Management of Projects Towards Success: EPM5630 Report, VU

This report delves into the critical aspects of project management, focusing on strategies to enhance project success. It begins with an executive summary highlighting the importance of effective project management and the role of group decision-making. The report includes a comprehensive literature review exploring the complexities of IT projects and the factors contributing to both success and failure. Two case studies are presented, examining the projects undertaken by eCourier and LogicaCMG, with detailed background analyses of each company and their respective projects. The analysis section assesses the success or failure of these projects based on the discussed factors. The report concludes with recommendations for improving future projects, emphasizing the importance of adapting management approaches to enhance the likelihood of successful outcomes. The report is structured as a formal business report, including an introduction, literature review, case studies, analysis, conclusions, and recommendations, providing a well-rounded perspective on project management practices.

Running head: MANAGEMENT OF PROJECTS TOWARDS SUCCESS
Management of Projects towards Success
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1MANAGEMENT OF PROJECTS TOWARDS SUCCESS
Executive Summary
The report focuses over the critical aspect in relation to projects and the different ways in which
they could be managed for enhancing the factor of success. The report discusses the importance
of projects and the ways in which group decision making could help in improving the factors for
the project. This report discusses the projects that have been undertaken by eCourier and
LogicaCMG within their business perspective. Based on the discussion supported within this
report, it can be understood whether the projects had failed or succeeded. The report also
proposes a recommendation strategy in order to help projects to follow for becoming successful
in their future endeavours.

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................3
2. Literature Review........................................................................................................................4
2.1 Complexity within IT Projects...............................................................................................4
2.2 Discussion over Case Studies................................................................................................5
2.2.1 Company Background Analysis for eCourier.................................................................5
2.2.2 Company Background Analysis for LogicaCMG..........................................................7
2.3 Complexity within the Projects.............................................................................................8
2.4 Organisational Environment for Managing Project Success...............................................11
2.5 Analysis for the Success or Failure of Chosen Projects......................................................13
3. Conclusion.................................................................................................................................15
4. Recommendations towards Future Projects...............................................................................15
References......................................................................................................................................17

3MANAGEMENT OF PROJECTS TOWARDS SUCCESS
1. Introduction
The concept of project management mainly deals with developing of a proper plan that
would be required for executing the different aspects of the project. There are different
businesses that make use of project management strategies in order to make them successful.
There are a wide number of project management strategies and tools that help in the
development of the project (Todorović, et al. 2015, p. 780). Hence, the application of such kind
of project management practices and tools would be highly essential for leading towards
increasing form of employee productivity and benefiting the business.
The concept of planning in project management forms the basis of project management.
In the case of small business owners, a proper kind of planning based on discussing the
resources, schedule and estimations of budget would be highly required. After a proper kind of
planning would be done, this plan would need to be communicated to each of the team members
who would be responsible for working over the project (Too and Weaver, 2014). The project
manager who would be planning over the project should be capable of understanding the
potential capabilities of every employee who would be involved within the team performing the
project.
The use of proper kind of project management tools would also be highly required during
the planning of the project. In the recent times, there have been a huge rise in the use of different
kind of project management tools that would help in improving the business capabilities. Each of
the tools that would be used for managing the project should be selected carefully such as to
achieve higher benefits for the success of the business.

4MANAGEMENT OF PROJECTS TOWARDS SUCCESS
The aim of the present discussion in the report is based on exploring the best practices
that are mostly employed by different businesses in managing their projects for making them
successful. This discussion would also help in understanding about the ways in which different
business would work together for dealing with the aspect of complexity within IT projects
(Conforto, et al., 2014). The critical success factors that are mostly required to be managed in
cases of such projects would also be need to be used. The discussion is focused over two projects
that are studied and thus could be considered as successful projects based on a proper form of
analysis.
2. Literature Review
2.1 Complexity within IT Projects
According to the discussion supported by various authors and business project managers,
it has been discussed that only 17% of IT projects that are developed are considered as fully
successful. The study over the processes and factors that mainly contribute towards the
complexity formed within IT projects should be studied. According to the discussion proposed
by Svejvig and Andersen (2015), it can be understood that the management aspects of such kind
of projects and discussing the various factors should be matter of huge concern. The factors that
lead to the failure for IT projects should be carefully discussed and managed. Based on a proper
kind of understanding over the factors that lead to the failure of IT projects, it would be easy to
manage such kind of complexities.
The making of choices over the technology is considered as the most important
contributing factor towards the forming of complexity towards the IT projects. Different kind of
economic, social and technical factors also form a major kind of influential factor towards
meeting towards the objectives set for the project. Hence, in order to manage the complexities

5MANAGEMENT OF PROJECTS TOWARDS SUCCESS
within the projects, different kind of technical and social strategies would also be required based
on managing the entire project team. The internal and external influences would also be need to
be managed during the developing of the project (Samset and Volden, 2016). The different kind
of sources based on the incurring of complexity for the project are based on a wide range of
economic, political and social issues.
The different kind of IT projects would be conceived and conducted within an uncertain
and large environment. These projects would thus be able to produce a considerable form of
complexity towards the participants and project planners. The relationship that would be
maintained within the participants and project planners could be defined as interactive,
numerous, ambiguous and unpredictable (Silvius and Schipper, 2014). There are various kind of
environments in which different form of issues could arise leading to the increase of project
complexity.
2.2 Discussion over Case Studies
The discussion that would be focused over would be based on examination of the type
and nature of complexity within the two forms of IT projects. The following part of the
discussion would focus over two companies who had established their project cases. This
discussion would help in understanding the important factors based on understanding the critical
factors of success of the proposed project.
2.2.1 Company Background Analysis for eCourier
The eCourier is one of the largest courier service provider in the United Kingdom. The
company had formed in 2003 and their major aim was to provide courier service throughout the
UK. The primary focus of the courier service was to enhance over advanced form of customer
interaction and bringing in transparency within the delivery processes (Wang, Jie and Abareshi,

6MANAGEMENT OF PROJECTS TOWARDS SUCCESS
2014). The business of the company address the needs of their customers by collecting parcels
from any address within London and thus transfer them to any final destination that would be put
forward as a request from the client. With the change in their business processes, the company
has expanded their business processes and thus have global form of access to any location.
In order to meet with the current trends of dispatching of goods and several products to
customers, the eCourier company has made use a high form of project management strategies.
Hence, they focused over introducing Advanced Information Based Allocation (AIBA), which
can be discussed as a fleet management system and intelligent dispatch technology. This kind of
system has been further been utilised for allocation the booking of the most flexible vehicle to
send the courier package to the customers (Elias, 2016). In addition with the detection of the
nearest kind of vehicle to the pickup location of the goods, AIBA would also be capable of
performing brief analysis over the particular individuals who would be designated as courier
service provider. The intelligent system would also be helpful for understanding and detecting
the congestion present within the streets that might affect the delivery of order during peak
moments.
In the recent times, there have been many causes of breach and fraud. This would also
include issues in relation to security aspects. With the problems based on reliability factors, a
high value of timely delivery of products would be considered (Gruber, Kihm and Lenz, 2014).
With the revolution brought by eCourier, they had also brought in transparency within the
courier industry. In the previous times, the customers were informed that their products would be
stuck in extreme traffic conditions. However, with the impact of technology implemented by
eCourier as a project management strategy within their business process, the company have been
able to provide real-time access to parcel information (Wang, Jie and Abareshi, 2015). The

7MANAGEMENT OF PROJECTS TOWARDS SUCCESS
implementation of technology that have been implemented by eCourier primarily aims to utilise
the system in order to predict the travelling times between any places within the UK.
2.2.2 Company Background Analysis for LogicaCMG
LogicaCMG undertook a dedicated project towards the growth of their company. The
project was based on the development of a prepaid gas meter that could be used by customers for
domestic purposes (Fortes, et al., 2014). They would thus be able to accept different kind of
monetary top-ups based on using their mobile phones. The development of the smart meter
would be sold to different energy based companies based on replacing the existing meters
present within the homes of customers. This would also include the outdated system of using
token meters (Zhou, et al., 2016). The project could be defined as complex as it would involve
the inclusion of new form of technologies based within the already established market.
The company has a massive form of international presence that would span over a range
of thirty-six countries on a worldwide basis. The project that had been implemented within the
changing face of the perspectives of the company would be able to meet with the market needs
(Harou, et al., 2014). This also includes the planning of accepting payments in terms of Euros
and meeting with the European standards. The project based on the implementation of a smart
meter would be majorly used in different less developed countries who would not have a proper
infrastructure for enabling energy within the homes. This would thus help the customers to pay
for their bills in advance in a reliable manner (Goulden, et al., 2014). With a successful form of
implementation of the smart meter project by LogicaCMG, it would help customers to change
their energy suppliers in an easy manner.
There are different energy providing companies that would be interested in the
purchasing of electric meters as they would offer different savings to cost factors in the longer

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run. They also help in reducing the costs estimated for providing service to customers (Chou and
Yutami, 2014). The political factors involved with the development work over the project would
also prove to have an influential factor over the project. The smart meters would also have an
increasing demand in the global market.
In the present times, the energy prices and political factors have formed a major
encouraging factor towards the project. This is mainly due to the reason that many customers
would be in the need of making prepaid payments based on the purpose of budgeting. Hence, it
can be further discussed that the project is taking place within the within the right form of
political environment (Andreadou, Guardiola and Fulli, 2016). With the rising factor of poverty
in fuel factors, the government is taking different kind of measures based on increasing the
efficiency towards energy. It has also led to reduction in the consumption of energy. With the
nature of prepaid services, customers would become aware of the usage of energy at their homes.
They would also be able to gain benefits focused over facilities based on monitoring over energy
that would be available with the help of smart meter.
2.3 Complexity within the Projects
Macro Environment
Based on understanding the two cases of project planning and their way of approaching
towards the work over the project, it can be discussed that the ‘Complexity Model’ could be used
by the team of planning and research. This model employs the use of PESTEL framework and
Porter’s Five Forces. This discussion could be further be analysed based on the perspectives of
the PESTEL framework as follows:

9MANAGEMENT OF PROJECTS TOWARDS SUCCESS
Political – The purpose of the Government forms a major impact over the formation of
IT projects. The taxes imposed over the business and the proposing of financial incentives would
prove to have an encouraging internship factor (Parviainen, et al., 2017). This would further put
an impact over the project and thus help in considering the viability of the business. The political
forces over LogicaCMG would have a substantial kind of impact over the project. In the case of
eCourier, the different kind of political factors were not considered as to be important as
compared to LogicaCMG. This is mainly due to the reason that the courier industry would not be
considered within the political agenda.
Economic – The discussion over the economic factors includes the factor of willingness
of customers based on purchasing of products that would be produced from the perspective if
information technology. The economic climate at LogicaCMG would be considered as important
as it would affect and increase the demand of prepaid meters (Rossi, et al., 2016). This kind of
factor would further add towards the complexity of the developed project.
Technical – The several kind of issues within technical aspects could lead to factors of
uncertainty towards the development of IT projects. This would majorly affect those companies
or organizations that make use of innovative technology and practices for the development of
such kind of projects (Ducret, 2014). This is mainly due to the reason that the use of technology
and practices are changing on a rapid basis. Hence, any form of competitive and technical
mistake would produce severe kind of financial losses. In the case of the project developed by
LogicaCMG, it can be seen that they have faced some form of cost overruns due to rising costs
and unpredictable nature of technology (Morganti, et al., 2014). Further response for resolving of
issues for LogicaCMG was that they had spent more over improving their technological content
during the early stages of the project.

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However, during the post-implementation stages of the project implemented by eCourier,
it has been seen that they had faced continuous form of uncertainty and complexity. Hence, they
should have been careful based on considering the use of technology. They should properly
consider over the proper kind of technology that they need to invest.
Environmental – The issues in relation to environmental factors would be considered as
a major concern for eCourier. Based on increase in charges based on parking and the additional
kind of tax imposed over fuel, the company would have to think over new form of approaches
for the delivery of the goods (Allen, et al., 2018). They would be further be encouraged to
introduce the use of bicycles. They would also need to adjust the approaches for delivering the
goods to customers. With the implementation of such kind of approach, it would also increase
the complexity towards developing the IT project (Lemke, Iwan and Korczak, 2016). This is
mainly due to the reason that the automated dispatching system would be mostly programmed
for the purpose of allocating the most proper kind of courier service. This new approach might
not be economically suitable or environmentally feasible.
Legal – This could be considered as another important factor leading towards the aspect
of complexity within the IT related projects. The government legislation could vary within
various countries that would further affect the output for the project (Thompson, 2015). There
could arise other form of situations when the government legislations might not match with the
specified guidelines of the company proposing the project. In cases of both the companies, it
could be discussed that these companies would be able to protect the aspect of patents based on
designing of the desired products (Nordås and Rouzet, 2017). Registering of patents would lead
to reducing of complexity based on reducing the threats towards the new kind of competitive
entrants within the micro environment.

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Micro Environment
In this kind of environment for the project, the business players who would have a proper
control over the project or who could have a proper kind of influence over the project. This
might include the industry or the included customers.
Industry – In the case of the chosen companies who are in the process of introducing new
kind of technologies based on the use of project management aspects, it would be difficult to
understand the first movers within the industry.
Client – The project team involved within both of the companies should have the habit of
adapting to varied range of changes within the project scope. The requirements of clients might
change and this could be considered as vitally important when the client would be unsure about
the awareness factor regarding technology (Ulmer, Brinkmann and Mattfeld, 2015). In the case
of LogicaCMG, the complexity within managing of the project is high due to a high number of
clients requiring the project. ‘
2.4 Organisational Environment for Managing Project Success
The factor of organisational environment and their impact over the project would be
considered as a complex factor. During considering the business impact and project purpose
formed by eCourier, it can be seen that the people working for the project mirrors the fact that
the company has a major aim towards putting a major impact over the customers. Honesty and
transparency within the working factor over the project should be maintained at all levels of the
courier industry (Mir and Pinnington, 2014). LogicaCMG employs the use of hot-desking feature
across multiple business locations. Although the different project team members working over
the project would be located on geographical different locations, but they would be in contact