Project Management Processes in Organizations - Essay Example

In the case of HLR Inc., the list of groups that will get affected by this project include the company executives, users of information from the Standard Customer Relationship Management System, the project manager, and lastly, the team working on the project. This list is in order of priority with the first one being the most affected by the project and the last one being the least.

The company executives will get affected the most by the project. People might argue otherwise, but we must understand that this group will benefit or lose the most if the project succeeds or fails. These executives will invest in the project. This investment will be in terms of time, funds, intellect, and effort and all of this will be at stake and if the project does not succeed, the investment made by the company executives will be of no use. On the other hand, if the project succeeds, it will increase the efficiency of the company and will give it a competitive advantage, ultimately benefiting the company executives.

Since it has been decided that the company executives will be affected by the project the most, there is an imperative need to communicate the project objectives to this group. The communication method and technique must be the most effective as the rest of the project will depend on how the objectives are presented. If the executives are convinced with the objectives, they will move on with the project and if they are not convinced, they will refuse to provide support for the project.

The communication method that is used must involve face-to-face contact. Therefore, a meeting would be most suitable. In this meeting, the project objectives will be presented to the executives. The meeting would begin with an introduction that will explain the current situation of the company and how the mismanaged information is affecting the information flow within the organization. Then the team will explain to the company executives the project in detail. This will include the objectives of the project how the project team aims to go about it. The project team must prepare itself thoroughly as the presentation must be convincing and their proposals must sound credible. Everything that will be presented by the presenter must be supported by visual aid as this will help explain the executives better and they will be able to retain the maximum amount of information. It must be detailed but care must also be taken that it does not get too prolonged and there is no information overload. For future references, the project team must document the project proposals and objectives in detail on hard copy and must provide the company executives with them. Towards the end, company executives can be asked to give suggestions that would make the objectives more achievable.

This technique of communicating the project objectives to the company executives will be very effective as the presentation will allow two-way communication between the project team and the company executives. It will ensure that the executives understand everything and if something is vague, it may be explained to them. This interaction between the two groups is also very necessary as the company executives would need to know who they would be working with for the next 18 months. The support from the company executives is very essential and for that, they need to be convinced that their investment will be worth it.

We must realize that this group will get affected by the standard customer relationship management system project the most. This is the reason they would want to know the objectives of the project in detail before the project is implemented in the company. A lot depends on the communication process or how the message is conveyed. The project may be benefiting the company but unless the company executives are assured that it will, the project will not be able to carry on with it as their support is critical.