Virtual Delivery System Project: Critical Success/Failure Factors, Lessons Learned, Recommendations, and Reflection

This report discusses the critical success and failure factors of the Virtual Delivery System Project, lessons learned, recommendations, and personal reflection on the key skills and abilities needed for a project manager career.

Virtual delivery system
project

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Critical success/failure factors.....................................................................................................3
Lesson learnt................................................................................................................................4
Recommendations........................................................................................................................6
Reflection.....................................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Project management is the utilization of the specific knowledge, skills, tools and
techniques for delivering of value, it is done through the application of processes and methods,
skills for the achievement of a specific project objectives. This project is about the University of
Wales Trinity saint David which is located in London for providing online lectures due to the
corona virus. In this report the critical success and failure factors of the project will be discussed.
This project will help in analysation of the lesson which will be learned. It will also provide
recommendations on how to improve the project. A reflective report will be provided for
explaining the key skills and abilities needed for the career path of project manager.
MAIN BODY
Critical success/failure factors
The factors in this project which will be the key determinant of the success and also the
failure are going to be the following,
Intelligence of people :
All the people which are going to be involved in the project needs to have certain
intelligence in order to make the project success. These people include the project managers,
staff and all the teachers which are going to be providing the lectures to the student during the
online classes. A project has the tendency to derail at any point having the intelligent people will
help in avoiding the such circumstances (Puška and et.al., 2020). Lack of intelligent people
involved in the project can leave the project vulnerable to the complexities which are needed to
be solved on spot. Thus, it can be said that this factor which could be responsible for the failure
of the project depending on types of people the project has.
Comprehensive planning :
The details of the plan are said to get the ball rolling in the favour of the project's success.
Thus, the project planning is the stage which needs to be ensured affectively to impact the
decisions of the project planning. This planning helps the projects team together and achieve the
dead lines which are considered to be effective in the management of the performance. As
important the comprehensive planning is for the project it can also be the reason for the failure of
the project this is due to the proper planning factors which can impact the project's efficiency that
can result towards ineffective performance.

Open communication :
In the project of online classes the communication is going to be the biggest concern.
This is the reason why it can contribute to the success of the project if the university is able to get
the thing in the right direction (Hair and Sarstedt, M., 2021). Lack of communication in this
project could be the reason of less frequent travel of the communication that can result in the
affecting the universities policies which can develop the project of the university and also
projects their growth. It can be the reason why the project can be distracted from its original
motive and be an ineffective program.
Proper Risk Management :
In a project the management of the risk is considered to be very important factors which
impacts the decision-making of the project. In the online classes there are going to be certain risk
in front of the project which can be dealt with only through the application of the project risk
management. Their will be different risks involving the students, study, technology and time
management thus, it is going to be very important for the project to consider risk management as
without the proper management of risk the risks will arise and cause failures in the project.
Involvement of the stakeholders :
In this project the stakeholders are the students for which the online classes are going to
be started due to Covid-19. It can be said that this is going to very important factor for this
project as lack of proper involvement will be considered to be the failure for this project. Thus,
making the stakeholders involve will be the responsibility of the project manager, teachers and
other staff for making the project successful (Aanbari and Kwak, 2018). Making the stakeholder
more and more involved to the project can be considered to be the key factor to the success of
the project. Thus, it is very important for the teachers to make their lecture more and more
efficient and helpful for the studies of the students of this university. As the main aim of this
project is for keeping the studies of the stakeholders going good it can be very helpful for the
stakeholder to implement these practices.
Lesson learnt
From the project management there are different lessons which can be learned by those
involved in the project. This project of the University applying online classes for the students. In
this project there are going to be the following lessons learned,
Understanding the stakeholders :

This project has provided with the experience of understanding the stakeholders of the
project which are considered to be the ones which have some interest in the success of the
project. These stakeholders are the teachers, project manager, students and other staff which are
involved, understanding the students would be very helpful as it will help in planning better
projects in the future. Other than that the stakeholders are also considered explaining the
importance and effectiveness of the projects results (Chofreh and et.al., 2019). Understanding
the stakeholders will be helpful in determining the performance of the results. It can be said that
the unless the project brings value to the stakeholders it does not grow.
Continuous Communication is important :
Communication is the key for the project as it holds the truth of different levels in the
project. In this project communication is every thing and communication can be made only
through the online methods which require technology and software. Thus, the form this project
what can be learned are the ways in which the communication can be made in online platforms
for serving the purpose of the organization and also being effective at the same time (Top 5
Project Management Lessons Learned from Experience, 2018). The project manager will also
gain a lot of experience from this project related to communication with others. In this project
the major importance is seen in the identification of the roots of the issues which the project
faces which is a crucial lesson that has been understood.
Meeting deadlines :
It is a very important lesson which the project management teaches that the deadlines are
something which are the most crucial things to be met. It can be said that through the application
of the project management techniques the ways in which the deadlines and created, managed and
then met has been a very important lesson (Lee and et.al., 2018). There are various issues which
are faced in the project management, and they have the potential of leading the project to the
failure. Thus, it has been considered to be very important for the project management to monitor
and defend the area which are important for the success of the project. This also becomes a
crucial lesson which can be learned by the project manager through this project. It also helps in
the monitoring of the project values, goals and timelines and good for the stakeholders.
Learning project management techniques :
Specially for those which are new to the project management those project managers are
able to learn more and more from this project. This project teaches the different techniques that

are used in project management and talks about the different ways in which the project is
managed and is able to help the organization in the developing successful practices in the
organization (Borkovskaya, 2018). The reliance of the project can be considered to be very
important part of the success story which is helpful for the developing good knowledge of the
different aspects of the project, The online classes project is helpful in teaching how a project
can be effective in the management of the project operations which can provide growth in the
different factors.
Knowledge of critical tools :
The tools of the project management are very helpful for the learnings of the project
manager and this project has been able to teach that successfully. In this project the different
tools and their application has been very successful for the organization and has been considered
to be the key factor in the success of this project (Al-Hajj and Zraunig, 2018). The lesson
learned from these tools are that they are very helpful in the development of the knowledge in
this industry.
Recommendations
This project needs to be recommended as it has the potential to improve its performance
very much. In the recommendations the main things which are to be implemented in this project
are going to be the factors which will be making this project successful. It will be very important
for the teachers which will be involved in this project to focus on the activities which are related
to the career development of the students. This is due to the fact that the corona virus has
impacted their life and the focus of the students are not really on the online classes. Teachers in
this project are going to be the key individuals that will be able to influence this into the students.
Budget which is going to be prepared for this project needs to have proper analysation such that
it can fulfil the needs of all the departments in this project (Owusu and et.al., 2019). Thus, it is
going to be very important for the classrooms of the students to be easy to capture and also
deliver in the practices of the classrooms to be made in the online classes. In order to improve
the performance the communication would be needed to be improved. However, the
communication can only be improved if there is proper software which secures and also helps
the university being successful.
There are going to be certain assumptions which would be made that can turn into risks
for this project. Thus, it will be important to have risk management which will look properly into

these assumptions for ensuring that they are not affecting the project or will be affecting the
project in the future. The assumptions of the number of students shouldn't be made by the project
as it can easily change according to factors depending on the Covid-19. The assumption of the
classes getting started after a some time also cannot be made as it will affect the organization
even worse and as result be the reason of bad results in the academical performance. Teachers
which will be teaching the students are needed to be trained prior to the online classes so that
they can understand the importance of applying these training into their teachings and also being
effective in the management of the project operations. All the other staff which are going to be
involved in this project are also needed to trained about the roles and responsibilities. This will
help the project to avoid issues in the later stages of the project and complete the project on time
while meeting the deadlines.
Reflection.
This part of report is based on personal reflection of my overall project that I have been
conducted in past times. Thus, I can confidently say that through this project I have been able to
identify success factors that would be helpful for me in delivering high quality projects in future
and also help in my personal growth and development. Also, I have learnt certain mistakes that
would not be repeated in delivering the same kind of project in the future. Moreover, I have
learnt that there are certain skills that need be required to be an effective project manager in the
future. The first important skill in individual is to have an effective communication skill that
would allow him in solving certain queries and will also help in giving required suggestions in
delivering any kind of project. Furthermore, time management is also very crucial so that all
tasks could be completed on the given deadline with the least mistakes and errors. Also, proper
planning could be done and defined objectives could be achieved through managing the time in
proper way (Waghodekar, 2020). I also have realized that when working in team it is essential
that certain amount of leadership skills is also present so that team members remain motivated
and various tasks could be delegated in right manner through identifying the strength and
weakness of each individual present in the team. Furthermore, critical thinking helps any
individual to learn new ways of accomplishing the tasks in set discipline manner (Lyu and Liu,
2021). Thus, in my opinion it is very important for project manager to have strong critical
thinking skills so that all the complex situations could be solved in much easier manner. Also,

conflicts in form of disagreement among team member’s in any project is very common (Mavi,
and Standing, 2018). Thus, based on my knowledge and understanding an effective project
manager is one that is able to handle conflicts while working in diverse group of people.
Moreover, conflicts must be resolved in manner than does not create dissatisfaction and stress
among any group member of project. Thus, with help of proper conflict management skill the
project manager would be able to address all types of internal and external conflicts in
harmonious environment. Also, I believe that to handle either small or large project the project
manager must be able to have good researching skills so that all kinds of relevant information
regarding the analysis of project could be gathered form the verified sources. Also, the project
manager should be efficient enough to use various software tools such as work excel,
PowerPoint, outlook etc. so that necessary documents could be created without much
dependency on others (Oliveros and Vaz-Serra, 2018). Moreover, not only that I have learnt that
mere completion should not be target of the project manager rather the individual should have
better project management skills so that final project could be delivered as per the quality
standards that is desired out of the project. Thus, by focusing on some of these few skills I would
be able to identify new career opportunities in the project manager field and also it would allow
me to develop better individual both personally and professionally.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be said that the project has potential and will be successful if
it follows its goals and objective clearly. In this project the key success factors are critically
evaluated along with the factors which can result into failure. This project has also provided the
lessons which can be learned with the project that has been created. In this project few
recommendations on how to improve the efficiency of the project also been highlighted. The
reflective report of this project provides an analysis of key skills and abilities needed for the
career of a project manager.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Lyu, W. and Liu, J., 2021. Soft skills, hard skills: What matters most? Evidence from job
postings. Applied Energy. 300. p.117307.
Mavi, R. K. and Standing, C., 2018. Critical success factors of sustainable project management
in construction: A fuzzy DEMATEL-ANP approach. Journal of cleaner production. 194.
pp.751-765.
Oliveros, J. and Vaz-Serra, P., 2018. Construction project manager skills: a systematic.
In International Conference of the Architectural Science Association (pp. 185-192).
Waghodekar, P. H., 2020. Developing Generic Skills through Project Management
approach. Vidwat. 13(1). pp.22-27.
Puška, A., and et.al., 2020. Evaluation software of project management used measurement of
alternatives and ranking according to compromise solution (MARCOS) method.
Operational Research in Engineering Sciences: Theory and Applications, 3(1), pp.89-
102.
Hair, J.F. and Sarstedt, M., 2021. Explanation Plus Prediction—The Logical Focus of Project
Management Research. Project Management Journal, p.8756972821999945.
Aanbari, F.T. and Kwak, Y.H., 2018, June. Impact on project management of allied disciplines.
Project Management Institute.
Chofreh, A.G., and et.al., 2019. The imperative and research directions of sustainable project
management. Journal of Cleaner Production, 238, p.117810.
Lee, C.Y., and et.al., 2018. Critical review of social network analysis applications in complex
project management. Journal of Management in Engineering, 34(2), p.04017061.
Borkovskaya, V., 2018. Project management risks in the sphere of housing and communal
services. In MATEC Web of Conferences (Vol. 251, p. 06025). EDP Sciences.
Al-Hajj, A. and Zraunig, M., 2018. The impact of project management implementation on the
successful completion of projects in construction. International Journal of Innovation,
Management and Technology, 9(1), pp.21-27.
Owusu, E.K., and et.al., 2019. Contemporary review of anti-corruption measures in construction
project management. Project Management Journal, 50(1), pp.40-56.
Online references
Top 5 Project Management Lessons Learned from Experience, 2018. [Online]. Available through
<https://projectvanguards.com/top-5-project-management-lessons-learned-from-
experience/>
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