Project Controls Support to Project Management, Essay Example

Executive Summary

We have discussed a complete project management life cycle starting from the project charter, to the project completion. We have discussed different technicalities and different aspects of Information Technology Project Management within the organization. Moreover, we have thoroughly discussed the role of project manager and his responsibilities leading towards a successful project completion. Furthermore, we have also debated on critical and major stakeholders, who are the ultimate discussion makers of implementing, maintain, communicating and improving the change within the organization.

Project Charter

A project charter focuses on the objective statements for the project that need to be initiated. Likewise, the charter also discusses comprehensive goals of the project along with responsibilities and roles that are identified against each stakeholder. Moreover, the authority level of the project manager is also defined in the charter. This document facilitates and works as a guide for projects that may come in the future (Lock, 2007) and provide assistance for critical assets within the organization’s information systems. Moreover, it is a small document consisting of request for proposals and new offer requests. Its importance also reflects in the project management process, as it is required by Initiatives for Policy Development (IPD) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). The role of this document also incorporates the following activities within the project management process:

• Valid motives for commissioning the project
• Highlights the objectives and limitations that can be occurred within the project
• Identification of major stakeholders of the project

Project Scope Management Plan

The project scope management is essential for defining the exact amount of man hours required for the completion of the project. Likewise, this incorporates the management of project scope and product scope as well. The document outlines the processes that will be utilized for managing the project scope. Moreover, the scope document also guide the project team for defining the project scope, project documentation, project verification and how it will be managed by the project team (El-Mehalawi, 2014). The components of the project scope document are:

Scope Definition – A project management process for preparing project scope statement in detail that is based on initial scope statement of the project

Creation of Work breakdown Structure WBS – It is a process that will facilitate the project manager for approvals and maintenance of a WBS. The senior management involvement is required for approving WBS document.

Verifying the Scope – Project manager will define the process of how to formally verify and get acceptance for the completed project

Controlling the Scope – A process needs to be defined for recording and controlling the changes that are occurring at this level, as the changes are directly proportional to the change management process of the organization.

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

For a project to be initiated by a project manager and major stakeholders, the identification of major deliverables is vital, as it serves to be a starting point, as it is defined by WBS. After the completion of this step, the high level objectives are then broken down into sub tasks. One high level objective can have many sub tasks. Generally, there are predefined rules that are utilized to determine sub tasks. This concludes the sub tasks that are small with a two week completion time. Moreover, 8/80 rule can also be utilized for establishing a WBS. Likewise, this rule is applicable on tasks that do not have duration smaller than 8 hours of time duration and cannot be more than 80 hours of time duration.

Communication Management Plan

Effective communication management is critical in an organization in terms of leading a project. This can be achieved by effective mechanism in place, as it may facilitate organizational business objectives. Likewise, the mechanism incorporates a systematic planning that will deploy and monitor communication and content management channels. Being a project manager within the organization, risk based and contingency based strategy in terms of deploying the communication mechanism. The critical factors that need consideration of a project manager within the organization are:

The Five W’s within the communication mechanism that are critical and needs to be catered by a project manager.

• The identification of critical project information
• To whom the information needs to be communication and what type of information needs to be communicated
• The time duration for information?
• The identification of the required information format
• The identification of main players who will be accountable for collated information transmission

Project Risk and Change Management

Project Manager will incorporate the following stages within an organization’s primary change management process (Krane, Olsson, & Rolstadås, 2012):

Urgent Creation

The project manager needs to satisfy the organization for implementing emergency changes and why the change is required and what are the benefits of implementing this change as an emergency change.

Team Building

Team building is necessary for taking the change advisory board in confidence for ruling the decision in the favor of the project management to implement the change. The project manager can implement the change from the team that is supporting the change.

Build a Vision

The purpose of the change should be transparent to the relevant involved parties in order to take decisions.

Communicating Vision

The clear and transparent vision needs to be communicated to relevant stakeholders and cross the organization

Mitigating Constraints

Humans always resist the change by nature. An approved process document can certainly enforce the change to the organization functions. The process document approval decision will be made by the change advisory board that may involve all the relevant stakeholders.

For managing IT project risks, a comprehensive risk management plan should be developed to identify current and probable risks that need mitigation. Likewise, IT project risks needs to be identified by the project manager and the risk owner needs to be defined. However, before defining risks, asset register is required for getting asset value. If there are risks associated with IT security, asset calculation should be made with Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability.

Quality Management Plan

Information Technology project specialist consider Quality assurance is the key factor as this ensures security for any organization. Moreover, in the previous years it is seen that the projects are not meeting the given timeline and the work is getting affected due to the late submissions. In fact, improvement is witnessed in recent years. The companies and facility providers are making all the necessary measures to ensure on time delivery of products and to maintain service quality. The companies are utilizing innovative techniques in order to continue and improve their services quality. There are two techniques that are frequently used by the companies i.e. quality control and quality assurance. Moreover, by utilizing these two techniques the service providers are making sure to deliver projects on time without compromising on the quality. However, the organizations are still using different types of techniques to maintain their quality of work. The other techniques include Total Quality Management (TQM) that provides same level of benefit to the organization. In addition, companies also follow internal and external standards that are also used for same purpose. These standards are required to maintain the functions of organization and to provide better services for the procedures and products used by the company.

Project Closure Plan

Initially, the meeting is set to discuss the project closure activities after convincing the clients, principle stakeholder and Project Promoter. The stakeholders are allowed to revise the end-user activities and approval is submitted to the project team. After completion of this initial step the project team now prepares the project and delivers the project goals in order to satisfy the clients. Hence, the project reaches its final stage and is delivered on time. However, the project accomplishment is announced after the “clean-up” activity is completed. The following points must be considered in order to achieve a successful project:

• The “Project Punchlist” is generated and all the unresolved matters are added into it.
• An agreement is received by the clients and project promoter after completion of first step.
• The project is now started and all the matters including financial and legal terms are considered. This is done to ensure the success of the project.
• A budget is made to list down the final accountings related to the project and is implemented on the “punch-list”.
• An Ultimate Project Report is arranged stating all the aspects related to success and failure of the project.

Conclusion

The project Management life cycle is essential for the business, as the project based approach is directly proportional to the business objectives of the organization. All the different phases of the project management life cycle comprises of own value leading towards the successful project completion. The importance of a project manager has vital importance as he plays a key role in deploying project management life cycles within the organizations.

References

El-Mehalawi, M. (2014). Project controls support to project management. AACE International Transactions, , 1-16.

Krane, H. P., Olsson, N. O. E., & Rolstadås, A. (2012). How project manager-project owner interaction can work within and influence project risk management. Project Management Journal, 43(2), 54-67. doi:10.1002/pmj.20284

Lock, D. (2007). Project management [electronic resource] / dennis lock Aldershot, England ; Burlington, VT : Gower, c2007; 9th ed.