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Project Management involves the organization, planning, motivation, and control of resources in an organization so as to attain specific goals. For a project to be successful, leadership plays a dominant role in the execution of a project as the leader watches that all the goals are met and all the preconceived constraints, like time, budget, quality, and the scope, are honored (Bjarne, 2007). The main reason as to why many projects fail is because of poor leadership and poor communication, which leads to problems arising during the execution of the project. Proper planning is essential as it defines the project.
Part 1
Question 1
Many project problems often arise due to a failure in objectives defining as it is one of the major steps in project management (Lewis, 2006). In our case, Mr. Howe, after having suggested a new computer system project to Mr. Mistry, totally failed to define the full range of tasks and work as actual requirements were broader. In this situation, Mr. Howe failed to address issues like the size of companys departments, number of work places, working hours, services offered to the clients, and staff involved.
A project managers prior task is to plan and organize the execution of the whole work process which can be done through the understanding of all the goals of the project, companys needs, and challenges which might lead to the failure of the project (Harold, 2003). Mr. Howe, as the project manager, was supposed to fully understand the needs of the project as each department had its own, partly similar, partly different tasks, which require individual approaches to satisfy and simplify peoples work.
Question 2
The project where Mr. Howe did not make any considerations for all the players who were involved in the entire work range was handled poorly. He stated that any person who has any dissensions can leave. Mr. Howe could involve all the three managers of the company as they are a part of the company and the project was aimed at benefiting the whole company and not just one department. Lack of cooperation and coordination among departments led to the total failure of the project as Mr. Howe never consulted the other managers in the initial steps of the innovation. Mr. Howe also allowed an outside person, Mr. Smith, to run the whole project and did not take part in it by himself, failed to explain the entire picture of the innovation system, explained all the tasks verbally, and, in addition, mentioned about the need of installing the system for other two departments only after two week after the beginning of the work.
In order for a manager to maximize the success of a project, the following six steps should be executed: project identification, determination of the desired outcomes, delineation of the component tasks of the project, identification of all the players, determination of the timeline for the project tasks, and reviewing, revising, and making relocations during the project conduction (Kevin, 2006).
Part 2
Question 1
The project starts on January 7th, 2014 with the Go ahead where it will be accepted. The project will be expected to run until February 2nd, 2014 (Figure 1). At that day, managers will assign tasks and duties, will set deadlines, and appoint responsible personns.
The project is expected to cost about ?24,520 (Figure 4); although, there might be some room for adjustments as the costs can fluctuate before the end of the project. The staffing costs will depend on the category of the staff where each worker will work for 7 hours every working day, 5 days a week as follows: MD at ?100 per hour, Managers at ?70 per hour, Systems Analyst at ?60 per hour, Junior Analyst at ?30 per hour, Systems Engineer at ?60 per hour, and Equipment and software cost to hire at ?100 per week. There will be no overtime as the staff will not work during the weekends and holidays (Figure 2).
Question 2
A project has a limited scope, budget, and time. It can be represented as a triangle where all the three competing elements are normally termed as the projects triple constraints (Pankaj, 2007). If one side of the triangle is adjusted, it would mean that the other two will be affected. According to the plan of the project, if the interviews are added 4 more days and the hardware investigation added 2 more days, then it might end up with increasing costs as it would further extend the the finish date of the project. The reason for this is that there are other tasks which can to be done only when the interviews and the investigation of the hardware are completed. This might delay the finish date of the project from 04/02/2014 to 10/02/2014 (Figure 3). The costs would definitely increase in such case.
Question 3
During the project conduction, there might appear unexpected problems, like the lack of enough resources required to successfully accomplish the project. Like in our case, the reduction in the number of system analysts available will lead to the activity alteration as the tasks of the project are sequential, which means that the implementation process would take a much longer time, and it would be almost impossible to overlap tasks (Figure 5) As there is no opportunity to assign another worker, the available system analyst would become overallocated, and, in the end, it might affect the scope of the project as there would be a need to pay overtime to make sure that the deadline of the project does not change. Definitely it will increase the costs drastically.
Conclusion
Project management is crucial for the continued growth and success of the company as it saves the money, time, and human resources. In todays competitive world, companies have to take advantage of all the activities which can help the company to cut down the operation costs and resources (David & Roland, 2006). A manager should concider every possible detail which can influence the final result of a project in order to gain a success.