Project Management Methods - Assignment Example

Project Management Methods Name Course Institution Tutor Date Introduction The importance of projects in the lives of individuals and societies cannot be underestimated. A project is a temporary initiative undertaken to meet a unique set of goals and objectives. Regardless of the kind of objectives specific projects, the aim of any project is to bring about an added value or beneficial change to the people or communities targeted for the project (Schwalbe 2012). Normally, projects should have a defined beginning and end, although this may be affected by time and material constraints. To ensure that a project at least attempts to remain focus on its objectives, utilize resources appropriately, and get completed within the specified time, the aspect of project management comes to play. Schwalbe (2012) defines project management as the act of applying skills, knowledge, and techniques to project tasks to meet project requirements. Part I: Project Manager Interview Mailed questionnaire; Name and contact details of PM retained anonymous Q1. How did you get into project management? A.I used to work as a project team member in most of my father’s construction work projects, and later realized that I too can participate in a project as a project manager. Q2. Did you have any training or special talents or experiences that qualified you to be a project manager? Are you certified or have you thought about becoming certified as a PMP? A. While working with my father each project was a chance to help me enhance my skills, understanding of the challenges that can occur in a project, and ways to deal with such challenges, although I had received technical training in college. I also concentrated in management and communication courses in my Bachelor studies and focused on project management courses for my Masters. I realized that I wanted to become a project manager and after about 15 years experience of working as a project team member in various projects, I realized it was my team to lead the lot. Yes, I was officially certified two years ago as a PMP. Q3. What do you feel is the most important thing you do as a project manager? On what task do you spend the most time of each day? A. The most important thing for me is planning the project. After I have done a background research on the present project, I sit down to write the project charter, which is basically a plan layout, of what my project is about, who will get involved, and what they will do, what we plan to achieve, and the time and costs projections. Once the plan is done, I spent a lot of time trying to get to know the people that I will be working with just to ensure that we share the same enthusiasm about the project. Q4. What are some of the opportunities and risks you have encountered on projects? Please describe any notable successes and failures and what you have learned from them. A. First, I must admit that project management is a fastidious task that must have a definite beginning and end, yet not a continuous process. I have had my high times and low times. Like there was a time I completed a project two months earlier than the scheduled completion time, and this ended up saving a lot of resources. The quality of the project was also a success. However, another time, I had my plan and everything, and was depending on a sponsor for a community project. The sponsor withdrew the last minute because of political reasons, and you can imagine what a disaster that turned out to be. Q5. Do you have any suggestions for future project managers, such as any specific preparations they should make, skills they should learn, etc.? Time management, planning resource, interpersonal relationships, and being a team player can help a great deal in the project management process. Let your passion take you to your dream. Part II: Knowledge Management Areas In this section, the paper documents quality and human resource as project management knowledge areas and the extent to which best practices are applied by UAE/GCC businesses and organizations. Project quality management ensures that the project will satisfy the stated or implied needs for which it was undertaken (Schwalbe 2012: 17). The tools and techniques that assist project managers and their teams in the knowledge area of project quality management include quality metrics, checklists, quality control, charts, Pareto diagrams, fishbone diagrams, maturity models, and statistical models among others. Project quality management is applied to all project processes, services, and products and it is the platform through which the team ensures successful repeatability in project delivery and persisting improvement of its project management policies, framework, standards, responsibilities, objectives, practices, and procedures (Yasser 2010). In addition, project quality management promotes the ability of organizations to strengthen a corporate culture of service quality to ensure that their employees, suppliers, and shareholders will strive to accomplish and maintain high customer satisfaction and implement a philosophy of persistent improvement (Yasser 2010). Best practices in project quality management include the ability to identify a quality assurance and control process that will ensure that the project deliverable satisfies the need for which it was intended (Schwalbe 2012). The quality management process at the project level involves not only the development but implementation of policies, standards, objectives, procedures, and responsibilities to ensure that the project deliverables and project process meet the specified quality standards. These can be achieved through plan quality, which entails the process of identifying quality requirements or standards for the product or process and illustrating how the project will meet compliance. Quality assurance and quality control can also be performed by auditing the quality requirements and monitoring and recording the outcome of executing the quality activities for the sake of assessing performance and suggesting necessary revisions. Some organizations in the UAE/GCC countries have/have not utilized the project quality management knowledge area in their business projects which has reflected in the project outcomes. Total Quality Culture (TQC) is a framework of management principles encouraged among the Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) nations to change the culture of institutions so that employees put quality first. Manochehri, Suleiman, & Al-Esmail (2012:1-2) investigate the adoption of the Total Quality Management (TQM) principles for managing change among educational institutions in the GCC where quality of education should be the focus. The survey involved participants from several educational institutions in GCC countries, including Qatar. The model used employs critical factors for a total quality culture in the academic process. The practice items to promote a culture of enhancing total quality in the education process include necessary management behaviour, TQM implementation strategy, education training and development, TQM organisation, process management and systems, employee involvement, teamwork, partnering, communication for TQM, recognition and award, and quality technologies (Manochehri, Suleiman, & Al-Esmail 2012: 10). Quality is an aspect of value for project deliverables and processes. Yasser (2010) explores how Value Management (VM) in the GCC has been focused upon delivering sustainable construction projects. Quality construction products are sustainable and it has even taken government involvement in some countries like the UAE to develop tailored tools for the country to help meet the quality of buildings through sustainability (Yasser 2010: 55). In undertaking value management especially lean principles, it was observed that some project managers in construction companies in UAE and Saudi Arabia and most other GCC countries focused on cost reduction and undermined quality of their products, yet this is a critical component for customer satisfaction, and sustainability of the industry (Yasser 2010: 51). Being sustainable in the project quality management process requires enhancing the quality of life and social prosperity in addition to responding to the needs of society including users, clients, project stakeholders, and the wider community (Yasser 2010: 52). On its part, Project human resource management is focused with making effective use of the people involved with the project (Schwalbe 2012: 18). The tools and techniques that assist project managers and their teams in the knowledge area of project human resource management include motivation techniques, empathic listening, responsibility assignment matrices, resource histograms, project organizational charts, and team building exercises among others. People are the most important assess in the project execution process because they determine the success and/or failure of projects and organizations (Geringer, Frayne, & Milliman 2002). Project human resource management entails making the most effective use of the people undertaking the project. Project human resource management entails human resource planning which is basically the means of identifying and documenting project tasks, responsibilities, authority relationships (Josler & Burger 2005: 25). It also entails acquiring the project team which is recruiting the needed personnel assigned to and working on the project. The project human resource managers also develop the project team by building individual and group skills to promote project performance. Managing the project team is also a crucial role here and entails tracking team member performance, team member motivation, provision of timely feedback, issues and conflict resolutions, and change coordination to help enhance project performance (Josler & Burger 2005: 27). Proactive organizations that understand the importance of project human resource management involve in best practices for this area such as improving the benefits of employees, building morale through team building activities, redefining work hours and incentives, selecting and training future workers, and exercising good leadership based on interaction with employees or the team among others. People bring the knowledge and skills that through best human resource management practices can be shared to increase innovation, performance, and overall success of a project. Boumarafi (2009) talks about how appropriate knowledge management can be beneficial to organizations in the UAE. Successful organizations in the UAE have understood the importance of appropriate management in organizational culture, management support, reward, and vision clarity on organizational performance in terms of efficiency (Boumarafi 2009: 17). Interviewed managers from private business organizations in the UAE agreed that appropriate project human resource management promotes knowledge deployment which contributes to the success of the project or organization. Qureshi, Ansari, & Sajjad (2013) focus on the various strategies employed by the retail business sector in Saudi Arabia to enhance human resource management for better project outcomes. Some of the human project management activities actively undertaken by retail businesses in Saudi Arabia include selection, recruitment, human resource planning, performance appraisal of employees, compensation, and training and development, One of the recommendations given is for the Saudi Arabia retail businesses to partner with the education sector to promote specific programs for the Saudi graduates (Qureshi, Ansari, & Sajjad 2013: 1210). This will ensure that training in knowledge and skills at school meet the expectation of the business industry. It will also solve the problem of shortages in the industry by ensuring a continuous supply of workers from the wide pool of the Saudi Arabian graduates. Conclusion This essay has discussed best practices in two knowledge management areas –project quality management and project human resource management and their application in UAE and other GCC countries. Project quality management is the process undertaken to ensure that the project will satisfy the stated or implied needs for which it was undertaken. On the other hand, project human resource management is the process undertaken to ensure that the project manager is focused with making effective use of the people involved with the project. An anonymous interview with a project manager has also been recorded in the first part to help understand a real-life experience in dealing with projects. List of References: Boumarafi, B. (2009). ‘Knowledge management approach to performance: A United Arab Emirates experience’, Digest of Middle East Studies, September, pp. 17-26. Geringer, M., Frayne, C., & Milliman, J. (2002). ‘In search of best practices in international human resource management: Research design and methodology’, Human Resource Management, vol. 41, no. 1, pp. 5-30. Josler, C., & Burger, J. (2005). ‘Project management methodology in human resource management’, Journal, pp. 25-30. Manochehri, N., Suleiman, N., & Al-Esmail, R. (2012). ‘Total quality culture (TOC) in educational institutions: A Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) region study’, Academy of Educational Leadership Journal, vol. 16 no.3, pp. 1-14. Qureshi, M., Ansari, Z., Sajjad, S. (2013). ‘A study of the contemporary issues of human resource management in the retail sector of Saudi Arabia’, Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business, vol. 4, no. 9, January, pp. 1205-1216. Schwalbe, K. (2012). A guide to project management body of knowledge, 5th ed. Project Management Institute, Inc. Yasser, A. 2010. ‘The integration of sustainability within value management practices: A study of experienced value managers in the GCC countries’, Project Management Journal, vol. 41, no. 2, pp. 50-59. Read More