Project Management Plan For Widgets ‘R Us To Sustain Competitive Advantage In The Widget Market

Project Selection Methods

Widgets ’R Us Widgets ’R Us (WRU) is a medium-sized firm specializing in the design and manufacturing of quality widgets. The market for widgets has been stable. WRU has had a functional organization design with four departments: accounting, sales, production, and engineering. This design has served the company well, and it has been able to compete by being the low-priced company in the industry. However, the demand for widgets is high in the market but the company was unable to maintain the successful run in the highly competitive market. The average life cycle of a newly released widget is 12–15 months. Unfortunately, WRU is finding itself unable to compete successfully in this new, dynamic market. The CEO has noted a number of problems. Products are slow to market and organization is facing many issues that affecting the business. The major issues that organization has involve poor communication, negative market position and performance. The report will focus on the development of project management plan for WRU to increase the market activities and overcome the issues that cause problems. The report will analyze different tools and techniques for managing project activities to gain the competitive advantage. It will discuss project concept, feasibility analysis, stakeholder management and scheduling. Moreover, the report will provide information about risk management tools and approaches that would be used for quality management.

Project management is the practices of initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and closing the work of a team that helps to achieve the specific goals and meets specific success criteria at the specified time. There are different types of tools and techniques are available for managing the project and implementing the changes in existing organizational approach to add more value and improve the effectiveness. The organizations are undertaking project management tools and techniques according to their needs and requirements. For WRU organization use of project management tools and techniques is essential for maintaining the flow of information and craft improvement in the market position. The consideration of project management will be essential and helpful for organization to define a plan and organizes chaos, enforce and encourage the teamwork, maximize the resources and control the cost (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2017). The project management approach and tools will help WRU to develop a clear path from start to finish the actions that could help to meet the goals of the organization. Apart from that, use of project management techniques is useful for the organization to increase the communication and coordination among the staff members and make the collective effort to achieve the goals and objectives.  

Weighted Scoring Model

The project selection methods that WRU can use for managing current project activities involve benefit measurement method or constrained optimization method. The benefit measurement method involves tools and techniques like the use of economic value, payback period, opportunity cost scoring model and consideration of cost ratio for the project management.  For the current project of managing communication and craft improvement in the market activities of the company to gain the competitive advantage, the management can use the Weighted Scoring Model (Schwalbe, 2015). The model refers to find the solutions against a prioritize requirement list that helps to determine the best option for project management. The Weighted Scoring model will involve following steps:

• Identification of requirements: The major requirements of WRU to utilize the market opportunities to gain the competitive advantage and craft improvement in the features of products and services that can be use for sustain the market position. Moreover, organization needs software for managing smooth flow of communication and tracking of the information to ensure quality.  
• Rank software based on criteria: The scoring model will help management to analyze the ranking of each software and technique that could be beneficial for encouraging the performance of company. The major software that organization could use involves Decision support system, Customer relationship management and Enterprise resource planning. The selection team will give weight and score to software according to usability and effectiveness (Harrison, and Lock, 2017).
• Assign score to selected software: In this process the numeric values will be assigned to software and multiplied by corresponding criteria weight. The highest total score software will be selected for implementing for WRU company.

                                                                                       Table 1: Weight scoring model

The selection criteria that used for managing internal and external activities of WRU the Enterprise resource planning system is more appropriate according to Weight scoring model. The weights are given as per usability and different criteria that used for scoring the software. The Enterprise resource planning system is having good score compared to other software in success, value, and stakeholder as well difficulty level. The WRU management could implement this system for managing the internal operation and analyze the external market activities to gain the competitive advantage (Heagney, 2016). For an organization, this system will also help in conducting the analysis of sales and customer needs by collecting their feedback. This kind of approach will support organization to design and introduce new products as well make changes in the existing products to sustain the market position.

Project concept refers to needs and mission of the project that is agreed upon the facilities idea. The phases that project concept involve are developing the project mission, undertaking the need assessment, brainstorming for the solution to the problems and development of a planning team that proceed with the plan for the project. For WRU the project concept will focus on these elements to develop a sustainable plan which helps to achieve the desired goals and support to encourage the performance. By using this approach for managing the project the management would be able to implement the software within the organization to achieve the goals (Binder, 2016). This approach offer assurance for working on expectation and maintaining the relationship with the stakeholder to minimize the confusions and fulfill the criteria. 

Project Concept

                                                                                         Figure 1: Project concept

                                                                                   (Source: Project concept, 2018)

According to project concept, the project management team will determine the requirements for developing the project activities and set the deliverables through the selected approach. The major requirements of WRU organization are to increase the market performance and communication level by focusing on needs and expectation of customer in Widgets. The technical tools become outdated in 11-12 months which affect the performance of the company and influence the decisions of the customer to switch to other products. The project management team for WRU will analyze the market conditions and buy behavior of customers to develop a strategy for WRU to improve the design and development process for products (Turner, 2016). The development and selection of ERP system will support WRU to collect and analyze the information from market and make the decisions according to meet the satisfaction level of the customer by making changes in the products and services.

The market information and analysis through ERP system will help WRU in design and development of the best solution for widgets that suits the needs of customers. The mission of this project management planning and implementation is to encourage the market position of the company. The current market position of the company is poor and there are various issues that causing problems for WRU (Mir, and Pinnington, 2014). The project management team will try to encounter the issues by using the project concept and support to implement the ERP system that will help in analyzing the performance of staff and product in the market. The key objectives of the project plan for WRU are as follows:

• To encourage the market performance of WRU
• To improve level of communication
• To maintain good relation with customers
• To design and develop innovative products to satisfied the needs of customer
• To gain the competitive advantage

The requirements of WRU from this project involve analysis of issues and develop the best solutions to meet the objectives. According to given scenario, the organization is facing issues in product development and gaining the competitive advantage. In addition to this, the company is also lacking in the communication of information and implementation of the plan that proposed by the top management. By undertaking the project management plan the management look to overcome these issues (Ronen and et al., 2017). The key deliverables for project team for WRU are development and implementation of software that increase the collection of information, planning of products and services as per the needs of customers and maintain the competitive advantage in the market.

• To complete the design and development tasks of products in 1 month
• To maintain the level of budget in development of products up to $40000
• To produce quality products and services as per the ISO standards
• To analyze the returns in the period of one month
• To track the information flow considering the deadline of product delivery

Project Feasibility Study

Project feasibility study is important for determining the viability of an idea such as ensuring the project legally and technically feasible as well as economically justifiable. The project management team conduct the feasibility analysis before investment and identify that the project is beneficial for them or not. The project feasibility study is a document that contains the detail description of the project that drives the success and failure. For the current project is about crafting improvement in the market performance of WRU and increase the internal communication level. For that, the project management team will conduct the market feasibility analysis of the organizational product. According to analysis, the strength of the organization is innovative products that are based on the needs and current technical aspects of the entertainment and communication. In order to maintain the success in the market, the organization requires anticipating the changes in the technology and market functions to design and develop the new products (McNeil and et al., 2015). If the organization assume that customer will pay for the product then it is necessary for management to ensure the quality and availability of products. However, the other organizations from the same industry are offering the products at a lower price that affecting the market performance of WRU. Hence, the changes and management system that proposed by the project management team will be helpful for managing the money and resources to meet the goals and objectives. The ERP system will help the organization to collect and analyze the market information and implement the changes in the manufacturing strategy to increase the level of innovation in product. This system will be useful in decision making and determine the budget for improvement in the future sales and marketing (Pritchard and PMP, 2014).

The project team will discuss time, cost and requirements which going to be consider for the project and take the approval from the top management of WRU. This kind of approach is essential for implementing the plan for project management and processed with the changes in the infrastructure and strategies of organization. The top management will review the documents of project plan and analyze the cost of the activities to craft improvement in the market performance (Kerzner, 2018).

• All the project member will be available
• The vendor deliver the resources on time
• Accuracy of project will be according to scheduled date
• Project manager will ensure the performance of each member
• Vendor performance issues

• Budget of WRU for changes
• Availability of resources for managing activities
• Lack of time to complete the project
• Changes in the scope of project
• Lack of monitoring of milestone

• Prepare the outline of project
• Proper management of time
• Prioritizing goals
• Good communication among team members
• Minimization of cost in project functions

For the current project of WRU organization performance improvement and enhancement of communication level the role of stakeholders is critical to develop and implement the plan successfully. The major stakeholders for project are owner, employee, project team, and vendor as well the government authorities. The project manager will analyze the role and objectives of these stakeholders to improve the effectiveness of project.  

Approval from Top Management

                                                                            Table 2: Stakeholder management 

                                                                                            Figure 2: Organizational chart

The project management will provide and share information about the project implementation function with the HR manager and communication department of the WRU. These kinds of process are essential for managing internal resources for accepting the changes and learn about the new approaches. The HR manager of WRU will communicate the changes in the internal communication system. The communication management department will provide the information for implementing the changes in the manufacturing system and effective utilization of resources to improve the market position (Eskerod, and Jepsen, 2016). The information that offered by project manager will involve the use of ERP, changes in the communication through the system, utilization of resources and identification of market opportunities. The HR manager will consider the information for developing the training plan for the employee as they get used to with the ERP system and help the organization to meet the objectives.

Milestone: 

                                                                                    Table 3: Project Gantt chart

The project manager will manage activities for the proposed project of WRU according to Gantt chart. The project will be completed within 8 weeks by using the appropriate methods and tools for managing the project. The schedule will be managed during the project by distributing the work among the team members and taking the real-time feedback. This kind of approach will support to increase the effectiveness of project activities and help the manager to manage the issues within the project (Wicks and et al., 2017). Moreover, consideration of schedule for completing the project will help to manage the resources accordingly and provide the support to staff members. Moreover, it will help to complete the project in given time period and meet the specification.

Stakeholder Management

Time management is an important aspect of project management. The management and implementation of project according to scheduled plan will support to complete it within given time period. The timely delivery of project will improve the effectiveness and generate opportunities for organization in market (Eskerod and et al., 2015). The work according to determined time will also overcome the cost of project.

                                                                                 Table 4: Cost of the project 

The project team has done project cost analysis by analyzing the past activities for this kind of project and considered the current cost of each activity. The team members have done research about the cost of raw material, ERP software cost, training and implementation. The cost analysis will help to determine the budget for overall project activities and develop the plan for distribution. The cost will be managed during project operations of WRU company through the top management as the owner will release and approve the funds by analyzing the documents provided by the project manager. The project manager will keep each expense in the document to improve the transparency in distributions of funds and manage the cost during the project (Kadri, and Boctor, 2018). The forecasting and proper analysis of market trends for particular activities will be helpful to minimize the cost and support organization to overcome the budget. This kind of approach will be beneficial for project team and organization to achieve the target and goals in a professional manner by minimizing the cost. The cost management is a process that plays the critical role in planning and implantation of the project. The project manager will consider 4 step cost management process for WRU project. These four steps are resources planning, cost estimation, cost budgeting and cost control measures.

Project quality management is all of the processes and activities that needed to determine and achieve the quality. The quality management concept is used for different phases of project management that involve planning, implementation and monitoring. The WRU management is looking for a quality approach in business functions to gain the competitive advantage. Now, to gain the competitive advantage, it is essential for an organization to focus on the quality of products and services as well improvement in the customer services to achieve the goals and objectives (Be?ikci and et al., 2015). The major quality management concepts that used for managing project quality involve prevention over inspection and continuous improvement in the internal and external functions related to project management.

 At the stage of planning, the project manager will ensure the quality of raw material, system approach and offering of the work responsibilities to support the organization to achieve the higher proficiency in communication and development of products and services. This kind of approach will help in determining the cost of quality as well eliminate the cost of rework due to failure. In the second stage, the quality management approach will involve consideration of documentation of each function, minimization of waste, proper training to the staff members to acceptant the changes in the internal communication process (Schwindt and Zimmermann, 2015). The training and development will support organization to implemental the ERP system and improve the innovation in product development to encourage the market image and gain the competitive advantage. Moreover, to monitor the project and maintain the quality the manager will evaluate the work against the KPIs of individual.

The success of a project highly depends on quality approach and measurement. For the current project of WRU, the quality of the products and services will be measured through the level of communication within the organization, improvement in the sales of products and services as well the expansion of business functions in the potential areas. The project manager will analyze and maintain the implementation of ERP system according to ISO standard and needs of the organization to maintain the quality (Vanhoucke and Coelho, 2016). For market performance and monitoring of quality, the measuring unit will be sales improvement, customer base and life cycle of products of the company.

                                                                                         Table 5: Risk register 

Project risk management is the approach to identifying, analyzing and responding towards the risk that arises in the operational activities and affects the quality process. The proper risk management planning is essential for managing the smooth process for project implementation and craft improvement in the performance of WRU. The project manager is highly responsible for risk identification and development of the strategy that can help to overcome the impact on issues. For managing this risk, the adaptability of the organization has to be strong as real-time changes need to be implemented to mitigate the risks (Low and Ong, 2014). For the current project, the major risks are lack of communication, changes in technology, fund management and availability of resources. The strategies to mitigate risks are discussed in an earlier format that can be used for managing risks. Moreover, to manage the risk in the implementation of ERP system and improvement in market performance of organization the training and knowledge to staff members are essential. The manager will provide necessary information to employees for managing the risk by offering the essential guidelines. This kind of approach will be beneficial for managing the project for WRU to gain the competitive advantage.

Project procurement management is establishment and management of the relationship with the vendors of goods and services during the project life cycle. This is one of the essential parts of project management which is concerned with the overseeing the designed set of temporary operations. The procurement process in project management is divided into four major phases such as planning, selection administration and procurement The WRU top management team will define the official procurement management plan by discussing with the stakeholders and analyzing the information related to vendor performance for ERP and offering of raw material (Sallis, 2014). The potential risk factors will also be discussed for development of the contract with the vendors from the local and overseas market. This information will impact on budget of project and scope definition. The WRU management will make decisions according to own financial capability and analysis of the effectiveness of vendor. In the selection process, the management will finalize the vendor for supplying the goods and services that are essential for managing the project activities. Moreover, the administration process will help the management to establish the relationship with the staff members to maintain the procurement documentation and changes in the project (Turner, 2017). The centralized approach to the contract will be effective for the managing the supply chain process.

Apart from that, the types of contract that used for developing the agreement with the vendor involve the written, verbal and period contracts. For the current procurement management, the WRU and project management team will consider the written contract with vendors. The major benefits of written contract involve proof for actually agreed points for the supply chain management and prevent the misunderstanding (Ashuri and et al., 2015). Moreover, this kind of approach increases the security and overcome the disputes regarding the payments.

Conclusion

From the study, it has been carried out that WRU is looking for improvement in the market presence and internal communication process. For that, the report has provided information about different information systems that can be used for collecting, analyzing and sharing the information. For WRU organization ERP system will be beneficial for managing the internal and external activities and achieve the goals and objectives. The report has provided information about project concept, stakeholder management and project cost to maintain the flow of activities and improvement in the quality of products and services.     

References  

Books and journals

Ashuri, B., Kingsley, G., Rogers, J., Gahrooei, M.R., Ilbeigi, M., Sung, E.J.Y. and Toroghi, S.S.H., 2015. Streamlining Project Delivery through Risk Analysis (No. FHWA-GA-15-1305).

Be?ikci, U., Bilge, Ü. and Ulusoy, G., 2015. Multi-mode resource constrained multi-project scheduling and resource portfolio problem. European Journal of Operational Research, 240(1), pp.22-31.

Binder, J., 2016. Global project management: communication, collaboration and management across borders. Routledge.

Eskerod, P. and Jepsen, A.L., 2016. Project stakeholder management. Routledge.

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

Harrison, F. and Lock, D., 2017. Advanced project management: a structured approach. Routledge.

Heagney, J., 2016. Fundamentals of project management. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.

Holloway, J., 2016. What stakeholder management should learn from sales and marketing. Further Advances in Project Management: Guided Exploration in Unfamiliar Landscapes, p.236.

Kadri, R.L. and Boctor, F.F., 2018. An efficient genetic algorithm to solve the resource-constrained project scheduling problem with transfer times: The single mode case. European Journal of Operational Research, 265(2), pp.454-462.

Kerzner, H. and Kerzner, H.R., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Kerzner, H., 2018. Project management best practices: Achieving global excellence. John Wiley & Sons.

Low, S.P. and Ong, J., 2014. Project Quality Management. Critical success factors for.

McNeil, A.J., Frey, R. and Embrechts, P., 2015. Quantitative risk management: Concepts, techniques and tools. Princeton university press.

Mir, F.A. and Pinnington, A.H., 2014. Exploring the value of project management: linking project management performance and project success. International journal of project management, 32(2), pp.202-217.

Pheng, L.S., 2018. Project cost management. In Project Management for the Built Environment (pp. 97-112). Springer, Singapore.

Pritchard, C.L. and PMP, P.R., 2014. Risk management: concepts and guidance. CRC Press.

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.

Sallis, E., 2014. Total quality management in education. Routledge.

Schwalbe, K., 2015. Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.

Schwindt, C. and Zimmermann, J., 2015. Handbook on Project Management and Scheduling Vol. 1. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Tonchia, S., 2018. Project Cost Management and Finance. In Industrial Project Management (pp. 153-170). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Turner, J.R., 2017. Contracting for project management. Routledge.

Turner, R., 2016. Gower handbook of project management. Routledge.

Vanhoucke, M. and Coelho, J., 2016. A new solution approach to solve the resource-constrained project scheduling problem with logical constraints. European Journal of Operational Research, 249(2), pp.577-591.

Wicks, A.C. and Harrison, J.S., 2017. Toward a More Productive Dialogue between Stakeholder Theory and Strategic Management. In Stakeholder Management (pp. 249-273). Emerald Publishing Limited.

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