Project Management Reflective Essay: New AMS System for RMIT

Running head: PROJECT MANAGEMENT REFLECTIVE ESSAY
Project Management Reflective Essay: New AMS System for RMIT
Name of the student:
Name of the university:

1PROJECT MANAGEMENT REFLECTIVE ESSAY
Introduction
This reflective essay depicts a clear reflection regarding professional project management
practices in the RMIT University. The automated AMS system is used by the University to
record the financial and personnel details. However, in these days the system is becoming
inefficient to calculate the fees for the students and other confidential data as well (Young,
2016). It is crucial for the RMIT University to check for their current system effectiveness
through utilization of professional project management practices.
In this reflection advantages and disadvantages of using PMBOK project management
lifecycle are discussed. In addition to this, he main challenges or risks that the project team
member has faced during the progress of the project are also elaborated. Apart from this, how the
project management lifecycle is useful for the progress of any project including the future
success are elaborated here. In addition to this, it is also discussed here whether in future the
project management lifecycle approaches will be applicable or not are also demonstrated in this
reflective essay.
Critical reflection on RMIT’s AMS system
From the application and operation details of RMIT’s AMS system it is defined that,
currently the system is facing he difficulties in record keeping. Due to inadequate technical
support and supportive IT infrastructure the system is facing major challenges throughout. It is
the role of the project manager to adopt the most suitable cloud based architecture so that the
system effectiveness and the efficiency gets enhance. In addition to this, due to inappropriate
infrastructure the current challenges that the RMIT University is facing include enrolment,

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finance, library etc. This application level solution will give the students a better user experience.
Therefore, the University should concentrate on the system efficiency considering the issues as a
main priority. The project manager is interested to update their AMS system from the current one
to in house cloud based architecture. The total duration of the project is estimated as 20 months
and the starting and finish date of the project are respectively 1/1/2019 and 6/10//2018. Including
the staff salary the total cost estimated for the project is $1, 357, 224. Basically, this project is
experiencing staff level and technical risks throughout.
I think that, in order to combat these issues the project manager should focus mainly on
technical risks and staff related challenges. According to Zwikael (2016), on job technical
training will allow the project team members to become more familiar to the project
requirements. On the other hand, Nicholas and Steyn, (2017), argued that only training can never
build a professional but their interest to individual perspective of project are also important for
them to give them high user experience. Apart from this, the man concern for the
accomplishment of this project include project objectives, project goals, delivery of proper
schedule, constraints and risk assumptions, roles and responsibility of the stakeholders (Larson &
Gray, 2014). I have experienced that successful risk management approaches and risk register
can lead this project towards success.
Besides this, I think that the schedule baseline of this project should be followed
professionally including proper control and monitoring. Ramazani and Jergeas (2015), argued
that, many important factors are there that should be considered for the success of this project.
Fleming and Koppelman (2016) opined those proper consensuses related to project goals among
all the project team members are very much crucial for project success. On the other side
Peppard and Ward (2016) stated that, effective communication among the project team members

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will lead this project towards its objectives. I think that technical experts are required to be hired
by the University Redesign and reconstruction of the AMS system. The final document will be
approved by the board of directors and project sponsors.
Advantages and disadvantages of using PMBOK project management lifecycle
I think that, advancement in career will overwhelm the practices of professional project
management. Many advantages and disadvantages of project management are there due to which
most suitable project lifecycle approach should be selected by the project managers. If the
project executives fail to choose the suitable one then the project may fail to reach the project
objectives and respective goals (Pinto, Dawood & Pinto, 2014). Instead of searching for the
endless resource the project manager should consider reading the project management body of
Knowledge (PMBOK). The advantages and disadvantages are discussed in the below section:
Advantages
Project guide: This is one of the most traditional and widely used practices for
developing any software or system like product for the businesses. Similarly, for development of
the RMIT’s AMS system the PMBOK lifecycle is the most suitable one (Ghosal et al., 2015).
Professional unit of development: PMBOK lifecycle acts as a professional unit of
development. Based on the industry standards reading and studying of the PMBOK is very much
crucial.
Project management step breaking: With the help of this approach a large project can
also be breakdown in smaller segments (Ramazani & Jergeas, 2015). If proper segmentation is