Leading and Managing the Business Project: Strategic Objectives Review

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of leading and managing a business project, using the My Meydan Application as a case study. It critically evaluates the financial plan's support for strategic objectives, reflecting on management and leadership, particularly the need for staff increases during the implementation phase. The report explores methods used to support ongoing project team performance improvement, focusing on the PDCA method, and examines the ways information sharing among key stakeholders supports successful project completion and strategic decision-making. Additionally, it considers the author's personal development plan and how it will enhance ambitions after graduation. The report covers situational analysis, financial strategies, and the evaluation of the project's success, emphasizing the importance of effective leadership and management in achieving project goals and strategic objectives. It highlights the role of stakeholders, both internal and external, in contributing to project success through communication, investment, and participation in decision-making processes.

Leading and
Managing the
Business Project

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
Critical evaluation about the ways financial plan supported the strategic objectives of project. 1
Critical reflection on management and leadership of project, particularly need for staff
increases in implementation phase..............................................................................................3
Critical exploration of method used to support ongoing project team performance
improvement................................................................................................................................4
Exploring the ways information sharing among key stakeholders supports successful project
completion along with strategic decision making.......................................................................6
Consideration of own development over term against the plan completed and the strategic
development areas identified that will enhance ambitions on leaving University......................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Business project is said to set of tasks performed by an organisation to attain objectives. It is
classified into various types including strategic projects, recurring projects and operational
projects. It engrosses set of actions undertaken over time period wherein number of resources is
involved in its development (Awadalla, 2017) (Chirumalla, 2018). When business project is
effectively planned then the next is implementation or putting works of plan into real actions.
Project implementation is one of important practice to execute as well as carry out project within
certain plan for completing tasks and generating desired outcomes. It ensures execution of the
tasks and actions according to schedule and managing gaps promptly. It is very essential for an
entity to lead and manage people for completing business project successfully and effectively.
Implementation of projects is significant for organisation addition to strategic planning
procedures as it reveals new issues, obstacles and challenges which may not be anticipated by the
planners and also leads towards more refined strategies.
The selected organisation for the portfolio is Meydan Group which is one of Semi
Governmental Organisation that works in various sectors including Meydan Equine, Meydan
Free Zone, Meydan Real Estate, Meydan Investment and Meydan Group’s Hospitality. The
chosen project of the entity is My Meydan Application which is free public application in which
an individual can check all the organisational projects as well as get all related information about
areas, facilities nearby, live chat 24*7, types of properties and so on. The present portfolio
includes critical evaluation about financial plan which supports strategic objectives of the
project, reflection on management and leadership of project and exploring methods used for
supporting ongoing project team performance improvement. Further, it covers the ways
information sharing among stakeholders supports both successful project completion along with
strategic decision making and personal development plan in order to use after University.
MAIN BODY
Critical evaluation about the ways financial plan supported the strategic objectives of project
Financial plan is defined to comprehensive evaluation about exiting pay along with
upcoming finance state through using exiting unknown variables on order to forecast future
income, withdrawal plans addition to asset values (Davenport and Harris, 2017). The financial
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plan for My Meydan Application of the entity and the ways it supports strategic objectives is as
follows:
Strategic objectives: The objectives of the entity for My Meydan Application are as
follows:
 To enhance organisational revenue by 15% till end of 2023.
 To increase customer base by 20% till 2024.
 To improve staff satisfaction by 25% till 2023.
Situational analysis: In this, internal and external situations of business are analysed
(Dery, Sebastian and van der Meulen, 2017). In context to My Meydan Application, the entity
considered current financial situations of organisation along with real estate market in Dubai. As
per the analysis, it is perceived that the real estate market of Dubai is suffering now. For improve
it, the entity requires initiating selling its properties and receive cash with limited budget that it
can afford. The company has set the investment fee for the project is generally lower than what it
invests in normal practices.
The entity has reduced its employee size and employees in marketing department that
resulted in saving around AED 144,000.00/ year per employee. In future, My Meydan
Application will deliver all information which client’s are searching which will reduce time
consumed from staff member to convince clients through providing information for connecting
or maintaining relations with serious customers. It also reduced its budget for marketing
campaign from AED 160,000.00 to AED 95,000.00. Through providing link and using racing
events for launching VIP clients that will help in improving awareness about the entity.
Financial strategy: It is managing organisational assets and liabilities for attaining
intended objectives (Doppelt, 2017). Strategic financial management comprises all the above and
ongoing evaluation, planning addition to adjusting for keeping business focused as well as
tracking towards long term objectives. In context to My Meydan Application, its financial
strategy is to effectively use addition to manage available financial resources for pursing
identified objectives. The company has financial strategy of real estate planning in which it aims
to attain wealth creation along with retirement planning.
Financial projections: The projected financial budget for My Meydan Application and the
amount invested by the entity so far is as follows:
Planned Budget Actual budget
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Planed App Creating Cost 150,000.00 (one
Time Payment)
Actual App Creating Cost 150,000.00
Planed App Maintenance cost 25,000.00/year
(starting from 3rd year)
Actual App Maintenance cost NA
Additional Requirements (50% discounts on
any additional requirements)
NA at this stage
Evaluation: My Meydan Application is the successful project of Meydan Group. After
implementing the financial plan, it is evaluated that the company as achieved all the objectives
through financial strategy. It is also evaluated that the entity is successful executing financial
theory and achieving favourable practices without any deviations which states that the financial
planning supports project objectives to huge extent (Jabri, 2017).
Critical reflection on management and leadership of project, particularly need for staff increases
in implementation phase
Leadership is defined as the action to lead a group for achieving organisational objectives.
It is the capacity of organisational people to set along with attains challenging goals, take
decision actions when required, inspires others and outperform competition at possible highest
level. Project leader’s role in the business project is far more than task related deliverables. In
context to My Meydan Application, project leaders focus on each and every activity performed
by staff members and also influence them with financial and non financial rewards. Within
Meydan Group, commercial department makes entire decision for all departments to control
entire movements and show off powers that creates complexities in communication addition to
decision making that causes delays in project execution and progressive results. In this situation,
the leader of project has adopted situational or solution leadership theory or approach in order to
adopt suitable leadership style as per the situation. With this approach, the leader focuses on
finding solutions despite of showing powers of al department that influences positively on
implementation and progressive of project (Kandachar and Halme, 2017). Moreover, the leader
also stimulates staff members and attracts talents for different divisions to achieve success in
implementing project.
Management is said to process to deal with things or people to attain success in set of
tasks. A manager of project challenges and oversees an individual or collective group in efforts
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for achieving desired objectives. In case with My Meydan Application, project managers plays
significant role of executing workings of project as planned criteria. It is impossible to change
behaviour of management in limited duration as it needs huge changes, efforts and willingness
from majority of organisational departments. This types of situation was managed in the project
through preparing all, relevant information, progress reports and discussing with all departmental
managers to gain some new ideas and ensuring updated workings are assigned to all. It is also
ensured that each team have one or more representative who have potentials for representing the
progress made by staff in implementation phase. At same time, management also emphasised on
allotting resources and setting compensation that increases staff working and motivation towards
implementation phase (Maqbool and Et. Al., 2017). This showed positive results in executing all
workings and achieving positive outcomes of the project as all teams and staff members
performed as best as possible.
Critical exploration of method used to support ongoing project team performance improvement
Performance improvement is defined to measuring outputs performed by particular
business team and then modifying procedures for enhancing outputs, efficiency and
effectiveness. Team performance improvement of project is one of important working of leaders
and managers of company which are responsible for specific project. Ongoing performance
improvement of a team is done in many ways by organisational authorities. My Meydan
Application is one of big project of Meydan Group as it requires he work to be completed, large
volume of information requested, involvement of people and department, large expected income
and mass customer targeted. It also involves various phases that are covered by entire group
business in upcoming duration and also depend on success of existing phases. The method that is
used by My Meydan Application for supporting ongoing project team performance improvement
is PDCA Method. It is four phase management method which is used in business with the
purpose of controlling and ongoing improvement of performances of the project team (PDCA
Method, 2020). With this method, managers of My Meydan Application try workings for one
month prior to introduction or publishing. The PDCA cycle is as follows:
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Figure 1: PDCA Method. 2020
(Source: PDCA Method. 2020)
Plan: In this stage, organisational managers recognise opportunity addition to plan tasks.
In context to Meydan Group, managers and leaders plan for My Meydan Application. Well
stated project plan provides effective framework through which entire workings are operated
accordingly. It also maps project working and clearly indicates effective ways for achievement.
Do: It is another stage in which actions are taken. Managers of project apply everything
which is planned at previous stage. In context to My Meydan Application, managers at this stage
publishes information about the project for one month by small group of random population
including leasing, information technology and marketing.
Check: This is one of important phase of PDCA method (Owens, Wilson and Abell,
2019). In order to clarify plan it is important to avoid recurring mistakes addition to implement
continuous improvements of team performance successfully. In this phase, entire execution of
the project that is My Meydan Application is audited and major focus is made towards ensuring
actual working of initial plan. Moreover, feedbacks are collected, surveys are performed and user
comments are considered to check performance of the project and accordingly modifications are
made in order to attain success in improving team performance of project.
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Act: In this stage, project managers act for the performances and gets confirmation for
republishing the working. They acts on little things in order to improve performances on ongoing
basis to gain successful results for My Meydan Application.
Exploring the ways information sharing among key stakeholders supports successful project
completion along with strategic decision making
Stakeholders are the internal and external people that have huge interest and power in
success or failure of organisation or its project. It is explored that if a business folded in future
then these people will be affected in many ways. In context to My Meydan Application, its
stakeholders are internal and external people involved in the project. External stakeholders are
those people which do not directly take part in project but are engaged from some outside
sources and affects outcomes of project in huge manner. These are suppliers, customer, media,
local communities, subcontractors and government. Similarly, internal stakeholders are people
involved in project from within entity (Schaltegger and Wagner, 2017). They comprises of
project team, business partners, management and leadership, other management team, employees
and portfolio manager.
These stakeholders supports project completion together with strategic decision making
in My Meydan Application through sharing viewpoints about working, making investment and
participating in all the meetings so that success is achieved in completing set of tasks and
achieving suitable results of decision. In phase 1, stakeholders involved in decision making for
the project and collect important information from various sources along with takes “Internal
Committee Approvals” for the My Meydan Application to implement it successfully as per
defined criteria. In Phase 2, stakeholders processes information to other team members
(Schulenkorf, 2017). They also kicks off the other stakeholders that are unproductive for the
project and provides feedbacks to make certain improvements in the project. Phase 3 is about
trial in which decision making with stakeholders is necessary for publishing My Meydan
Application for trial purpose and revise feedbacks for making further amendments and
improvements in existing project. At present, Meydan Group is at phase 3 as the app is released
for small proportion of public users and employees of company to attain feedback as well as
comments for amending required improvements on project.
For My Meydan Application, information among and with stakeholders are shared
through organising weekly meetings along with written reports from all the departmenst that are
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involved so that meaningful support is achieved for required working to take the project of My
Meydan Application in effective direction of competing projects promptly. At same time,
stakeholders supports decision making by running the project through verbal, face to face,
mobile and email communication for helping in making suitable decision and implementing
them in the project.
Consideration of own development over term against the plan completed and the strategic
development areas identified that will enhance ambitions on leaving University
In a project, an individual achieves effectual experience while devising and executing set of
tasks for business to achieve success. The work experience of an individual is more than
administrative, information technology and finance. In the project of My Meydan Application,
various activities are learned by an individual including communication, listening and
performing tasks related to marketing and others. This also helped in implementing study
material that is achieved by a learner from professors in University and implementing the same
in effective manner in organisational projects (Tomlinson, 2017). Moreover, performing
extensive research about industry helped an individual to get professional information addition to
experience in understanding project work and the ways big changes can be achieved with
amazing results for right implementation. An individual could have right intention as well as
clear target with good plan to achieve successful results in executing workings. While working in
the project of My Meydan Application, an individual as learner have identified some
improvement areas that are time management skill, evaluating skill and resource management
competence. It is important for them to improve the areas against the plan and enhance ambitions
on leaving University. The personal development plan for the identified areas is as follows:
Development
area
Importance of
the skill for
success of project
Required
resources
How to know
that the area is
developed
Timescale Achieved
Yes / No
Time
management
skill
Time management
skill is required in
project or business
for managing time
for ensuring all
defined tasks are
Diary for
keeping
information
of all tasks
and calendar
to organise
Through
completing
multiple tasks at
same time scale,
by prioritising
work effectively,
Ongoing Yes
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completed at best
possible capability
to attain success.
workings
timely.
completing
activities prior to
deadline and
dealing with
stress prudently
(Wang and
Yuan, 2017).
Evaluation
skill
Evaluation skill is
needed in projects
for constructively
criticising oneself
for making areas
of improvement in
order to create
effective services
for clients.
Developing
feedback
surveys for
documenting
the activities
done well
along with
ways of
improvisation
(Jabri, 2017).
Through
determining
investment
returns, building
learning
community on
shared
experiences and
recognising
accomplishments
Ongoing Yes
Resource
management
competence
Resource
management
competence is
required for
ensuring available
resources are
enough to achieve
success without
over abundance
situation
(Awadalla, 2017).
Laptops or
computers
for reporting
resources and
notepad for
making
record of
ordering
needed
amount of
resources.
Through
monitoring
project as well as
physical and
human resources
used in each
working addition
to monitoring
tasks which are
not left
abundance by
involved people.
Ongoing Yes
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CONCLUSION
From the portfolio it has been concluded that business projects are important workings on an
organisation to generate more revenue and met other identified objectives successfully. Business
project such as My Meydan Application is the exiting project that is undertaken by Meydan
Group. It is a public app that targets VIP clients for having information about the projects and
services offered by the organisation. Financial plan plays import function in supporting
attainment of strategic objectives with properly devised and implemented working. Management
and leadership adopts suitable approaches for dealing with complexities in project and increasing
staff or other talents win implementation stages through motivating them with rewards and other
essentials. Stakeholders are the people who aren’t limited to working directly or indirectly with
the practices or decision of the entity. Personal development plan improves identified areas that
need more improvisation for increasing and attaining future ambitions.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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Promotional Strategies and New Service Opportunities in Emerging Economies (pp.
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heavy-duty vehicle industry. The Journal of Modern Project Management. 5(3).
Davenport, T. and Harris, J., 2017. Competing on analytics: Updated, with a new introduction:
The new science of winning. Harvard Business Press.
Dery, K., Sebastian, I.M. and van der Meulen, N., 2017. The Digital Workplace is Key to Digital
Innovation. MIS Quarterly Executiv. 16 (2).
Doppelt, B., 2017. Leading change toward sustainability: A change-management guide for
business, government and civil society. Routledge.
Jabri, M., 2017. Managing organizational change: Process, social construction and dialogue.
Palgrave.
Kandachar, P. and Halme, M. eds., 2017. Sustainability challenges and solutions at the base of
the pyramid: Business, technology and the poor. Routledge.
Maqbool, R. and Et. Al., 2017. The impact of emotional intelligence, project managers’
competencies, and transformational leadership on project success: An empirical
perspective. Project Management Journal. 48 (3). pp.58-75.
Owens, I., Wilson, T. and Abell, A., 2019. Information and Business Performance: A Study of
Information Systems and Services in High-Performing Companies. Walter de Gruyter
GmbH & Co KG.
Schaltegger, S. and Wagner, M. eds., 2017. Managing the business case for sustainability: The
integration of social, environmental and economic performance. Routledge.
Schulenkorf, N., 2017. Managing sport-for-development: Reflections and outlook. Sport
Management Review. 20 (3). pp.243-251.
Tomlinson, C. A., 2017. How to differentiate instruction in academically diverse classrooms.
ASCD.
Wang, J. and Yuan, H., 2017. System dynamics approach for investigating the risk effects on
schedule delay in infrastructure projects. Journal of Management in Engineering. 33(1).
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Online:
PDCA Method. 2020. [Online]. Available through:
<https://kanbanize.com/lean-management/improvement/what-is-kaizen>
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