HR Project Management Final Team Presentation

1

2

Keeping the Project on Course

Courtney Goodwin

Managing Human Resource Project

Professor Kenneth Lewis

February 25, 2021

Keeping the project on course

The trophy case

Discuss or critique whether the project was planned correctly.

Fundamentally, the project was mismanaged from the initiation stage. All the core functions of management were shoddily executed from the start by senior managers and project management. There was no proper planning, staffing, organizing, controlling, staffing, resource allocation and personal coordination. Expectations of customers were not clearly defined, and project scope creeping freely took place without proper administration (Kerzner, 2013). There was no clear evidence of a formal process to be followed when managing changes, yet several scope changes were expected free of cost if the client was involved in executing the project. There was no plan for managing customer relations; therefore, applying a client resulted in changing the scope, which did not please the project manager leading to a poor client producer relationship. There was no role accountability and responsibility boundary when the operations manager sent the project manager to meet the customer who had requested to meet the operations team. Moreover, there seems to lack of adequate resources planning in the execution of the project activities. Business ethics and schedule were ignored as they directly charged labour time spent working on other projects to the project. The project manager was inexperienced and could not negotiate with senior management for proper resources to achieve project objectives. Senior management did not appear to distribute critical resources, which are usually shared by various projects.

Discuss whether management was committed to the project. 

Executive management appears not to be committed and supportive of the project. The project manager and team did not receive proper leadership for guidance necessary for the project's success. Whenever the seniors were informed of the problems, they issued intimidations and threats to methods used instead of rendering early support and moral encouragement for the project group's interest. After identifying problems earlier, the dispatched resources became more detrimental to the achievement of project goals. The management does not seem to address training gaps for employees and customer relationship issues. Lack of results leads to threats from seniors instead of creating synergy for project success. As we can see, the project lacked top leadership support making it a nightmare with no formulated business case, which became the critical problem of this project. The business case may have failed to cover complete aspects of the project plan. Still, there were no defined authority lines for specific units and identification of challenges underlying the project. Generally, the management was not available to resolve problems beyond the project manager's purview.

Discuss whether fostering more cooperation was within the scope of the project. Is it possible or even desirable to include ways to improve collaboration and working relationships when doing strategic planning for project management?

Fostering cooperation was within this project's scope, but the management was not ready to create synergy for shared project failures and success. Senior management did not clearly define the project team's structure, cultivate mutual communication, trust, and shared recognition for success. There was no organizational philosophy to drive stakeholders towards the achievement of project objectives. Project planning should include ways for improved working relationships because a project consists of a team with varying viewpoints and communicate differently based on their occupational experiences (Harrin, 2018). Plan to treat everyone as the real value of your project team.

Examine actions that could have been taken to get the project back on track.

The senior management should commit to realistic project objectives and support effective plans to minimize scope midway changes (Atesmen, 2014). Realign cost, human resources and project schedule because they are inseparable for a successful project. The project team and management should develop a schedule for measuring progress, periodically focusing on deliverables instead of costs. Then focus on early identification and resolving of problems on time and in a cost-effective manner. Moreover, a program for employee training, including periodic updates in terms of lessons learnt progressively.

References

Atesmen, M. K. (2014). Project management case studies and lessons learned: Stakeholder, scope, knowledge, schedule, resource and team management. CRC Press.

Harrin, E. (2018, August 29). 10 reasons why teamwork matters in project management • Girl's guide to project management. Retrieved from https://www.girlsguidetopm.com/10-reasons-why-teamwork-matters-in-project-management/

Kerzner, H. R. (2013). Project management: Case studies. John Wiley & Sons.

Timothy Kloppenborg. 2019. Contemporary Project Management. HRM517 Cengage Learning 4th edition textbook available at https://www.strayerbookstore.com