The New Aircraft Delivery Project - Literature review Example

The New Aircraft Delivery Project Name: Instructors Name: Course title: Institution: Date: Executive summary The importance of effective project management is vital for the success of any project, both in the short and long run. Project managers play significant roles in creating cohesive workforce, especially where large number stakeholders are involved. For the New Aircraft Delivery project, one can see that the general failure of the project was brought by the failure of Reichart, who was the project manager. He generally failed to organize the workforce, poor documentation and time management to the whole system. In the New Aircraft Delivery project, Reichart failed to schedule the project leading to its failure at the initial stages. Through proper scheduling, a project manager is able to predict the duration a particular project will take. Staffing is another important factor that enhances the success of any given project (Harris, 2006). Project control, adequate communication and reporting are the other important factors, which Reichart should have looked into for successful completion of the project. To rectify the problems facing this project, there was need of reallocating resources, crashing the schedules as well as enhancing communication among all the stakeholders. In conclusion, there was a need of project reorganization to encounter factors leading to project failure. Introduction The success of a project highly depends on the effectiveness and efficiency of the project managers and other members of the team. Managers must emulate appropriate strategies in planning, organizing, procuring and managing of the necessary resources in order to achieve the desired result in a timely manner. The major challenges facing most of the project managers are time management and lack of proper allocation of financial resources. In this regard, it is imperative for senior company executives to allocate duties of managing projects to skilled and qualified personnel to ensure effective delivery of projects. The problems facing the New Aircraft Delivery project as depicted in the case study is related to improper time management and lack of control and monitoring of the project. In this regard, this paper will analyze the importance of the monitoring and controlling aspects of the project management. Lack of time management is also another aspect that resulted to the completion of the project behind the schedule. It is also evident that lack of commitment by managers is also a factor that delays the delivery of a project as depicted by the functional managers in the case study. Project initiating Project initiating entails the early stages that the managers must adopt before starting the actual project. These include analyzing the benefits and the costs to be incurred by the project. In addition, it involves allocating duties to the personnel responsible for executing the project as well as scheduling the project. In the New Aircraft Delivery project, Reichart did not appropriately schedule the project leading to its failure at the initial stages. Through proper scheduling, a project manager is able to predict the duration a particular project will take. It also entails accelerating some activities in order to meet the deadline (Newitt, 2009). It was imperative for Reichart to come up with a Gantt chart, which is a graphical representation of the activities that will be undertaken to complete a project. By providing the Gantt chart to the functional managers, Reichart would have avoided their laxity that caused them to divert their attention to the pet projects. Budgeting is a fundamental aspect that cannot be overlooked as far as management of a project is concerned. Moder, and Davis (1995) proper allocation of financial resources should be a primary duty for a project manager. Due to the failure of the project manager in the New Aircraft Delivery Project to manage the available resources effectively, the initial expenditure increased. Even though the functional managers are vital in a project, the role of the project manager in monitoring the use of funds and preparation of budget should have avoided the high costs incurred by the project (Lewis, 2005). Project staffing Kelley (1998) there is a great need to put in place an efficient team that will ensure the success of a project. This calls for proper mechanism of recruiting team members who have the necessary skills to undertake the various activities in the project. One of the problems that faced the New Aircraft Delivery Project was lack of proper staffing. The line managers were not efficient in their duties. This is indicated by the time they wasted without making up any time to compensate the time wasted. This resulted to the delay of the project an increase in the cost of the project. During the project, staffing the project managers must consider some vital aspect. First, they should take into account the skills required to undertake the project. This ensures that the team members are aware of the various concepts, which relate to a certain project. Secondly, the project mangers should consider the kind of training needed before the project is started. Lack of skilled and properly trained staff in the field of computer programming resulted to the delay of the New Aircraft Delivery Project. Even though Reichart was provided with 12 members of staff, it did not have much effect on the completion of the project. It is also important to consider the budgetary allocation that is adequate to maintain the staff. Due to the failure of not hiring skilled computer programmers at the initial stages, the project mangers delayed the project for two months while $15,000 extra money was needed to cater for storage and computer programming (Burke, 2003). Project reporting It is imperative for project managers to regularly report to the executive on the progress of the project. The report should entail any issues that may affect the completion of the project. For instance, if more funds are needed, the project managers should inform the executives in advance instead of waiting until the project stops. In the same way, managers should adopt variance request. This is a documents that shows any changes or risks that might affect the completion of the project in the specified time. Being signed by the project manager, the client and the project sponsor, the variance request shows the impact of the variance particularly on schedule, budget and scope of the project. By using the variance request, Reichart could have informed the executive and the customer on the adjusted final budget and the completion date (O’Brien, and Plotnick, 2009). Project control Project control is an important aspect that project managers must emulate. As depicted by Pinedo (2002) project control does not imply having authority over other members of the team. It entails guiding the team members in order to achieve the desired goals. As indicated by the cooperate vice president, Reichart was responsible for the success or failure of the New Aircraft Delivery project. Reichart failed to control the functional managers who were causing the delay of the project. Effective project mangers should evaluate their current position and how far they have diverted from the project objectives. The evaluation is then reported to the company executives and any problem is noted. In order to achieve the goals of the project, project contorting ensures that proper management of the overall project is achieved in the long run (Pierce, 2004). On the other hand, it can be indicated that planning and monitoring acts as the main cause for most of the project failures. Despite continuous evolutions in project management fields, it is apparent that traditional approaches of project management still indicate lack of utilization of the project controls. Currently it is estimated that majority of project control costs ranges from 0.6% to 3.1% of the entire project, which includes cost accounting. Project control requires improving the cost effectiveness by at least 2.1%, in order to breakeven. It is also notable that Net Project value (NPV) also greatly rises from improvement of schedules. Generally, success factors of the entire project is based on healthy project control practices that results to good scheduled outcomes and cost (Horsley, 2004). Due to the improper project control methods adopted by Reichart, the whole New Aircraft Delivery Project almost became attainable. For instance, Reichart reported to the operations manager instead of project office, which was responsible for the success of the entire project. As a result of this, corporate staff interests in the New Aircraft Delivery Project become highly intensive, requiring 7:00 am meeting each Monday morning. The aim of the meeting was to fully review the status of the project as well as deliberate on recovery plans. He found himself spending a lot of time in preparation for paperwork, projections and reports for these meetings, rather than administering the project. Adequate communication Hinze (2008) argues that improper communication among the employees, customers among other stakeholders such as the suppliers within any given project can result to misunderstandings, thus negatively affect the overall performance. Project managers should be bridge among diversified branches of the project undertaking to enhance communication lines. For most of the investors, they prefer investing their money and other form of resources in those firms, which delivers projects in time as well as keeping them informed about the progress and updates of particular project. If clients feel satisfied with the project performance, they are highly likely to return or give referrals probably having much larger projects (Woolf, 2007). It is advisable that, project leaders, such as Reichart, should hold meetings regularly to make sure that all the stakeholders are made aware about project plans and the responsibility of all members of the team. For the New Aircraft Delivery Project, there was general lack of communication from Reichart, who was the project coordinator. For example, when the corporate vice-president visited Reichart one Sunday morning and found him compiling results for Airline international, the vice president displayed dissatisfaction with the way this particular project was being run (Hutchings, 2004). Further, due to miscommunication, it became hard for Reichart to create a harmonious working environment with the functional managers, whom he pointed out to be creating problems in this particular project. Effective Monitoring of the New Aircraft Delivery Project Dreger (1992) indicates that there are many reasons, which can move projects past their stipulated deadlines. It is common for some given work to become harder more than originally accepted or due to having turnover, thus requiring the project manager to bring in new employees or hire expatriates. However, if project delays become evident, it is important to initially determine the cause, then the appropriate remedies, failure to which the situation may recur, thus hindering the success of the project further. As indicated in the New Aircraft Delivery Project, the main problem facing this particular project was poor communication from the project manager, poor management of the available finances as well as poor participation from the functional managers. Despite the great support awarded by the Airline International to Reichart in the New Aircraft Delivery Project, he failed to appreciate it. For instance, the Airline International, who were the customers, decided to assign one representative in Reicharts department to monitor t he progress of the project on daily basis (Feigenbaum, 2002). The representative was also to act as the interface of the interface of Reichart and his staff as required. As a result the project aws required to undergo massive changes at no any extra costs, in order to be complete within the scheduled period. Instaed of supporting the representative, Reichart openly disagreed with him, a factor that caused further deterioration of the relationship between the customer and producer. To avert all these the project manager, should have earlier taken up measures aimed at slipping the New Aircraft Delivery Project back on track (Popescu, 1995). Reallocating resources As indicated by this case study, establishment of activities considered as most vital for to achieve project success was not present. Associated General Contractors of America (2004) if a given project trends over the deadline, its critical path is late, hence a great need of moving resources to other activities that are more essential for the purpose of recovery. This allows the project manager to get the project back on track though stretching out work or delaying the other. For instance, Reichart should have allocated more resources to team building activities. This would have led to a more cohesive workforce, improved communication channels among all the stakeholders, thus more output. Ultimately, the delay of project submission by one year and 40% cost overrun would have been highly avoided (Heldman, 2009). Crash the schedule This means applying resources to critical path, sequence of activities, which must be completed in schedule for the whole project to be completed as per expected duration. It is important for project manager to not only throw more of the project resources to the critical path but also try to get the large schedules again for lowest amounts of incremental costs. For instance, if an employee was assigned to complete a given activity in two years, the project manager can try whether two people can complete the project much earlier. The additional type of resources may also be sourced from outside as witnessed in case of the New Aircraft Delivery Project, where staffs from the Airline international was hired to head the project (Cho, 1997). Conclusion From studying the above, one can clearly see the urgent need of effectively monitoring the success of any given project. Failure to do this, the chances of project failure or delay becomes more evident coupled with raised cost of operations. For the New Aircraft Delivery Project, there was a need of project reorganization to encounter factors leading to poor overall performance of the project (Marchman, 2002). References Associated General Contractors of America. (2004). Construction Planning and Scheduling. 2nd ed. Alexandria, VA: Associated General Contractors of America Burke, R. (2003). Project Management: Planning and Control Techniques. 4th ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Cho, A. (1997). ‘‘Packing more road into parkway.’’ Engineering News-Record (ENR), May 12, 30–32. 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