This document provides an overview of project management and discusses the characteristics of an effective project manager. It also includes case studies on the Wheatstone LNG project and Telstra's customer contact strategy.
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PRJM6000Assignment 1[Last Name, First Name] [Student Number] Project Management Overview Name of the student: Name of the university: Author note: 1
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PRJM6000Assignment 1[Last Name, First Name] [Student Number] Part A I. Among the various projects that are recently in the news in Australia, the Wheatstone LNG project is a notable one. Wheatstone is a natural gas field operated by Chevron. The area extends to about 200 kilometres in the north of Onslow in Western Australia in the Pilbara coast. The project will consist of two suppliers of LNG with a total volume of 8.9 million tonnes per annum. It will also include a domestic gas plant with 200 terajoules per day (Cassidy, Natasha and Mitch Kosev 2015, 33-44). It is one of Australia’s biggest resource development project. Till date, it awards billions of dollars in many contracts for the use of materials and services. In March 2008, Chevron broadcasted to develop resources with the help of greenfield onshore LNG and natural gas (Andeobu, L., S. Hettihewa, and C. S. Wright 2015). From then it has started extensive studies on the environment to ensure the reduced and managed impact of the project. A project has some particular characteristics for which it is considered to be a project. The symptoms include- 1.A plan should typically have meant for customers. 2.It should be temporary and has a particular start and end point. 3.It should contain some unique set of requirements within the project boundary. 4.A project is not the usual business. 5.A project completes when it achieves its intended goals and satisfies all requirements. Based on these characteristics, the chosen project of Wheatstone LNG is considered to be a unique one as the overall project will help Australia to gain benefit in terms of the economy such as providing employment, local business opportunities, and government revenue. The project is aiming in building a program that assists in bringing three economic development providers together to guide small businesses at Pilbara by maintaining standards of contraction and best practices (Corbeau, Anne-Sophie, and David Ledesma 2016). As reported, on successful completion of this project, it will create about more than 6,000 direct and indirect job opportunities at the peak of construction. It will also help in generating $17 billion local content spending over the life of the project.In 2009 Chevron announced its two major gas field as Julimar and Brunello which are managed by the Apache and the Australian subsidiary of the Kuwait Petroleum Exploration Company (Bayzakova, Aida 2014). In 2011, Shell joined as the primary gas supplier for the project. The project of Wheatstone LNG represents an essential source for the future supply of energy. The plan is developed to provide customers with reliable and secured offering by one of the most integrated energy company in the world. II. Project Description One of Australia’s leading technology and telecommunication company, Telstra aims at offeringawiderangeofcommunicationservicessettingcompetitionwiththeleading telecommunication industries in the market. The organisation provides more than 17 million of retail mobile services in Australia with 4.9 million retail voice services and about 3.6 million broadband services (Bentahar, Omar, and Roslyn Cameron 2015). The organisation aims at building technology- based content solutions that are easy to use. The primary goal of the company is to know and serve their customers with better services than any other telecommunication industry. Telstra has undertaken the project to deliver real customer experience by implementing the strategy for customer contact. Though many telecommunication organisations are innovating their products to satisfy the customer needs but it is seen that the buying decisions of the customer do not on the price alone. While choosing a brand, customer experience is the main factor that affects the whole decision process. The project hence that Telstra undertook aims in accommodating multiple numbers of channels across every business line, formulating a well-planned customer strategy that 2
PRJM6000Assignment 1[Last Name, First Name] [Student Number] will empower the services of the customer agents guaranteeing to deliver a positive experience. Telstra accomplished this project by first identifying the journey that needs to be excelled at and understanding the performance changes required for each of these journeys. II.a The organisation of Telstra aims at bringing beneficial change in the experience of the customers by implementing an effective strategy of customer contact. Customers are often unsatisfied from the poorly integrated systems that business organisations use. Some of the issues that are identified by Telstra in this respect include a lack of integration between communication, and the channels used, the CRM s used in the communication systems does not integrate with financial systems. The integration system that is proposed by Telstra will allow flowing of context across diverse functions in business more effectively (Pavlidis, Katerina, and Wayne Hawkins 2015, 27). This in turn help in delivering the greater integrated experience of customers. Telstar also implemented a customer-based solution offering a robust set of ready to use integration system along with the APIs and connectors that link with other applications. The cloud-based customer solution proposed by Telstra is capable of bringing changes in providing financial benefits by consuminglow-costprice.Thechangeswhichincludeinthisprojectarebymigratingthe applications and seats in the cloud environment, adopting cloud customer contact strategy and implementing end to end multisite integration and more customised solutions (Bhatti et al. 2016, 72- 77). The beneficial changes that are offered by Telstra by this project initiative are providing flexible, scalable and agile benefits in customer experience. II.b Telstra has always aimed its goal towards customer satisfaction and this project objective also in line with that. Nowadays organisations are looking for service providers who can offer better robust customer contact strategy which focusses on three major pillars that our partnership, capability, and connectivity. The project introduced by Telstra satisfies all these three pillars in their strategy implementation (Hirt, Martin, and Paul Willmott 2014, 1-13). Connectivity is the primary foundation that brings business strategy and technology together to develop integrated customer experience. Telstraorganisation provides strongnetwork capabilitiesto reach across critical industries. The customer has always been the main priority for Telstra, and through this project initiative, the organisation aims at building customer contact with the help of its vast network application services. Telstra brand is strongly known for its capability of hosting market for customer contact. The strategy of the project of Telstra aims at targeting business with about 50 seats (Campbell 2016, 133). The features in the plan consist of the routing of communications, recording of call, supervisor and agent desktop, high availability of network connectivity and real time analytics.With Telstra’s cloud-based service, business organisations will be able to automate incoming calls. This project lies in line with the measurable goal of the organisation introducing better customer contact solutions and offering a unique value in business to deliver more improved customer experience (Ahadzie et al. 2014, 958-960). Telstra took all this initiative in its project of implementing better customer contact strategy with the help of various solutions and deliverables links to the organisation's primary goal that is achieving happy customer experience and thus improving the customer contact with the business. Part B (1200) I. An effective project manager posses some skills or characteristics that help him in achieving his targeted goal for the project (Blaskovics, Bálint 2016, 261-281). The features that would help to make a project manager effective are as follows: Characteristic 1 3
PRJM6000Assignment 1[Last Name, First Name] [Student Number] Communication skill-Communication is an important skill that every effective project manager possess. One cannot be an effective project manager if he lacks in communicating the requirements needed for a particular project. By having this talent, a project manager would be capable of conveying the goals of the project to all the members of the team and at the same time can plan the project effectively by communicating about the requirements of the project and time required with the stakeholders. Communication is a type of skill that many project managers lack to possess and thus the project outcome is not gained as expected (Silvius, AJ Gilbert, and Ron PJ Schipper 2014, 40). Importance of communication skill for project managers: To achieve the power of good communication, one can practice by improving the presentation skills that are needed in every meeting of a project (Papke-Shields et al. 2017, 169-179). An effective project manager needs to have a sound communication skill to articulate his ideas, deliverables, and expectations about the project objective to the vendors and other members o9f the team. Active communication skill will also help a project manager to obtain feedback from his team members by communicating with them about their work schedules and discussing ideas that are needed to be implemented further in the project (Sunindijo, Riza Yosia 2015, 67-83). Practical communication skills consist of different categories- Non-verbal communication: While communicating effectively about 7% of the discussion that is carried out are by verbal means and about 38% of the conversation gets affected by the quality of the tone in which the connection is conveyed depending upon the volume and pitch and rest of the 50% mainly depends on the posture or the gesture of the person. A project manager has to manage the whole team along with the project. So an effective project manager should be polite to his team members and should not lose control over others in case of the critical situation instead he should try to communicate the matter effectively with the members and resolve it. Ways by which a project manager can gain useful communication skill: 1.Be present:Being the main body of an entire project team, a project manager needs to stay current and always available to the team. A project manager needs to possess a clear understanding of the roles of particular individuals in the organisation. 2.Adapting communication plan:A project manager needs to have a great communication plan to communicate the needs of the team and the project accordingly. 3.Planning regular meetings:To communicate effectively in the team, a project manager is ought to schedule regular meetings with the different stakeholders and employees facilitating effective communication with them. 4.Using a RACI chart:In case if the project manager faces difficulty in figuring out the lines of communication, then he may opt for preparing a RACI chart or in other words Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed table. Characteristic 2 Team management skill:A project manager need to have the capability of effectively managing a team with which he is working. While processing a project, team members of the project team help in achieving specific plan related works. The procedure of handling a group of people or individual to achieve a common goal in a program is known as team management. Effective team management offers the following assistance- better consequences of the project, increased effectiveness, better notions, mutual sustenance, increased proficiency and sense of success. A project manager who is about to achieve all these benefits within the project team is said to be an effective team manager (Livesey, Peter Vincent 2016, 90). Managing a team effectually leads to restored coordination amongst the team members. People within an organisation can express their inner potential reinforcing their expertise while tackling the challenges that are present within the organisation. This automatically improves the performance of the whole squad leading to better teamwork and reduced risk resulting in the delivery of performance with better outcomes. (Walther et al. 2014, 24- 31)When a project manager can manage the team to work collectively and encourages them to get 4
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PRJM6000Assignment 1[Last Name, First Name] [Student Number] enthused and motivated, it automatically leads to augmented efficiency. Each member of a team consists of different ideas, vision, skills, etc., A project manager is said to be effective when he can manage all these members and motivate them to apply their different services to challenge the problem, they come up with more well-organized and quick explanations (Aga et. 2014, 806-818. Managing the team to work composed gives the team followers the opportunity to better know their co-workers better for their strengths and weakness (Seed, William R 2014, 1447-1459). An effective project manager should possess this skill to encourage the members in supporting each other to achieve their common goals. Useful team management skill of a project manager increases strong completion amongst the team adherents which provides staffs in a team to produce and recover their services further. This leads to increased competency. Celebrating the achievement of the squad in achieving the goals is a part of the project manager’s responsibility to be an effective project manager. This would excuse for the success of each in the team. This attitude of a project manager gives them a greater sense of accomplishment. To become an effective team manager, a project manager should possess this following features or characteristics: 1.He should avoid favouritism to give credit. 2.He should allow employees to make mistakes. 3.He should have good communication capability. 4.He should set processes to carry on the project accordingly. 5.He should restrict criticism. 6.Ge should be able to align group goals with the organisational goals. 7.He should motivate each team members. 8.He should carry on with periodic assessments. 9.He should see to maintain discipline in the team 10.He should be able to manage conflicts within the organisation. Characteristic 3 Negotiation skill:Among all the effective assistance that a project manager should possess to be an effective project manager, negotiation skill is one of the critical power. A project manager has to negotiate with different stakeholders as well as vendors in different phases of a project. To carry out this negotiation effectively, a project manager needs to possess this skill. In a project, consultation can take place in phase be it in the formal or informal nature (Chaghooshi, A., Alireza Arab, and S. Dehshiri 2014, 447-460). Formal negotiation is done typically with the providers and suppliers of the project depending on some issues about agreeing about some contracts or policies related to the project. Informal consultation in a plan is carried out to resolve some queries or conflicts or to obtain some internal resources (Takey, Sílvia Mayumi, and Marly Monteiro de Carvalho 2015, 784-796). A project manager to carry out a negotiation in a project with different stakeholders and vendors need to poses some essential negotiation skills like- 1.He should be able to set goals and limits of a project. 2.He should control his emotion while negotiating with others. 3.He should possess excellent listening skills. 4.He should be able to communicate effectively to reach a specific satisfactory decision while negotiating with others in the project. 5.A project manager should know the importance of negotiating and should be able to close the consultation at a proper time when it is needed. Useful negotiation skill falls under two categories: 1.Competitive negotiation: This type of negotiation skill implies obtaining the best deals without keeping in mind the interest of the other party. An effective project manager should try to avoid this type of negotiation in a project. Being an effective project manager, he should keep in mind the interest of the stakeholders and other vendors also allowing his interest in the project. 5
PRJM6000Assignment 1[Last Name, First Name] [Student Number] 2.Collaborative negotiation: This type of consultation takes place when the parties involved in the come to a single point of contract where it keeps all the interest of the parties. This talks typeofconsultationwillhelpinestablishingalong-termrelationshipbetweenthe negotiating parties. II. As per the case study provided, to move all the call centres of the significant Australian insurance provider from their current location to an overseas location to reduce the operation cost, the above mentioned characteristics or skills are essential. Communication skillis critical to the way to communicate the idea to other members of the call centre to make them understand the importance to reduce the operation cost of the organisation. This can be done by the following ways such as- 1.By communicating with consistent messages 2.By delivering message from the higher officials of the organisation that are congruent to the mission of the organisation. 3.By creating a RACI chart in order to plan effective communication with the stakeholders in order to reduce the cost of the operation. Team management skillof the project manager is also necessary as in moving the team to an overseas location; he has to manage the entire team by satisfying the needs of each team members. This can be initiated with the following activity- 1.Creating customer service vision that helps the team working in the company to work accordingly. 2.Creating smart customer service goals that work. 3.Performing skill assessment test for the team members. Negotiating skill:To select a foreign place, the project manager needs to negotiate with other providers and stakeholders to reach a particular point of decision. The activities here include- 1.By clearly defining the business objective to the service providers. 2.By drawing boundaries in the negotiation procedure. 3.By considering the liabilities of the business while negotiating. It is the project manager of the organisation suitable overseas location that can be selected for the Australian Insurance Provider in New Zealand. The place is ideal for moving up the call centre in all respect. After moving the call centre there, training of the overseas staffs will be carried out using providing proper communication skills and skills that the call centre representative’s needs. This can be done by training the call centre representatives with regular classes for communicating with the customers, teaching them the basic criteria that needs to be fulfilled in order to achieve customer satisfaction and many more. For carrying out this project initiative, about 150 current teams may face redundancy but being an effective project manager, and I will try to negotiate the matter with the crews so that the interest of both the parties is satisfied. Thus, being an effective project manager of the Australian insurance provider company, I will try to maintain and follow all the necessary elements that need to be developed for the project initiative. References Aga, Deribe Assefa, Niels Noorderhaven, and Bertha Vallejo. "Transformational leadership and project success: The mediating role of team-building."International Journal of Project Management34, no. 5 (2016): 806-818. 6
PRJM6000Assignment 1[Last Name, First Name] [Student Number] Ahadzie, D. K., D. G. Proverbs, and Isaac Sarkodie-Poku. "Competencies required of project managers at the design phase of mass house building projects."International Journal of Project Management32, no. 6 (2014): 958-969. Andeobu, L., S. Hettihewa, and C. S. Wright. "Australian and Nigerian LNG Projects: Insights For Resolving Challenges Facing New LNG Project." InProceedings of 4th Global Business and Finance Research Conference, Marriott Hotel, Melbourne, Australia. 2015. Kazakova, Aida. "The uncertain future of Australian LNG projects: the use of scenario building in strategic management." Master's thesis, 2014. Bentahar, Omar, and Roslyn Cameron. "Design and Implementation of a Mixed Method Research Study in Project Management."Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods13, no. 1 (2015). Bhatti, Hassan Shakil, Ahmad Abareshi, and Siddhi Pittayachawan. "An Empirical Examination of Customer Retention in Mobile Telecommunication Services in Australia." InICE-B, pp. 72-77. 2016. Blaskovics, Bálint. "The impact of project manager on project success—The case of the ICT sector."Society and Economy in Central and Eastern Europe38, no. 2 (2016): 261-281. Campbell, Ian. "Towards customer leadership: Building a Sales Force in Telecom Australia in the 1980s."Australian Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy4, no. 4 (2016): 133. Cassidy, Natasha, and Mitch Kosev. "Australia and the global LNG market."Reserve Bank of Australia BulletinMarch Quarter (2015): 33-44. Chaghooshi, A., Alireza Arab, and S. Dehshiri. "A fuzzy hybrid approach for project manager selection."Decision Science Letters5, no. 3 (2016): 447-460. Corbeau, Anne-Sophie, and David Ledesma, eds.LNG markets in transition: the great reconfiguration. Oxford University Press for the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies and the King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center, 2016. Hirt, Martin, and Paul Willmott. "Strategic principles for competing in the digital age."McKinsey Quarterly5, no. 1 (2014): 1-13. Livesey, Peter Vincent. "Insights of project managers into the problems in project management."Construction Economics and Building16, no. 1 (2016): 90. Papke-Shields, Karen E., and Kathleen M. Boyer-Wright. "Strategic planning characteristics applied to project management."International Journal of Project Management35, no. 2 (2017): 169-179. Pavlidis, Katerina, and Wayne Hawkins. "Affordability and 21st-century telecommunications services."Australian Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy3, no. 2 (2015): 27. Seed, William R. "Integrated project delivery requires a new project manager."Proceedings of IGLC22(2014): 1447-1459. Silvius, AJ Gilbert, and Ron PJ Schipper. "Sustainability in project management competencies: analysing the competence gap of project managers."Journal of Human Resource and Sustainability Studies2, no. 02 (2014): 40. Sunindijo, Riza Yosia. "Project management skills for improving project performance."International Journal of Business Performance Management16, no. 1 (2015): 67-83. Takey, Sílvia Mayumi, and Marly Monteiro de Carvalho. "Competency mapping in project management: An action research study in an engineering company."International Journal of Project Management33, no. 4 (2015): 784-796. Walther, Michael R., Ivar Snorrason, Christopher A. Flessner, Martin E. Franklin, Rachel Burkel, and Douglas W. Woods. "The trichotillomania impact project in young children (TIP-YC): clinical characteristics, comorbidity, functional impairment, and treatment utilisation."Child Psychiatry & Human Development45, no. 1 (2014): 24-31. 7