Introduction to Project Management and Project Managers
Gladden (2012) portrays that a project manager is a professional in the field of project management. These professionals are liable to handle the planning, procurement, and execution of a project. Sarkar (2012) moreover, depicts that project manager also handle the upper management and ensure that the scope and the direction of the entire project will be accomplished successfully. However, not all people can become a project manager. They need the combinational skill of manging their team through leadership traits, time management, budgeting and analytical skills (Krane et al., 2012). De Bakker et al. (2012) argues that in spite of so many planning and drafting, there might be some adverse situation like the technology used in the project suddenly needs an update in the system, the resource used in the product is no more available in the market or some project engineer suddenly leaves the project. In this case also, an effective project manager should also plot for a contingency plan so that the raised adversity can be removed.
The prime objective of this business report is to illustrate some project management practices that are required in managing risk in an organization or project. The project issue, research aim, objectives and research questions will also be present in the report. This is then followed by a detailed critical and well-structured literature review. Process for research methodology for data collection and obtained finding will also be discussed in this business report. All these discussion will be linked with the developed literature review so that the research aim and objectives can be justified. Lastly, a conclusion will be drawn based on the entire discussion of the report.
Project managers have to face challenged like poor scope management, poor communication, team conflict, unclear objective settings and incorrect allocation decisions. The project manager are in charge to overcome these problem by analysing the risk in the project as these challenges faced by project managers acts like barriers in entire project development.
A risk can be occurred both by internal and external resources. The internal resources are the mistakes done by the project engineers and improper allocation of the resources for the project. The external resources resemble the problem raised by supplier in delivering the project materials or resources on time and others (Legault & Chasserio, 2012). Thus, these risks have to be managed beforehand and an individual is required to handle all the problems in this phase. The rationale also describes that this risk in the problem is a problem because if these risks cannot be handled on time, problem during a project and in execution might occur which is very difficult to overcome. Thus, an individual is required to monitor all the business activity during the project implementation and execution (Khazaeni et al., 2012). Thus, according to my choice of profession, I want to learn all traits that make me eligible to handle all the projects that will be given to me. This research report also represents the detailed literature on project management practices in managing risk in an organization.
Project Management Practices Required for Managing Risk
All these knowledge is relevant to my choice of profession because skills like time management, budget allocation and risks analysis allows me to overcome all the project risk with optimised solution. All the theory related to project management practices that allows a person to handle their team along with the progress of the project, will help me to develop as a perfect leader and organizer for the team.
Project Aim
To recognize the issue the project manager faces during several activities of project
To identify the reasons behind challenges in order to mitigate them
To identify the mismanagement of resources involved within the project development
Project Question
To recognize the issue the project manager faces during several activities of project
To identify the reasons behind challenges in order to mitigate them
To identify the mismanagement of resources involved within the project development
Research Hypothesis
H0: Effective project manager practices reduces the risk in a project
H1: Effective project manager practice does not reduce the risk in a project
Project management processes and phases
Any positive or negative impact on project’s objectives is known as project risk. The project management comprises of many processes- project monitoring, communication, people management (El Khatib, 2015). A project manage should carried out the plan in the early stages of a project but have to continuously monitor the process so that assessment of whether or not the project remains on budget and schedule can be attained in real-time (Micic, 2015). Mositeer (2017) furthermore depicts that a project ma ager should also need to control the project risk so they do not adversely affect the result of the project. Moreover, Frame (2012) also highlight that manager must know how to communicate with their project team so that everyone can know what their responsibility is and through which process they can accomplish the project desired result. It is also evident that in a complex project, the entire project is divided into small module and humans handling each module have segregated levels of people management. The project manager is also liable for handling the people management. In this process, some project manager use to reward to their project team on achieving a milestone; while, some project managers give constructive feedback so that the team can learn whether or not they are heading towards a correct direction.
On the other hand, the project management phases comprises of several steps- project initiation, requirements, planning, execution and closure (Krane et al., 2012). Turner (2012) describes that a project manager states what the project is intended to achieve, the approach through which the set objectives can achieve and defining the scope of the project. Project manager allocate roles and responsibility to the team members in this process. In the context of ‘requirements’, a documentation is required to be presented by the project manager in which he project aim and objectives is present along with its timescales and constraints (Pournasir, 2013). Additionally, this report also has the details of the internal and external stakeholder’s details that are directly and indirectly participated in the project. In the context of “planning’, the details about how the project work will be carried out is presented. The process of monitoring the entire project progress and the equipment for better communication among the team members are also the major concern in this phase. The next two phases is the execution and closure of the project. Micic (2015) describes that the project manager also have the understanding of the dependencies and timescales of the project and other criteria that need to complete the project and once the end of the project gets approved by the end-clients or the company , the project manager has to note down all the process and their respective result of the project. Another requirement of the project managers should so is to learn from the success and mistakes of the projects so that the next projects can be handled effectively.
Project Management Phases and Responsibilities of a Project Manager
In this section, some of the risk that a project manager should consider that is required to develop some traits to overcome the adversity.
This risk highlights the determination of the quantity and quality of the needed resources that is required to complete a project. Mositeer (2017) depicts that there are many vendors in the community who provides these resources but it is the responsibility of the project manager to select the most ethical supplier, whose business objectives should align with their business aims. Thus, if these requirements cannot be fulfilled, the project might suffer from being under-staffed, under-equipped, and under-funded (Frame, 2012).
In this context, Legault and Chasserio (2012) portrays that project plans must be resilient and responsive. Thus, they have to plan for budget in an optimised way so that even if there is a requirement for purchasing more resources, financial resources will be available.
It is evident that every client demands a quality work and project managers also needs a performance and outcome model to monitor the quality of the work gradually. Khazaeni et al. (2012) also describes that quality of the project comes from the better understanding of the project’s requirement. Thus, any staff, who is a underperformer and have improper knowledge regarding the project, there will be a risk that some error might occur in the project.
Krane et al. (2012) portrays that in this context, project managers should analyse the risk occurrence. This is because, it is not necessary that risk will occur at the end of the project but they can occur during the project process. Turner (2012) moreover depicts that if these project modules are not assessed properly, there might be chances of lowering the project quality.
Sarkar (2012) stated that even after the project is completed the risk related to the project not always completed. A project manager should communicate with their end client so that the manager can make them aware regarding the maintenance of the project otherwise risk of dis functioning can occur. Krane et al. (2012) also stated that project closure stage is the time to evaluate performance of the entire project, improve process for the future project and secure approval of deliverables.
It is the liability of the project manager to assess the required project resources in more amounts so that risk for scarcity of the project resource can be avoided. These project managers should also think communicate with their seniors and other business experts from the same field for attaining knowledge regarding the quantity of the resources required for the project. Researching about the micro and macro business unit also allows a project manager to gain the idea for starting an effective business project (De Bakker et al., 2012). This primary research comprises of the study of market size and growth, availability of the local resources, technology required to develop the project, investment size, estimated financial indicators and other constraints and requirements.
Challenges Faced by Project Managers
Business experts agree that there are number of benefits in developing effective communication in the projects process. Preser (2014) explains that effective communication channel reduces the conflicts among the team members. Other benefits of communication are it will ensure that all the team members understand the importance of risk management in the project (Khazaeni et al., 2012). Another important trait that these project managers should possess is to regular communicate with the higher authorities regarding the worst case of the project. In this way, on obtaining such adverse situation, the other stakeholder of the project will not get sudden news of adversity. Moreover, the project manager also uses new technique foe communication in order to gain effective interpersonal relationship among the project team (Krane et al., 2012). This can be attained by organizing dinner parties, movie outings, one day short trips and others.
Not necessarily, that the risk of the project can only be negative but in some cases the risk can be positive and this is known as opportunities. Legault and Chasserio (2012) depicted that in both cases, the project need new resources and additional time to accomplish the project. Thus, while drafting the project plan in the initial stages, it is required to consider sufficient time for making proper amendments in the project. Krane et al. (2012) moreover portray that while implementing the identified opportunities, the respective should also be assessed by the project manager.
A project might have many risks and each one of them needs to be handled efficiently in order to ensure the success of the project. El Khatib (2015) thus depicts that some risks have a higher impact and probability compared to other risks. Thus, the project managers should spend time on the risks and assess whether the risk results in biggest losses or gains. This process helps the manager to prioritise their risks. Legault and Chasserio (2012) furthermore depicts that this prioritisation of riskshould be basedon the time required in mitigating the risk and the importance of the risk in executing the entire project.
The project manager not only responsible for identifying the risk but it is also his responsibility to suggest the best possible solution in overcoming the adversity raised. El Khatib (2015) highlighted on the fact that identification of the risk process is become easier if the project is divided into smaller units or modules. Therefore, malfunctioning in one unit allows the managers to identify the risk in a particular portion. Thus, assessing the module closely and identify the reason for the root cause of the adversity can be attained.
Internal and External Risks
The project manager is liable to complete a risk response plan that adds values to the project and diminishes the risk that can lead to adverse result (Legault & Chasserio, 2012). In this process, a project manager should evaluate the process that can be done to reduce the likelihood of each risk, the process that can be done to manage each risk and the process that can be done to ensure opportunities. El Khatib (2015) also depicted that project manager also assess different risk mitigation factors and select the most effective one that can reduce the likelihood of the raised project risk.
Project manager must follow a day-to-day job for tracking the risk that can occur in every module of the project (Legault & Chasserio, 2012). In addition to that, in this way, tracking the correct progress of the task can be easily accomplished. This step allows the manager to avoid a significant amount of risk and ensure that the project is focused on the current situation of risks which on the other hand enhance their probability to stay on top of their relative importance.
Research Philosophy
There are three types of research philosophies- positivism, interpretivism and realism (Fletcher, 2016). Positivism research philosophy helps to develop the accurate information of the research question by considering the factual data; while interpretivism research philosophy consider only the social believe on the research topic. Preser (2014) describes that realism is the combination of both the positivism and interpretivism research philosophy. In this research positivism research philosophy is used since accurate details of the project managers practices for handling the project risk can be assessed.
Inductive and deductive are the two research approach (Fletcher, 2016). Inductive research approach signifies the evaluation of the research topic by formulating new theories and model for the research; whereas, in deductive research approach the research topic is evaluated through previously developed theories. In this research, deductive approach is opted as all the practices are tried and tested by leading project managers and the best practices are highlighted in this research.
There are three types of research purpose- explanatory, exploratory and descriptive. Since the research that is considered in this research describes about the best practices of the project manager for handling the risk occurred in project. Thus, it can be said that in this research, descriptive research purpose is selected.
Data collection is of two types- primary data collection and secondary data collection (Hughes, 2012). The data collected for the research are secondary data that are collected from indirect sources like magazine and newspaper excerpts, peer article and journals and other authenticated websites and blogs. These data are known as secondary data as these data are not collected directly from the research respondents.
Importance of Contingency Planning
There are two types of data collection process- qualitative and quantitative data analysis process (Preser, 2014). In this research, the collected data are assessed by qualitative data analysis process. Since the theoretical concepts are taken from secondary data; thus, no numerical calculation is required. The best practices are noted from the content available in the collected data and the most preferable practices adopted by leading project managers.
It is found from the research that all the project managers play a crucial role in an organization. They possess an effective leadership skills and competency to solve all the adverse circumstance in the project effectively. It is also found from the secondary data that effective project managers have the commanding power as they have the proper knowledge of executing the project. They are the optimistic leaders, who look for favourable aspect of the project and search for new opportunities. It is also found that effective project managers also possess the ability to note all the important things that is necessary for the project and they aware of what resources and data have to be ignored. This ability comes from their experience.
They have the ability to re-evaluate project priorities frequently and have the knowledge to consider the most important activities that enhances the performance of the project they are handling. These managers are also good in communication and they have the ability to befriend all the team members by researching about their background details and preferences. They know tat motivating employees is also important and thus they take many initiatives to boost their morale. The data found from the secondary resources also reveals that project managers should also follow the concept of integrity and maintain transparency with the project team members. It is also evident that a project manager can be effective through their passion and enthusiasm. If a leader have a positive viewpoint for accomplishing a project, any team can outperform under their guidance. Thus, effective leadership skills, better communication system, motivating employees and maintaining transparency among the team are the basic nature of a project manager to overcome the internal risk of project. Moreover, in order to overcome the external risk, regular monitoring of the resource allocation and progress of the team and project have to be considered.
The literature review reveals that resource risk, financial risk, quality risk, risk management and closing risk are the majorly occurred risk in a project. These risks have to be overcome and this is the responsibility of a project manager. It is also found in the literature review, that tracking the risk and its associated tasks, development of responses and preventative measure for the risk, understanding the reason of the risk and prioritizethe risks of a project are some remedies that a project manager should possess. However, the secondary data majorly focuses on the optimisticnature of the project managers that makes subordinate to follow the leader and trust on them.
Conclusion
Another factors for overcoming the risk in a project are- considering risks and opportunities during risk assessments, effective communication and researching on the probability of the potential risk of the project. These aspects stated that not only a project manager have to be best in their skills and knowledge regarding the designing and execution of the project but it is also rely on the fact how well a project manager handles their team to obtain the set objectives collaboratively. The secondary data also illustrates that communication gap have to be overcome in order to omit the internal risk. Effective steps must have to be taken for the internal skill development of the team member so that incorporation of new technology can never hamper their confidence and performance.
Conclusion
Thus, it can be concluded that risk management is importance as it assess all the possible adversity that can diminished the quality and performance of a project. The entire project cycle have five steps and in all these steps risk are present. However, it is the liability of project engineers to handle the development of the project but a project manager is a person, who guides them to perform in a direction offered by them. Moreover, risk are involve from the initial phase of a project that is from resource allocation to handling inventory. Moreover, risk is also present if there is a sudden change in market and price of the resources. This results in sudden changes in the project that in most of the cases are difficult to overcome. However, by tracking all the data regarding occurred risk and taking knowledge from the occurred adversity helps a project manager to take effective business decision and risk mitigation suggestions for the future project.
References
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