Assignment Sample on Engineering Project Management
Executive Summary
The study has shed light on analysing customer and context of eMeDe. The project management process and the challenges faced by the organisation have also been discussed in the study. A literature review has been represented to discuss the different process of project management methodologies. Scrum methodology has been selected as the main PMM to be used by eMeDe. It has been found that scrum methodology can serve benefits to eMeDe by providing the best quality, decrease in time management as well as providing higher customer satisfaction.
Analysis of the Customer & Context
eMeDe is one of the high-tech engineering companies in the UK that was established in 1990 to design specialised medical equipment (case study). As innovation increased, the company managed to attract interest from major engineering companies with their new projects. However, the company failed to generate substantial profits due to the absence of a strategic framework. Moreover, with a change in customer preference towards lower prices, the company suffered an enormous loss in customer base. In the current scenario, customers are looking forward to customised goods with high availability and low-cost price (Pletneva & Noskova, 2021). However, the company is committed to quality production and the operational cost is quite high to sell the products at a low price.
In order to cater to the customer’s needs, the company has created a new, innovative and wearable blood pressure monitor. The device would also have an ECG and arrhythmia alert function to track heartbeat (case study). Moreover, as this device would be connected with the user’s smart phone, no added expenses are required for checking blood pressure and heart rate. According to Radujković & Sjekavica (2017), the device is bound to create turbulence in the market, as there is no similar integrated system in the market at this moment. In response to customer’s demands, the device should have a low price index compared to other devices. Furthermore, it is also essential that the device is easily available in the market. eMeDe needs to mass-produce this wearable device and promote its application to various platforms in order to get a positive response from customers.
PMM Literature Review
In the turn of events, globalisation has been fostered with innovative ideas, politics, business, and technical influence. Over years, the concept of project management has evolved according to the new trends in the market. In the past, there were only specific project management methodologies to act on the strategic growth of the business. However, in the current context, there are countless projects management methodologies that can be aligned according to customer specifics. As a result of acquiring such a diverse range of PMMS, managers are now able to make evidence-based decisions and fit their objectives with a business model. As argued by Hayat et al. (2019), the uniqueness of a project differs from one program to another depending upon a company portfolio. Therefore, different PMMs have been identified to meet the unique demands of a project.
According to the existing literature, the main PMMs that are most commonly used by an organisation to manage a project are:
- Waterfall– One of the simplest strategies used to deal with short and uncomplicated projects, Waterfall is widely used as an effective PMM. In this strategy, the processes are linear and depend on the previous task. Implementing the Waterfall PMM ensures a logical strategic framework within the system (Hidalgo, 2019).
- Agile– Agile methodology is the reverse of the Waterfall methodology where the limitation of not being a linear process is subdued. Agile methodology focuses on iterative models and does not need to wait for the previous task to finish. Such an advantage allows this strategy to incorporate quicker decision-making that is open to data-driven change.
- Scrum– It is one of the forms of agile methodology in which a set of rules is followed for acquiring a successful outcome. The main aspect of Scrum methodology is that it divides the work into sprint cycles. It is an iterative methodology to acquire a high level of productivity in production.
- Critical Path– It is a methodology which states the interdependency of resources. As mentioned by Nicholas & Steyn (2017), the CPM approach gathers all necessary activities and establishes critical paths between the frameworks.
- Critical Chain– It is observed that while the critical path is based on task order and resources, the critical chain uses resource availability as the main component. According to the methodology, the company can form a network of the work process and analyse what resources can be allocated for each stream. This process reduces time and provides information on resource availability.
- PRiSM– PRojects integrating Sustainable Methods is a methodology to consider long-term sustainability. The main goal of such a methodology is to reduce any negative environmental impact caused by the project.
- PRINCE2– PRojects IN Controlled Environments is one of the standard methodologies in which the process is coherent with controlled stages and properly allocated resources (Radujković & Sjekavica, 2017). It is one of the best processes to document information regarding operations and marketability.
- Kanban– This is a project management methodology where the work-flow works in an assembly-line. The word denotes continuous improvement and the backlog is tackled with great importance.
- Lean– It is one of the agile project management methodologies to divide a smaller task into an individual platform. The process is highly beneficial to remove any excess efforts and emphasis continuous improvement. In the case of tight budgets and constraints, this methodology upholds great value.
- Scrumban– It is one of the hybrid methodology created by the combination of Scrum methodology and Kanban methodology (Hidalgo, 2019). The main benefit of this PMM is that the tool helps to continuously pull from the backlog based on the capacity of work. Depending upon the sprint cycles and progress limit, the PMM can be adopted to achieve a continuous flow of planning.
PMM Selection
Scrum Methodology has been selected as the best PMM to be implemented in the customer’s organisation. As mentioned by Nicholas & Steyn (2017), the Scrum Methodology is a type of agile project management framework to split work into sprint cycles. In this process, the work that needs to be done is added as a backlog for each specific cycle. The project managers need to focus on these backlogs to ensure that the project is going as per schedule. As Scrum splits the work into sprint cycles, it becomes easier for the project manager to complete the work in backlog and review their performance. It can be argued that implementing scrum methodology can influence the company to strive for continuous improvement. As mentioned by Takagi & Varajão (2019), scrum is basically implemented in an area where the main concern is quality improvement. eMeDe is recommended to incorporate this method in their system and improve the quality of the production. As the new innovative project is unique and it has not yet appeared in the market before, encouraging mass production would be a great step towards meeting customer demands.
The main problem faced by eMeDe is that the strategic framework is not good for the company to evolve its business according to customer demands (case study). Moreover, with the shift in customer preference, the company has faced considerable problems. According to the new customer trend, the company not only needs to lower the cost price of the product but also need to mass-produce the equipment (Radujković & Sjekavica, 2017). In order to achieve this feat, the overall framework of the company needs to solid. Scrum is executed as temporary blocks represented as sprints and it ranges from 3 to 4 weeks. eMeDe would be able to separate the different operational processes and ensure that each backlog has been met within a set deadline. As influenced by Pletneva & Noskova (2021), this would provide a complete result with the least possible effort as requested. Therefore, by implementing this methodology in the organisation model, the company looks to improve its cost of production and make faster delivery.
PMM Roadmap
A project roadmap is essential for elaborating the expectations of the stakeholder and communicates the resources with the rest of the team involved in the project. As per the opinion of Armenia et al. (2019), this section shall deal with the roadmap of the project management of eMeDe. The roadmap can be elaborated as follows:
- Project goals and objectives – The project is initiated once its goals are elaborated on to the stakeholder. These goals must be complementary to the objectives that eMeDe is trying to fulfill.
- A timeline indicating the schedule – Following this, eMeDe must prepare a timeline for all the events that will be part of the project. As per the opinion of Demirkesen & Ozorhon (2017), this will ensure that the project does not miss the deadline
- Important milestones and deliverables – All the stages of the project will not be equally important, thereby making it essential to highlight the most important ones. The goals in these stages must be treated with a lot of importance.
- Possible risks – Every project will be prone to some kind of risk, making it important that some buffers and shock observers are thought of to absorb any disturbance.
- Dependencies – The link between a project task and the goals it aims to achieve must be demarcated clearly. As per the opinion of Ma et al. (2018), this will help those involved in the project to understand that they are working in the appropriate direction.
The project management process can be helped by the perfect utilization of the project roadmap. The following discussion is based on the effective ways, in which the project roadmap can help project management through a streamline. According to Pessl, Sorko & Mayer (2017), The steps for successful implementation of the project roadmap depends on the organizational success from recovering from critical situation. There are slime-effective steps in which the road map is implemented for PMM.
- The current capabilities are accessed properly.
- The information about project stakeholders is collected from various sources and analyze their development process.
- A perfect team is formed after analyzing the proper skills and techniques. The overall performance of the team will be successfully finished if the team combination has proved its perfection.
- A proper charter is developed as mentioned in the road map to increase the development process of the project. The possibility of success may be increased if the whole project has finished as per charter.
- The project approaches are designed properly and the pilot testy approaches are also mentioned.
- Next, the required PMM tools are created to use in the implementation process of project management.
- Next, the whole process is rolled out
- The continuous learning of the practiced
In the first step, the project-related gap is analyzed with the focus on the current potential of the organization. The project portfolio is evaluated and the applicable methods are used for selecting the process of the project. This type of important information is collected by applying the interviews and active participation in the project meeting. The document can be reviewed by a genuine analysis of the capabilities.
The PMM stakeholders are identified and their activities are analyzed by the perfect utilization of the project roadmap. As per the opinion of Radujković & Sjekavica (2017), corporate executives and senior management that are responsible for organizational support and completion of projects, as well as the support of operations, are considered as the key stakeholders of the project management. The determination of the stakeholders’ expectations and needs has increased the level of acceptance.
The development process of core team approaches must execute the whole responsibility. The whole project task is divided into several teams, team members according to their experienced, and skills. The project manager can make a separate team formed by technological experts.
PMM Implementation Success Measurement
It has been found in the given case study that the absence of a strategic framework is the root cause of problems of eMeDe. They are going to introduce an innovative machine that can be able to measure the blood pressure as well as monitor the ECG of the patient. In order to market this product, they have been found to research on the market that reveals there is no such product. Apart from this, they need to follow the Scrum methodology to market their product. There are several benefits in using the scrum methodology of project management and are as follows:
Better quality
The scrum methodology of project management helps in providing the framework that helps in monitoring the quality of the product. As stated by Karabulut & Ergun (2018), this can be helpful in ensuring the high quality in order to gain appreciation by introducing it. The company eMeDe has been found to launch a product that can not only be able to measure blood pressure but also measures ECG. This requires high-quality management of the products in order to make them appreciable among the public as well as health care providers. eMeDe needs to adapt scrum methodology so that they can be able to maintain their product quality as well as be able to improve their strategic management.
Decrease the time in marketing
Scrum methodology has been found to provide value to the customer almost 30 to 40 percent faster than the traditional method. According to Abrudan, Baru & Lungu (2019), scrum methodology has been found to have practice on the initiation of product development in an early manner leading to providing real-time clarification. This can be helpful for eMeDe in marketing their product in exact time by implementing scrum methodology. Moreover, this methodology has been found to produce working products as well as services that are shippable. This can be helpful in decreasing the time to market the product of eMeDe, leading to gaining proper strategic management. This can also be helpful in mitigating their issues with marketing their products. Moreover, decreasing the time for marketing can be helpful for eMeDe to gather more customer attraction leading to gaining a competitive advantage in the market.
Higher customer satisfaction
Scrum methodology in project management has been found to have a concern on producing products as well as services that are satisfying to the customers. As stated by Gonçalves, Drumond & Méxas (2017), most importantly, this project management methodology helps in keeping customers involved at the time of production by advertising. This can be helpful in making a reduction in marketing time as well as helps in gathering responses quickly. This can be helpful in taking steps for the development of their product in order to satisfy their customers by mitigating their demands. eMeDe can adapt this methodology so that they can be able to know about their production of this new machine leading to expressing their views on this product. This can be helpful in delivering their customers with a quality product leading to making them appreciable. This can also be helpful in gathering a competitive advantage in the market.
Conclusion
The study sheds light on different types of project management methodologies. An analysis of the customer and their context has been presented in this study to ascertain the demands of customers. Moreover, a literature review has been conducted to extract information on project management methodologies. A timeline infographic has been prepared to demonstrate 10 different types of PMMs. It has been analysed that in the current case scenario, eMeDe needs to follow Scrum Methodology to consider the customer’s specific requests and resolve the constraints. Lastly, a clear and feasible roadmap has been provided to describe the implementation process of the selected PMM.
Reference list
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