HR Project Management Final Team Report

Planning Considerations for HR Project

Johnathan Bryant

Dr. Kenneth Lewis

HRM 517

August 21, 2020

 

 

 

 

Project planning is very important in the success of a project in an organization. This is because adequate planning helps the company have a clear picture of the manner at which the project can be handled until its outcome has been met by the organization. Because of this, a project manager must come up with a sophisticated plan that will help him or her achieve the goal of a given project. Lack of a good plan when it comes to running a project has the potential of leading to the failure of projects. So that failure can be avoided by project managers, there is a need for the manager to design a plan that will aid in the successful completion of the project. Thus, the project plan can be said to be the ultimate guide or the road map to a successful result of a project. This paper is going to look into some of the factors that make up a good project plan.

1.     Scope

Various elements make up a good project plan. With these elements, the clarity and the dynamics of a good project have been fully defined. For this reason with their understanding, the success of a project is a total guarantee. Among the factors that make up an effective project, the plan is the project scope. A project scope being part of the project plan has various elements within it that make it an important aspect in the execution of any given project in an organization. According to Rouse, a project scope “involves determining and documenting a list of specific project goals, deliverables, tasks, costs, and deadlines (Rouse, 2020).” These elements that are within a project scope make it the ultimate blueprint of a project plan. The min importance of project scope is that it establishes and clearly defined the roles of each member of the company that is going to get involved in the implementation of the project. This means that every activity that will be played by every member of the organization who is directly involved in the project’s execution will have to follow the project scope that will be designed by the project manager.

As the project gets executed, the project scope will help the members of the organization working on the project to stay focused throughout the entire project. Thus, they will all be able to make decisions that are in line with the requirements of the project as they work on the completion of the project. The other importance of the scope is that it contains all the relevant information about the project including the cost of the project, the risks involved in every step of the project, the cost of the project as well many other features. Because huge projects tend to change as the project gets implemented, a well-designed scope will help guide the changes that will be made so that the project can be completed like it is supposed to. So that the project scope can be effectively be implemented, good communication of its specifics to all the key players in the project’s execution is very important.

Project scope is important in the implementation of projects because it contains all the information that the project contains. Because of this reason, the stakeholders of a give business or organization will have a better understanding of what is involved in the project. The other key significance that a project scope has in an organization is that it provides a guide that can be followed by all the managers of an organization can use to assign various tasks to all the people who will work on the project (Rouse, 2020). Thus, they can schedule the work required to complete a project and also create a good budget that will see through the completion of the given project. Lastly, a well-designed cope will help control the project. This implies that large projects will be controlled so that they cannot go beyond the established version of the project (Rouse, 2020).

2.     Resourcing

Among the responsibilities that a project manager has towards the development of a successful project is the allocation of resources. Because of this factor, the efficiency of a "project manager in right estimation and prediction of resources for the project has an influencing impact on the success of a project (Nair et al. 2012)." Because project managers are the ‘drivers’ of a project, they need to understand all the resources that a project needs. So that they can effectively be in a good position to do this, they have to identify all the requirements that a project has. After they have managed to identify the resources that the project needs they inform the shareholders of the company that provides the resources.

The acquisition of the resources that a project requires is done with the guide of the project managers because they effectively understand the scope of the project that they are working on. After the resources have been provided, the project managers then look into the project requirements and allocate the resources according to the demands of every phase that the project has. In cases where the resources that a project requires are scarce or not available in an organization due to some factors, sourcing the resources from other organizations and individuals who can easily have access to them is an option that project managers consider.

3.     Budgeting

Various costs are incurred by an organization while working on any given project. Thus the costs have to be well managed so that a project can be completed like it is supposed to. Because of this factor, having a good budget is very important during the execution of any given project. Kwon and Kang have stated in their article that “project budgets are funds estimated during the planning phase based on what the project is expected to cost at completion. It is very difficult to estimate project budgets accurately before executing the projects due to a lack of information and risks (Kwon & Kang, 2018).” The difficulty that is associated with the creation of a project budget is associated with the risks because as the development of the project goes on during its implementation, there are various changes that the project demand when these changes are made, there are issues that develop. Some of these complications might need immediate attention of the organization and extra funds that were not budgeted initially. Because of this reason, project managers have to make sure that there are funds that have been set aside that will help them take care of any complication that might be met while executing a project.

4.     Risks

Risks happen during the implementation of projects this implies that project managers have to work hard and make sure that they manage to handle the risks that may meet as they work on projects. Junior, R, and Carvalho suggest that “Risk management has been one of the major concerns of executives and professionals involved with projects today, especially after the financial crisis that shook the world in 2008 (Juniro & Carvalho, 2013). The reason as to why the management of risks is very important in the handling of projects is because failure to effectively manage the risks that any project faces endangers the existence of the project. This is because little risks that might not be looked into could turn fatal and incur the organization more expenses that can result to lose in an organization. Besides the losses that might be met by the managers of any organization, there is the likeliness of the organization losing complete grip on the project which might lead to the failure of that given project. Thus, there is need for the project managers to effectively manage the risks that projects face so that they can be in a good position to maintain and stay within the range of the budget that was created before the launching of the project and the extra costs that the risks might incur to the organization after they have been solved. Because of this, there is a need for a project plan to include the possible measures that can be followed in case risks are met as the project is implemented.

Many other factors can be used to create a good project plan. However, the detailed information that has been discussed herein plays a crucial role in the implementation of any given project. The project scope can be used by the project managers and other parties involved in the execution of the project so that the project can be completed. With the guidance of the scope, the project’s budget, allocation of resources, and other factors such as the handling of risks that can arise during the implementation of any given project can be easily attained by the people working on that given project and the organization at large.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Kwon, H., & Kang, C. W. (2018). Improving project budget estimation accuracy and precision by analyzing reserves for both identified and unidentified risks. Project Management Journal, 50(1), 86-100. https://doi.org/10.1177/8756972818810963

Nair, G., Suma, V., & Kumar, S. (2012). Impact Analysis of Allocation of Resources by Project Manager on Success of Software Projects. International Conference on Data Mining and Computer Engineering.

Rabechini Junior, R., & Monteiro de Carvalho, M. (2013). Understanding the impact of project risk management on project performance: An empirical study. Journal of technology management & innovation, 8, 11-12. https://doi.org/10.4067/s0718-27242013000300006

Rouse, M. (2020). What is project scope? SearchCIO. https://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/project-scope