Development Of Strategic Project Management Management Essay

In the past project management was considered tactical to facilitate the running of individual projects such as constration of new plant, installation of new software/hardware but it did not enavble organizations to grow over time by achieving strategic objectives such as entering into new markete, new product increasing markete/shareholder share etc.

Grundy and Brown mention that it is reasonable for the organizations to combine project management and strategic management into a process that they call strategic project management.

Link from strategy to project management

-it is a process influence by internal & external change

-orginasation vision give rise ideas of strategic breatkthroughs

-this lead to the establishment of strategic progrrame , then strategic projects.

the Standish Groups Research Report, Resolution of Projects, 20 May 2005, www.standishgroup.com/sample_research/PDFpages/q3-spotlight.pd

ACCORDING to the report

Roughly 70% of projects were failed

40% end users complained problems

50% projects were rolled back and discontinued

40% projects were reworked as a result wastage of financial resources

The rout cause of the failure of these projects was

1-business requirement was not understand properly in strategic point of view

2-There was no connection between strategy and projects.

Organizations must

-Explain where they want to be [future]

-identify problems and define which project/program requires to correct them such as cost reduction, staff reduction, getting to market faster.

-Identify its internal/externial resources both human and financial

-Manage change management initiative effectively by motivating employess to move into goal congrance along with organisation

-Perform project portfolio management in order to identify which project will add value in strategy

-Monitoring and managing investments in projects in terms of strategy, ROI,and NPV

Project Portfolio Management (PPM)

According to Callahan & Brooks (2004) PPM is “the use of the appropriate management knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to maximize the alignment of the company’s project portfolio”

Principles of PPM

So PPM is a technique for selecting those projects that are well align and contribute to strategy

Select those projects that support business strategy

Optimize projects and resources to make sure maximum return to company

-use accouting tecquotes in order to quantify benefits such as ROI, NPV

Perform risk management

Portfolio managers must monitor planned and actual performance in terms of time, budged/scope and quality and then report to portfolio management.

in order to align with strategy portfoloio management keep itself inform/update of any strategic change and those components which no longer support of company strategy might be discontinued.

Today

PPM is becoming popular in modern business and the markete for project portfolio management software is growing fastally and offering these tools

=Support whole project life cycle

Resourceallocation,wbs,charts

Detail project planning

Gartner research

The main reason of success is that portfolio managers combine strategy and it,s project rather than traditional tactically focused projects.

Environmental change forces and strategic project

1-PESTEL

2-PORTER 5 FORCES

Business environments usually change and organizations adopt the change into their strategies and this new development constitutes a project.

Strategic planning: some strategis are developed in incremental way and project management is way of making ad hoc strategy more deliberate and as a result better considered.

Strategic implementation: pm play important role in this stage of strategy so it must be able to handle complex, ambiguous and political issues and ensure it support overall strategy

A wider strategic awareness is necessary in all members of pm[ manager] as what organization actually needs.

Excellency in Project Management [ core competence ] (PMMM)

Kerzner suggests that where PM is core competence, a continous improvement approach should be taken to developing and consolidating the methodology.

Organizations has always been seeking ways to achieve excellency in PM and continusally adopted different methologies and supportive culture.

Kerzner describes a five level project management maturity model (PMMM) of continuous organizational improvement which provide guidance to the organizations in order to achieve excellency in PM methology.

Level 1 – Common Knowledge

The importance of PM to the organization is understood and basic training and technique is provided

Level 2 – Common Processes

Successfully implemented process are standardized and PM principles are recognosed and can be used for future projects and support other methodology such as TQM

Level 3 – Singular Methodology

Organization combine all coporate methologies into a singular metholodgy and recognize synergic effect and PM is placed at the centre of single corporate methology.

Level 4 – Benchmarking

In order to achieve competitive advantage based on process improvement organizations continually undertake benchmarking

Level 5 – Continuous Improvement

Information achieved through benchmarking can be use to make improvement of the singular methodology

This model is particularly used in corporate training and career development routes for project managers

Effect of Human Resource Management on Strategic Project Management

HRM are strategic asset and core competence of the organizations

The efficient HRM management of and integration with organisational goal is crucial for strategic success, as, for example, noted Gary Hamel , managing the various technologies and knowledge and learning became the foundation the core competence and competitive advantage of company for producing products or services.

The objective of resource management to ensure the right people and the skills necessary to implement certain projects. Besides using different operating personnel requirements of the functional department of company, every organization also use its functional HR force for selected for projects as well .. Due to the increasing costs of human resources in today’s economy, it is expected that this trend as multitasking will continue.

According to the observation of Turner and Muller (2005) impact of HRM such as competency of project manager and leadership style was ignored in the past have direct impact on organizational capability to implement its strategy.

SPM recognizes the leadership and management skills are rare, with an emphasis on business, and very valuable. Therefore, it is their expertise which leads to tacit knowledge which is the important factors for sustainable competitive advantage.

PROJECT MANAGER

It is likely that project manager will be appointed by and be responsible to a higher level of management who manage project.

Skill required by PM

-knowledge of company strategy

-leadership and teambuilding

-organisational ability

-communication skills

-technical knoledge of project

-inter personnel skills

Leadership style

There is no single best leadership style due to different personality style of managers. However leadership style adopted will affect the way decisions relating to the project are made.

Although an autocrative [ more consultative style ]may prove successful in some situations because members of project feel more a part of the project.

Efficient skills of Project Leaders

Long experience in managing projects and dealing with the problems it faces, allowing them to see through complexity and get to the heart of the matter.

. A desire to get things done, to accomplish something and make a contribution.

vi. Have Excellent political and diplomatic skills

iii. The ability to see through the eyes of others and empathize with others, and that the contribution tolerate underperformance or bad team

ix. Win loyalty of others, charisma courage, and empathy with people please .

Gap Analysis

Gap analysis is widely used in business strategy to target the gap between the expected future strategic performance and likely future performance. It may be in a similar way in project selection and definition as a way to create what both projects should be found out and what their scope should be.

Research philosophy and approach

the researcher focuses on gradually finding out his research conclusion by applying critical interpretations methods.

The literature describes two different approaches that can be applied in this thesis – deductive and inductive. A deductive approach to research is believed to scientific research, the researcher developed a hypothesis tested and examined to determine a suitable theory.

the researcher will gradually formulate the theory [ strategic project management ] by applying Exploratory Research and critical evaluation of research variables and followed inductive research approach , which offer more flexibility and opportunity for the researchers to research topics

Research Strategy

Researcher adopted appropriate research strategy such as inductive and distcriptive research and used secondary research methods.The researcher used up-to-date historical research approach and get evidence through case study evidence and electronically research report of companies relate to Software and Construction /Engeerning industry for example Standish Groups Third Quarter Research Report 2005 states

Roughly 70% of projects were failed and the rout cause of the failure of these projects was

There was no connection between strategy and projects.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This section is divided into five categories ,which explain the research process of each category in detail.

Research methods

This research sought data collection using the multi-method, or combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. Basically, the quantitative approach is used facts and continues where researchers wish to acquire the statistical truth.

Information about the Topic/industry is gathered mainly by secondary sources and script analysis.

Secondary sources which I used include Text books, websites [ such as Gartner research & Standish Groups ], analysie the work done by some researchers on Institute of Project Management in Dublin [importance of HRM in SPM ] . online surveys, newspapers, journals/articles ,research reports , media and personal experiences.

I did not use primary source because my chosen topic [ SPM] cover the many huge compines who operate in different sectors so this was difficult to get primary information of eatch company.

Ethics will be taken in to consideration while gathering information and if any issues arise, they would be disclosed and resolved.

Research out come

In general, following findings have been obtained from research report.

Some individual projects are considered tactical but organisational project management [ manage projects in alignment with strategic objectives ] are strategic advantage for the company.

SPM and PPM provide great advantage to the organisation which help to identify those projects which add value.

There are great advantages for an organization to review its PM function and upgrade and operate into SPM practices involved in the selection of projects.

The concept of Organizational Project Management based on the sense that a relationship exists between the organizational skills in project management, program management and portfolio management and efficiency in implementing the strategy.

Importance of the human factor in SPM as they help to achieve common strategic goal of organization such as project completion on time, within cost and to the quality laid down in the initial specification

Industory backround

I have chosen software and construction/engeerning industries for undertaking my research report such as gartner research and Standish Groups Research Report.

According to these reports there shoud be a link between PM, PPM and Strategy for overall success.

I analysed the wordk done by some researchers on Institute of Project Management in Dublin who found , how organisations transfers their project management capabilities into a strategic asset?

LIMITATIONS

Research shows there are many Organizations that ignored the important fact or alignment projects with corporate strategy.

Primary source was ignored so not all research report is reliable

Due to short time period I couldn’t prepare a perfect research report at high quality

I didn’t choose one specific industry and my research methods also limited to some companies.

Conclusion

In fact, senior leadership management should participate in defining the selection and prioritization of projects and all projects should have measurable targets development of guidelines for organizations “to ensure alignment with the strategic vision of the organization.

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REFEREBCES

Callahan & Brooks (2004)

Standard for Portfolio Management