Project Management: Critical Evaluation of Renovating a Beachside Cottage into a Holiday Retreat Home

This paper provides a critical evaluation of the experience in undertaking the project of repairing and refurbishing the old beachside cottage into a holiday retreat house that could be used through the Airbnb house rental service. It highlights the measures taken to promote the success of the project and the failure to use a number of crucial project management tools.

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PROJECT MANAGEMENT
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Project Management
Introduction
Having inherited an old beachside cottage, I began renovating it so that I could use as
a holiday home through the Airbnb business platform, which offers rental space for tourists
and travelers the world over. I then decided to adopt and implement several management
guidelines such as highlighting the mission and vision, the modalities of engagement and
execution strategy among others in order to promote the success of the steps I would take.
The project did not complete within the scheduled time due to the failure to use a number of
crucial project management tools.
Additionally, the repair work on the cottage took more time than I anticipated because
I overlooked some aspects of its implementation and the failure to place emphasis on the
‘soft’ sections of the project. The project plan mainly focused on the hard section of repairing
the old beachside cottage. Despite having hired sufficient labor to implement the project, I
had to take part occasionally to ease the workload on the laborers. Moreover, I was forced to
carry out some odd jobs on the project when apprentices failed to show up for almost two
days. This paper provides a critical evaluation of my experience in undertaking the project of
repairing and refurbishing the old beachside cottage into a holiday retreat house that could be
used through the Airbnb house rental service.
Managing the Cottage Project
Before and during the repair work and conversion of the old beachside cottage into a
holiday retreat home for Airbnb, I undertook a number of measures to promote the success
of the project. One of the measures was to organize the project into manageable sections
(Meredith and Mantel, 45, 2011). By doing this it made the process easier as it simplified the
project execution process. Another measure taken was clearly defining roles and
responsibilities during the implementation of the project. I used a Gantt chart to plan and

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schedule the activities relating to repairing the old cottage. Next I looked at the aspect of risk
management which is a crucial step that must be undertaken in every project (Kerzner and
Kerzner, 223, 2017). Risk management involves the pointing out and evaluation of risks
together with the steps taken to mitigate these risks while carrying out any project. During
this process the risk is identified, analyzed evaluated, treated, and monitored and reviewed.
Failure to undertake risk management may result in project failure or over expenditure.
Change management was another measure that I considered while implementing the
project. It refers to the systematic identification, and implementation of the relevant changes
in a given project (Pollack, 267, 2007) and it ensures that the project moves forward despite
any change that might occur in the process. By carrying out change management, I wanted to
ensure that I would be ready to anticipate any change that might arise during the process of
repairing the cottage. Resource overload, budgeting, progress reporting (Timelines and
EVM), and stakeholder identification and communication (Burke, 136, 2013) were the other
measures that I considered during the implementation of the project. Besides having
contracted laborers to carry out work that included carpentry and painting, I also purchased
supplies and hanging curtains. Despite this contribution, I was enticed into carrying out odd
jobs during implementation especially when Apprentices failed to show up for some days just
so that the project would not stall. The failure of Apprentices to report to work contributed to
the project taking longer in its implementation than I had intended. For a while, I blamed the
individuals for the delays in doing the repairs within the intended time. However, I soon
realized that the risk of non delivery within the timeframe was shared especially since I had
not considered the guiding principles of management of similar projects.
Dichotomization in project management refers to the division of the project into ‘hard'
and ‘soft' sections (Gustavsson and Hallin, 570, 2014). In this case, hard refers to the
technical skills that physically promote the success of a project. This may include budgeting

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and resource allocation since the hard section of a project is usually numerical, data-oriented,
or logical (Crawford and Pollack, 2004). On the other hand, soft projects refer to human-
related factors that affect the success of a project. More often than not, the individuals tasked
with the management of similar projects focus on the hard section of a project and
compromise on human skills relevant to the project (Gray, Cook, and Natera, 645, 2008). I
understand that while dealing with the management of the project, I approached hard and soft
issues as a singular issue. Hard and soft issues should be dealt with separately to promote the
success of a project. In order to be able to differentiate between the various sections of
managing such projects, it is important to identify the relevant frameworks (Pollack, 270,
2007) using the seven-dimensional framework for this sort of identification. I have learned
that despite there being a great need to analyze the hard sections of a project, it is wrong to
overlook the need for the soft section of the project because compromise on the soft sections
of a project may result in the failure of the project altogether (Winter and Checkland, 188,
2014). For instance, had I placed more emphasis on the soft section of the project, I would
have dealt with the lack of human labor during the absence of the Apprentices.
Conclusion
The repair of the beachside cottage was successful; however, the project took longer
than expected. The failure to complete the project within the given time period was because
of the failure to consider the soft part of the project. However, other sections of the project
were well dealt with, resulting in the eventual success of the project. The scope of the project
was not affected and so was the quality.

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Reference List
Burke, R., 2013. Project management: planning and control techniques. New Jersey, USA.
Crawford, L. and Pollack, J., 2004. Hard and soft projects: a framework for
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Gray, R.M., Cook, M.B., Natera, M.T., Inglis, M.M. and Dodge, M.L., 2008. Project
Management: The. In Managerial Process”, McGraw-Hill.
Gustavsson, T.K. and Hallin, A., 2014. Rethinking dichotomization: A critical perspective on
the use of “hard” and “soft” in project management research. International Journal of Project
Management, 32(4), pp.568-577.
Kerzner, H. and Kerzner, H.R., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning,
scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Meredith, J.R. and Mantel Jr, S.J., 2011. Project management: a managerial approach. John
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Winter, M. and Checkland, P., 2003, November. Soft systems: a fresh perspective for project
management. In Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers-Civil Engineering (Vol.
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