Critical Issues in Project Management: A Reflective Journal

This reflective journal discusses critical issues in project management, the concept of organizational strategy, and the role of a project manager. It also includes a case study on two major projects based on digital twins and SWOT analysis.

REFLECTIVE JOURNAL

INTRODUCTION
Project management involves the application of specific skills, knowledge, techniques and tools
in an attempt to deliver something valuable to the people or society at large. There is a
component of uniqueness and differentiating elements from the routine operations of an
organisation, so that the conclusion can be drawn by achieving the goals of the project. There are
five stages involves in the life cycle of project management that is, initiation, project planning,
execution, monitoring and controlling of project and the last one is project closure which aids in
converting the idea of the project into a working product. Talking about the issues pertaining to
any of the project means something that come up in the way of the project acting as an obstacle
and accordingly affecting the whole planning (Kwayu, Lal and Abubakre, 2018). Therefore,
issues too needed to be well managed by defining it as a risk and accordingly framing rules and
defining activities in order to control and manage such issues arising during the course of a
project. Some of the common issues that may arise during the course of a project are lack of
communication, undefined goals and criteria for success, budget related issues, inappropriate risk
management, lack of skills and training of project manager and their team members and lack of
accountability. Thus, the present report is based on discussion related to the critical issues
associated with the project management only. The report will be written in a reflective form by
highlighting the concept of organisational strategy and the reason behind the necessity of its
understanding for the project manager. This report will also include the discussion of the role I
have played as a project manager with reference to the two major project known as digital twins
which was based in China and Portugal. The various roles that I have played in accomplishing
these two projects are communication with stakeholders and team members, identifying issues
and resolving the same at earliest, I have prepared many budgets for establishing financial and
non-financial control, made schedule for managing time, and I provide my team members with
assistance to identify their strengths and address weaknesses along with motivating them through
monetary and non-monetary incentives to build a good team. The purpose of performing all these
roles is to ensure high level of effectiveness and efficiency throughout the project duration and
accomplishing it on the right time. The case study reveal that the project team at Chengdu faced
with various design challenges and this time I tried my best to provide team members with the
required strengths to overcome their weaknesses posing challenges in the project and accordingly
the project gets accomplished successfully. The first project is based on the use of digital twins
model for road construction project in Shanbanquio area of Chengdu, the capital of China. The
second project is based on the sustainable and integrated project for the management of the entire
urban water cycle in Portugal. I will also analyze the project environment of these two project
based on digital twins by conducting SWOT analysis of the project to assess its strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats. With the help of conclusion drawn from the SWOT
analysis, a set of recommendations will be made to the senior management.
MAIN BODY
Concept of organisational strategy and the role of a project manager
By accomplishing the project based on digital twins model, the concept of organisational strategy
has been understood by me as a dynamic road map that undertakes to describe how an

organisation is required to evolve in order to meet their vision and goals. I have learned that
organisational strategy acts as a plan which indicates how resources should be allocated in an
effective and efficient manner among different activities of a business such as marketing,
production, infrastructure, etc (Meng and Boyd, 2017). I materialize upon how the strategy in an
organisation is set at three distinct level that is, at corporate level, business level and functional
level. The corporate level strategy involves the description of final destination towards which the
business aims to reach such as diversification, no change, profit and concentration. The business
level strategy acts as a bridge between the corporate level and functional level strategy. It is
derived from the corporate level strategy and thus is more focused than it. Like in case of
corporate level strategy being diversification, the business level strategy involves rebranding,
investigating to get into new markets and broadening the exposure. The last one is the functional
level strategy that are described as benchmarks and specific actions which has been assigned to
individuals within different departments in order to move business towards the achievement of
final goals or mission set in the corporate level strategy. With the help of this learning, I have
made my own strategies by ensuring its effectiveness and efficiency to accomplish the two
projects. For example, Bentley open modelling and simulation application has been used by my
team which was useful in modelling bridge structures and developing a strategy to eliminate the
effect of local traffic.
Need of understanding the organisational strategy by a project manager
I have gathered the knowledge regarding the need of understanding the organisational strategy
by a project manager through accomplishing the project on implementation of digital twins
model in two major projects that is road construction and urban water supply. The two major
reason of having an understanding of the organisational strategy identified by me as a project
manager are as follows:
 As a project manager I was required to make appropriate decisions related to the
assignment of tasks to the team members, providing direction to myself and my team
members efforts and immediately responding towards the change (Gandomani and et.al.,
2020).
 I always focus on aligning individual goals with the organisational goals as there is a
necessity to understand organisational strategy well by me as a project manager, so that I
can ensure an effective project advocacy.
 From this project I decided that if I got such a similar opportunity in future I will must
ensure to get positive feedback for the requests framed as a project manager by
developing well understanding of organisational strategy and building good image in the
eye of senior stakeholders as well as team members which helps in increasing the
probability of success of the project.
The role of a project manager
In this section, I will illustrate what role I have played while carrying out my duties and
responsibilities as a project manager in road construction and management of urban water cycle
project. I learnt that the role of a project manager is of leading the phases of life cycle of a

project that is planning, executing, controlling, monitoring and closing the project successfully.
By doing so, I have ensure that these projects must be resulted in the achievement of the
organisational strategy at the right time, within a set budget and I have to ensure that everything
should be within the scope of the project. Some of the most important roles that I have played as
a project manager are as follows:
 I regularly communicate with my team members and key stakeholders in order to
determine the current status of a project and any kind of roadblocks that are needed to be
resolved immediately, as a project manager it is my duty to continuously communication
with my team members. In the same, I used to communicate with my project’s
stakeholders on a daily basis to update myself regarding the project progress (Haughey,
2018).
 I regularly undertake analysis and assessment activities to identify issues and resolving it
at the earliest. The issues that I came across are generally arising with regards to budget,
scope and allocation of resources. Therefore, as a project manager I always encourage
suggestions from experts to arrive at an effective solution to these issues to keep the
project on track.
 Preparing budget and timely comparison of actual and budgeted activities is another most
important task that I used to perform as a project manager. I used to spend enough time
on reviewing budgets to ensure the project activities are within the allocated and
available resources. By doing so, I can be able to keep the expenses under control.
 I realized that time management skills are of great importance to become a successful
project manager as it allows to keep the project on track and its accomplishment on time.
I used to prepare timesheets to guide my team in managing with the time. I always focus
on ensuring the progress of a project in a planned manner and accordingly I used to shift
resources among different projects.
 Team building: I always thrust on keeping my team members happy and productive,
which can be possible through managing team members as a project manager. I tried to
boost morale of my team members by motivating them through monetary and non-
monetary incentives. Team building activities are equally important and this what
performed by me as a project manager.
 If I got more opportunities like this in future, as a project manager I will ensure the
delivery of project in an efficient and effective manner along with optimum value as I
have learnt to overcome project management related issues and challenges and gain a lot
of experience with the accomplishment of digital twins project (Bibbes, Rollins and
Johnston, 2017).
 As a Project manager I have established high level of coordination at the stage of
designing the model for a project in order to avoid omissions, mistakes and collisions and
due to this I would be able to ensure the success of the project.

REFERENCES
Kwayu, S., Lal, B. and Abubakre, M., 2018. Enhancing Organisational competitiveness via
social media-a strategy as practice perspective. Information Systems Frontiers, 20(3),
pp.439-456.
Meng, X. and Boyd, P., 2017. The role of the project manager in relationship
management. International Journal of Project Management, 35(5), pp.717-728.
Gandomani, T. J., and et.al., 2020. The role of project manager in agile software teams: A
systematic literature review. IEEE Access, 8, pp.117109-117121.
Haughey, D., 2018. The role of the project manager. Project Smart, faculty. northseattle. edu.
Bibbes, T., Rollins, M. and Johnston, W., 2017. Exploring the role of the project manager in
organizational knowledge creation. International Journal of Knowledge Management
(IJKM), 13(3), pp.38-54.