MAN204 Project Management Plan Assignment Sample
Here’s the best sample of MAN204 Project Management Plan Assignment, written by the expert.
Introduction
In today’s developing competitive environment, most of the firms are facing problem in managing their business operational activities and practices as well as to perform efficiently in the competitive market. In addition, the change in customer tastes and preferences needs and also change in market position is developing difficulty for the firms to sustain in the competitive market and attain a competitive edge with additional advantage efficiently and effectively. For sustaining in a competitive environment, the firm needs to adopt different ways and techniques that help in improving the performance in the market.
In concern to WRU Company, it can also be determined that there are various issues and problems which are faced by the firm and that creates difficulty for the firm to perform better and achieve the competitive advantages. Moreover, this study will also discuss different aspects related to project such as approaches, products, and technologies which help in managing the issues and improve the performance of the firm. Further, some alternative solution will also be identified for managing the issues respectively. This study will also help in discussing different factors that are need to be considered for development of project such as project selection matrix, key performance indicators, project requirements and much more.
Background
In an organization, there are different types of issues which develop difficulty in managing the issues and sustaining for a long-term period in the competitive environment successfully. In respect to this, firms need to develop a plan and procedures which help in overcoming the negative impact of the issues and also help in increasing the performance as well. The major issue which is faced mostly by the firm is lack of internal communication system. In the organization, the employees are facing difficulties in their communication process with each other & employer and this is creating impact on the firm for which firm need to focus on implementation of the new business idea successfully. However, the ineffective communication system also considered as a big issue for the firm and for that there is need to use different ways for bringing the improvement.
In addition, the other different issue faced by the firm is slow to pick up signs at the marketplace which affects the business performance and efficiency. The main reason behind this issue is lack of communication process and less concern towards the employee’s details, views and thought are creating issues for the firm i.e., slow to pick up signs at the marketplace. However, there is also need for the firm to improve the performance and overcome the issues efficiently. In context to this, it can also be stated easily that managers of the firm are not showing proper focus towards the required information and that is also an issue faced by the firm which affects the efficiency of the firm in achieving a competitive advantage successfully by performing well in the market. In this situation, the firm needs to focus on developing an effective plan which helps the management to analysis and uses the information for the organization benefits and growth in the competitive environment.
At the same time, there are different types of ways and approaches which can be adopted by the firm for conducting a proper communication such as firm can adopt communication tool which makes easier for the firm employees to communicate or interact properly with each other and develop a healthy relationship in order to eliminate the conflict among them. This recommended way will help the firm in increasing the communication level because this will encourage the employees to interact with each other with full confidence in order to improve the performance and relationship in employees efficiently and effectively.
On the other side, the implementation of different approach such as analytical and absolute problem–solving approach found to be effective for the WRU Company and this will help in improving better management practices and also help in achieving competitive advantage. The implementation of required approaches and ways will help the firm in attaining the organizational goals and objectives easily as well as also help in developing a company reputation of goodwill in the competitive environment. Overall, it can be determined that the use of different ways, techniques, approaches, and tools help the firms to eliminate the issues and problem which affects the performance of the WRU to a large extent in a positive manner respectively.
Evaluation of Alternatives
In order to evaluate the alternatives, the firm can use Weight Scoring Model that is very effective for the firm. The Weight Scoring Model is a very effective way for the project manager in order to complete the project in a timely manner as well as provide effe3ctive outcomes of the project (Burke, 2013). In this, the project manager defines the several criteria through the use of this model and calculates their weight of work. By this, the firm can easily accomplish the project and manages all the issues that are facing the by the firm in this highly competitive market. The below table provides the different criteria and their weight as per the Weight Scoring Model:
Criteria | Weight |
Project need | 12% |
Different project issue | 22% |
Recognizing the different ways | 35% |
Select the best alternative | 15% |
Plan implementation | 16% |
Monitoring the project plan | 5% |
As per above stated ways, it is determined that there are two best suitable ways for the project manager as well as for firms i.e., Weight Scoring Model and project selection matrix. By the use of these methods, the firm can get the achievement by better performing and can get a competitive advantage.
Project Concept
Project Objectives
There are different objectives of this project from which the main objective of WRU firm is to develop an effective performance management system. It is because performance improvement helps the firm to overcome the different issues and also helps to get a competitive advantage (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2017). In addition, there are some objectives of this project are:
- Identification of the different ways that can be helpful to mitigate the organizational challenges in the market
- Identification of risk and potential problems that can be faced by the firm during the project
- Strategy formulation is also an objective of the project that provides effective management and techniques to reduce the risks (Walker, 2015).
These entire objectives will be followed by the project manager in the project in order to timely accomplish the project and provide effective outcomes.
Project requirements and deliverables
In every project, there are several requirements that need to be fulfilled by project manager for accomplishment project objectives on time:
Requirements | Description of the Requirement |
1. | This project requires an ability to collect the project information as per the achievement for defined objectives |
2. | Tracking the status of the project |
3. | Ability to identify functional and non-functional issues |
4. | The ability to complete the project in a timely manner |
5. | The ability to design the functional organization design of WRU |
Project Deliverables
There are some major deliverables for the development of WRU project
- Budding an effective communication system
- Provide useful functional design as well as testing the working process of WRU
- To enhance the performance of the organization and to mitigate the issues with providing competitive advantages (Harrison and Lock, 2017)
Key Performance Indicators
The KPI’s of the project is related to the success of the company. In which, one of the major key performance indicators is to make successful the new plan of WRU to be a successful organization. In addition, other KPI’s of the firm are the success of the management plan as well as the success of the communication plan, generate and formulate better ideas (Binder, 2016). All the KPI’s of the firm are helpful to provide the successful outcome of the project in the market.
Project Feasibility
After the identification of this project, it is identified that this project is much feasible. It is because the plan and resources that are used for the project will be useful for the firm for making success in the market. In addition, this project will perform better for the success of the organization. Moreover, the project manager will timely complete the project with pith positive outcomes by the use of identified project deliverables and KPI’s. Furthermore, in order to overcome the issues and risks, the project manager also used different approaches that will also provide competitive advantages to the firm (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2017). In this project, different key areas of strength are identified that is helpful for the manager to successfully accomplish the project like the batter management of the project manager. It is defined that the project manager defines each project effectively as well as properly for achieving the objectives in a timely manner. So, the batter management policy of the project manager is one of the key strength of the project.
In addition to this, the effective management of the organizational resources is an additional strength of this project (Ross, 2017). The project manager can use a different kind of the resources in a useful manner in order to successfully complete the project. The project manager will use most of the organizational resources to reduce the cost of the organization, as well as timely, accomplish the project. As well, the project manager will also use the resources to overcome the different issues that arise from completing the project in an effective way. Thus, it can be said that the better management of resources is a key strength of the project. As same, this project includes several strengths that will be helpful for the project manager in order to timely finish the project (Meng, 2012). But, it is also identified that the project manager can also face different issues that can affect the project and organization such as improper communication and lack of handling the issues. Due to these weaknesses, the project manager can face the challenges to effectively complete the project as well as provide a valid outcome in a timely manner.
Project Stakeholders Management
The most important task of the project is to handle all the activities in an effective manner as well as perform better during completing the project task. In this, the proper management of the stakeholders is very necessary to provide a positive outcome of the project. In order to better management of the stakeholders, the project manager will use a different kind of tools and the techniques regarding the communication (Oakland, 2014). In this, it is necessary for the project manager to timely communicate with the different stakeholders in order to take feedbacks about the project issues. This communication with stakeholder is helpful for the manager for controlling the issues that can affect the project outcomes as well as it is helpful to make the proper involvement of the people in the project, so that, the management of the project stakeholders is much necessary for the organization.
This above stated picture defines clearly the organizational chart of the project which represents all stakeholders involved with the project.
The project manager will also use the different information concerning with communication an HR (Kim et al., 2012). In this, the project manager will contain proper information regarding the existing resources from the HR manager. In addition, he will also effectively communicate with HR manager regarding the financial resources as well as the information of budget that is available for completing the project. It will be helpful for the project manager to overcome the financial issues to accomplish the project.
Project Cost Management
For successful accomplishment of project, the cost management is an essential factor that needs to be considered by the project manager for overcoming the issues which arise from issues and challenges that might occur and affect the project in a negative manner (Mosadeghrad, 2012). In addition, for managing the project in an efficient manner, there are some stages that need to be followed by the project manager & firm efficiently. In this, the first stage is to define the cost of each activity in a proper manner in order to improve and manage the management practices through cost management.
At the same time, this project cost management factor will also help the project manager in eliminating the project lapping and this will lead to increase in the project efficiency and effectiveness (Pemsel and Wiewiora, 2013). Moreover, the project manager can also use some additional techniques such as standard costing, budgetary control, etc as these techniques will help in managing and minimizing the project cost. Through this, it can be determined easily that project cost management of WRU Company will help in the successful management of cost and time required for completion of the project in order to attain the competitive advantage.
Project Quality Management
For achieving the project objectives, it is very important to maintain the quality of the project as this is a major aspect that needs to be considered by the project manager (Pheng, 2018). In context to this, the project manager need to adopt different ways which help in managing and controlling the project quality by focusing and executing on effective project quality management scenario i.e., through quality planning, quality assurance, quality control and much more. The proper project quality management will found to be effective as this will reduce the issues involved in the project as well as also help in providing the quality to the firm in order to sustain in a competitive environment.
In context to it, Hwang and Ng, (2013) clearly determined that for managing the quality of project for that project manager has to follow a set of steps such as project validation, verification, accuracy, precision, and tolerance. These all stated steps are considered as major ways which provide project manager with the best platform to perform the activities or task and complete the project on time. On the other side, the other ways through which quality management is managing efficiently such as time management & cost management, etc. This ways help the firm to manage the quality and work of the project effectively (Santos and Ferreira, 2013). The project quality also provides help to project manager in order to handle the project activities and tasks in an efficient manner as this help in achieving the customer and firm satisfaction in regards to the project. Thus, it can be determined that there are different ways which project manager can use for meeting and handling the project in an efficient manner.
Project Risk Management
In order to complete the project on time, there is a high need to identify the risk which are associated with the project for which the project manager need to develop the project risk management plan. There is need to for risk management plan because there are several risks which affects the overall project n terms of time, cost and project efficiency and risk might occur & affect the project to a large extent. In respect to this, for proper risk management and for better project performance, for that there is need to follow proper risk management process by the project manager (Marcelino-Sádaba et al., 2014). The reason behind adopting of risk management process is to develop consistency in the project and also help in overcoming the high chances of failure in the project too. The risk management process will includes several steps in which first step is to identify the risk in the project by the project manager and further, it will also evaluate that how much that risk will create impact on the project adversely. In second step of risk management process, the project manager identifies and analysis the risk efficiently (Paquin et al., 2016). This is because risk analysis helps the project manager to identify and determine the possible impact of the risk on the project performance as well as on firm and also help in determining the ways that help in managing those risks efficiently. So that it can be said that the second stage provides the analysis of the risk that is an essential part of the risk management in the project. Third stage of the risk management will be the risk evaluation because the project manager will determine the consequence of the risk that can affect to the overall project (Edwards and Bowen, 2013). Additionally, in this stage, it is also determined by the project manager that the risk is removable or not and also provides ways and techniques to solve the issues. In the same concern, after analysing the project risks, the project manager will focus on the next stage where he will provide the treatments of the risk in the risk management. In this stage, the project manager will use the different plans and tools such as create risk mitigation strategies, contingency plans, preventive plans, etc. The project manager can use the provided plans in order to manage the risk and for controlling on the project (Carvalho and Rabechini Junior, 2015). At the same time, the last stage of the project risk management is the monitoring of the project. In this stage, the project manager will monitor all the ways that can be helpful for the organisation to provide better management as well as overcome the issues that can be arise. In order to achieve the success in the project for that the project manager need to follow this risk management plan in order to deliver a useful outcome to the firm.
WRU Project |
Planning |
Define project needs |
Different issues in the project |
Monitoring & Checking the project properly |
Define final problem related to the project |
Managing |
Evaluate existing position of WRU |
Market research for the project |
Identify the ways for attaining the solution related to communication issue |
Meeting all stakeholders of project |
Need and importance of the project information should be clear |
Meeting with top management of the firm |
Collecting information about the competitors |
Develop final solution |
Determine the success ratio of the defined solution to the problem |
Risk identification |
Risk management plan |
Manage the risk |
Execution |
Implement all solution in project |
Recheck the project success |
Checking all project steps |
Final execute the project |
Project Monitoring |
Proper project monitoring |
Proper documentation |
Project clearance |
Procurement Management
For completing the project successfully, there is requirement to focus on developing an effective procurement management plan which help in meeting the requirement of required resources for completion of each tasks involved in this project. The need of developing procurement management plan for project manager is because it helps him in managing the project activities and tasks efficiently and completes them on time as scheduled (Mosadeghrad, 2012). The development of procurement plan helps manager to make available the required resources in order to accomplish the project activities on time efficiently.
For managing and handling the project properly, it is important that all required resources are made available to the employees for that there is need to adopt or follow the different steps such as initial request, required resources, contract management, and purchasing authority and so on. These different steps help the manager to identify the amount or quantity of required resources for completing one certain tasks or activities. In addition to this, project manager required to identify the need of the resources and service for better procurement management in the project. At the same time, project manager also required to identify those best quality or quantity to products or services and also identify the best supplier which provides the required resources on time efficiently according to project proposals.
After determining the project suppliers, it will become easier for project manager to negotiate with them in regards to minimum material cost with high quality so that project cost get reduce. On the other side, project manager required to focus on dealing with the suppliers efficiently in order to receive the required resources and for this project manager need to develop a contract with the suppliers and order the required resources and demand for timely delivery (Marcelino-Sádaba et al., 2014). Therefore, it can be demonstrated that this procurement plan will also helps the project manager in overcoming the difficulties that might occur in the project and this plan will also make easier for project manager to complete the entire project effectively.
Conclusion
From the above study, it can be easily concluded that for accomplishing the project objectives and to complete the project on time, the project manager need to focus using effective tools and techniques. At the same time, it is also be concluded that a project manager should keep in mind about the overall strategy for effectively and smoothly manger the project. In this, the effective project management plan will be helpful for the project manager to overcome the organisational issues as well as accomplish the project in a timely with budgeted cost. Moreover, it can be concluded that the project management plan is based on the effective procedure that reduces the risk and issues with completing the project in quality and less costly.
References
Binder, J., 2016. Global project management: communication, collaboration and management across borders. UK: Routledge.
Burke, R., 2013. Project management: planning and control techniques. New Jersey, USA.
Carvalho, M.M.D. and Rabechini Junior, R., 2015. Impact of risk management on project performance: the importance of soft skills. International Journal of Production Research, 53(2), pp.321-340.
Edwards, P. and Bowen, P., 2013. Risk management in project organisations. UK: Routledge.
Harrison, F. and Lock, D., 2017. Advanced project management: a structured approach. UK: Routledge.
Hwang, B.G. and Ng, W.J., 2013. Project management knowledge and skills for green construction: Overcoming challenges. International Journal of Project Management, 31(2), pp.272-284.
Kerzner, H. and Kerzner, H.R., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. UK: John Wiley & Sons.
Kim, D.Y., Kumar, V. and Kumar, U., 2012. Relationship between quality management practices and innovation. Journal of operations management, 30(4), pp.295-315.
Marcelino-Sádaba, S., Pérez-Ezcurdia, A., Lazcano, A.M.E. and Villanueva, P., 2014. Project risk management methodology for small firms. International journal of project management, 32(2), pp.327-340.
Meng, X., 2012. The effect of relationship management on project performance in construction. International journal of project management, 30(2), pp.188-198.
Mosadeghrad, A.M., 2012. Towards a theory of quality management: an integration of strategic management, quality management and project management. International Journal of Modelling in Operations Management, 2(1), pp.89-118.
Oakland, J.S., 2014. Total quality management and operational excellence: text with cases. UK: Routledge.
Paquin, J.P., Gauthier, C. and Morin, P.P., 2016. The downside risk of project portfolios: The impact of capital investment projects and the value of project efficiency and project risk management programmes. International Journal of Project Management, 34(8), pp.1460-1470.
Pemsel, S. and Wiewiora, A., 2013. Project management office a knowledge broker in project-based organisations. International Journal of Project Management, 31(1), pp.31-42.
Pheng, L.S., 2018. Project cost management. In Project Management for the Built Environment (pp. 97-112). Springer, Singapore.
Ross, J.E., 2017. Total quality management: Text, cases, and readings. UK: Routledge.
Santos, J. and Ferreira, A., 2013. Life-cycle cost analysis system for pavement management at project level. International Journal of Pavement Engineering, 14(1), pp.71-84.
Walker, A., 2015. Project management in construction. UK: John Wiley & Sons.
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