Project Management – Content Marketing, Risk Management And Gantt Charts

Content Creation Strategies for Project Managers

The first one is a content creation project. Here, in a content marketing plan, the project managers should think from basic level. For example, it must be seen as a “growth of a tree”. Each healthy tree has their root made up of multiple branches. For instance, as any newsletter is seen every month, managers can save that through creating, collaborating and planning in the similar place that it is sent (Lundin et al. 2017).

Answer to question number 2:

The steps of project scopes entail the adoption of clear vision and agreement on results of projects. The steps mentioned hereafter must allow every milestone to stay over the target. This helps in identifying project needs, confirming goals and objectives of projects. Identifying constraints and determine necessary changes (Artto, Ahola and Vartiaine 2016).

Answer to question number 3:

The given network diagram is provided below.

					1
				A
									2				5				1
								D		E		F
					2
				B															2
																				H
					4												2
				C										G

Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish	Predecessors
Clear Site	1 wk	Wed 8/29/18	Tue 9/4/18
Obtain materials	2 wks	Wed 8/29/18	Tue 9/11/18
Obtain pumps	4 wks	Wed 8/29/18	Tue 9/25/18
Preparing apron	4 wks	Wed 9/12/18	Tue 10/9/18	1,2
Dig well	5 wks	Wed 10/10/18	Tue 11/13/18	4
Installing pump	1 wk	Wed 11/14/18	Tue 11/20/18	3,5
Train maniteners	2 wks	Wed 9/26/18	Tue 10/9/18	3
Run trials	2 wks	Wed 11/21/18	Tue 12/4/18	6,7

The duration of the given project is 19 weeks.

There are different benefits of Gantt charts. These are helpful to schedule and plan for projects. It is useful to understand the time duration to be taken by any project. It also determines resources required and plan to complete tasks (Webster 2017). Moreover, they also help in managing various kinds of dependencies taking place between multiple activities.

Answer to question number 4:

The success of a project can be determined by whether the original timeline is maintained. Here, the ending phase of a project phase is a good time for quality review. Further, the current actual spent can be compared to what has budgeted at any point (Devaux 2015). Ultimately as one returns to a business case, one must fetch what has been agreed on initially.

Answer to question number 5:

Risks can be analysed and managed through risk registers. It identifies problems that affect broader business operations. Next, professional training can be deployed. For example, PRINCE2 offers managers with skills to generate risk register suitable for a project. It is vital to review the risk management process to learn and inform project delivery for further use (Ronen, Lechler and Stohr 2017).

Answer to question number 6:

Various quality methods can be introduced. Those are helpful to assure that the project is completed as per proper quality standards.

Project Evaluation:

This process utilizes various systematic analysis. This is done to collect data and then retrieve efficiency and effectiveness of management. It is a vital exercise to place projects within a track and inform stakeholders about those signs of progress (Vuorinen and Martinsuo 2018). Here all kinds of aspects of a project get calculated for finding whether the project is planned. Furthermore, tools such as trackers and project dashboards are used to evaluate processes by making primary data available readily.

Project Monitoring:

To perform project monitoring, some of the aspects are to be found out. First of all, it must be determined whether the tasks are carried out as per the plan. Next, unexpected outcomes arising as the outcome of those activities are to be determined. Besides, the way in which the team is performing at any specific time is to be analyzed (Cha, Newman and Winch 2018). Various elements of the project that requires changes are to be investigated, and the effect of those changes are to be examined. Lastly, it must be determined whether those activities can lead to intended outcomes.

The Importance of Gantt Charts in Project Management

Project Control:

This involves a collection of data, managing and different analytical process. These tcan be used for predicting, understanding and influence cost and time outcomes constructively for any program or projects (Bredin and Söderlund 2014).  This can be done by making communication of data in different formats assisting efficient decision making and management.

2. Task 2:

The project management activities are needed to successfully manage different initiates. This should assure that it is on time and under budget. Here, the case of Edwards Ltd is chosen. This is an SME company that is specialised in designing and supplying signage. They are commissioned by various organisations that include large global companies, SME enterprises and Local Authorities.

The report analyses various project life cycle stages, methods, administration, leadership and problems of controls. Here, all of these are related to managing those lifecycles.

2.2. Project management concerns:

The entire project management of Edwards Ltd must include data collection, managing data and analytical methods. This can be used for predicting, understanding and influence cost and time outcomes of programs or projects. This must be through communicating information for assisting efficient decision making and management (Brink 2017).

A project is in low demand to plan and re-plan resources, quality, time, cost and scopes. This is to analyse deviations for original budget and plan. Here the analysis can be concluded, considering historical information and challenges that are already quantified and incurred. However, various uncertain problems are required to be identified and adequately quantified.

2.2.1. Project Life Cycle stages:

Here, the lifecycle and related problems are needed to meet the challenges through real-life project experiences. IEC 61508 standard has been defining security as the freedom from any unacceptable risks. This accepts that the ultimate protection can never be gained. Here, chances can be decreased to an acceptable level (Eskerod, Huemann and Savage 2015). Hence, this has needed an understanding of risk to help the most suitable actions that must be taken to control that. Some of the crucial challenges of security witnessing the operation of project lifecycle are analysed hereafter. First of all, there is a lack of security culture. It is published by management and promoted actively.

Then there are safety systems that have been obsolete. This system might never be supported but vendors. Here, functionality is a restricting factor that can be hard to retrieve. Next, there are equipment failures. This indicates that they ate not fit for been maintained poorly. Next, there is a lack of training. Here various roles and responsibilities are described clearly (Morozov, Kalnichenko and Liubyma 2017). However, the competence level comprises shortfalls that are needed to be addressed.

Lastly, it must be reminded that security-related projects are to be included in the scheme of Edwards Ltd. These mandates were performing various engineering activities needed for non-safety-related projects.

2.2.2. Problems during project processes:

First of all, there are poorly defined goals that can be faced by team members and project managers. This should be done without understanding that has been precisely expected from the projects. Then there are unrealistic deadlines regarding why most plans have been failed, and project members and managers. They have been struggling with unrealistic expectations with stakeholders and clients (Hodgson and Cicmil 2016). Here most of the project timelines have been eventually slipping because of initial deadlines and silly nature. Further, there are scope creeps where project managers have feared a lot. Here, Edwards Ltd project has been beginning in a specific manner. However, as it proceeds, it has been taking a distinct shape and never look the same as start. It results in the widening of a project outside planned objectives or scope creep.

Risk Management and PRINCE2

2.2.5. Problems with project leadership:

Project managers can navigate complicated and fetch projects with complication. The project leaders of Edwards Ltd have never been learning from previous mistakes and leading further success. They have a lack of encouraging of teams and performing better than them such that they can continue to develop and learn about their team (Hillson 2017). As per the current study.

it is seen that about eighty per cent of the project firms gas been possessing the most vital skills for people to manage complicated projects that are under leadership. Here, they have been demonstrating the needed leaders has been doing with their vision. They can foster collaborations. This is helpful to understand uncertainty and inspiring and motivating teams for achieving the needed project results. This has permitted expected benefits to get delivered and intended for a legacy to get released.

2.2.6. Problems with project administrations:

As project administrators need string skills of strong executive administration, there are needs in financial reporting and budgeting. Some of the responsibilities and duties required for project administrators are analysed hereafter. There is a lack of planning of fiscal budget necessary for Edwards Ltd project. Further, there are coordinating with members, very often, for various updates to see whether the work is in progress (Ssegawa and Muzinda 2016). There are monitoring of project progress and acknowledging of suggestions of a team. Then are supervising of team members and assuring the guidelines are appropriately met. Besides, there are initiating contracts or projects and activities until the project gets finished. Lastly, there is a discussion of upgrades with senior officials and clients.

2.2.7. Controlling of problems related to managing of a lifecycle of the major project:

During project initiation, project feasibility and value are calculated. Here project managers have been using a couple of evaluation tools. These are to be done for deciding whether or not to conduct the project. Then business case documentation is to be used. It justifies necessities for the project has been including the estimation of useful economic benefits. The feasibility studies are to conduct that include evaluation of project costs, timelines and goals for determining a project should be executed. This has been balancing requirements of the project with various available resources to fetch that Edwards Ltd project makes sense. Here, teams have been abandoning suggested plans labelled unfeasible and unprofitable (Turner 2014). Further, as Edwards Ltd project passes the tests, it can be assigned for project ream and designated at the project office.

Then there is an issue with project planning. As the project continues, it requires a solid plan to guide the team and consider that they are on budget and time. Well-written project plan provides guidelines for retrieving resources achieved from procuring needed materials. Here, project plans are intended to provide Edwards Ltd project with directions to generate handling risks, developing acceptances. This also includes quality outputs, communicating advantaged for stakeholders and controls and control suppliers (Low 2016). Here, project plans also prepare a team to do away with barriers. These have been encountering over the course of the project and help to know the timeframe, scope and cost of the project.

Project Evaluation, Monitoring and Control

Then there is project execution where it is mostly associated with Edwards Ltd’s project management. This has been about creating deliverables satisfying customers. Further, team leaders have been making that occur through allocating various resources and placing team members concentrated over multiple activities assigned. Here, the execution has been heavily depending on the phase of planning (Blom and Viljoen 2016). Further, the efforts and works of the overall team, as project execution goes in are derived from plans of projects. Then there are project controls and monitoring. These are associated with performance as they happen at the same time.

Since the team executed project plans, they should be controlling their progress constantly. To guarantee delivery of what is promised, crews should be monitoring tasks for preventing scope creeps. They should be assuring key performance indicators and variations in tracks from assigned time and cost. Here, the consistent vigilance has been keeping projects to move forward smoothly. Lastly, during project closures, Edwards Ltd’s plan must be delivering a project to customers. They should be communicating completion of stakeholders and then releasing various resources for projects. It is a vital step for project life-cycle allowing teams to document and evaluate a plan and then move to the next one. This must be done utilising previous project errors and successes. This is to create an intense process and successful teams (Cleden 2017).

However, though the project life-cycle has been helping organisations in analysing and documenting projects. Then they must move to the succeeding one. Here, the prior one has been making mistakes and having success to create an intense process and highly successful team. However, project management has been seeming to be overwhelming at many times. They have been broken down into five different cycles that are helpful to manage and most complicated projects and utilise resources and times in wisely manner.

2.3. Use of relevant theory:

Here for the current case of Edwards Ltd’s project, EAC or Estimate AT Completion is a good instance. It is ubiquitous. However, this has been assuming the cumulative cost profile of labour. This has been linear in due time. This has been rarely explained. This has been a narrow theory and not linear. This is implicit, and it has been including assumptions that are linearity and acknowledged rarely (Frijns, Bierwolf and van Leeuwen 2018). Further, ECA has been working well and reliable in practice also. Here, project managers have been asked continuously by Edwards Ltd’s project as asked by company management and customers. This is to verify that cost and schedule goals are met. This met under authorised budget. These are the PCD or Planned Completion Date and BAC or Budget Completion Date. Here, EAC is the calculations used for providing answers to those questions.

EAC has been the sum of contractor’s cumulative update ACWP or Actual Cost of Work Performed. Moreover, it is the best estimation of the project managers of funds or time-phase resources. This is needed to finish the residual authorised tasks. Here, the relationship is expressed by formulas such as “EAC=ACWP+ETC”. In this way, it has been forecasting the final costs of the projects. Here, project managers have been revising working priorities and re-planning extra activities within the project schedule (Ramazani and Jergeas 2015). Further, they have been adjusting technical approaches for finishing goals of projects. This is underestimated residual resources. Here, the aim has been to complete every contract work scope under the budget for contract target costs and schedule or contract completion date. This has been estimating uncertainty levels of EAC that has been varying with kinds of remaining tasks, available data and perceiving of rest of the problems.

Case Study: Project Management Concerns at Edwards Ltd

Besides, the prudent management has required to understand gown valid EAC has been. This has been mainly as EAC has been varying notably from BAC on project authorised budgets. In this way, the aims of project management have included the determination of uncertainty levels. These are related to schedule remaining and establishment of cost estimation for remaining tasks. This also provides control of the effect of uncertainty under project budget goals. In this way, as a result, it has been reflecting changes that have been originating from design releases, enabling project managers to answer some queries (Kuznetsov and Sabel 2017). Firstly, it has to be determined, that the authorised funds have been enough to finish projects. Then there should be previous cost experiences of predicting future of cost performances and the residual project. This should be changed from performance till date. Lastly, there should be project cost performances that have been affecting the finical condition of Edwards Ltd.

However, it must be reminded that the theory has been explaining explicit relations taking place between observables. There is no assurance that any particular action has been adopted by project managers for fixing or affecting (Hyatali and Pun 2017). In this way, it can be stated that a thermostat model has been presented without any underpinning theory. Here the sophisticated model must be from the scientific method. Edwards Ltd has been addressing the issue by proposing a formal theoretical foundation for their projects (Yusof et al. 2016).

2.4. Analysis:

It is known that the situations in the real world have not been planned. Here, various positions are beyond control. This has been altering conventional channels and needing changes to plans. Project managers of Edwards Ltd are liable to control switches and analyse effects in project objectives. Here the question is to investigate the impact of those changes. As these are evaluated, with the help of tools of project forecasting like EAC.

EAC has been providing a future value of projects as it gets finished. Having this information, it can forecast how one must possess to spend to finish projects. This is money that is the cost of Edwards Ltd project. The completion is also found by various processes. This has been depending on the manner has been performing. Besides, a PMP certification exam analysis are vital. This is because there are fewer scopes that one seen every question from other cases. Here, well-conceived ETC must also consider commitments of purchase orders, usage, material price, rates and anticipated labour efficiency. Various ODC or Other Direct Costs had performance uses, opportunities and risks, resources according to types and external factors are recognised by higher management. Moreover, ETC is also developed. This is because this can be mapped to present schedule consistent with ECD or Estimated Completion Date.

2.5. Conclusion:

The above study shows that EAC is a useful tool to forecast. This provides a medium-project estimation of the completion of that the project might be taking to finish. Edwards Ltd must note that as they calculate estimate at Completion, they require to initiate change requests for approving that. As this gets passed, they would be able to gain the new budget plan. Thus it is understood that development of metrics and measurement scale for every change management teams of Edwards Ltd. Besides, there should be proper follow-up actions from results of the aforementioned research. This is helpful to address strategies to be placed, or corrective actions are taken. This has been threatened on the desired result of Edwards Ltd’s project. Here, the above study has contributed to different levels to the disciplines of project management along with organizational behaviors and change management.

2.6. References:

Artto, K., Ahola, T. and Vartiainen, V., 2016. From the front end of projects to the back end of operations: Managing projects for value creation throughout the system lifecycle. International Journal of Project Management, 34(2), pp.258-270.

Blom, T. and Viljoen, R., 2016, September. COMPETENCE IN MANAGING PROJECTS: ACKNOWLEDGING THE HUMAN ELEMENT. In 9th Annual Conference of the EuroMed Academy of Business.

Bredin, K. and Söderlund, J., 2014. Leading and Managing Projects. Advancing Human Resource Project Management, pp.350-382.

Brink, T., 2017. Managing uncertainty for sustainability of complex projects. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 10(2), pp.315-329.

Cha, J., Newman, M. and Winch, G., 2018. Revisiting the project management knowledge framework: Rebalancing the framework to include transformation projects. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business.

Cleden, D., 2017. Managing project uncertainty. Routledge.

Devaux, S.A., 2015. Total project control: a practitioner’s guide to managing projects as investments. CRC Press.

Eskerod, P., Huemann, M. and Savage, G., 2015. Project stakeholder management—Past and present. Project Management Journal, 46(6), pp.6-14.

Frijns, P., Bierwolf, R. and van Leeuwen, F., 2018. Dilemmas in managing projects in a dynamic environment. IEEE Engineering Management Review, 46(1), pp.19-23.

Hillson, D., 2017. Managing risk in projects. Routledge.

Hodgson, D. and Cicmil, S., 2016. Making projects critical 15 years on: a retrospective reflection (2001-2016). International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 9(4), pp.744-751.

Huemann, M. and Silvius, G., 2015. Call for papers: International Journal of Project Management: Theme:“Managing projects & sustainability”. International Journal of Project Management, 33(71), pp.9-720.

Hyatali, N. and Pun, K.F., 2017. Exploring Contemporary Perspectives for Managing Projects in Organisations: A Review. West Indian Journal of Engineering, 39(2).

Kuznetsov, Y. and Sabel, C., 2017. Managing Self-Discovery: Diagnostic Monitoring of a Portfolio of Projects and Programs. In Advances in the Theory and Practice of Smart Specialization (pp. 51-72). Academic Press.

Low, K.H., 2016. The Impact of Internal Communications for Organizational Success in Managing Projects (Doctoral dissertation, UTAR).

Lundin, R.A., Arvidsson, N., Brady, T., Ekstedt, E., Midler, C. and Sydow, J., 2017. Project Networks–More than Managing Projects.

Morozov, V., Kalnichenko, O. and Liubyma, I., 2017, July. Managing projects configuration in development distributed information systems. In Advanced Information and Communication Technologies (AICT), 2017 2nd International Conference on (pp. 154-157). IEEE.

Ramazani, J. and Jergeas, G., 2015. Project managers and the journey from good to great: The benefits of investment in project management training and education. International Journal of Project Management, 33(1), pp.41-52.

Ronen, B., Lechler, T. and Stohr, E.A., 2017, July. Xploring the Role of Production Management Concepts for Managing Projects: The” Divide and Conquer” Approach. In Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), 2017 Portland International Conference on (pp. 1-7). IEEE.

Ssegawa, J.K. and Muzinda, M., 2016. Using RBM approach in managing projects beyond the development sector. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 9(2), pp.337-363.

Turner, J.R., 2014. Handbook of project-based management (Vol. 92). New York, NY: McGraw-hill.

Vuorinen, L. and Martinsuo, M.M., 2018. Lifecycle view of managing different changes in projects. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business.

Webster, G., 2017. Managing projects at work. Routledge.

Yusof, S.A.M., Radzi, S.H.M., Din, S.N.S. and Khalid, N., 2016, August. A study on the effectiveness of task manager board game as a training tool in managing project. In AIP Conference Proceedings (Vol. 1761, No. 1, p. 020074). AIP Publishing.