Navigating Success and Challenges in Project Management

Project management is a general term that covers a multitude of different roles across a range of sectors. The essential shared aspects of these roles are the willingness to take responsibility for delivering a set of outcomes, and the competence to organize and deliver those outcomes.

Organizations that are not managed by projects deal with crises reactively. They will address the crisis when it occurs. Companies with project management use a proactive approach. They prepare in advance and they are able to handle a greater number and variety of urgency negative situations than they encountered in the past.

It gives you repeatable processes, guidelines and techniques to help you manage the people and the work involved in your projects. It can increase your chances of success and help you deliver projects consistently, efficiently, on time and budget.

A few important benefits that come with Project Management are,

• It increases the chances of achieving the desired result.
• It allows you to gain a fresh perspective on your project, and how it fits with your business strategy.
• It makes you prioritize your business resources and ensure their efficient use
• It allows you to set the scope, schedule and budget accurately from the start
• It improve’s productivity and quality of work.

Factors affecting Success of Project Management:

Major factors that should be considered for success of project management are,

• Emphasis on client results (outcomes) rather than deliverables (outputs);
• Clear and well-communicated expectations and outcomes;
• Adequate planning and regular plan reviews;
• Level of planning to reflect the complexity of the project;
• Deliverables that meet the business need;
• Well-defined project scope;
• Management of risk;
• Project managers having the necessary technical and leadership skills;
• Adequate communication channels;
• Feedback capabilities;
• Responsiveness to client and proper client consultation;
• Ensure that the technology being implemented works well;
• Client acceptance;
• Adequate troubleshooting;

Factors affecting Failures of Project Management:

Major factors that could be considered for failures of project management are,

• Promising too much, in a very short amount of time;
• Failure to specify roles and responsibilities;
• Recommending unfeasible actions;
• Ineffective communication.
• Inadequate planning;
• Project manager lacking appropriate management skills and experience;
• Project scope not fully appreciated and/or needs not fully understood;

Ethics in Project Management:

Ethics can be defined as the discipline, often classified as a sub-discipline of philosophy that is concerned with what is good and just for individuals, groups, organization’s and society.

The project management as a whole might also be ethically challenging. It might risk personal and/or organizational reputation; or it might be hazy in terms of estimates; or challenge our understanding of what it means to be a responsible citizen; and/or generate danger, burdens, or what economists call ‘negative externalities’ to innocent third parties, owing to incidental harm brought about by the project. The inability to critically identify, evaluate and manage ethical factors as a critical aspect of project management not only affects project success or failure in the traditional sense; it also undermines the profession and demoralizes, weakens and destabilizes societies. Taking a critical ethical perspective on success while preparing and executing a project plan is likely to be, therefore, time well spent.

Conclusion:

As reported by the results of different sectors, it depends on the business in terms of project management and the importance of the crisis. Better perception of crisis in non-project managed enterprises may be caused by several factors. One of them may be the conflicts in the dual superiority of employees at manufacturing companies that use functional organizational structure. Another factor may be the frequent overspending on projects in this area of business in medium and large companies. Executive project sponsorship must exist and be visible so that the project-line manager interface is in balance. But executive ‘sponsorship and support’ can be as simple as occasionally visiting project people in their workplaces, taking an interest in what they do and giving praise when a project is successful. Such praise and encouragement costs nothing. The return on this zero investment can be very valuable. In this sense, the field of project management is not a secondary discipline where project leaders are the voluntary slaves of sometimes amoral decision-making; it is a profession in the frontline of making this world a better place.