Management Assignment Sample
PROJECT MANAGEMENT LEADERSHIP AND SKILLS: PLANNING AND CONTROL
Part A: Planning and control
Introduction
The report is based on providing appropriate recommendations and suggestions to the investment Organisation in order to develop the key element and outline the business case based on the most appropriate and adequate resources to demonstrate the utilization of the project management techniques and tools in order to re-launch the Yang Sing hotel. Concerning the issues which have been previously faced by the organization, the primary focus of this report will be to eliminate any issues in similar concerns and aspects. Therefore stakeholder management to plan and project activity plan has been highlighted in the report based on the new mission and objective of the project management plan. On the basis of the project activity plan for the resource planning and allocation has been made in the resource assignment Matrix and the cost estimation and allocation has been identified. Lastly, the project manager has also recommended the risk management assessment by identifying the top five risks associated with the delivery of the project.
Mission and objective
Mission
To become customers most preferred choice in the accommodation industry of Manchester by attending excellence in quality and timely completion of the value-added project
Objective
- To provide the greatest levels of services in the industry offering superior craftsmanship to every nook and corner of the building
- To attain sustainability and enable greater opportunity for developing innovation and adopting state-of-the-art technology in the materials and methods for enhancing the cost-effectiveness and productivity
- To improve the competence of the stakeholder and team by employing them with diverse result-oriented professional Ambience innovation and motivation to deliver long-term excellence in service providing facilities
- To reduce the frequency severity rate by building a safety culture to achieve zero accidents in the future
- To eliminate and mitigate any negative environmental impact arising from the construction Innovation and activity and comply with the governmental and environmental norm
Impact on organization and stakeholder
As the company is focusing on investing to re-launch the yang sing hotel it is likely to impact the organization and the key stakeholders. For example, the executive manager’s directors and the managing director will be affected in terms of enabling environmentally sustainable Tools and techniques in the project. The decisions which will be made by the project management team might collide with the executive directors and the stakeholder of the organization. Therefore in the initial level clash in the opinion and conflict in the organizational practices can be observed with the 60% of the employees currently working in the organization as well as the project team.
Stakeholder management
Stakeholder management is critical for the success of implementing and delivering any project. It is associated with strategic implementation of the decision in any discipline for the project manager to complete the project and the project manager uses it to sustain and win with the support of the project from other stakeholders both internal and external (Kelley et al., 1959; Eskerod et al., 2015). The stakeholder management approach, therefore, needs to be tailored based on the needs and objectives of any project. The internal stakeholders for this project include the individuals who are not directly working on the project but have an impact on the project in terms of operation cost risk and policies (Karlsen, 2002).
For example, policy-driven Department heads like accounting and finance or even functional Department heads who contribute to the resource management and allocation as well as a Project leadership team and sponsors are the representatives of the internal stakeholders for this project. Similarly, the external stakeholders for this project include the group of people or individuals who, although belonging to the outside environment of the project, have an extreme impact on the project, and this included government bodies whose policies have a severe impact on the project management (Eskerod & Jepsen, 2016). Apart from that the union business partner’s regulatory bodies and a vendor in the local market of Manchester, as well as a national body, are also the external stakeholders for the project.
| Stakeholder register | |||||
| Project phase: planning and execution | Project name: upgrading infrastructure
Date: 10.02.2022
|
||||
| Stakeholders | Type of stakeholder | Role in the project | Type of communication | Frequency or duration | |
| Managing Director | Internal | Internal project manager | Once in a month | ||
| Investor | Internal | Customer Project Manager | Direct | Every week | |
| Employees | Internal | Steering committee | Once in 2 month | ||
| Regulatory bodies and policymaker | External | Governing and the regulation | Once in a month | ||
| Executive directors | Internal | Internal project management | Direct | Every week | |
| Managing Director | Internal | Internal project manager | Once in a month | ||
| Investor | Internal | Governing | Direct | Once in a month | |
Planning and scheduling
A project plan is a design for delivering the intended scope and opportunity of the project by facilitating communication among the concerned stakeholder and continuously tracking the progress of the plan (Haugan, 2001). On the basis of the decisions and assumptions, the plan can be changed or tweaked. The communication plan baseline management to plan and cost and the schedule baseline is the primary element of the project plan which while working collaboratively on each component a successful outcome is generated (Eisner, 1962).
Planning and scheduling for the project
- Improving communication: the project plan and schedule will outline the entire plan to the stakeholder and therefore they will be able to provide feedback early based on which right direction can be maintained in the project progress. It can also help in facilitating the expectation management based on which the project manager can update the milestone and timeline (Hinze, 2004).
- Increasing transparency: with the help of this project planning and scheduling the team members in the stakeholder will be able to understand exact role and responsibility and based on which the information can be generated by them. This enhances the practice of enabling every person to stay on the same page about the objective and priority of the project.
Project breakdown
| RACI Matrix | ||||
| Resources/ Activities | Managing Director | Investor | Employees | Executive directors |
| Defining the project criteria | A | R | I | I |
| Scheduling the project plan and task | I | A | C | I |
| Performing and executing the project | C | R | R | A |
| Documentation and publishing the progress | I | I | A | I |
The RACI chart or matrix is a type of responsibility assignment Matrix within project management that lists the stakeholder involved in a project and identifies the level of involvement for each stakeholder and associated task (Morgan, 2008; Feltus et al., 2009 ).
Cost budget and estimation technique
In the field of project management, the estimation of the cost is regarded as the process of estimating the entire budget or cost that is associated with the completion of the project according to the available opportunities scope, and timeline (Meli & Santillo, 1999). There are primarily 4 types of project cost estimation techniques which are analog estimation, parametric estimation, bottom-up estimation, and three-point estimation (Jørgensen, 2004). In this project, the project manager will be considering the bottom-up estimation technique where a larger project is usually broken down into smaller tasks or components and the manager estimates the cost and budget are specifically for the smaller package.
The work of this particular project will be split between different departments of the organization and therefore the cost will be split out for each department after the estimation of the cost a single larger budget will be tailored for the entire project. By making the use of the bottom-up estimating technique the project manager will be able to take a granular look at each and individual task of the project and it will also allow an accurate estimation of the budget and process.
| Resources | Estimated budget ($) |
| Internal funding | 5719 |
| Department budget | 2541 |
| Existing streams of revenue | 8162 |
| Customer invoice and billing | 4152 |
| Logistics and resources | 4842 |
| Technical gadgets | 5719 |
Risk managem
ent
| Risks | Acceptability | Risk management |
| Adverse reactions | Very low | Adequate preventive measures needed to be taken at the individual level and use of protective equipment while managing the project |
| Risk communicated via precaution | Very low | Installation of sudden hazard alarm while managing heavy task |
| Project execution error | Very low | Contact with internal and external stakeholders for negotiations and the setup deal during different tasks schedule |
| Resource shortage | Medium | Deal with the local support government for policy procedure |
| Quality regarded risk | Low | Selection of a research and development team to define the new scope for the work and detail the task for the with appropriate distribution of responsibility and work |
| Sudden special notice | Good | Enabling the stakeholder and contractor to submit the project cost helps the investor to review and calculate the approximate investment cost based on the risk |
People management
Conflict likely to arise in the project
- Lack of communication
Lack of communication can be the most costly conflict in the project to deal with. Due to the lack of communication damage to the overall outcome of the project can be faced. If any of the stakeholders provide unclear or wrong instructions it can give a setback to the project (Barbieri, 1996). Therefore being the project manager one will need to communicate the expected vision with each worker and stakeholder and also direct the ways of completing the project. Apart from that, it can also result in delays of the project and also increase the cost. Communicating with the stakeholder is crucial as it provides the manager with the opportunity to oversee the insight and development of the project.
- Poor leadership
Being the project manager one needs to hand out the instructions very clearly and supervise the project progress to ensure that the activities are going smoothly. With appropriate leadership, the project manager can bring the best out of the employees and also make the best use of the scope, opportunity, and budget (Furumo, 2009). If the project manager in this project does not perform at an optimal level it can slow down the progress and ultimately issues like unclear instruction time constant and huge confusion among the stakeholder or work can be faced.
- Disagreements
At times it is possible that the stakeholder or the worker does not agree to any particular decision. Overcoming the conflict will require the identification of scope and possible solutions (Gleick, 1993). Working collaboratively on different opinions and coming to a stable and diplomatic solution can mitigate the escalated consequence of conflict disagreement. It will also eliminate any form of delay in the project.
Strategies to mitigate the conflict
- Avoiding: at times when the project manager will identify that the conflict among the worker is avoidable it is likely to ignore in order to eliminate any form of the uncomfortable situation (Mahalingam & Levitt, 2007). Without escalating the issue sometimes the conflict can be resolved just by avoiding the situation.
- Competing: in this project, the project manager will need to work with the internal worker as well as the existing set of 60% workers in the hotel. By Cooperative means of conflict resolution, the disagreement among the stakeholder can be mitigated
- Accommodating: although at times accommodating cannot always lead to a satisfactory and long-term stable resolution to the issue yet the project manager shall provide the opportunity to have the door open for cooperative members in the group to take control or measure against the conflict
- Collaborating: while implementing the project plan collaboration among the stakeholder will be required and at this stage, the project manager will need to allow every team member of the group to equally contribute to resolving the issue and establish a shared platform of solution which every individual supports (Webber et al., 2007).
- Compromising: this particular strategy will be required while communicating with external stakeholders such as a policymaker, regulatory bodies, and the end-user (Eriksson et al., 2016). While negotiating it might be possible that every group member gives up on something to avail the best outcome and by working on compromise final resolution can be implemented
Conclusion
Requirement of a sponsor
This particular sponsorship will be required as the sponsors will be responsible for the successful completion and execution of the project and will also provide appropriate resources investment and guidance to the project manager and the team. It is also likely to be possible that the sponsors will enable a greater extent of strategic planning sustainability and successful implementation of the project goals and objectives.
Leadership style
The re-launching of the luxury hotel will require a strong vision of the leader. Therefore a visionary leadership style is recommended for the project manager as it will help the team members and stakeholders to be motivated. It will also be sure to establish the shared vision of the project with all the participants and help them in understanding the ways in which they work with the vision of the project and the specific skill set.
References
Barbieri, K. (1996). Economic interdependence: A path to peace or a source of interstate conflict?. Journal of Peace Research, 33(1), 29-49. Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022343396033001003 [Accessed on 11 February 2022].
Eisner, H. (1962). A generalized network approach to the planning and scheduling of a research project. Operations Research, 10(1), 115-125. Available at: https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/opre.10.1.115 [Accessed on 11 February 2022].
Eriksson, P. E., Patel, P. C., Sjödin, D. R., Frishammar, J., & Parida, V. (2016). Managing interorganizational innovation projects: Mitigating the negative effects of equivocality through knowledge search strategies. Long Range Planning, 49(6), 691-705. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0024630116300383 [Accessed on 11 February 2022].
Eskerod, P., & Jepsen, A. L. (2016). Project stakeholder management. Routledge.
Eskerod, P., Huemann, M., & Savage, G. (2015). Project stakeholder management—Past and present. Project management journal, 46(6), 6-14. Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pmj.21555 [Accessed on 11 February 2022].
Feltus, C., Petit, M., & Dubois, E. (2009, November). Strengthening employee’s responsibility to enhance governance of IT: COBIT RACI chart case study. In Proceedings of the first ACM workshop on Information security governance (pp. 23-32). Available at: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/1655168.1655174 [Accessed on 11 February 2022].
Furumo, K. (2009). The impact of conflict and conflict management style on deadbeats and deserters in virtual teams. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 49(4), 66-73. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08874417.2009.11645341 [Accessed on 11 February 2022].
Gleick, P. H. (1993). Water and conflict: Fresh water resources and international security. International security, 18(1), 79-112. Available at: https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/18/1/79/691699/isec.18.1.79.pdf [Accessed on 11 February 2022].
Haugan, G. T. (2001). Project planning and scheduling. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Hinze, J. (2004). Construction planning and scheduling (Vol. 228, p. 229). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
Jørgensen, M. (2004). Top-down and bottom-up expert estimation of software development effort. Information and Software Technology, 46(1), 3-16. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0950584903000934 [Accessed on 11 February 2022].
Karlsen, J. T. (2002). Project stakeholder management. Engineering Management Journal, 14(4), 19-24. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10429247.2002.11415180 [Accessed on 11 February 2022].
Kelley Jr, J. E., & Walker, M. R. (1959, December). Critical-path planning and scheduling. In Papers presented at the December 1-3, 1959, eastern joint IRE-AIEE-ACM computer conference (pp. 160-173). Available at: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/1460299.1460318 [Accessed on 11 February 2022].
Mahalingam, A., & Levitt, R. E. (2007). Institutional theory as a framework for analyzing conflicts on global projects. Journal of construction engineering and management, 133(7), 517-528. Available at: https://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9364(2007)133:7(517) [Accessed on 11 February 2022].
Meli, R., & Santillo, L. (1999, October). Function point estimation methods: A comparative overview. In FESMA (Vol. 99, pp. 6-8). Citeseer. Available at: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.33.6479&rep=rep1&type=pdf [Accessed on 11 February 2022].
Morgan, R. (2008). How to do RACI charting and analysis: a practical guide. Project Smart. Reino Unido. Available at: https://www.xmtech-china.com/pdf/how-to-do-raci-charting-and-analysis.pdf [Accessed on 11 February 2022].
Webber, A. D., Hill, C. M., & Reynolds, V. (2007). Assessing the failure of a community-based human-wildlife conflict mitigation project in Budongo Forest Reserve, Uganda. Oryx, 41(2), 177-184. Available at: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/oryx/article/assessing-the-failure-of-a-communitybased-humanwildlife-conflict-mitigation-project-in-budongo-forest-reserve-uganda/5B44134A2227911F32259B2E124EFB11 [Accessed on 11 February 2022].
Part B: People Management
Introduction
Project management can be associated with the art of driving a collaboration of science and art for the steering of team members in the delivery of a successful project (Hair and Sarstedt, 2021). Project leadership helps in better accomplishments as a team as it is found to incorporate people together for the achievement of common goals. The current study analyses a case scenario for the Ying Sang Sing hotel in Manchester and focuses on the project’s mission and objectives along with impact over the organisation and stakeholders. The report also incorporates stakeholder management plan, project activity plan, resource allocation and utilisation plan and other cost estimations. The next section shall incorporate people management techniques after analysis of the current scenario.
Probable areas of conflict and strategies to be implemented to tackle the sources of conflict
There are different areas of conflict that can be highlighted from the depicted case study. The first conflict arises from the amount of hotel room fees being charged from the customers which has been originally ranged at 179 to 569 GBP per night, but were found to reduce significantly by over 50% rate cuts due to the ongoing recession of 2008-09. Furthermore, another conflict has emerged to be the gaining popularity of the concerned hotel during its eight months of operations which has suddenly come to a closure due to cut down of rates by 50% and operating at a discounted capacity of 60%.
Moreover, there is a significant chance of lack in adequate communication levels which may further impact upon the overall outcome for the project. Moreover, words of Khan (2018) have emerged to state that providing vague or incorrect instructions towards subordinates by managers shall further lead to disruption in management of the same. Therefore, the project manager should significantly focus on improving the communication levels with their employees and internal or external stakeholders to highlight the scope of the project, thereby reducing time required for project completion and also reducing additional chances of incurring costs.
In addition to that, there can be possibilities of increasing disagreements within the external stakeholders or the employees being appointed within the reopened hotel. Due to the financial constraints and lack of profitability from the hotel, disagreements may arise between the stakeholders and workers leading to disruption in operations. Therefore, it is essential to focus on the identification of scope for the project along with the possible solutions. Effective collaboration in work shall be essential for focusing on diplomatic solutions undertaking problems from two or more sides. This shall further help in any delay within the performance of the project.
Five reasons why a sponsor might be essential in the project
Sponsors are found to play an important role in the lifecycle of a project through providing shape, support and further integration to realise benefits for business organisations (Breese et al. 2020). The role of the concerned sponsors are also associated with providing critical services towards the firm and thereby maintaining increased success rates with the respective shareholders. However, focusing on the current case scenario of Yang Sing Hotel in Manchester, it has emerged to close down due to the negative impact of the economic crisis and recession in the UK during the period of 2008-09. Moreover, the first reason for incorporating a sponsor within the project as it has also undertaken the personal savings worth 1 million GBP of the managing director Gerry Yeung which need to be recovered as the business is in a concurrent loss.
Furthermore, the second reason to focus on implementing a sponsor for the project is lack of stakeholder engagement due to the losses accrued by the business during the recession period. As per the words of Duryan and Smyth (2019), project sponsors are located at the prime executive position of an organisation along with exclusive authorities to assign or reject the resources and associate with decisions regarding projects. Therefore, a proper sponsorship shall improve the key investment decisions made within the project. Additionally, the hotel was found to be taken undue advantage by the guests boarding as the room and services rates were found to be slashed by 50%. Thus, having proper financial support from sponsors shall help the hotel to maintain their organisational operations and efficiency without facing any losses. Moreover, another reason for incorporating a sponsor for the project is the losses faced by the firm amounted to 7 million GBP that is needed to be recovered during the further operational activities and providing individual accommodation towards the customers with all other five star facilities.
Management style for the project manager of the project
There are various management styles of leadership for project managers that can be considered as most appropriate for organisations. However, focusing on the current scenario of Ying Sang hotel in Manchester, the incorporation of affiliative leadership and democratic management style. Furthermore, words of Moskovich and Palgi (2015) states that democratic management style refers to a more collaborative and encouraging way of guiding or working with professionals. The current management approach can be considered to be effective in understanding the level of involvement possessed by the employees and thereby help in better decision making procedures.
Therefore, focusing on the current scenario for Ying Sang hotel, democratic management style shall be adequate for the project manager as it will help in providing higher levels of empathy towards the appointed employees working within the hotel after its reopening. As per the words of Bosiok (2013), democratic management style is associated with encouraging increased creativity levels and involvement in decision making procedures which is further helpful for teams to achieve better and positive results from high productivity levels. Thus, in the case of Ying Sang hotel, democratic management from the project manager shall help in developing higher collaboration levels among employees to perform better after reopening of the hotel.
References
Hair, J.F. and Sarstedt, M., 2021. Explanation plus prediction—The logical focus of project management research. Project Management Journal, 52(4), pp.319-322.
Breese, R., Couch, O. and Turner, D., 2020. The project sponsor role and benefits realisation: More than ‘just doing the day job’. International Journal of Project Management, 38(1), pp.17-26.
Duryan, M. and Smyth, H., 2019. Cultivating sustainable communities of practice within hierarchical bureaucracies: the crucial role of an executive sponsorship. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business.
Moskovich, Y. and Palgi, M., 2015. Cultural change in a kibbutz factory: From democratic to more autocratic management style. International Journal of Cooperative Studies, 4(2), pp.27-38.
Bosiok, D., 2013. Leadership styles and creativity. Online Journal of Applied Knowledge Management (OJAKM), 1(2), pp.64-77.
Khan, H., 2018. An Application of Vague Relation to a Decision Making Problem. International journal of Mathematics trends and technology, 56.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Know more about UniqueSubmission’s other writing services:
