Application of PRINCE2 Methodology in a Project for Reduction of Fire in Lancashire Schools - Case Study Example

Application of PRINCE2 methodology in a project for Reduction of Fire Outbreaks in Lancashire Schools 1. Project recommendation Fire outbreaks among schools in Lancashire are a common occurrence. This calls for drastic control measures to be put in place to address these fire outbreaks since their effects are devastating. Much time and money is wasted in addressing the effects of the outbreaks instead of prevention. Thus the project aims at putting into place measures to prevent which is much cost effective as compared to traditional ways of responding to the fire outbreaks. Diversity in schools needs to be taken as strength and not a shortcoming to reduce these outbreaks as it has been noted as one of the key causes of the fire outbreaks. Thus, the project recommends education on ways of encouraging diversity and equality in schools as a way of addressing the fire outbreak problem. PRINCE2 methodology is to be used in the implementation of this project. Since most financial resources to be used in the implementation of the project are in form of promises it is recommended that this be collected prior to the implementation stage in order for the project to run smoothly. The methodology is chosen since it will encourage prior collection of views of the administrators and stakeholders. This will eliminate any conflict of interest during the project and thus decision making process will be made easier. PRINCE2 methodology will ensure that the causes of fire outbreaks and their severity are identified and reported for necessary actions to be taken and for future use in similar situations. Generally, the business case study of the project is to reduce fire incident that is reported in Lancashire schools. Some of the major events and tasks to achieve this goal include visiting schools, training and educating students, staff and subordinate. Moreover, other tasks include inspecting schools fire equipments, interviewing school stakeholders and ensuring all planned tasks are successful. 2. Human resources issues expected The management of issues is vital for the quality of any project as outlined by PRINCE2 methodology. For easy management of these issues, they need to be described and evaluated for easy decision making and determination of their status. The reduction of fire outbreaks in Lancashire schools is expected to face several human resource issues. These include the availability of skilled personnel to implement the project, availability of funds to cater for hiring outstanding staff, conflicts among team members and time wasting in decision making. PRINCE2 methodology lacks the essential exercise of team development. This implies that all team members recruited for the project will have the skills required to run the project. This might be hard to come by since the high outbreaks of fire in Lancashire are an indication of few personnel trained in this sector. This limited availability of trained staff and the fact that the PRINCE2 methodology pre-assignment negotiation, is bound to raise the costs of running the project since the few that will be found might demand very high pay. This may impact negatively on other activities of the project. Since team members will have differing skills, conflicts are bound to arise as a result of each of them wanting to be recognized. Finally, since the decision making in PRINCE2 methodology is not centralized, there might be a lot of time lost in making decision hence causing some delays in the running and completion of the project. If this happens, then the fire outbreaks are bound to continue for prolonged period before the project finally tackles the problem. 3. Issues concerning project management It is projected that several problems in terms of time, scope and budget constraints may arise during the implementation stage of the project. The resources to be utilized in the project are expected to be contributed by the residents, educational board, the schools and other stakeholders. The collection of these resources may take more time and this will imply that more time will be spend in the planning stage on how to collect these resources and their utilization. The involvement of the educational board means that the time required to get these resources will have to be even longer since they are characterized by very many bureaucracies. The organization of the many groups to be involved in the implementation will probably result in budget constraints. The absence of central place where decision are made in the methodology employed may result in wrong decisions being made which will result in several reviews of the project which compromise the quality of the pilot project outcome. If the quality of the pilot project is poor, then very few stakeholders will be willing to inject in more funds to fund the rest of the project. This will mean that the projects goals and objective of reducing fire outbreaks will not be accomplished and the fires will continue ravaging Lancashire. Management of conflicts among team members may also be a problem that may result in loss of time and impairing of the quality of the work especially if some people are unwilling to work in certain groups. 4. leadership skills required for the management of the project For a successful implementation process of a project, the project’s manager leadership skills need to be highly developed. These skills are required throughout the project’s time frame. The quality of the project mainly depend son the management and their leadership skills. This helps the project manager to practically apply the methodologies of management, tools and techniques. For a successful initiation of a project managed by PRINCE2 methodology, servitude is skill is vital. This helps in exploration of various possible plans to be used in the course of running the project. It also ensures that the needs of team members are identified and necessary measures are taken for effective running of the project. Through this skill various barriers are identified and managed accordingly. A good leader has the ability to identify the correct people for the right job. This skill determines the quality of the project outcome since the employees are bound to do their best in what they know. Since PRINCE2 methodology lacks development of team activity, a leader endowed with this skill will successful accomplish the project on time and using limited resources. However, due to financial constraints a leader may want some of the employees to multitask and if the person is not suited for the task allocated then the quality of the project is compromised. A leader who leads by example is bound to command a lot of respect among team members and attain the set objectives on time since the team members will be willing to follow suit on what he or she does. In spite, some leaders are tasked with several goals and may not be able to be exemplary. This may deter the achievement of the quality required. The leaders are thus supposed to divide the team into smaller units to which he or she works through support staff to accomplish this skill. The ability to engage all those concerned with the project democratically can enhance the cooperation required by those involved toward accomplishing the projects goals and objectives. Imposing something on the stakeholders may receive rejection of the proposal and result in the inability to implement the project due to lack of resources. Thus leaders intending to run projects using PRINCE2 methodology need this essential skill. Those who lack it may not go far in the implementation of the project. However, certain issues are critical and need not use democracy and this is the cause of many riffles in the management of many projects. 5. PRINCE2 methodology compared to Systems Development Life Cycle Methodology (SDLC) PRINCE2 methodology is structure based methodology. It involves organization, planning, controlling, business case, identification of risk, quality control, management configuration and control change (). It in a well organized method, assessment is continuous, involves integrated management and there is planning for the product. It is usually incomplete method, prescriptive and driven by business case. On the other hand, SDLC is a waterfall methodology (). It consists of three approaches which include simple, complex and generic approach. The generic approach is the most commonly used approach. It involves several phases such as need analysis phase, project concept phase, project design phase, training phase, project delivery phase and project support phase. In the need analysis phase, the underlying problem is identified. The objectives and the required deliveries are established in the project concept phase. Project design phase is essential in the creation of a design for solving the problem. Training phase involves the training of users of the products of the project. Project delivery phase is the actual implementation of the project. Finally the project support phase coordinates and manages the solution of the problem. If this methodology were applied in this project, the project outcome would have been achieved well since there is encouragement of training of the recipients of the services prior to implementation of the project. The project’s objectives are identified prior to presentation for approval by the stakeholders. This reduces time need to plan for the activities of the project. Thus the project outcome could have been timely. The provision of support after the implementation stage would have helped in following up the achieved objectives. This could have been advantageous since the outbreaks of fires in the Lancashire schools could be reduced the minimum level possible. 6. The success of the Reduction of Fire Outbreaks in Lancashire schools project The success of the project is attributed to the method which was employed and the leadership skills which were employed. The prior planning of all activities which were to be undertaken in the project enabled effective running of the project. This was largely due to the PRINCE2 methodology used to manage the project. The equipments and personnel for running the project were thus obtained on time. The use of PRINCE2 methodology allowed standard roles to be allocated to various management teams and this resulted in the efficacy of the project. Apart from the methodology used, the leadership skills employed in the implementation of the project were instrumental in the success of the project. To address all team issues, servitude skill was used. This ensured harmony in the running of the project. Support of the project plan and budget received from the stakeholders was mainly due to the democratic approach applied by the project manager in initiation stage. The leaders of the project encouraged consultation among group members. This contributed much to the quality attained in the outcome of the project. Bureaucracies were also developed during the project by the management to have smaller units to be managed by support staff which also contributed to efficiency among team members. Most support staff was encouraged to lead by example and this led to high output per employee. In spite this; the unavailability of enough funds to higher qualified personnel compromised the quality of work of some sectors which had fewer qualified employees. The few qualified employees who were hired were demoralized due to underpayment and this impacted negatively on their output hence there were some delays in the completion of the project. Read More