Poor Leadership
1.Identify five common project risk strategies employed to address threats that your project may face. Give an example of each.
2.Projects are often completed late. Describe the techniques you would use as a project manager to improve the accuracy and reliability of your project schedule.
There are several management risks that are associated with projects. Among them, the five risks- poor leadership, staff problem, no project continuity, lack of resources and business strategy change will be highlighted along with examples. The projects are sometimes completed lately. Therefore, the accuracy and the reliability of the project schedule must be maintained.
The report will showcase the project risks and the procedures by which project managers can mitigate those risks. The report will elaborate how the accuracy of the project can be obtained. Recommendations made in the report will also help to know how the reliability can be attained as a result of project management.
Poor leadership can be a serious threat to any enterprises, the project can show real interests initially and provide an indication that they will work hard and support the project team. However, after the approval of the project the project leader turn back. They leave everything up to their subordinates to handle the entire project[1]. The project team face a lot of difficulties to handle all the project. The project team lead refuses to attend the regular Project Board meetings, sometimes they do not want to take strategic decisions for the project. They want their subordinates to take the pressure and responsibility to complete the entire project. Therefore, the project team sometimes fail to deliver the project accurately and eventually it fails. In case of Yahoo, the Yahoo’s board take some wrong decisions, choose the wrong workforce. Marissa Mayer, the chosen leader failed to deliver best, she did not have the appropriate leadership chops to take up the difficult assignment[2]. Yahoo has learnt from their lessons. Organisations like Yahoo must choose and appoint a leader to take responsibility for the business activities, he or she must have the potential to take an innovative approach and critical decision makings.
The employee associated with the project also lead to project risks as well. The employees can leave the enterprise, in this way, the enterprise can lose a skilled employee. Again, the enterprise can sack the employee. the enterprise can face loss as a result of this. Also, the negative people can create an adverse effect on the project. Sometimes it also happens that the local employees do not have the required skills and expertise to successfully accomplish the project, in that case, the enterprise will have to hire employees from overseas to work with the local team[3]. Sometimes, the enterprise develops a new structure and replaces their existing model, so they sack the employees. The enterprise will have to educate the employees the new structure and they will have to take the project risk. The former employees of Nokia who joined Microsoft bear the brunt of Microsoft’s just-announced layoffs. Because of adopting the new structure, they have planned to sack the program testers, they want to hire more and more program managers as well as the development engineers[4]. The CEO of Microsoft is more concerned about moving their business to the cloud and modernise their application Bing, Microsoft Edge and others. The newly appointed employees will have to learn and gain expertise to adopt with the Microsoft is willing to take the project risks due to better sales and productivity. The project manager must take into consideration the employees’ queries, should listen to them and should act accordingly, in this way they can solve the staff problem.
Staff Problems
The project once gets initiated must be completed within the stipulated deadline appropriately following each and every deliverable. The business activities must be carried out flawlessly without any disruption. Still, the project disruption occurs due to many reasons. Tampella is a Finnish Paper industry has recently decided to adopt information system, they want to shift their business activity to the cloud[5]. The information system and the cloud services can give them the business edge and productivity, however, there are various risks associated with the adaptation. They discontinue their project operations for a while due to the changes, they face heavy loss due to this. Thus project risks occur due to lack of continuity of business operations.
The lack of resources can prove to be disastrous for any enterprises at any time. In case of Piper Navajo, the aeroplane has issues from the beginning, the customers complained about the ‘Door Not Closed’ light coming on in flight. The parts were not built according to the AOG’d and the maintenance management personnel decided to repair the parts within next 100-hour check. During the flight, the door light was coming frequently. The door flew away and created havoc[6]. Piper Navajo should take the responsibility and choose appropriate tools. Piper Navajo needs to repair, calibrate and fix tools whenever and wherever applicable. The project manager of every organisation must make sure that he and his team is ready with resources, otherwise, the project can fail.
The change in business strategy can lead to project risks. There can be several reasons behind this. The management team may decide to open a new item or product, may decide not to launch a new item, this can affect the business activities. Nokia did not follow the smartphone evolution; they focus on mobile phone devices rather than mobile phone applications that is they focus on the hardware applications rather than the software applications. They failed miserably not following the latest trends and the customers’ demands, however, they have realised their mistake and now they are changing their business strategy. They are now targeting the smartphone market; they are developing smartphones with some attractive features, they are taking the risk, the new approach can help them to increase sales and productivity. The project manager must make changes in business strategy wisely, they must make changes listen to the latest trends and the customers’ demands. Nokia did not follow the latest trends and customers’ demands and they failed eventually.
2.A project must be completed within the stipulated deadline and only then the project can be considered as a successful one. The customers will come back again if they get the quality service within the scheduled deadline[7]. In this way organisations retain their customer base and gain reputation. The techniques have been discussed below by which the accuracy of the project can be assured.
- Care about deadline: It is the responsibility of the project manager and his subordinates to look after the project tasks and check whether they are being completed within the given deadline or not. They should make those tasks priority and must try to complete those tasks within the given time with care.
- Making a list of the project activities: the project team must prepare a list of all the tasks, that will help them to know what is due and when.
Communicating with the deadline: The clients and the organisation must agree with specific deadline set, the clients’ deadline should be given priority[8].
- Work in cushion: The project team at first should break a task into multiple subtasks, the project team must then assign for each tasks[9]. If all those tasks get completed within the given time, then they can be sure that the entire tasks will get completed within the given time.
- Having clear outcome: The project team must understand the objectives of the project, then they should send deliverables, the clients on the other hand should approve the deliverables, to ensure the project is going all well the project team should send partials, in this way the project can be completed accurately[10]. If the project team misinterprets or misunderstands the project objectives, then it may happen that the project will fail and eventually miss the clients’ deadline as well.
- Disperse project activities: The project activities must be dispersed and each and every activity of the project must be completed one at a time.
Focussing on the initial step: The project team must focus on the first activity, and should leave the rest, the project team completing the first task can be assured and can be confident that the project will get completed within stipulated time with efficiency.
No Project Continuity
Block off adequate time: The project team should prioritise the urgent task, then they should complete those urgent tasks accurately.
- Having complete as well as complete date for each and every step: Once the partial task gets completed, that task must be submitted to the client for the approval, it will make the clients understand that the project team are working on the project[11]. The clients also get to know that the project is going in the correct direction and will complete very soon.
- Overcommit issues: The project team should be assured that the project will be completed within the deadline[12]. They should say no, if they are not capable to complete the task within the deadline.
- Learn from the mistakes: If the project team fails to deliver at time, then they should learn from their mistakes, they should point out what went wrong, what they should do to avoid such mishaps in mere future.
Staying up late: If the project manager and his team fails to meet the deadline, it is the responsibility for them to handle such issues and must complete the project as soon as possible by staying up late and working for long hours.
Meet the next deadline: The project team if fails to meet the deadline, then the project manager must take the responsibility. He or she must make contact with the client as soon as possible and must negotiate a second deadline[13]. The project team must complete it within the second deadline set[14]. If project manager and his team fails, then it will create bad impression on the team and the organisation they work.
To perform the project activities reliably the project manager should make critical decisions and must act proactively.
- The project manager may overlook certain activities. The clients’ feedbacks, meetings and fixing bugs can get missed or overlooked when the project manager considers the project deliverables, tasks and scope[15]. All these aspects must be considered initially otherwise the project can get delayed or the project can fail to meet the deadline. Thus the project that will be delivered to the clients may lack reliability. The project deliverables must be checked thoroughly and the project must be carried out according to the deliverables to avoid any mishaps.
- While conducting the project activities, it may happen that the clients do not like some portions of the project, then the project team will have to take the initiative to rework the project. It will take some time, so the project manager should fix the deadline of the project keeping in hand the time for the rework[16]. This approach will ensure that the project will complete within the deadline and will maintain reliability.
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the above discourse that the project can get failed due to the due various types of risks and those risks have been discussed in the report elaborately. The five project risks strategies illustrated in the report are- poor leadership, staff problem, no project continuity, lack of resources and business strategy change. The report has detailed the five project risk strategies along with an example. There is also a project related issue that is the deadline. Projects are often get completed late, sometimes fail to meet the clients’ deadline as well. The projects must get completed by the scheduled deadline. The report has highlighted the different aspects by which the accuracy of the project can be assured. Also, the recommendations have been made, how the project manager and his team can maintain the reliability of the project.
References
Burke, Rory, and Steve Barron. Project management leadership: building creative teams. John Wiley & Sons, 2014.
Burke, Rory. “Project management: planning and control techniques.” New Jersey, USA (2013).
Fleming, Quentin W., and Joel M. Koppelman. “Earned value project management.” Project Management Institute, 2016.
Floyd, Molly K., et al. “A Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis Technique for Stochastic Task Criticality in Project Management.” Engineering Management Journal 29.3 (2017): 165-178.
Ghaffari, Mahdi, and Margaret W. Emsley. “Current status and future potential of the research on Critical Chain Project Management.” Surveys in Operations Research and Management Science 20.2 (2015): 43-54.
Kerzner, Harold. Project management metrics, KPIs, and dashboards: a guide to measuring and monitoring project performance. John Wiley & Sons, 2017.
Kerzner, Harold. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons, 2013.
Larson, Erik W., and Clifford Gray. Project Management: The Managerial Process with MS Project. McGraw-Hill, 2013.
Leach, Lawrence P. Critical chain project management. Artech House, 2014.
Martinelli, Russ J., and Dragan Z. Milosevic. Project management toolbox: tools and techniques for the practicing project manager. John Wiley & Sons, 2016.
Mir, Farzana Asad, and Ashly H. Pinnington. “Exploring the value of project management: linking project management performance and project success.” International journal of project management 32.2 (2014): 202-217.
Newton, Richard. Project management step by step: how to plan and manage a highly successful project. Pearson UK, 2016.
Nicholas, John M., and Herman Steyn. Project management for engineering, business and technology. Taylor & Francis, 2017.
Phillips, Joseph. PMP, Project Management Professional (Certification Study Guides). McGraw-Hill Osborne Media, 2013.
Terlizzi, Marco Alexandre, Fernando de Souza Meirelles, and Heverton Roberto Oliveira Cesar de Moraes. “Barriers to the use of an IT Project Management Methodology in a large financial institution.” International Journal of Project Management 34.3 (2016): 467-479.
Turner, Rodney. Gower handbook of project management. Routledge, 2016.
Kerzner, Harold. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons, 2013.
Burke, Rory. “Project management: planning and control techniques.” New Jersey, USA (2013).
Larson, Erik W., and Clifford Gray. Project Management: The Managerial Process with MS Project. McGraw-Hill, 2013.
Fleming, Quentin W., and Joel M. Koppelman. “Earned value project management.” Project Management Institute, 2016.
Leach, Lawrence P. Critical chain project management. Artech House, 2014.
Mir, Farzana Asad, and Ashly H. Pinnington. “Exploring the value of project management: linking project management performance and project success.” International journal of project management 32.2 (2014): 202-217.
Phillips, Joseph. PMP, Project Management Professional (Certification Study Guides). McGraw-Hill Osborne Media, 2013.Nicholas, John M., and Herman Steyn. Project management for engineering, business and technology. Taylor & Francis, 2017.
Kerzner, Harold. Project management metrics, KPIs, and dashboards: a guide to measuring and monitoring project performance. John Wiley & Sons, 2017.
Turner, Rodney. Gower handbook of project management. Routledge, 2016.]2016.
Terlizzi, Marco Alexandre, Fernando de Souza Meirelles, and Heverton Roberto Oliveira Cesar de Moraes. “Barriers to the use of an IT Project Management Methodology in a large financial institution.” International Journal of Project Management 34.3 (2016): 467-479.
Newton, Richard. Project management step by step: how to plan and manage a highly successful project. Pearson UK, 2016.
Burke, Rory, and Steve Barron. Project management leadership: building creative teams. John Wiley & Sons, 2014.
Floyd, Molly K., et al. “A Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis Technique for Stochastic Task Criticality in Project Management.” Engineering Management Journal 29.3 (2017): 165-178.
Ghaffari, Mahdi, and Margaret W. Emsley. “Current status and future potential of the research on Critical Chain Project Management.” Surveys in Operations Research and Management Science 20.2 (2015): 43-54.
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