Fall 2011

Master of Business Administration-MBA Semester 2 Project Management MB0049 - 4 Credits

Q.1

List and explain the traits if a professional manager.

Answer : The project manager is an important team member who often makes the difference between project success and failure. A project manager should have the skills to unite diverse individuals and have them function as one cohesive team. There are certain traits that enable a manager to be effective in his functioning. The top management will look for these in a person who they want to employ for project management. Let us discuss some of these traits in detail. a) Leadership: These managers lead by exhibiting the characteristics of leadership. They know what they should do, know why they are doing it, how to do it and have the courage and vision to execute it. They have the power of taking along others with them. They lead by making themselves as an example for the entire team. He is about to trust his team members and assign the right job to the right person. b) People Relationships: Any leader without followers cannot be successful. They need to have excellent human relationship skills. The manager should: build up his team based on the core values of sincerity, objectivity, dedication and ethics ensure that his subordinates get opportunities for growth based on performance make his subordinates a part of the decision making process, thus ensuring cooperation and commitment during implementation delegate freely and support them and give enough room for expression of thoughts and also make things challenging for team members keep aspirations of the team members into considerations c) Integrity: Highest levels of trust, fairness and honesty are expected while dealing with people both within and outside the organisation. This includes the customers, shareholders, dealers, employees, the government and society at large. They ensure that functioning is clean. Their transactions will be transparent. Ethics is something they practice diligently. d) Quality: The quality philosophy should not cover only the product quality, but every process that has gone into making it. Economy of words when instructions are given, acknowledging compliance, arriving on time, remembering the promises and above all a keen eye for details and patience to make others know what they want are components of quality. e) Customer Orientation: It is now recognized that every organization has two sets of customers internal customers and external customers. Internal customers are people in the organization employees, directors and team members. External customers are clients and all members of society the company comes in contact in connection with the business. f) Innovation and creativity: Professional managers think beyond the obvious. They exhibit a keenness to go behind a problem and attempt to find the root cause of the problem. They will draw from their experience from diverse fields, seek further information, consider all possible alternatives, and come out with some new and unique solution. This happens when they have open minds. g) Performance Management: The professional manager not only ensures that his performance is at peak all times, but motivates his entire team to perform the same. This comes by appreciation and encouragement. In case of shortfalls, he arranges training for them so that their performance improves. Thus the team members know that they are expected to perform, that they get help to do so and their effort is recognized and rewarded too. This is the simple path of performance management. Managers can follow a seven-step performance management model. Set Objectives/Performance Standards Communicate these to the employees

Fall 2011 Review/monitor Check actual performance Vs. Standards set Identify gaps Jointly decide on corrective action, if needed Reset objectives for next period h) Identification with the organisation: A sense of pride and belonging goes with the ownership of the job, the project, team members and organisation. This is brought about by the culture and communication system in the organisation. Information sharing brings in trust and promotes belongingness. The tendency seen is that most managers strongly identify with their own departments, units or divisions and they lack a sense of organisation i) Empowering employees: The professional manager should possess the ability to empower his employees down the line. Empowerment is the process by which employees are encouraged to take decisions pertaining to their area of work. This leads employees developing a sense of pride in their jobs. But managers often hesitate to empower their subordinates as they feel insecure and show a sense of uncertainty. The professional manager practices empowerment and encourages employees to grow and develop in their positions. j) Coping with changes: There is a saying The only constant in this world is change. A professional manager has the ability and capacity to cope with change. He accepts the fact that change is inevitable and is ready to implement change at the workplace. To implement change successfully, it is essential that employees are involved in the implementation of change. Moreover, the positive and negative consequences of change need to be discussed and understood before implementation. Thus a professional manager has the attitude to accept change as a way of life and takes it in his stride. Q.2 Describe in brief the various aspects of programme management? Ans Project Management Project management is the planning, organizing, directing, and controlling of company resources. It is clear from this definition that project management is concerned with the dynamic allocation, utilization, and direction of resources (both human and technical), with time in relation to both individual efforts and product delivery schedule and with costs, relating to both the acquisition and consumption of funding. As a corollary, it is safe to say that without the direction project management provides, work would have to proceed via a series of negotiations, and/or it would not align with the goals, value proposition, or needs of the enterprise. Within a program, these same responsibilities (i.e., allocation, utilization, and direction) are assigned to people at three levels in the management hierarchy; the higher the level, the more general the responsibilities. For example, at the bottom of the management hierarchy, project managers are assigned to the various projects within the overall program. Each manager carries out the management responsibilities we described above. At the middle of the hierarchy is the program manager/director, whose major responsibility is to ensure that the work effort achieves the outcome specified in the business and IT strategies. This involves setting and reviewing objectives, coordinating activities across projects, and overseeing the integration and reuse of interim work products and results. This person spends more time and effort on integration activities, negotiating changes in plans, and communicating than on the other project management activities we described (e.g., allocating resources, ensuring adherence to schedule, budget, etc.). At the top of the program management hierarchy are the program sponsor(s) and the program steering committee. Their major responsibility is to own and oversee the implementation of the programs underlying business and IT strategies, and to define the programs connection to the enterprises overall business plan(s) and direction. Their management activities include providing and interpreting policy, creating an environment that fosters sustainable momentum for the program (i.e., removing barriers both inside and outside the enterprise), and periodically reviewing program progress and interim results to ensure alignment with the overall strategic vision.

Fall 2011 These individuals receive periodic summary reports and briefings on funding consumption, resources and their utilization, and delivery of interim work products and results. Typically, they will focus on these reports only if there is significant deviation from the plan. So, lets return to the questions we posed at the start of this section: What is program management? Is it really management at all? If you think of management activities strictly as those we defined for project management, then the answer to the second question is No, or maybe Partly. At the project level, managers do still perform these activities, but the program manager/director addresses a different set of program goals or needs, which requires a different bag of tricks as well as a different view of what is happening and what needs to get done. And at the top of the hierarchy, the executive leaders who set goals and oversee the program certainly do not perform the same detailed activities as project managers Q.3 Compare the following: a. Traditional Vs. Projectised Organization Ans. Comparison between traditional and projectised organization Traditional organizations Projectised organizations They have the formal organization structure, withThey have teams comprising members who departments, functions, sections having aare responsible for completing one entire hierarchy of managers and their assistants. deliverable product. All of the managers function on a continuous basisThe teams will have all the resources required catering to a series of requirements issued by theto finish the jobs. planning department. An assembly of various units of their productionThey have a time schedule within which all forms a products and a variety of such products the elements of the projects have to be make up the business of the company. completed. No particular member or a department or a teamThere is greater accountability among team is responsible for the completion of any particular members and everyone is responsible for the product. Their creativity and innovation is indelivery. particular respect of their jobs. Most of the members do not get exposed to other It is found that a sense of ownership of the areas of operations in the organization. Theyproject motivates team members to be become specialists and insular. creative, cooperative among them to achieve high productivity. b. Reengineering Vs. E-engineering Reengineering: This is a process by which managers redesign a bundle of tasks into roles and functions so that organizational effectiveness is achieved. By doing so dramatic improvements in critical measures of performance like cost, quality and service are expected. There will be a radical rethink about the business processes adopted. A business process may be of any activity like inventory control, product design, orders processing, and delivery systems. No reference is taken to the existing process and an entirely new process is adopted. The following rules for reengineering are effective: Make changes with the outcome in mind not the tasks that result in them. Make the users of the results of the process effect the change. Let the people on the spot decide on the solution decentralize. E-Engineering: The term E-Engineering refers to the attempts of companies to make use of all kinds of information systems, to make their functions efficient. New information systems are installed for conducting all business processes in the organisation. The use of electronic communication within the organisation enables frequent interactions between employees and results in better communication. Typically meetings require their presence, but with teleconferencing a lot of time and money is

Fall 2011 saved. Data have repositories which are accessible, transferable and updatable instantly and used by all concerned. Cross-functional workflows make it easier to coordinate activities. The increase in efficiency makes the organisation meet customers requirements faster. All these result in widespread utilisation of knowledge in the organisation. It helps in creating and making available high quality of information. The information system also comprises of intranet and internet solutions to carry on their regular activities online. Q.4 List out the macro issues in project management and explain each. Ans 4.: Macro Issues in project management : A) Evoloving key successs factors (KSF) upfront : In order to provide complete stability to fulfillment of goals, a project manager needs to constantly evaluate the key success factors from time to time. While doing so, he needs to keep the following aspects of KSFs in mind: -The KSF should be evolved based on a basic consensus document (BSD) -KSF will also provide an input to effective exit strategy(EES). Exit here does not mean exit from the project but from any of the drilled down elemental activities which may prove to be hurdles rather than contributors. -Broad level of KSF should be available at the conceptual stage and should be firmed up and detailed out during the planning stage. The easiest way would be for the team to evaluate each step for chances of success on a scale of ten. -KSF should be available to the management - duly approved by the project manager - before execution and control stages. B) Empowerment Title(ET): ET reflects the relative importance of members of the organization at three levels: 1) Team members are empowered to work within limits of their respective allocated responsibilities. The major change from bureaucratic systems is an expectation from these members innovate and contribute to time and cost. 2) Group leaders are empowered additionally to act independently towards client expectation and are also vested with some limited financial powers. 3) Managers are empowered additionally to act independently but to maintain a scientific balance among time, cost, expectation and perception, apart from being a virtual advisor to the top management. C) Partnering Decision Making (PDM): PDM is a substitute to monitoring and control. A senior with a better decision making process will work closely with the project managers as will as manners to plan what best can be done to manage the future better from past experience. The key here is the active participation of members in the decision making process. The ownership is distributed among all irrespective of levels - the term equally should be avoided here since ownership is not quantifiable. The right feeling of ownership is important. This step is most difficult since junior members have to respond and resist being pushed through sheer innovation and performance - this is how future leaders would emerge. The PDM process is made scientific through: 1) Earned value management system (EVMS) 2) Budgeted cost of work scheduled (BCWS) 3) Budgeted cost of work performed (BCWP) 4) Actual cost of work performed (ACWP) D) Management by Exception (MBE): No news is good news. If a member wants help he or she locates a source and proposes to the manager only if such help is not accessible for free. Similarly, a member wants help he or she locates a source and proposes to the manager only if such help is not accessible for free. Similarly, a member should believe that a team leaders silence is a sign of approval and should not provoke comments through excessive seeking of opinions. In short leave people alone and let situation perform the demanding act. The bend limit of MBE van be evolved depending on the sensitivity of the nature and size of the project. MBE provides and facilitates better implementation of empowerment titles. MBE is more important since organizations are moving toward multi-skilled functioning even at junior most levels. Q.5 Describe the various steps in risk management listed below: a) Risk Identification: Risk identification occurs at each stage of the project life cycle. To

Fall 2011 identify risks, we must first define risk. As defined earlier, risks are potential problems, ones that are not guaranteed to occur. When people begin performing risk identification they often start by listing known problem. Known problems are not risks. During risk identification, you might notice some known problems. If so, just move them to a problem list and concentrate on future potential problems. As projects evolve through project development so too does the risk profile. Project knowledge and understanding keep growing, hence previously identified risks may change and new risks identified throughout the life of the project. Here we will discuss various tools and techniques available for risk identification. The best and most common methodology for risk identification is done using a brainstorming session. The brainstorm tupically takes 15-30 minutes. You have to be ensure to invite anyone who can help the team think of risks. Invite the project team, customer, people who have been on similar projects, and experts in the subject area of the project. Involving all stakeholders is vice important. Some examples of risks that may be identified in such sessions are: -We may not have the requirements right -The technology is untested -Key people may leave -The server wont restart in situation X -People might resist the change B) Risk analysis: The first step in risk analysis is to make each risk item more specific. Risks such as. lack of management buy-in and people might leave, are little ambiguous. In these cases the group might decide to split the risk into smaller specific risks, such as, manager decides that the project is not beneficial, Data base expert might leave, and webmaster might get pulled off the project. The next step is to set priorities and determine where to focus risk mitigation efforts. Some of the identified risks are unlikely to occur, and others might not be serious enough to worry about. Paretos law studied earlier applies here. During the analysis, discuss with the team members each risk item to understand how devastating it would be if it did occur, and how likely it is to occur. This way you can gauge the probability of occurrence and the impact created, you can form a matrix based on the likeliness of occurrence. C) Risk Management Planning: After analysing and prioritizing, the focus comes on management of the identified risks. In order to maximize the benefits of project risk management activities into our project management plan and work activities. There are two things you can do to manage risk. The first is to take action to reduce the likelihood of the risk occurring. For example, some project that work on process improvement make their deadlines earlier and increases their efforts to minimise the likelihood of team members being pulled off the project due to changing organizational priorities. In a software product, a critical feature might be developed first and tested early. Second, You can take action to reduce the impact if the risk does occur. Sometimes this is an action taken prior to the crisis, such as the creation of a simulator to use for testing if the hardware is late. At other times, it is a simple backup plan, such as running a night shift to share hardware. D) Risk Review : After you have implemented response actions, you must track and record their effectiveness and any changes to the project risk profile. You need to review the risks periodically so that you can check how well mitigation is progressing, You can also see if the risk priorities need to change, or if new risks have been discovered, In such case, you might decide to rerun the complete risk process if significant changes have occurred on the project. Significant changes might include the addition of new features, the changing of the target platform, or a change in project team members. Many people incorporate risk review into other regularly scheduled project reviews. In summary, risk management is the planning to potential problems, and the management of actions taken related to those problems. Q.6 ABC Company implements got a very big project and they decided to allot the same to a new project manager, who joined the company recently. In order to execute the project successfully, what are the various phases in which the project lifecycle should be divided. Ans. In order to execute the project successfully, the various phases in which the project lifecycle should be divided are as follow:

Fall 2011 Initiation; Planning and design; Execution and construction; Monitoring and controlling systems; Completion Project Initiation Project Initiation is the first phase in the Project Life Cycle and essentially involves starting up the project. You initiate a project by defining its purpose and scope, the justification for initiating it and the solution to be implemented. You will also need to recruit a suitably skilled project team, set up a Project Office and perform an end of Phase Review. Project Planning After defining the project and appointing the project team, you're ready to enter the detailed Project Planning phase. This involves creating a suite of planning documents to help guide the team throughout the project delivery. Project Execution With a clear definition of the project and a suite of detailed project plans, you are now ready to enter the Execution phase of the project. This is the phase in which the deliverables are physically built and presented to the customer for acceptance. While each deliverable is being constructed, a suite of management processes are undertaken to monitor and control the deliverables being output by the project. These processes include managing time, cost, quality, change, risks, issues, suppliers, customers and communication. Once all the deliverables have been produced and the customer has accepted the final solution, the project is ready for closure. Project Closure/ Completion Project Closure involves releasing the final deliverables to the customer, handing over project documentation to the business, terminating supplier contracts, releasing project resources and communicating project closure to all stakeholders. The last remaining step is to undertake a Post Implementation Review to identify the level of project success and note any lessons learned for future projects.