PM Methodology and Management level Activity
The aim of this report is put emphasis on the role and impact of the Project Management (PM) methodologies implementation into the organization. These methodologies can be variable based on the management and organizational structure of the organization but have a common project management framework and language for the organizations. This means one project management methodology is not applicable to feed all the management needs of different organization and proper methodology should be chosen with respect to the organizational and management structure of the organizations.
This report focuses on implementation of different methodologies for three different industries with different structure as per the case study. Which methodology is suitable in which organization and why has been explained in this report. This report also emphasis on the challenges that the organization might face in implementing the methodologies into the management system of the organization. The implementation process and related issues have been proposed in this report including measures that could eliminate the raised issues.
Yes, implementing PM methodology needs a management level activity because of the involvement of individuals in a team and managing that team considering the organizational goal needs a management or leader or manager. PM methodology should have risk reducing and failure avoiding capabilities along with core competencies within the team of any organization. PM methodology can be defined as the combination of practices, processes and methods those can provide better determination of planning, developing, delivering and controlling the project by proper and regular implementation of this throughout the whole project till its closure (Gollenia 2016). It is scientifically proved that PM methodology is the best disciplined and systematic process that can be helpful in project designing, completion of the project, and execution of the project. Main purpose behind implementing PM methodology is to provide control of the entire project in the hands of the management in order to take better decision-making and problem solving actions that could be helpful in enhancing the performance of the organization and producing more outputs (Sandoval et al. 2017). Implementing methodologies also ensure the enhancement of approaches, technologies, specific techniques and methods through a skeleton representation of the whole processes (Craawford 2014). This skeleton will provide benefits in all the aspects for the project manager to take decisions based on the regular auditing on the process and achievement of those processes and finally deliver the project within the budget, accurate specifications and in expected schedule.
Organisation A
Based on the industry and strength of the organization A, PMBOK methodology can be implemented to enhance and regulate the productivity with positive outcomes. PMBOK is a guide on dividing the whole management process into five levels and every level starts and revolves around in a closed loop as stated in the figure 1 in appendix (Synder 2014).
Organisation B
This organization has the strength of 600 employees and belongs to building society industry, which needs proper accessible and less complex methodology to enhance the performance, which implies that PRINCE2 will be much efficient and effective methodology for the organization management processes (Warner 2014).
Organisation A
Organisation C
Based on the case study, it has 600 members and belongs to technology service industry, which could be a perfect condition to implement waterfall methodology into the system. Waterfall methodology implementation needs large number of members’ roles and responsibilities in order to enhance the performance and productivity of the organization. This methodology will help in gaining sequential or non-iterative design-process that will play a vital role in the software development processes (Lei et al. 2017). A figure depicting the waterfall methodology has been attached in the appendix, which can show the flow of the process in downward manners.
Implementation of the PMBOK (Project Management Book of Knowledge) methodology into the existing system of the organization is a crucial element for the accurate flow of rest of the processes. There are total five phases that can be combined for the successful implementation of the PMBOK methodology (Nyder and Stackpole 2013). These five phases are Initiating, Planning, Executing, Controlling, and monitoring and lastly, Closing. Initiating phase can be considered as one of the most crucial process as this is the very first step towards implementation of PMBOK into the organization. This process consists of determination of aims and goals of the whole project, which will directly affect the whole management system of the organization. After this only the second phase is being executed that is planning, under which a proper plan is to be prepared on how the project is going to be run and hat could be the relative consequences of those processes. Moving forward, execution is the next phase under which gathered information is being executed and taken into action on the entire project including budgeting. The third phase is monitoring and controlling the implementations that are being executed after the first and the second phase and compare it with the expected outputs and the projected goals and objectives (Rose 2013). The final step has also the same priority as the above phases, which is the last step of this implementation that includes proper initials on the documentation and closure meeting with the stakeholders.
The first and dominant step in this methodology can be described as determining the role and responsibilities of the individuals within the organization and for the implementation of PRINCE2 successfully into the existing system of the organization. PRINCE2 is regarded a process-based approach, which is beneficial in all the aspect for managing the management system of the organization in effective manner (Cooke 2016). A mentor or coach i needed in order to understand the objectives of the processes that have been sub-divided in order to improve the management system of the organization. Concerning about the successful implementation of the PRINCE2 within the organization, some objectives can be stated as: firstly, the role of the coach or the mentor who is providing guidance about the objectives and considerable activities during the implementation process (Kysinski and Miller 2016). Another objective is that it is more than training employees, irrespective of that it is an establishment of the best practices in the management system and enhance the overall performance of the organization through motivating employees and improving project governance.
Organisation B
Waterfall is a project management methodology that is best suitable within the organization with a large strength as it needs more members into the management system with specific roles and responsibilities. A diagram explaining the processes that are being incorporated in this methodology is stated in the appendix in which it can be seen that progress is being made in downwards manner (Saltz, Hackman and Shamshurin 2017). Waterfall methodology has a hierarchical structure of phases and teams are being accommodated according to the structure of the processes, which are based on principles. These processes as stated consist of phases, which include firstly, collection of information in the documentation form, which is comprised of demand and needs of the stakeholders and executing those processes in different stages. Each phases or processes in this methodology are interlinked to each other and next phase can only be started if the previous phase is completed (McDermott 2016). Attentiveness is the most important objective in the implementation of this methodology in order to avoid and eliminate bugs that might cause improper functionality to the next phases.
Following are the issues related to the PMBOK implementation into the system of the organization A:
Issue related with the implementation of the PMBOK is that it cannot define output with precision, neither input nor performance criteria. This topic can be better explainable by an example: qualitative analysis proposed in this methodology can identify relative impact, but it is incapable of explaining 0.80 impacts, which arises during big budgets.
Secondly, the PMBOK is neither applicable for developing guidance documents nor user-friendly towards the implementation of this methodology within the system in consistent and precise manner. PM Methodologies should be able to deal with the iterative builds however, the PMBOK methodology is capable of laying out work flows but only single-pass is being explained within the whole guide presented by PMI (Conchir 2014).
Third issue can be stated as it lacks in defining the role of the individual and their respective responsibilities during the management and the process that have been guided in the PMI. A PM methodology should clearly define the responsibilities and roles of the individual that are or going to be involved in the management system under the stated phases.
Following are the issues related with the implementation of PRINCE2 within the existing system of the organization B:
Heavy weight: This implementation can be said as heavy weight as it mainly focuses on the heavy documentation process related to the planning execution and closure, which are much time consuming than others.
Change Management: PRINCE2 can be stated as a procedure-oriented methodology that stated that in the middle of the project’s development new changes cannot be made or accepted, which is a concerning issue for any of the organization (Tomanek and Juricek 2015).
Motivation: PRINCE2 methodology lacks in motivating the employees or the stakeholders to implement this methodology into the system. Motivation among the employees and other stakeholders are the most important aspect for the development of any organization and eliminating this from the whole system may lead to serious causes or hamper the performance of the organization by several ways.
Organisation C
Poor Risk Management: PRINCE2 also lacks in providing better and accurate risk management system. Identifying and mitigating the risks that can affect the project and the organizational performance is a better way to enhance the performance and output of any organization and lacking in this aspect could led to the failure of the project and closure to the organization.
Waterfall implementation into the system of the organization C has following issues:
Customers or the organization in real do not know what they want at the up-front and customers that could be the issue in the implementation of waterfall methodology. In waterfall PM methodology the offered up-front requirements design is neither suitable nor much realistic for different organizations in this real world. It has also uncertain nature of cost estimation and scheduling, costing and requirements of the customers. Next issue is related to the uncertain nature of estimating time, costs, and customer needs with much less efficiency in accuracy as the models that has been proposed in the methodology is extremely difficult and complex for taking in account in the real world. Implicit model assumption can be stated as the another issue in implementing this methodology into the system as these models can look very feasible in the beginning but models often turn into expensive or difficult in the real world (Pederson 2013). This might lead the manager to redesign the whole project or keep modifying the present model. Other issues that can be taken into account can also direct towards the fact that “the waterfall model implies a clear division of labour between, say, ‘designers’, ‘programmers’ and ‘testers’” .Waterfall methodology and its divisions or sub-divisions are not much efficient for the software sector organizations.
The PMI guided PMBOK is designed in a way that it standardizes the activities within the phases, besides this focus should be provided on assigning roles and responsibilities of the specific individual within the organization. Emphasis should be provided in upgrading the quantitative analysis calculation that could be applicable and accurate for the high budget projects or the plan (Stackpole 2013). Areas and phases should be made wider in order to make this methodology to be more efficient in big enterprises and make this successful implementation with the existing system of the organization with large strength and bigger market.
It can be seen that the PRINCE2 PM Methodology is much complex in implementing it within the organization. Risk management should focus all the hidden bugs and consider all the stakeholders in order to enhance the performance of the organization with its complete efficiency after being implemented within the system. As stated above there is not any process related to the motivation; implementing motivational and awareness program into its processes can be a better approach for mitigating the issues (Saad et al. 2014).
Processes or phases should be divided as per the organizational sector and offering the process according to the up-front needs of the organization. Every step are inter-related to each other, which implies in recommending that isolating each process could be a better aspect for making this implementation more efficient and successful (Rahmanian 2014). This will also help in detecting the bugs and issues in any phase at any time and could be eliminated at that time, which will in result increase the output and enhance the performance of the organization.
Implementation Processes
Benefits of implementing PMBOK methodology can be listed as:
Easy guide to Project Management Steps: It provides easier way to play the roles of the individuals with responsibility.
PMBOK Provides customization: Monitoring is far better in this methodology than others, which can be helpful in determining which factor and what are the beneficial elements of the enhancement of organization’s performance. PMBOK provides flexibility in customizing and standardizing the process that are involved during the implementation process.
Standardization of the Project Management Processes: Companies are being pushed towards standardizing the processes and activities by the PMBOK PM Methodology. It can also help in analysing those activities which were being conducted during previous phases of management.
Benefits of the implementation of PRINCE2 can be listed as:
Communication: PRINCE2 focuses on the communication between the team members, management and other stakeholders.
Reliable: PRINCE2 is much more reliable than any other methodologies as it focuses on maintaining motivated and focused workforce that could be helpful in achieving the goals and objectives of the organization.
Plan oriented: PRINCE2 mainly focuses and executed on the planning made in the earlier phase, which makes it as a plan-oriented approach.
Following are the benefits of implementing Waterfall methodology:
Disciplinary: Stage development cycle introduced in the waterfall implementation can be helpful in achieving discipline within the organization (Darnall and Russell 2015).
Scheduled: It can be helpful in reducing the risks of schedule slippage and met the requirements of the customers.
Design-oriented: Quality can be improved by getting the design and requirements out of the way (Hobbs 2015).
Conclusion
Based on the above report it can be concluded that Project Management Methodology can play a vital and important role in enhancing the performance of the organization through subdividing the whole management system into small groups. Three project management methodologies have been introduced in this report, which were perfect according to the organizational specifications. There are certain problems and issues related to these implementations within the existing system of the organizations, which could be eliminated by certain modifications and contributions of each employee. This report also focuses on the measures that could mitigate the raised issues. It can also be recommended that besides of all the complexities and issues PRINCE2 methodology can be a better approach for enhancing the performance of the organizations.
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