PROJ6000 Principles of Project Management Report Sample 2

PROJ6000 Principles of Project Management Report Sample 2

Task Summary

Critically read and interpret both the Project Management Lifecycle and the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK). Engage with other students by posting an initial 600-word discussion forum post and a 200-word critique that details your response to the question below (or the set question).

Context

The Project Management Lifecycle (PML) is an important component of project management methodology. It incorporates several areas of knowledge from the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK), and it affects and interacts with the application of PMBoK in a project. Different stages of the PML may require focusing on different areas of the PMBoK, and project managers need to assess the PML for their project in order to identify possible risks, plans for resourcing, and to commence communicating with stakeholders. This assessment requires that you answer the following question: “During which project management lifecycle stage(s) do you believe a project management methodology is most impactful, and how do we ensure alignment between the lifecycle of the project and the implementation of a project management methodology?”

To answer this question, you will need to: (a) Post a 600-word (+/- 10%) response to this question, based on your informed opinion and demonstrated knowledge of project management concepts, project lifecycles, and PMBoK, to the Discussion Forum on the Learning Portal.

(b) Respond to another student’s post by critiquing their opinion and comparing it with yours in 200 words (+/-10%).

Instructions

1. Read about the PMBoK and the Project Management Lifecycle to familiarise yourself with their fundamental concepts. Critically reflect on your readings to form an opinion of both and how they interact together. Write a 600-word opinion piece responding to the set question. Be sure to cite any source material, including learning resources or other academic or industry literature you research, used to inform your opinion. The word count does not include the reference list.

2. Read another student’s post. Think about their opinion and try to compare and contrast it with your own. This approach will allow you to “critique” their view. You can do this by highlighting the aspects you agree with and those you disagree within their post. You need to justify and explain your critique of their opinion. In your response, you will need to refer to industry and academic literature. Your response will need to be 200 words. The word count does not include the reference list.

Solution

Discussion Forum Post

Initiation, planning, execution and closing are the important phases of project management lifecycle. Nearly all the phases need some sort of methodology in terms of ensuring successfully executing a project. Most importantly, application of an appropriate method in terms of controlling and assigning scope is very significant towards the success of a project. However, with the support PMBoK reference, it can be stated that planning phase require the application of suitable project management method among all the four phases of project management lifecycle (Cooper & Sommer, 2018). As per MBA Assignment Experts, The key reason behind this is that the general aim of the project management methods is about being capable of organizing, planning, structuring as well as standardizing work methods. It also helps all sorts of projects in the similar manner and it also allows project managers in repeating the successful aspects as well as learning from mistakes that can result in the continuous improvement. In the planning phase, project managers generally establish milestones, timelines and budgets along with the necessary documents and source materials (Takagi & Varajão, 2020). It would also be involved with predicting and calculating risks by keeping the processes related to changes into place and depicting the communication related protocols. The application of a suitable project management methodology within the planning phase of any project would effectively help in organizing the times of project, providing tools for estimating costs and times in a correct way, helping in managing and minimizing project risks, developing the skills of teams, improving the cost-benefit relationship of resources and so on (Ford & Lyneis, 2020). The application of an appropriate methodology during the planning phase can also efficiently take part in helping to shorten the learning curve of the project team. In addition to this, it is transformed and improved in line with the personal style of the organization under the presidentship of which a certain project is accomplished or executed as a whole. 

The easy way of aligning a certain project’s lifecycle along with the implementation of a methodology of project management is to follow some specific steps such as reviewing every project, building a decision-making framework and setting priorities as well. In order to review a particular project, it is important to take into account some important aspects such as setting realistic expectations, consulting the key stakeholders, feeling comfortable to kill certain projects and so on (Geraldi & Söderlund, 2018). On the other hand, the decision-making framework can play the role of the Project Management Office in some companies. In order to build this framework, the project’s business purpose should be stated in a clear manner (Cooper & Sommer, 2018). Project managers should think about any particular considerations that are related to the market conditions, clients, organizations and project as well. Moreover, project managers should also think about the iterations, which may be achieved by the project. The logical conclusion to the review of the projects as well as establishing the framework of decision-making is about setting priorities for the concerned projects developed on the organizational snapshot at the time while the project managers are taking the decisions (Takagi & Varajão, 2020). The important steps that come under the process of setting priorities are such as defining alignments, measuring projects, setting clear expectations and guidelines for review and communication. Therefore, it is very essential for ensuring that the organizational tools can enable in measuring the progress in projects and collaborating with the teams regarding strategic alignment at each project step (Ford & Lyneis, 2020). Teams are allowed by the project managers for gaining better visibility of the success of projects with its collaboration features as well as its powerful dashboard reporting. 

Peer Post Critique

First of all, I would like to thank Mohd. Samir Shakir for his post because his work has given me an in-detailed idea about the effectiveness of initiation phase in the project management cycle. I am completely agreed with his point where he identified initiation phase to be a key step of project life cycle because it is associated two major operations like stakeholder registration and project charter. However, in this context, I have a different opinion to some extent. Without denying the significance of initiation phase in project management, I would like to specify project planning to be paramount phase within the life cycle of project management. As per my views, project plan acts as a communication tool and it is the reference point for delivery. This phase communicates how the project team would accomplish the desired project goals (Takagi & Varajão, 2020). Moreover, this phase also deals with attaining some very crucial project management operations including creation of a general plan; appointing leading team of project and distributing roles and responsibilities; deciding on a communication plan; financial plan creation; resource plan creation; schedule development for estimating time required to complete the entire project and every activity and client approval. 

References

Cooper, R. G., & Sommer, A. F. (2018). Agile–Stage-Gate for Manufacturers: Changing the Way New Products Are Developed Integrating Agile project management methods into a Stage-Gate system offers both opportunities and challenges. Research-Technology Management, 61(2), 17-26. Retrieved from: http://www.five-is.com/wp-content/uploads/Agile-Stage-Gate-for-Manufacturers-in-RTM-Cooper-Sommer-March-2018.pdf 

Ford, D. N., & Lyneis, J. M. (2020). System dynamics applied to project management: a survey, assessment, and directions for future research. System Dynamics: Theory and Applications, 285-314. Retrieved from: https://www.academia.edu/download/37679210/Lyneis-Ford.pdf 

Geraldi, J., & Söderlund, J. (2018). Project studies: What it is, where it is going. International journal of project management, 36(1), 55-70. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jonas-Soederlund/publication/327287953_Geraldi_and_Soderlund_2018_IJPM/data/5b86d2ec299bf1d5a7310d25/Geraldi-and-Soederlund-2018-IJPM.pdf