Question

This week's set of questions will pull together many of the concepts covered throughout the course. As with your previous case study assignments, you are expected to exercise good observation and thorough critical thinking skills. You are also expected to use good writing skills, with good grammar and spelling. You should prepare your answers in Microsoft Word.

Be sure to submit your completed assignment.

Questions:

Will project management work in all companies? Why or why not? Provide examples of companies or industries to support your answer.

Consider a project in which all project planning is performed by a group. After all planning is completed, including the program plan and schedule, a project manager is selected. Is there anything wrong with this arrangement?

The director of project management calls you into his office and informs you that one of your fellow project managers had a severe heart attack midway through a project. You will be taking over his project, which is well behind schedule and overrunning costs. The director of project management then "orders" you to complete the project within time and cost. How do you propose to do it? Where do you start? Should you shut down the project to re-plan it?

Do cost overruns just happen, or are they caused?

Once the functional manager and project manager agree on a project schedule, who is responsible for getting the work performed? Who is accountable for getting the work performed? Why the difference, if any?

Answer 1

Please find the answers below:-

1) Project Management is basically an application of processes, methods, techniques and knowledge to achieve specific goal in a specific time frame within the given costs. So project management will work in all companies so as to achieve our goals (big or small) in a planned way. All the big companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Volkswagen, Tata as well as small companies have different project managers working on different projects.

For example:-

a) A set of android developers working for google are working in a group under a project manager who is responsible for bug free and timely release of android version.  

b) A big group of designers, testing personnel, supply chain people are working in a manufacturing industry to release the new product which should be defect free, readily available and most importantly within the budget for the targeted audience.

2) According to me, this arrangement of hiring product manager after the planning stage is entirely wrong. A product manager should be the first person hired/chosen for a new project. He should choose his team based on the requirements of the project. He plays the most important role i.e. to assign responsibilities and setting up of project plan. The lead time for any project depends majorly on the project manager who can make his team work in the most efficient way as he knows what the group is capable of doing and the actual time required to do the same.

3) If I am taking over an existing incomplete project from somebody, the first thing I would like to see the feasibility study during the starting/planning phase. Secondly the plan vs actual for the project work has to be studied. If everything is good then we go to next phase or analysis has to be done where and why the project plan failed and take corrective actions so that those are not repeated again. The above steps have to be checked with respect to schedule and the costs incurred till now. If none of the work has been completed on time and the costs incurred are very high, then we need to re-run/shutdown the project else we can do some minor corrections and start working on the existing plan or make a different plan not hampering the schedule.

4) Yes Cost overruns happen in normal business. It is the situation when cost exceeds the budget cost. It may occur due to many reasons.

a) Poor cost estimates of a project.

b) Poor project management skills.

c) Non - Feasible Project Management plan.

5) Project Manager is actually responsible for getting the work performed on the given deadlines with the specified cost and Functional Manager is accountable for the work which is done by his team. Both responsibilities are very critical and go hand in hand for getting the work done correctly on time.