Project Management Wk5

Project Summary Report

The organization, facilitation, and implementation of a project must have room for change. While leaders would thrive on success with the first set of ideas, this does not always occur. Leaders should understand change and how to respond to the impact of the progress of the project as well as be able to adjust to any minor or major changes if the completion is the project is to occur. In this paper, we will discuss why change occurs, how to respond to change, and how change can affect the success of the project.

Circumstances Resulting in Change

Most of the things around us are subject to change, every day we change our clothes, what we eat, and many times, we change the route that takes us to work or school. There are many circumstances that surround us, that would change the way we planned our day or life. During the planning and progress of a project, things can also change. The circumstances the project might consider for change could be lack of time to complete a task, not obtaining the approvals and money to budget the project or a third-party scenario in which could affect the lead times or scope of the project.

During the planning of a project, it is important that the project manager and team consider the risks that they could face during the progress of their project. The lead times each task is planned based on estimates, these are calculated based on the experience they had in the past or by doing, a quick analysis of what it will require and could take to finish the assignment. For example, when it comes to hiring a third-party company or service, the timing also depends on the abilities those organizations have in order to meet the needs of the project. It is necessary that the team is constantly reviewing and checking back to the suppliers to obtain status and review their jobs, in order to be certain that the job will be complete in the time that was established and agreed upon. It is important that the lead-time of the completion of the project is analyzed carefully, because most of the times when a short period is determined, the cost of the project can increase.

“If a project is giving more time, on the other hand, work might consume fewer resources, resulting in lower cost. Costs generally increase, however, when the time giving to do the project is shortened. Close attention needs to be given to each of these areas for the very beginning of the project through its execution.” (Cobb, 2012, pg. 6)

Many different circumstances could affect the project that could require a change. Political and stockholder changes are things that need to be reviewed closely by the project manager, he or she needs to constantly review what are those new things and rules that become effective during the execution of the project, to understand what could affect and would require a change within the planning of the project.

Changes to the Project

           As the project manager, the first step to take if there was a requested change to scope, timeline or budget of the project would be to see if the situation can be resolved with corrective action that would not change the project plan or any of its components. If corrective action fails or is not an option, we will request that the change was submitted formally as a change order request that can be properly analyzed and reviewed. Upon completion of a thorough review of the change request and how it will affect the critical path, our project team will write a report making our recommendations for approval, modification or rejection of the request. This analysis will be completed in a timely manner and include a detailed quantification of the impact of the change on the project scope, budget, duration, etc. as detailed above. If our team is able to find a potential corrective action that would allow the situation to be resolved without a change to any major component of the project, then that proposal would be drafted and submitted with the team’s recommendations.

           Upon completion of the research and response stage discussed above, we will forward our analysis of the change request to the project sponsor with your recommendation for approval or rejection of the request. The sponsor is then responsible to decide whether to approve or reject the change order request and the consequences. If the response from the sponsor is not formally provided, the team will draft a memorandum that documents the new project plan, with goals and milestones and provides it to the sponsor to sign and to all stakeholders to ensure that all members of the team understand the way forward. Then you alter the team member assignments to reflect the changes. You follow these same steps for all change order requests. You should archive the change order request and all supporting documentation. This information is invaluable for handling future requests. (Stark, 2015).

Projects Success Based on Facilitation of Change

If as a project leader you make change management meaningful and real, by somehow connecting with what the project team cares about, like focusing on the ability of the project to deliver the intended results as well as the outcomes. Do this through better adoption and usage of the solution offered by employees, one finds that many project leaders and project team members have the same concern as the delivery being on time and on budget. Change management shows that by successfully managing the people side of change, projects are more likely to be on schedule and on budget. To make change management more real to project teams, present change management in their terms as a credible, structured and intentional approach, guided by processes with concrete milestones and deliverables. The more rigorous and structured you make change management feel, the more support you gain from project teams. A project from beginning to the end needs the structure and rigidness of military type process. People often respond better to change when everyone moves together. It is often thought that change to a plan can be a negative thing, this is quite often inaccurate information. Change can sometimes help to facilitate a positive outcome for the project’s success. Take for example while building a small deck on the back of a house George purchased lumber from his local lumber store. After placing the order, he went home and started to lay out the plans he drew up ensuring that everything would be ready for the project start date 5 days from now. Just two days later George received a letter from his homeowner’s association stating that due to new regulations he would have to move his deck ten feet forward from the original location. George was upset by this letter but happy that he had not begun working on the actual deck yet. Once the final approval was in and the lumber was delivered George began the build. As the deck went up, he was pleasantly surprised that the ten-foot forward move put the deck closer to his swimming pool and provided him with the ability to add a covering from his backdoor to the pools changing area. So, in this case, the change provided more opportunity than the well-thought-out well-developed project scope had provided. Once as a project team and project leadership embrace the change and put in a regimented policy on how they are going to handle change makes everything flow smoother.

In conclusion, change can occur at any time for any reason. Weather delays could occur, unplanned changes in staff or finances could also occur. Change doesn’t implicate a negative impact, in fact, change often establishes a positive shift. The need for the identification of change is imperative. Leaders should be abreast of all the minor and major operations on a daily basis in order for their response to be prompt and effective. Consistent levels of communication are also necessary to make necessary adjustments. While change is often not anticipated, it can often end with unforeseen success.

References

Cobb, A.T. (2012). Leading project teams: The basics of project management and team.

leadership (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Sage Publications. 

Stark, J. (2015). Product lifecycle management. In Product lifecycle management (Volume 1)

(pp. 1-29). Springer, Cham.