Project Operations and Supply Chain Management - Assignment Example

Project Management Student’s Name Institution Comparison between the agile project management approach and the more traditional project management approach Agile project management approach refers to the management approach whereby there is room for changes and the whole process is made flexible. This methodology is based on a management that embraces interactions and incremental processes depending on the upcoming technological changes in the area where the project is based upon. The methodology focuses on individual and interactions within the processes as well as the tools that are used in delivering the required results. It also focuses on customer collaboration over the period for the contract negotiations and responding to changes while honouring the set plan. (Cunha & Sousa 2010) There are various types of agile project management methodologies such as the scrum, Extreme Programming (XP) and the DSDM among others. However, all these methodologies have common characteristics that make them different from the traditional waterfall methods in project management. These principles are the ones that make these approaches are referred to as the agile methodology. The approach involves active user involvement. This is because in agile project management approach there is room for making changes during the implementation process as well as any other stage of accomplishing the project. Active user involvement is very imperative in this approach since it makes it possible for the project managers to come up with the best results possible depending on the current technology and the information as well. (Cervone 2011) Agile approach ensures that the team that is involved in the project management has the power to make decisions. This principle ensures that every team member is involved in decision making so that there will be no autonomy of decision making in the project implementation or evaluation. This also gives the team members a sense of ownership to the product as well as responsibility on what is delivered. The team must establish and clarify the requirements together, prioritize them together, agree to the tasks required to deliver them together, and estimate the effort involved together. Another agile principle is that timescale is always fixed although the requirements can evolve depending on the project management team’s decision. This is a total contrast from the traditional development project where one of the goals requires that all known requirements and baseline the scope so that any other differences in the project or any other changes would be subject to change control. Traditionally it has been believed that it is very costly to change or add more requirements during or after the implementation software is created. They argue that once the first phase is over and a given percentage of benefits have been realised it is quite difficult to introduce other changes to the users. They add that even if the requirements are analysed very carefully and prioritised, it is impossible to think of everything, things change, and things are understood differently by different people. Agile development works on a completely different premise. Agile Development on the other hand works on the premise that requirements emerge and evolve, and that however much analysis and design you do, this will always be the case because you cannot really know for sure what you want until you see and use the software. And in the time you would have spent analyzing and reviewing requirements and designing a solution, external conditions could also have changed. This is why the agile project management approach works on the fact that it is possible to take into considerations various requirements during and after the software development while still within the timescale. (Zhu & Fukushima 2009) In the traditional waterfall project management, the project manager has all the powers to balance the project scope, quality, cost, personnel, and risk and adapt as requirements change. Unlike in the agile approach case, the project manager in the traditional approach is highly burdened with tasks and responsibilities. This makes the traditional approach of project management unsuitable for such a project as this which involves different stakeholders with varying priorities. The main points or principles of the agile methodology that makes it be preferred to the tradition methodology are as outlined below;- First in agile, the owner of the product sets the project goals, handles the tradeoff of schedule versus the scope, adapts to the changes resulting from the project requirements and sets the priorities for he product features among others. Secondly the Scrum Master, which is a component of the agile, provides the project team with guidelines on how to prioritize their tasks as well as do away with any impediments as far as handling of those tasks is concerned. Finally under the agile methodology, every team member of the project management is allowed to directly handle most of the task assignment, day to day detail management as well as the reporting progressively and checking on the quality of the product being created. This gives each of the members a sense of ownership to the product that will be created. (Rummler & Brache 2012) Importance of effective and efficient project management practices When the project is effectively managed it enables the managers to have an easy time when it comes to its implementation as well as its evaluation processes. For instance if all requirements are considered during the various project management phases it becomes easy to incorporate any upcoming technology or new trend in the economy or the project lifecycle. A project may be considered efficient and effective if it is able to meet the main aims of the speculated plan. Among the determinants of an effective project management is where the resources are well utilized, risks are well taken care of and communication about the project implementation time and other plans are well considered among others. For example in this case the launching of a new phone handset will be determined first by the available resources and how well the resources will be utilized. Secondly the various stakeholders will also be of great importance for the attainment of the required results. This is because the stakeholders will determine the effectiveness of the product that will be produced. (Lee & Yong 2010) On the other hand having stakeholders with different interests is also both a challenge and an advantage. This will be determined by the manner in which the stakeholders will be handles during the execution of the plan. For example in this case the launching of the new handset is under a serious threat as far as competition is concerned. Therefore, there is a need to skilfully and carefully involve all the stakeholders present so as to ensure that each brings out his or her expertise in building or creating this new product. The project managers should handle each of these stakeholders wisely so that all of them will feel a sense of belonging in the creation of the new phone handset. This will help in ensuring that all of them own up the product even during the times of challenges. (Wysocki 2011) In order to manage this team of stakeholders whose priorities differ in one way or the other, the project manager should evaluate the strength of each of them so as to place them in the areas where they can fit well and be effective. For example the marketing team should be allowed to come up with the marketing design as well as give insights on the various features of the handset that seem to win the consumers’ interest and desires. To resolve their issues the project manager should ensure that the team has a common goal to achieve as far as the project is concerned. The technical team on the other hand should be alerted on the complexity of the product that is to be released into the market so that they come up with a design that will be able to cope with the competition. This will go a long way in building the confidence in the sales team (Ika 2009). Moreover, other stakeholders such as the electronic engineers, software engineers and mechanical engineers plus the manufacturing engineers who will make sure the final design is suitable for large scale manufacture, will also be consulted so that they will also participate the creation of the product (Kerzner 2013). Due to the limited marketing time for the product the suppliers will need to be involved at the outset so that all components, materials, packaging and marketing materials are available to the specification, quantities and timescales required. Project plan Activity Description Precede activities Duration in weeks A Formation of the project management team A-B 5 B Gathering of the required resources A-C 3 C Handset design decision B-D 2 D Decide how complex the designed handset will be B-E 3 E Development of the handset C-E 3 F Assess the marketability of the handset D-F 3 E-F 6 Calculating the Slack Values Activity Early start time (ES) Early finish time (EF) Late start time (LS) Late finish time (LF) Slacks(LS-LF) A-B 0 0 + 5 = 5 5 – 5 = 0 5 0 – 0 =0 A-C 0 0 + 3 = 3 5 – 3 = 2 5 2 – 0 = 2 B-D 5 5 + 2 =7 11 – 2 = 9 11 9 – 5 = 4 B-E 5 5 + 3 = 8 8 – 3 = 5 8 5 – 5 = 0 C-E 3 3 + 3 =6 8 – 3 = 5 8 5 – 3 = 2 D-F 7 7 + 3 = 10 14 – 3 = 11 14 11 – 7 = 4 E-F 8 8+ 6 = 14 14 – 6 = 8 14 8 – 8 = 0 Network diagram A - B - E - F = 14 weeks (This is the critical path) A – B – D - F =10 weeks A – C – E – F = 12 weeks Importance of robust risk management approach A robust approach to risk management enables the company to address and improve the quality of the product in a continuous or a proactive manner since the approach allows the project managers to be sensitive to any uncertainty that is likely to accrue during the project lifecycle. Dealing with risks helps in minimising the impact of the project threats while seizing the opportunities that may occur. This also allows the project managers to deliver their projects on time, within the budget and with the quality that was demanded by the project sponsors. The rest of the project team members are also happy because they do not fall into fighting with failures that would have been prevented. In order to be ready for any eventuality within the project, a contingency plan is put in place to ensure that any exceptional risk is catered for. In this case launching a new handset in the market it may be faced by several exceptional risk which if not put into consideration may end up making it difficult for the firm to reap the benefits of the project (Andersen & Grude 2009). For example if the phone handset is found to be very delicate or friable due to the materials used to make it for example the android materials, a contingency plan would be to make a pocket for the handset that is able to absorb a shock in case it falls on the floor. Although it may not be possible to identify every risk that is likely to accrue once the product is ready for use, it is advisable to identify those risks that are likely to cost the company a lot of its resources and develop measures to prevent them. Some of the main issues of concern in developing this new phone handset as far as the risks are concerned include fire control mechanisms as well as electricity related catastrophes. In order to prevent such occurrences the phone company can devise strategies such as coming up with a fire execution plan or a putting in place a team of emergency coordinators responsible for dealing with such eventualities. (Highsmith 2009) References Andersen, E, S, & Grude, K, 2009: ‘Goal directed project management: effective techniques and strategies,’ Kogan Page Publishers. Cervone, H, F, 2011: ‘Understanding agile project management methods using Scrum OCLC Systems & Services,’ vol. 271, pp. 18-22. Cunha, M, D, C, & Sousa, J, J, D, O, 2010: ‘Robust design of water distribution networks for a proactive risk management,’ Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, vol. 1362, pp. 227-236. Highsmith, J, 2009: ‘Agile project management: creating innovative products,’ Pearson Education. Ika, L, A, 2009: ‘Project success as a topic in project management journals,’ Project Management Journal, vol. 404, pp. 6-19. Kerzner, H, R, 2013: ‘Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling,’ John Wiley & Sons. Lee, S, & Yong, H, S, 2010: ‘Distributed agile: project management in a global environment,’ Empirical software engineering, vol. 152, pp. 204-217. Rummler, G, A, & Brache, A, P, 2012: ‘Improving performance: How to manage the white space on the organization chart’ John Wiley & Sons. Wysocki, R, K, 2011: ‘Effective project management: traditional, agile, extreme,’ John Wiley & Sons. Zhu, S, & Fukushima, M, 2009: ‘Worst-case conditional value-at-risk with application to robust portfolio management,’ Operations research, vol. 575, pp. 1155-1168. Read More