PROJ6001 Integrated Project Management: Impact Analysis at Quasar

This report provides an impact analysis of Quasar Communications Inc., focusing on internal and external factors affecting project management processes. Internal issues include a lack of proper leadership and communication gaps between departments, leading to uncoordinated decision-making and reduced authority for project managers. External factors involve maintaining market image by prioritizing failing projects, potentially compromising the quality of others, and accommodating client change requests, which often result in unexpected costs. The report suggests strategies such as developing a proper management policy, improving communication plans, and implementing better client management practices. A communication plan is detailed, emphasizing routine communication, weekly meetings, and clear lines of communication between line managers and project managers. The report concludes that addressing communication gaps and establishing clear policies are crucial for QCI's project success. Personal learning reflections highlight the importance of understanding enterprise environmental factors and using tools like PESTLE analysis for risk management.

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PROJ6001: Impact Analysis Report
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Executive Summary
When there is no proper administration available and the various stakeholders take decisions on
their own, projects are bound to fail. In case of Quasar Communications, same is the case i.e.
there is no appropriate administration or governance of the projects. As a result, either many
projects fail or poor quality outcomes are delivered to the clients on a constant basis. The project
managers at the company have discussed some of major problems they face while managing the
projects.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Impact Analysis for Quasar Communications Inc...........................................................................3
Internal and External Factors and their Impact on Project Management Processes....................3
Strategies to Implement Appropriate Actions.............................................................................5
Communication Plan and Outcomes to Diverse Stakeholders....................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
Personal Learning Reflection..........................................................................................................8
References......................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
Quasar Communications Inc. is a communications company that is a part of the
Communication Systems International, the world’s largest communications company. In spite of
the market success, the vice president of the company found out that there are a lot of internal
issues that are having negative impact on the projects. When he interviewed some of his project
managers, they explained in detail regarding the issues that they are facing during the projects. It
is evident from their explanations that there is a lack of sufficient authority on a project and
every manager of separate departments act on their own decisions without thinking about the
implications on the other departments as well as on the company as a whole.
In this report, the internal and external factors that have impact on the project
management processes have been analyzed and suitable strategies have been developed in order
to solve these issues.
Impact Analysis for Quasar Communications Inc
Internal and External Factors and their Impact on Project Management Processes
Following the analysis of the case study of Quasar Communications Inc, it can be said
that there are several internal and external factors that have significant impact on the project
management processes at the company. These factors are discussed as follows.
Internal Factors – Most of the factors that have impact on the project management
processes are of internal origin. Following the interview with the project managers, the vice

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president of the company has found that there are a lot of internal issues that are negatively
affecting the project itself. Some of the major factors are listed as follows.
Lack of Proper Leadership: The organization lacks proper leadership that can guide all
the departments towards suitable solutions in various problems. Furthermore, an effective
leadership also helps the company to have more control over the departments so that they work
according to the preset plan only and not operate on their own accord (Kerzner and Kerzner
2017). However, due to lack of proper leadership, different departments function differently with
each of the department heads act on their own accord even during the project. Thus the role of
project manager is also significantly reduced in the project.
Communication Gap: There is also significant communication gap between the managers
of the various departments. As a result, the managers make their own decisions without even
consulting other departments that in turn result in abrupt decisions in projects that are not
suitable or supported by the other departments.
External Factors – There are also some external factors that have certain impact on the
project management processes. These factors are discussed as follows.
Market Image: The company has a huge market value and hence, it cannot afford a failed
project even if it means compromising with the quality. As cited by one of the project managers,
if there is a possibility of a failed project, the management team reduces the funds from five
other projects to invest more in that project (Harrison and Lock 2017). As a result, in place of
five successful and one failed project, the company delivers six poor quality projects just to
protect their image in the market.

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Change Requirements Requested by the Clients: The company values the clients very
highly and hence, it is always prepared to incorporate the changes proposed by the clients in the
project (Fleming and Koppelman 2016). However, it has been seen that in many projects, during
a late stage of the project, the client changed the requirements and in order to implement the
changes, the company needed to spend a considerable amount of extra funds just to protect the
image in front of the clients.
Strategies to Implement Appropriate Actions
Based on the analysis of the internal and external factors that have significant impact on
the project management processes of the company, some strategies can be implemented for
taking appropriate actions against the highlighted issues.
Develop a Proper Management Policy – There is a lack of proper policy within the
organization regarding who will be the authority in a project. A proper management policy can
be adopted in which it will be specified that the stakeholders must always report to the project
manager regarding any important decisions failure to do which will attract hard penalties.
Develop Communication Plan – A proper communication plan is to be developed so that
different departments contact and consult each other before taking any major decisions (Walker
2015). It should also be added in the policy that before taking any major decision, the
stakeholders must communicate with each other through team meetings validating the decision.
Client Management – It is recommended that before the start of a project, the company
should sign a detailed contract with the client that if during the project, new changes are
requested, the client will be responsible for compensation for the extra expenditure or the
company will not be responsible for delivering poor quality outcome in the project.

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Communication Plan and Outcomes to Diverse Stakeholders
Communication plan is considered to be policy driven approach associated with
providing the stakeholders with all the information associated with the project. The plan would
be associated with providing a formal definition of the way of identifying the particular parties
who are to be provided with the information, along the defining when the information is to be
delivered and what are the communication that are to be used so as to deliver the information.
Usage of the effective communication plan would be associated with anticipating what
are the information which needs to be communicated to specific audience segments. The plan
would be also be responsible for selection of the appropriate authority who would be associated
with communicating the confidential or sensitive information and how all this information are to
be disseminated (Vanhoucke 2014). The plan would also be associated with defining the proper
communication channel that is to be used by the stakeholders of QCI so as to solicit the
feedbacks and how the communications that are being conducted would be documented and
archived. Routine communication needs to be done. This would be including all the information
related to the day-to-day communication which would happen. The information included in this
section would be including the communication issues being faced, the update status of tasks and
many more.
Arranging of weekly meetings with the marketing team and the project managers would
be very helpful having all the information that are required in order to decide if to continue with
a project or not (Braglia and Frosolini 2014). Besides this if the marketing team of QCI is
sharing some of the important information by means of reports or confidential mails with the
project manager then the project managers would become capable of deciding if they should
dedicate themselves towards a particular project or not.

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Establishing a communication line between the line manager and the project manager is
also very essential. The line managers should necessarily discuss about the projects before they
make promise to the customers. This can be done by arranging meeting with the customers in the
presence of the project manager so as to make the project managers aware of the things that are
going to be delivered to the customers (Kerzner 2018). Besides in case if the project manager is
not present while the meeting is being conducted then the line manager should necessarily be
associated with documentation of the requirements of the customers along with the things that is
being promised to the customers. This document is to be provided to the project managers so as
to make them understand the entire project and what needs to be done so as to deliver the final
result as desired by the customer.
So as to make sure that the project is not running behind the schedule and the functional
employees are not being pulled off from the project a proper document should be created that is a
proper planning is need. Proper planning would be helping in scheduling the tasks and would
also be helping in identifying the key performers of the team. It should be made sure that the
essentiality of these key performers is being depicted to the higher authorities in a proper way so
as to make sure that they are not pulled off during the ongoing project (Arashpour et al. 2017).
Usage of the project management tools would be a very good choice which would be helping in
scheduling the task along with helping in distribution of the tasks as well. Proper understanding
is also needed between different departments of the organization. This can be done by means of
weekly meetings, or tele-conferences, emails and many more.

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Conclusion
QCI is facing a number of problems due to the lack of a proper policy or process within
the project administrations. There exist many communication gaps in the organization QCI and
all these gaps can be addressed by adaptation of a proper communication plan. For change
management the communication plan would be playing a very vital role. This plan would be
helping in breaking down the resistance to the changes by getting everyone in the same page and
helping the stakeholders to become more engaged and endorsed with the need for the changes
and the steps which are being taken so as to bring the changes.
Personal Learning Reflection
The course helped me in learning the fact that the enterprise environmental factors are
having positive as well as negative effects upon the projects and the organization as well. The
EEF can be categorized into two categories, the internal factors and the external factors. The
analysis helped me in understanding the fact that there are many EEFs which are likely to affects
the projects of QCI as well as the organization. External factors are those which are associated
with influencing the project as well as the organization externally. Internal factors are those
factors which pertain inside the projects and have an impact upon the core components of the
project. While analyzing the EEF I learnt about the various types of tools that are used for the
purpose of conducting the analysis. The tools mainly include the SWOT analysis, PESTLE
analysis and many more. I understood the fact that the EEF is associated with bringing positive
as well as negative risks. So, for addressing both the type of risk management is used.
Firstly, I have been associated with using the tool PESTLE analysis in order to analyze
the organization QCI. The PESTLE analyze is the process by which the political, economic,

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social, technological, legal and environmental condition of the organization. This analysis helped
me in the identification of the risk type, frequency of occurrence and lastly the impact of the
risks. For each case of risk, the mitigation strategy has also been suggested which can be used by
QCI for tackling the risks.
Followed by the PESTLE analysis I have been associated with understanding the
stakeholder management which is very essential for the purpose of managing the stake holders
existing at different levels so as to make sure that the project is running. Besides this I was also
capable of understanding the ways how the global project communication can be managed
whenever a project is being executed globally.
I also understood the fact that a proper communication system needs to exist so as to
communicate with the other members associated with a project. Some of the effective ways by
which global project communication can be managed includes the usage of the central IT system
so as to maintain the data, email communication, tele-conferences and many more.
The entire course helped a lot in understanding the project and project management along
with the various aspects of the project like the risk management, change management,
stakeholder management and many more. I have focusing upon the integration of the project
management so as to understand the fact that the project management integration involves
various kind of activities like identification, definition, unification and coordination. EEF and
their impacts are also clear to me after the completion of the course along with understanding
what are the roles that are played by the stakeholders and how the stakeholders can be managed.
Besides this I alos understood the fact that for managing the projects it is essential have a good
communication plan which would be helping in the avoidance of any kind of conflict.

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References
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