PRINCE Project Management Methodology, Project Success and Failure - Assignment Example

PROJECT MANAGEMENT ASSESSMENT Name Institutional Affiliation Date Part 1 PRINCE 2: Summary of Management Methodology Projects that are established in controlled environments are commonly known, as the PRINCE. Gray & Larson (2008) observe that UK is one of the countries that highly employ the PRINCE project management methodology. The second version of the prince is PRINCE 2. The elements that govern PRINCE include the following; Business justification Product –based approach Project flexibility Structure for a project management team Division of the project into controllable stages In addition to that, PRINCE 2 method is driven through a process and organized into other eight stages which are further grouped into 45-processes. Some of the processes include; beginning the project, drawing a plan, initiating the project, directing a project, controlling, managing the delivery of the project, managing stage boundaries and closing a project. At the beginning of a project, a team for the project is planed, and the original plan is initialized. This is then followed by the project set up and coming up with practical and achievable objectives that have a clear definition. These objectives are to ensure stable management of the project and optimum utilization and management of resources. The board of this project is expected to oversee the management and run the project throughout the period. At the level of control, the project is monitored and controlled as outlined in the schedule. The deliverables must be measured. The board running the project is then advised whether to proceed with the project or explore other options. At the end of the project, the board will access the deliveries and establish whether the objectives have been met. There are issues which are addressed in the PRINCE 2 and some of them include; the organization, analysis of business case and stakeholders, quality management, risk management, planning and control (Phillips 2006). By analyzing the business case and stakeholders view gives a clear picture of whether the management is committed to the project. It is, therefore, expected that the business show customer assurance of practical and realizable objectives and the general cost of the project. Once this is done, the structure is then established. The structure must be formal and should clearly show the role and responsibility of everyone involved in the project. In PRINCE 2, a project manager is the person given the mandate to oversee the day to day running of the project and is expected to produce measurable results. The success of the project inherently depends on how the personnel involved employ their technical expertise and experience in business in the evaluation and control of the risks involved. The anticipated risks must be clearly defined and proper strategy put in place to minimize the impact of the same. Better still, its helps the project to avoid risky ventures that may harm the business. The risk record helps the project to evaluate its ability to mitigate the challenges caused by the risks anticipated (Project Management Institute 2008). PRINCE 2 appreciates the importance of meeting the outlined objectives for the project. Some of the key quality elements that it helps the project achieve include the ISO 9000 certification, quality control assurance, that will ensure all the objectives are met. PRINCE 2 also emphasizes the need to plan the project. The relevant team in a given level of the project must approve the plan. For greater success, PRINCE 2 methods ensure that there is proper planning in order for the deliverables to be met in good time and for optimum utilization of resources at minimum cost. The management of risk is crucial to project management (Bentley 2009). Risk is the uncertainty of the expected outcome. The key objective of managing risk is to be in a position to handle challenges that come when exposed to the risk itself. The board, therefore, must invest heavily in risk evaluation, management, and mitigation. They must assess the impact of the risk and prepare to mitigate it when it beckons. Other ways of managing risks include tolerance to the risk. Risk tolerance will entirely depend on other factors such as the cost of production, the quality of the project and the scope of the project. Risk responsibility should also be factored in. For example, the board manager is tasked with the responsibility of warning the project manager of the anticipated risks and the new risks that are emerging in the sector. PRINCE 2 documents how the project is supposed to start, and come up with standards that will guide the implementation of the project, the order, and sequence of flow of activities throughout the project. This helps to partition the project into simple and easier divisions for purposes of monitoring and evaluating the project (Turner 1995). The evaluation will look at the cost, time and the quality of the project deliverables as part of the key parameters. This helps the board to take a corrective measure where appropriate and decide to add more resources when need arises. PRINCE 2 COMPARED TO PMBOK PRINCE 2 is more on the life cycle of the project. The processes with run from the start to the end of the project total to about six out of eight processes. Planning and directing the project is always a continuous process and support all the other six processes. Besides which, PRINCE 2 describes in detail the three technique that deals with the planning of the product, quality review and the changing of controls. It has a narrative that has bulletins; makes it easier to follow. Presence of diagrams and hints also simplifies the process. Part 2 PMBOK PMBOK is subdivided into twelve chapters and it explains the functions of key processes with appropriate and clear examples of the processes involved in the management of the project. The narrative gives descriptions in the form of inputs, outputs, tools, and techniques required to run the project to its completion (Snyder 2010). PMBOK emphasizes that the application of the stages is compulsory and it gives room to changing of the number of stages depending on what the boar need. Further, it gives a logical flow of the project phase .it fails to separate phases from stages. The other clear distinction between PRINCE 2 and PMBOK is in the definition of project managers. PRINCE 2 looks at the project manger as that person tasked with the responsibility to oversee the running of the project from its inception to completion. He is expected to deliver the deliverables as agreed with the board. Nevertheless, PMBOK states that a project manager is that person managing a given project. It fails to give an in depth definition (Snyder 2010). PMBOK explore the management practices and even encourages the project manager to practice some of the suggested techniques. Contrastingly, PRINCE 2 is more prescriptive on what the project manager must practice. PMBOK gives the project manager to learn what he can while PRINCE 2 educates the project manager on the processes involved in project management. More importantly, both PRINCE 2 and PMBOK are important in the management of any project. They are considered as powerful tools of management and project managers are encouraged to employ both of them (Great Britain 2005). A number of merits can be drawn by using PMBOK methods. Some of which include the fact that it is teachable and can be practiced hence it builds experience. This enables a person to plan and know what to expect in the course of the project. PMBOK also gives a clear and important framework for the management of the project. Most of the processes in PMBOK are unique and are not in other processes like PMBOK. It is an improvement being a second version. PMBOK, however, is not without shortcomings. It involves a lot of documentation and it is difficult to work with smaller projects. Being a purely implementation strategy, it does not give a detailed requirement analysis. Part 3 Project Success and Failure: A Case of Engineering Management Project We will look into managing several building projects running concurrently. We will analyze f actors leading to successful or failure running of the project. In general, complexity and lack of routine define a project. While striving to match the customer expectations and under pressure, performance specifications, time, budget and resources are the only areas you may get to consider. Effective use of required tools, techniques and knowledge on project management leads to a successfully completed task. However, project failure is also possible when they are not properly executed (Saladis & Kerzner 2013). The factors that define success or failure of a project is a controversial issue. However, measurable economic outcomes determine a large percentage of project viability. Objectives bring out the expectations from a project. Therefore, a project is termed as successful when most targets are reached by meeting specific objectives. A project will be cancelled and marked a failure project if none of its objectives and goals is met. However, this failure is not always total but can also be partial. On the other side, if the output of a project is desirable an all parties are comfortable with it; such a project is termed successful. This is a workable project in which the right skills are placed on the real project. There are several factors that determine the environment of a project. Where the project is place d in terms of construction, interests of stakeholders as influenced by politics or intention conflicts, timeline and cost of the project and quantity and quality of a project define its environment. Chapman & Ward (2001) expressed the fact that although not all projects end timely, some of them are completed successfully. However, some are cancelled as others exceed the set budget. Project failure may be attributed to insufficient involvement of the user, lack of enough resources, poor planning and inaccuracy in estimation of project costs and incomplete requirements and objectives. On the contrary, a successful project consists of a focused group that is hard working, properly aligned plans, enough expertise, involves the user, executive management support, clearly stated objectives, realistic expectations and clearly stated project goals and vision statement. Project milestones should be sub divided to reduce complexity experienced when handling large chunks of work. The success of a project is partially determined by the following four factors: a) Involving the user For a building to be constructed successfully, the user should be brought in to play even when resources are not sufficient. This is because are the people who give feedback on how they want it done and where it is incorrectly placed. Based on this feedback, project follow up can be conducted. b) Executive management support All processing and progress of a project is highly under management influence. This is because managers are the people that co drive a project. Without good management, a project will be severely disadvantaged and this may ultimately lead to its failure. Managers in executive positioned are experienced expertise in this field but must also be passionate and well equipped with standard management tools and proper planning. c) Developing proper plans Proper planning unlocks the project success. A plan should be developed on the series on activities to be undertaken and the order in which they are completed. d) List of requirements Individual phases in a project will have their requirements that must be timely met. However, the basic project requirements should be defined as measurable, attainable, realistic, clear, minimal and easily obtained (Kathy 2010). When defining a project’s requirements, scheduling techniques such as backward or forward can be used. For smooth running of activities, the developed requirement list must be enough and allocation should cater for individual departmental needs. Project failure on the other hand can be attributed to the following factors a) Human resource Some people on the management dock have no management skills while others are not fully skilled because they lack knowledge on some key skills for management (Iyer 2004). On the other side, there are skilled managers who cannot put to practice what they have learnt on book while others are affected by poor communication skills. For successful project completion, managers should focus on continuous training of its staff to match the current standards and be up to date with the ever advancing technology. This is because if the staff is not competent enough, project completion time is longer and quality of work is compromised. When work does not match he expected standard, it may be cancelled or be redone leading to wastage of resources and spending more time on it. Team work is a very essential tool. Therefore, staff absenteeism should be minimized in order to ensure a project is completed within the set time. b) Estimation and planning considerations Main factors affecting initial and estimated project costs should be revised at every stage of the project and any recommended changes made. If these changes are not made, there may be under estimation of costs leading to collapse of the project. Coupled with this, plan specified during planning should follow their stated order of execution n and any negligence in this or not using the plan s at all will lead to failure of the particular project. c) Project implementation According to (Jason 2003), changes in the scope of a project, poor project methodology application and changes of the requirements for a project affect how the project will be implemented. It is clear therefore that if a project is poorly implemented, it fails. A project should be implemented within the budgeted or reasonable time because any deviation from its timeline leads to its automatic failure. For smooth successful project implementation therefore, sufficient inspections and viability tests need to be conducted before hand. Project challenges and lessons With knowledge of reasons why project succeed or fail, it is of importance that have an open framework for a project to be successful. We should be clear on the risks involved in executing a project, how to allocate these risks and understand clearly the objectives of the project. The executive management cannot be sidelined for a project to be successful just as the user opinion must be taken into consideration. Competent staff that is well suited for changing and uncertain project environment should form the team of motivated employees dedicated to achieving success. Project failure is a result of different factors some of which cannot be controlled. Ineffective organization procedure and practice is the key player in project management failure (Hinde 2012). Some laws of a country can cause an implementation issue while others support and enhance its smooth implementation. Complexity of a project can be viewed in terms of human resource, organization structure, technological advancements, social conflicts, contracting terms as well as political roles (Kathy 2010). Although the complexity of different projects is measured under different parameters, project complexity influences its implementation and consequently its success. References Chapman, C & Ward, S 2001, Project Management Handbook (2nd Edition).Van Nostrand Reinhold, USA. Gray, CF, & Larson, EW 2008, Project Management: The Managerial Process. 4th Edition, McGraw-Hill Educations, Singapore. Bentley, C. (2009). Managing small projects with PRINCE2. Waterlooville, Hants, England: C. Bentley. Great Britain. (2005). Managing successful projects with PRINCE2. London: TSO. Iyer, P. P. (2004). Engineering project management: With case studies. New Delhi: Vikas Pub. House. Jason, C 2003, Project Management Methodologies: Selecting, Implementing, &Supporting Methodologies & Processes for Projects, Wiley & Sons Inc, New Jersey. Kathy, S (2010). Information Technology Project Management, Course Technology Ltd, Boston. Hinde, D. (2012). PRINCE2 study guide. Chichester: Wiley. Phillips, J 2006, Project Management Professional Study Guide, 2nd Edition, McGraw Hill, California. Project Management Institute. (2008). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge: (PMBOK Guide) ; an American National Standard ANSI/PMI 99-001-2008. S.l.: Project Management Inst. Richman, L. L. L. L., & Richman, L. L. (2005). Successful project management: "Material in this course has been adapted from Project management step by step, by Larry Richman, copyright 2002"--T.p. verso. New York: American Management Association. Saladis, F. P., & Kerzner, H. R. (2013). Bringing the pmbok guide to life: A companion for the practicing project manager. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley. Snyder, C. (2010). A user's manual to the PMBOK guide. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley. Turner, JR 1995, The Commercial Project Manager, McGraw-Hill, London. Read More