Project Management: Key Concepts and Perspectives

The assignment involves a comprehensive review of project management principles, including its definition, key characteristics, and stages of process. It examines various sources such as textbooks, research papers, and online resources to provide an in-depth understanding of project management perspectives. The discussion covers critical path analysis, Gantt charts, activity scheduling, risk assessment, stakeholder management, and enterprise risk management. The assignment also touches on the use of body knowledge and cloud computing tools in software development projects.

Management of Projects

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
1. Project characteristics.........................................................................................................1
2. Explain scope statement of project and significance of it..................................................2
3. Produce Gantt chart and carry out the critical path............................................................2
4. Facts to be consider when preparing budget of project......................................................2
5. Various responses to risk....................................................................................................3
6. Defining quality methods...................................................................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................3
Producing report to Senior Management of Company...........................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Project management is important task which lies in the hands of project manager so that
tasks can be accomplished within time frame. The present report deals with importance of
project management and deals with company named Hotel Communications Ltd which is given
construction opportunity in IT services in new hotel located in London. The senior management
is entitled to receive much needed information as it lacks in accomplishment of large projects.
Moreover, various stages of project life cycle is discussed and characteristics of project is
discussed as well. Furthermore, project scope statement is essential document for company
listing tasks to be accomplished within time.
TASK 1
1. Project characteristics
The characteristics of project are as follows-
1. Temporary course of action-
Project undertaken by management has finite start and end as well. No project is
everlasting, it is temporary in nature. At the start of project, idea is evolved and developed and at
the end, project is successfully completed as objectives are attained.
2. Meant to deliver-
Every project which is undertaken by the business aims to deliver something. It can be
product, service or something else. The main characteristics of project is that need for the
deliverables are identified and as a result, project is initiated (What Is A Project? – Definition
And Key Characteristics, 2010).
3. Scarce resources-
The business has scarce or limited resources and as such, it is required that organisation
should analysed the need of such project. By analysing it, project is implemented with limited
resources so that it may be cost effective for organisation and optimum utilisation is done quite
effectively.
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4. Planned-
Project when it is initiated is planned first so that project can be properly defined and
outcome of it can be assessed as well. For such planning of project, a statement known as project
scope statement is usually prepared which provides clarity about how project will be successfully
completed and objectives will be met considering various constraints as well.
5. Interrelated tasks-
Main characteristics of the project is that it has series of interrelated tasks which are to be
completed within stipulated time frame. These tasks include cost of project, quality and effective
performance and many other tasks (Smyth, 2016).
2. Explain scope statement of project and significance of it
Project scope statement is essential statement which provides preliminary information
regarding the project to be consider such as project objectives, outcome of it, justification, cost
objectives, schedule objectives, constraints and assumptions. These elements are useful to
analyse so that project may be successful completed. The significance of project scope statement
is provides project commitments which are to be fulfilled by organisation so that it can at least
predict future and as such, expectations from project can be successfully analysed. Also, in the
event of any change, project scope statement needs to be updated quite effectively. It is
important document for managing expectations of stakeholders.
3. Produce Gantt chart and carry out the critical path
1. Critical path
Illustration 1: Critical path
2. Gantt chart
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4. Facts to be consider when preparing budget of project
The preparation of project is important task which is to be implemented by organisation.
First of all, labour costs are identified which is the top priority for preparing budget. These costs
are estimated as per task duration, salary rates on an average etc. Moreover, material costs are
analysed and travel costs are analysed as well (Olson and Wu, 2017). Then, equipments and tools
expenses are identified. Then, administrative and project management software which should be
updated are analysed to be included in budget preparation for the project. Thus, these costs need
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Illustration 2: Gantt chart
Illustration 3: Activities

to be identified so that project can be planned and implemented properly. The several expenses
are required to be determine so that it may be executed with much ease and results can be
accomplished quite effectively.
5. Various responses to risk
Responses to risk is the process to control that risks which are identified or assessed by
business. The various responses to risk are as follows-
 Avoid- The risks which is assessed by business should be removed by changing the
existing strategy so that it can be avoided to completely eradicate it.
 Transfer- The risk response in this case is that business should transfer risk to third party
so that risk can be removed up to full extent. The Best example of this is taking insurance
of premises to transfer any loss to insurance company to recover losses in event of any
incident (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2017).
 Accept it- Risk response is to accept risk which is prevailing in the business. Firm decide
to take risk as profit is the reward for risk taking. Reducing risk to zero level may also be
helpful for business to overcome risk up to high extent.
6. Defining quality methods
1. Project evaluation-
For successful completion of project, evaluation is necessary so that objectives are in
contrast with the ongoing process of project. The assessment is done which is based on
efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability of it. Thus, it necessary to continuously evaluate
project so that outcome can be easily generated out of it.
2. Monitoring-
Monitoring is essential as it takes into account whether required efficiency is maintained
adequately or not. For such activity, Gantt chart is prepared to easily monitor effectiveness of the
project so that it may be easily introduced and successfully attained.
3. Control-
Controlling is also crucial task which provides clarity to business whether project is
according to the planned one or not. As such, if any deviations exists then corrective actions are
taken to resolve the same with much ease.
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TASK 2
Producing report to Senior Management of Company
To,
Senior Management
Hotel Communications Ltd
Subject: Requisites for successful achievement of project objectives
This report has been prepared to provide handful of required information to Hotel
Communications Ltd so that top management can successfully attain the project of construction
of new hotel City Towers in London city. The project should be achieved by company by
considering time, cost and quality. The project management perspectives are of three types such
as achievement of goals by considering time, cost and quality. These perspectives act as a
constraint to successful achievement of targets (Punnett, 2014). As such, project should be
completed within stipulated time and with optimum quality without harming productivity and
costs should be analysed so that expenses may not exceed benefit of such project. Hotel
Communications Ltd should consider these all perspectives for successful accomplishment of
objectives regarding construction and installation of CCTV cameras and other IT related
installation of products so that it may grow in the future and earn profits. As the experience of
company is not in the big hotels, it might face several problems and as such, various activities
need to be accomplished so that successful attainment of new project can be made.
Skills and Competencies required in Project Manager
Skills required by Project Manager are personal, technical, management skills. The
personal skills are those based on motivating and encouraging workforce so that they may be
efficient in achieving tasks. Various problems will be quoted by members and as such, project
manager should resolve them so that barriers can be removed totally. He should posses positive
attitude as negative one will eradicate confidence among team members as well (Titarenko,
2017). Technical skills are those which is based on resolving out technical problems as Hotel
Communications Ltd is engaged in technical job then, manager must possess knowledge with
respect to computer and software in the field of IT. Management skills are also required so that
proper execution can be done.
Competencies required are effective decision-making so that timely goals can be
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attained. To take decisions, through analysis is required by Project Manager. Moreover, he
should be competent enough to produce budgets by considering various constraints so that
project may be cost effective one and benefit may be extracted out of it. He should have
adequate organisational skills as well. Time management should exist so that work flow of tasks
may be accomplished within time frame (Project management perspectives, 2018). Moreover,
must have strong communication skills so that project may be guided to various stakeholders
which are integrated part of firm. As such, proper presentations may be provided to them as per
their requirements. Manager should be competent enough to analyse market conditions and
thus, implementing well-structured strategies. In this process, performance should be measured
so that control may be initiated on it. He should motivate team so that they may be determinant
to achieve goals of company. Also, disputes and issues should be solved by manager so that
productivity may not be reduced. Also, project manager should be competent to analyse market
and make critical analysis to maintain objectives of project in viable way.
Project Management Processes
The basic project management processes consists of five stages which are discussed below-
1. Planning: It involves planning concrete objectives so that it may be accomplished within
time frame and with much ease.
2. Executing: It is basically involved in carrying out the plan of the project so that it can be
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Illustration 4: Stages of project management processes
Source: www.pmi.org

implemented nicely
3. Controlling: This stage in project management processes deals with measuring actual
project with the planned one so that deviations if any can be assessed and corrective
actions can be taken to resolve the same.
4. Initiating: It is based on overall direction of the project to team and as such, initiating
objectives and goals of the proposed project.
5. Closing: Project is accepted at this stage and as such, objectives are met and it itself puts
to end of the project. If objectives are not met, then project is terminated (Jiang and
Tang, 2015).
Project Life cycle stages
The project consists of five stages which are as follows-
1. Initiation- The first stage in project life cycle is initiation. When some business
opportunity or problem is identified, then idea is evolved which is known as initiation
stage. Feasibility analysis is carried out and as such, solution to the problem is
recommended. On successful approval of the recommended solution, project is initiated
and project manager is appointed in the process.
2. Planning- After idea is evolved, second stage deals with planning in which project
solution is taken and as such, further concrete steps are planned to meet the objective of
the proposed project with much ease. This is the stage where team identifies work to be
done in order to attain goals. As a result, scope statement of project is carried out in
which al the details regarding project is described in concise way.
3. Execution- This is also known as implementation phase as project is executed in this
stage quite effectively by manager. Progress is monitored so that everything goes
according to the scope statement and nothing overlaps the same statement. As such,
proper execution is made at this stage. At this phase, design containing requirements of
products is assessed and created accordingly (Zhang and Elmaghraby, 2014).
4. Control- At fourth stage, project is checked with planned project so that deviations if
any can be analysed and accordingly, corrective actions can be taken. This will result in
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successful accomplishment of goals of the project. During this stage, schedules need to
be adjusted by manager so that project can be kept on positive track quite effectively.
5. Closure- This is the last stage which conveys that project has been completed
successfully and resultant outcome is achieved. Client also give approval of the same.
Thus, project is closed down and as a result, it comes to end as every project has a
definite start and end as well. Hereby, it can be said that project team remains focus
along the fulfilment of organisational goals in effective way.
Leadership
Leadership role is quite important in organisation so that he may encourage team
members in the best possible way (Díez and Meré, 2016). The project cannot be achieved by
Hotel Communications Ltd if project manager does not motivate and encourage employees for
attainment of objectives in the desired way. Project manager should have good communication
skills so that it may direct to employees regarding carrying out duties in effective way. Project
leadership is basically dedicated to communicate to workers to assign them tasks and duties and
expectations of good performance from them. Project leader should direct team members in
effectual manner which is only possible through adequate communication between them. As a
result, effective communication will be helpful for team of Hotel Communications Ltd to
achieve success in new project of hotel.
Integrity is required to be followed by project leader and as such, commitment should be
made. Integrated efforts are needed so that new project can be successfully achieved by group
members in quite effectual manner. Leadership quality also speaks about enthusiastic project
leader who can bring everyone to carry out similar positive attitude so that collectively goals
can be accomplished wit much ease. As such, workers expresses positive attitude if enthusiastic
leader provides guidance to them. These leaders are committed to achievement of goals through
uniting workers quite effectually (Mok, Shen and Yang, 2015).
The project leader is entitled to competent enough so that he may direct workers in
positive way and as such, goals can be achieved collectively with shared efforts. As Hotel
Communications Ltd has no experience in construction of five star hotels, it is required that
manager should be competent enough so that he may unite workers to achieve goals. Another
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quality of project manager is that he should calm enough so that he may solve problems in
effective way. Proper decisions are made if he possesses calm attitude. Problems can be
resolved by him regarding to construction of IT services in the new hotel (Gemino, Reich and
Sauer, 2015).
Project administration
Project administration deals with assisting project manager, sponsors and team members to
provide them adequate framework within which everyone has to accomplish tasks and attain
goals. This framework consists of standards, processes and many more related activities. They
have through knowledge on how to achieve goals of the project with much ease. As such, Hotel
Communications Ltd should employ such practitioners which have adequate knowledge to
complete project quite effectively. The project administrators are usually employed where
larger projects are implemented and as such, for this company also, it is large project as it has
more experience in lower end of the market.
The project administrator is employed in large projects where more documentarian
process and more of formal communication prevails. As such, project administrator has the role
to coordinate resources such as equipments, tools and workers. Moreover, they are entitled to
ensure that project is running as per requirements of firm and nothing is contradicted to it. They
also provide guidance to team so that they may carry out tasks in effective way. For maintaining
project plans in effective way so that it may be completed quite effectively by the team with
much ease. Project administrator is also responsible for monitoring progress over the company
so that control can be initiated in the best possible manner (Quezada-Sarmiento, Enciso and
Garbajosa, 2016).
Moreover, project budget is also monitored by him so that nothing exceeds more than
cost and benefit may be accrued on it. Initiating control so that budgeted output may be matched
with actual one and deviations if any can be solved with much ease. Furthermore, project
administrator is also entitled for controlling and monitoring budget so that resources can be
fully utilised in the most productive way. As such, Hotel Communications Ltd should employ
project administrator so that adequate benefits may be accomplished in effective way. This will
help to easily attain goals in effectual way and firm can gain experience from the new project.
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As a result, administrator problem may be solved quite effectively by employing project
practitioner.
Control
Project manager may face problem regarding controlling on the project so that proper
execution may be attained and company may achieve goals in effective way (Riol and Thuillier,
2015). Control is initiated so that results may be matched with planned figures and if any
variations exist, then corrective actions are taken effectively to resolve the same. However, it
may incur problems of proper control is not initiated. The control problems may be evolved
when project is not started within stipulated time and this will evolve many issues as project
will not be finished on time. Rescheduling of project need to be made so that project may be
easily accomplished. To resolve this issue, critical path method should be used so that timely
completion of project can be done. If communication between management and stakeholders is
not good, then controlling issues may be raised. As such, breakdown of communication will
eventually lead to failure of the project.
It is the duty of project manager to hire staff which possess required skills so that they
may provide adequate productivity which is needed to attain tasks with much ease. Weekly
meetings should be analysed so that staff performance can be assessed and control can be
implemented to achieve desired results quite effectually (Zou, Kumaraswamy, Chung and
Wong, 2014). For eradicating control problems, checklist must be prepared by project manager
so that monitoring can be done and as such, issues can be totally resolved with much ease. By
implementing such strategies, Hotel Communications Ltd will be able to accomplish success in
the new project and will gain much needed experience in the hospitality sector quite effectively.
CONCLUSION
Hereby it can be concluded that project accomplished by company should be done in
effective manner so that resources are utilised with much ease. Monitoring and controlling is
essential so that project can be measured with budgeted one to analyse deviations if any. This is
removed by taking corrective actions so that variations can be removed up to maximum possible
extent.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Cicmil, S. and O'Laocha, E., 2014. Responsible management of projects in the context of
international development: a critical overview of governance, leadership and power.
Díez, J. V. and Meré, J. O., 2016. Improving the Management of Projects through Hoshin
Kanri. Dirección y Organización. (60). pp.40-46.
Gemino, A., Reich, B. H. and Sauer, C., 2015. Plans versus people: Comparing knowledge
management approaches in IT-enabled business projects. International Journal of
Project Management. 33(2). pp.299-310.
Jiang, Z. J. and Tang, Y. X., 2015, February. Research on integrated management of schedule
and cost in construction projects based on critical chain. In Industrial Engineering
and Manufacturing Technology: Proceedings of the 2014 International Conference
on Industrial Engineering and Manufacturing Technology (ICIEMT 2014), July 10-
11, 2014, Shanghai, China (Vol. 4, p. 135). CRC Press.
Kerzner, H. and Kerzner, H. R., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning,
scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Mok, K. Y., Shen, G. Q. and Yang, J., 2015. Stakeholder management studies in mega
construction projects: A review and future directions. International Journal of
Project Management. 33(2). pp.446-457.
Olson, D. L. and Wu, D. D., 2017. Data Mining Models and Enterprise Risk Management.
In Enterprise Risk Management Models (pp. 119-132). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Punnett, B. J., 2014. Experiencing international business and management: Exercises, projects,
and cases. Routledge.
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Quezada-Sarmiento, P. A., Enciso, L. and Garbajosa, J., 2016, April. Use of body knowledge and
cloud computing tools to develop software projects based in innovation. In Global
Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), 2016 IEEE(pp. 267-272). IEEE.
Riol, H. and Thuillier, D., 2015. Project management for academic research projects: balancing
structure and flexibility.International Journal of Project Organisation and
Management. 7(3). pp.251-269.
Smyth, H. J., 2016. The business development management function: processes at the front of
the front end of the management of projects. International Council for Research and
Innovation in Building and Construction (CIB).
Titarenko, B., 2017, October. Risk assessment for construction projects of transport
infrastructure objects. In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental
Science (Vol. 90, No. 1, p. 012057). IOP Publishing.
Zhang, J. and Elmaghraby, S. E., 2014. The relevance of the “alphorn of uncertainty” to the
financial management of projects under uncertainty. European Journal of
Operational Research. 238(1). pp.65-76.
Zou, W., Kumaraswamy, M., Chung, J. and Wong, J., 2014. Identifying the critical success
factors for relationship management in PPP projects. International Journal of Project
Management. 32(2). pp.265-274.
Online
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<https://www.mymanagementguide.com/basics/what-is-a-project/>
Project management perspectives, 2018 [Online] Available Through: <http://www.free-
management-ebooks.com/faqpm/principles-03.htm>
Duncan, 1993 The process of project management [Online] Available Through:
<https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/basic-process-project-management-2114>
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