Project Management Issues - Essay Example

No: Project Management Project management is abroad term that includes the certain set of instructions and planned ideas that are implemented to attain certain goals within a fixed span of time. Sometime other factors may influence the functions and implementation of ideas involved in the project management. Project management functions as to fulfill the objective in a certain frame of time in an organized manner. The organizations of the tasks that are involvement in the execution of the project, is an important aspect of the project management. On the other hand, the planning of the tasks according to feasibility and management with respect to time is also an important aspect of the project management. Planning involves the certain establishment of policies, process and systematic methods to aim for achieving the goal associated to the project management. Planning is continuous phenomenon and should be progressed as the project progresses. The planning of the project as the part of the project management involves the scheduling of the project, budgeting of the project, directing the project and controlling the project. Each part of planning requires the managers to systematically control the project. There are mainly three types of business planning; strategic, tactical and operational. The strategic planning has most often a period of about 5 or more years. The business employing the tactical planning often restricts the planning to a period to 1 to 5 years. However, the operation planning regarding the project management is planned to implement at the time of planning and at the place of planning. Long term strategic plan having a span of 10 years is often utilized in business. While, three years plan and this year budget plan are the plans that are also employed by businesses. The planning as the part of project management is acquired to various level of the organization. Managers try to motivate the individuals to work better for the good of the organization. At this stage, managers plan of themselves and for the other individuals. However, team or group planning is also an important level for the working environment. The upper level managers plan for the organization and set the goals of the organization that comes in the Strategic project planning level. A good manager should have good communication and should be responsive to deal with the planning problems. A project manager should know how to deal with the situation to be a successful project manager. According to Kerzner, the nine steps involve in the planning of the project are; setting targets, setting programs including strategies, scheduling the plan, budgeting the plan and project, making predictions about the future or forecast, assigning duties and responsibilities, making policies for the execution of plan, declaring procedures to implement the policies, making standards based on the performance and acceptance. The steps of scheduling, predicting and budgeting are much related to each other have a high influence on each other. The project manager should have the proper knowledge of the project. He should plan the strategy to aim for the objective and the outcome of the project. He should integrate the planned project and execute the plans to achieve the aim and objectives in the given time frame. There is a major role of the top level management in the project management. The top level management selects or make plan that the required by the organization for the certain time frame. The top level management makes certain priorities while planning the project. The top level management organizes the project and involves all the sources the management requires to execute the project. The top level management makes general policies about the project. The roles of the project managers and the team leaders are to define and execute the key objectives and describe milestones regarding the project. Project manager and team leaders should set the priorities and make certain groups and motivate the staff. Project manager and team leaders should brief the critical issues and inform the clients about the situation and the matters regarding the project. It is duty of the managers to take control of the project. The control directly refers to lowering the risks associated with project. Project Network diagram is a systematic tool that depicts the certain timely changes and connection between the tasks. It presents an analysis on the different tasks. It helps in optimizing and defining the progress. The major question is that why it is encouraged to form teams or groups. The major reason of making the team is that the work is distributed in teams. As, team grows, the personal associated with the team also grow. Thus, the feature of security is high while in team. Team encourages the self esteem of a person. While in team, the person considers himself a part of the team that makes him to feel more power than that of a single person. It makes eater for a team to achieve the settled goals. Person remains affiliated with the team and works as the part of the team. The external factors that can influence a group are organizational strategy, structure of organization or authority structure, organizational rules and regulations, process of selection, culture followed in the organization, work distribution in the organization. The structure of organization should be of recognizable size. The team members should have to report to only single authority. The culture and the social trends in the organization have much impact on the progress of the team. rules and regulation imposed internally by the organization or by the national law also plays an important role. On the other hand, the professional requirements involved in the project management are the challenging and interesting work, better work environment that can simulate the professional to work better, not many leaders, real rewards like compensation, luxuries, etc, providing technical assistance, providing assistance in solving a problem, repeatedly and clearly declared objective, control of management over the professionals. While other requirements of the professionals are job validity, support from senior management, role defining, open communication and proper planning. The major problems that exists while at teams regarding the project management are lack of authority or lack of documentation, two way accountability, more than one bosses on a person, encouraging individuals instead of teams, monopoly of subordinates instead superiors due to politics, personal relationships, etc, decisions are made stronger members not through referendum and sharing of resources among several groups. On the other hand, the perceived authority also plays a main problem that can reduce the efficacy of the project. If more than one leader is in the team, then both the leaders try to maintain their authority in the team and different decisions regarding the team will be made that will create conflict between the members and the leaders of the team. Each authority should be documented well to prevent any conflicts regarding the team members and other groups. On the other hand, the resources should be documented and specified for a particular group. The project management techniques learned in the class remained helpful while making the teams in the class. The management techniques are viewed as the methods to enhance the efficiency and productivity of the team. Most of the team members are enthusiastic about the group project and all of them found the project interesting. Thus, it is better to adopt the theory Y of management instead of theory X. The theory Y of management believes that the employees or the team members work because they find their work interesting and their work influence their lives and they respect and like they work they are hired for. This theory has positive impact on the talents of the individuals and boosts the team members to work at their capacity. On the other hand, the theory X of the management argues that the employees have no intension to work for the organization. They only work to attain money and if they are given choice they would not prefer to work. They would rather do another job if they are given the chance to do nothing. Thus, the employees need the motivation at several stages to run the organization in a proper way. The process of picking up the leader is done through proper voting and voting depended on the skill the candidate has. Such leaders that are team players and have motivational skills are considered better than those who want to command but lack the motivational skills. The motivational skills learned as the part of project management help much in deciding what qualities should be checked in the leader. The leader should maintain a behavior to enhance the productivity of the team. The making of team within organization is a good concept. Project management deals with the management, scheduling and controlling project in a specified period of time. Project management is utilized to manage certain set of tasks to achieve time based goals. These goal are often set to attain profit. Most of the time, these short termed projects are not the part of the organization’s main strategy. Works Cited apm.org.uk. “What is Project Management”. n.d. Web. 1 December 2012 Read More