also can be used to identify the potential risks involved in the execution of the project (Lukas, 2008). Earned value analysis comprise of ‘planned value’, ‘actual costs’ and ‘earned value’ as shown in the figure-3 below. Figure-3 Source (Bhosekar & Vyas, 2012) From the figure, PV denotes the planned value that implies the budgeted cost that has been fixed to 30,000,000 for the execution of the project and AC denotes the actual cost involved. Actual cost defines the cost of the total task performed. On the other hand, EV denotes the percent of actual work accomplished until the point of time (Bhosekar & Vyas, 2012). Risk Management Risk limits the ability of the project to achieve its stated objective of minimising the number of consumer complaints by providing improved quality of service to the passengers. It can be defined the unpredictable or unexpected event that affects the completion of the project. Risk management can be defined as the process by which the authority identifies the possible risk or the problems that may arise while executing the project. A proper risk management system helps to reduce or to minimise the overall impact of the unexpected event (Frenkel & et. al., 2005). Risk management requires proper planning, prior identification of the risk and implementation of the corrective measures to reduce risk. The activities of the risk management cycle have been depicted using the figure-4 below. Figure-4 Source (Williams, 2004) The type of risk can be classified as “generic risk” and “product specific risk”. For the successful execution of the project, it is crucial for the project management team to analyse and to understand the types of risks (Lindenaar & Kinderen, 2004). The general category of risk is presented in the table-1 below. Table-1 Source (Williams, 2004) Generic risk can be defined as the expected threats to any project for example the unpredictable change requirement, bankruptcy or the risk involved in losing efficient team members and many more. For the overall development of the airline industry it crucial for the project team members to maintain a checklist of the expected risk. Project risk involves the factors affecting the performance of the project by indirectly affecting the resources or the schedule of the project. On the other hand, product risks are the quality of product being served to the end customers. In addition, business risk affects the feasibility of project for example designing a type of meal tray that is not in demand. Risk Attitude When an individual perceives an event, it results development of positive or negative attitude. The attitude of the individual or the team members determines the behaviour. For example, unexpected increase in the price of the raw materials is a risk for the successful completion of the project. The rise in the price of the raw materials creates difficulties for the production department to negotiate with the suppliers that in turn affects the supply of meal tray to the passengers. This will result in delay of the project. Moreover, an untrained team member is also a risk because it affects the relation between the customers and Airline Company. Therefore, for this purpose it is essential for the human resource department to analyse the skills and experience of the potential team members. The time- frame for the completion of the project is one year, during this time period one of the risk is to manage the quality due to the increase in pressure from the external as well as the internal stakeholders (Hillson & Murray-Webster, 2004). Risk Break down Structure A risk break down structure is a hierarchical framework that identifies the potential risk involved in the project. The structure as represented in the figure-5 below is likely to provide overall guidance to the risk management process. Figure-5 Risk Register Ref Risk Type Risk Probability (1-5) Impact (1-5) Total Risk Exposure (P*I) Risk Response Plan Assigned To Status Date 1 Management Project management Resourcing Communication Quality 4 5 20 Additional time has to spend in recruiting efficient staff members. HR department may conduct hiring campaign to attract new talents for the airline industry. It is the responsibility of the company to communicate the project plan and objective to the internal as well as the external stakeholders. Proper quality of the meal has to be maintained in order to reduce the number of complaints from the passengers of the economy class. 1st Mar 2015 (Exception of Project) 2 Commercial Suppliers & Vendors Customers stability Internal procurement 5 5 25 To negotiate with the suppliers/vendors regarding price, quality of material supplied, and delivery schedule. Proper feedback system can be maintained so that the customers can convey the problem faced by them during their journey along with their requirements. 3 External Environmental Social/ demographic Competition 4 3 12 With the increase in competition, it becomes essential for the airline industry to implement new improved methods of working so to enhance the overall quality of service provided to the customers. On the other hand, unpredicted changes in the climate can affect the supply of the raw materials that in turn creates delay in the completion of project. Quality Management Quality management is very crucial for the successful implementation of the project. The main purpose of the project is to enhance the quality of the meal tray service provided to the passengers of the economy class. The reason for such step is to improve the loyalty of customer towards airways through enhancing the meal tray. A proper management of quality ensures that all the activities involving plan, design and implementation of the project is effective with respect to the main objective of the project. It is the responsibility of the project manager and the team members to identify the cause of customer’s dissatisfaction and to implement further changes. Project quality management is process that is carried at the end of the project to measure the performance of the employees and the quality of and service offered to the employees. It focuses on improving customer satisfaction to achieve continuous improvement in the quality of service. An airline company receives complaints regarding the products offered to them, so a proper management of quality is essential to improve customer’s loyalty towards the organization. Improving the quality of service also involves redesigning the service routines in order to achieve improvement in overall services offered to the passengers. A proper management of the quality of service has a positive effect on customer’s loyalty and helps in retaining the existing customers. Quality management also results success of the organisation in long run. Conclusion To conclude, the paper gives a brief description of the project management regarding improving the customer’s satisfaction by providing redesigned meal service to the customers. The paper presents the project scope, type of risk that may be faced by the project manger or the team members. A communication plan has been designed that is likely to assist the organisation to communicate with the internal as well as the external stakeholders. For successful execution of the project it is crucial for the finance department to allocate, the budget amount in such a manner the additional amount is left in hand to solve the risk problems. The key aspect of the project management has been presented in the paper. For the success of the project, it is crucial for the project management team to measure the performance of the overall team members. The performance of the airline industry can be measured with the help of earned value analysis. The method has been discussed in the paper that compares the actual cost and the planned costs involved in the execution and completion of the project. Stakeholder’s analysis assists the project manager to understand the overall impact of the factor on the organisations performance. A framework has been designed according to the risks involved in the project. A risk register has been designed for the project that identifies the risk involved and various response plan has been discussed in the paper the helps to minimise the overall impact of the unpredicted risk and to improve the meal tray for better sustainability of airways. References Bhosekar, S. K. & Vyas, G., 2012. Cost Controlling Using Earned Value Analysis in Construction Industries. International Journal of Engineering and Innovative Technology, Vol. 1, Iss 4, pp. 324-332. Frenkel, M. & et. al., 2005. Risk Management: Challenge and Opportunity. Springer Science & Business Media. Hillson, D. & Murray-Webster, R., 2004. Understanding And Managing Risk Attitude. Introduction. [Online] Available at: http://www.kent.ac.uk/scarr/events/finalpapers/Hillson%20%2B%20Murray-Webster.pdf [Accessed March 11, 2015]. Jones, P., 2007. Flight- Catering. Introduction. [Online] Available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/2200/2/E66589A3.pdf [Accessed March 11, 2015]. Longman, A. & Mullins, J., 2004. Project Management: Key Tool For Implementing Strategy. Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. 25 No. 5, 2004, pp. 54-60. Lindenaar, F. & Kinderen, S., 2004. Project Risk Management: An Essential Tool for Managing and Controlling Projects. Kogan Page Publishers. Lukas, J. A., 2008. Earned Value Analysis – Why it Doesnt Work. Earned Value Terminology. [Online] Available at: http://www.icoste.org/LukasPaper.pdf [Accessed March 11, 2015]. Nagrecha, S., 2002. Earned Value Analysis. Abstract. [Online] Available at: http://www.pmiglc.org/comm/articles/0410_nagrecha_eva-3.pdf [Accessed March 11, 2015]. Williams, L., 2004. Risk Management. The Risk Management Practice. [Online] Available at: http://agile.csc.ncsu.edu/SEMaterials/RiskManagement.pdf [Accessed March 11, 2015]. Read More