Strategic Network Project Management in du Telecom: OPM3 & Ethics

This report provides an overview of network project management within du Telecom, a leading telecommunications provider in the UAE. It discusses the challenges faced by the organization when implementing new projects, particularly those involving teams that have not previously worked together. Key risks identified include a lack of cooperation among team members, inappropriate assignment of roles and responsibilities, competitive pressures, and potential leadership gaps. The report outlines a risk mitigation plan emphasizing communication, market analysis, and skilled project leadership. Furthermore, it explores the application of the OPM3 (Organizational Project Management Maturity Model) to enhance project execution and addresses potential ethical issues such as conflicts of interest and the acceptance of blame. The report concludes by referencing relevant academic sources, providing a comprehensive analysis of project management strategies within the context of du Telecom's operations.

Running head: NETWORK PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Network Project Management
[Name of the Student]
[Name of the University]
[Author note]

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Executive Summary:
du Telecom is the organization which is associated with providing mobile as well as
fixed telephony along with broadband connectivity and IPTV services all across the United
Arab Emirates. These services are provided to peoples, to their homes and business as well.
This organization was established in the year of 2006 when the market was entirely saturated
assisted with 100% penetration. The organization has signed a Memorandum of
understanding with the Huawei Technology Co. Ltd. The main of doing this is for defining
the practices which are best for the management of portfolio and the concepts, techniques and
process included in a project, for their industries and this also includes the transfer of
knowledge and research. Besides this both the organizations have thought of working
together so as to exchange the practice which are best in the industry methodologies,
techniques, tools and concepts.
Du knows properly that each project which is taking place in a specific context
involves a team who have never worked together before and besides this it might also be
requiring the assigning of responsibilities and roles who are new. This identified factors are
considered to be a part of the project and a challenge for the project and for that reason the
organization is looking for a partner who would be keep all these considerations into account
so as to help the organization is overcoming the challenges. Besides this proper project
leadership is the way by which the organization can also overcome the challenges. The report
discusses about the risks that are likely to be faced and how this can be overcome. The report
has also been discussing about the OPM3 Model as well.

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Project management methodology:
Project management methodology is generally considered to be the combination of
the practices which are logically related along with the methods or processes which are also
logically related and is generally responsible for the determination of the fact how best it is
plan, develop, control and deliver the project throughout the entire implementation process
unless and until it is successfully completed and terminated. Besides this methodology is also
scientifically proven and is considered to be a systematic and disciplined approach for project
designing, execution and completion [1]. The project execution methodology that has been
adopted is the by appointment of a good project leader. The project manager or the project
leader must be having project leadership skills. Development of leadership skills requires a
lot of time in a person or an organization. A good leadership must be associated with analysis
of the various kind of setbacks as well as the failures which would be acting as a roadmap for
improvement. Besides this special focus is put upon the challenges that are faced by the
project and should also learn for this so as to build better capabilities of managing a project in
a successful way.
Project management risk analysis:
The risks that has been identified includes the following:
Lack of cooperation between team members:
The new project would be requiring the cooperation of each and every member
associated with the project. It is often observed that the project is associated with involving
members who have never worked together and this initially leads to a problem that they
might not cooperate with one another or they might not be capable of coordinating with one
another [2]. This initially leads to a state of conflict leading to various type of problems.

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Inappropriate assigning of roles and responsibilities:
The project consists of new members who have not worked together and this is
initially responsible for a problem that is the capabilities of the members are not known and
when a specific role or responsibility is assigned to them they might not be capable of
performing the task assigned to them [3]. This would initially be responsible for the failure of
the project or delay of the project.
Competitive risks:
The market in which the project is to be deployed is facing a fierce amount of
competition and this this might be considered to be one of the major risk. The major reason
for this risk is that the telecom operators are associated with contending by making constant
changes and long-term uncertainty [4]. High competition might act as a barrier to the success
of the project.
Lack of appropriate leadership:
The high completion can be affecting the leadership qualities as well. The lack of
appropriate leadership light lead to problems like incapability of delegating and slower
decision making.
Risk mitigation plan:
Risk mitigation plan is generally considered to be the process which is associated with
the development of the option and actions that are responsible for the enhancement of the
opportunities and reduction of the threats faced by the project objectives. This plan would be
involving the implementation of the various risk mitigation actions [5]. The first step involves
the risk identification which is followed by the evaluation of the risks and lastly the effective

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risk mitigation strategy. Below is the figure which depicts the fundamental steps of risk
management.
Fig 1: Fundamental steps of risk management
Source: (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2017)
The risks that are faced by the project can be mitigated by understanding the basic
requirements of the project. Besides this conducting of group meetings, discussions, and an
effective communication plan would be helping a lot in making the new members of the
project coordinate together. Besides this the market needs to be analyzed in a proper way
before deployment of the project so as to understand it and deploy the project accordingly.
Project leader is to be appointed who would skilled enough to guide the entire project achieve
success.

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OPM3:
OPM3 or the Organizational Project Management Maturity Model is one of the best
practice standard which is globally recognized and is used for the purpose of accessing and
assessing the capabilities related to the execution strategy through projects by making use of
the portfolio management, program management and project management [6]. Besides this
the OPM3 methodology is associated with providing a method for the organizations for the
purpose of understanding the Organizational Project Management processes and practices
along with making sure of the fact that these processes are capable of performing successfully
in a consistent and predictable way.
The major reason behind the designing of the OPM3 is that it would be providing a wide
range of benefits to organizations, senior management and to those who are engaged in the
project management activities. The major benefits of the OPM3 have been listed below:
 Associated with strengthening of the link that exists between the strategic planning and
execution so as to make the outcomes of the project predictable, reliable, consistent and
correlated to the success of the organization [7].
 Associated with identifying the best practices which are responsible for providing support
to the process of implementing the strategies of the organization through successful
projects.
 Helps in the identification of the specific capabilities which are associated with making
up the Best practices along with the dependencies amongst those best practices and
capabilities.
The disadvantages of the OPM3 Model have been listed below:
 The original version of the OPM3primarily consisted of only the “Capability Statements”
which was users utilized for evaluating the current capabilities of the organization and for

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identification of the steps which are necessary for the organizations so as to achieve the
maturity of next level.
 The OPM3 models are based on the TQM or total quality management principles in
which some of the key principles have not been accorded the importance in the maturity
models which was intended by the TQM philosophy, the empirical track records of the
TQM gets mixed. Besides this the principles are complex to operate and interpret [8].
Ethical Issues:
Two of the major ethical issues that are likely to be faced during the deployment of
the project includes the following:
Conflicts of interest: This is one of the major ethical issue that might eb faced by the project
manager. This occurs when an individual or a group associated with the project is having
multiple interest in a project which might be responsible for compromising of the integrity of
the process.
Acceptance of blames: In case if something is going wrong in a project then the manager
might shift eth blame to the workers, supervisors or to the vendors in order to protect his
position. In this type of situation, the person responsible might also be associated with hiding
the evidences which are likely to incriminate that person in the failure of the project. So for
this type if condition the person responsible should be looking for solutions so as to eliminate
the problem instead of shifting the blame upon others.

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References:
[1.]H. Kerzner and H.R. Kerzner, Project management: a systems approach to planning,
scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons, 2017.
[2.]R. Joslin, and R. Müller, Relationships between a project management methodology and
project success in different project governance contexts. International Journal of Project
Management, 33(6), pp.1377-1392, 2015.
[3.]F. Harrison and D. Lock, Advanced project management: a structured approach.
Routledge, 2017.
[4.]A.C. Cagliano, S. Grimaldi and C. Rafele, Choosing project risk management techniques.
A theoretical framework. Journal of Risk Research, 18(2), pp.232-248, 2015.
[5.]M. Hopkinson, The project risk maturity model: Measuring and improving risk
management capability. Routledge, 2017.
[6.]J.M. Nicholas and H. Steyn, Project management for engineering, business and
technology. Routledge, 2017.
[7.]S. Titov, G. Bubnov, M. Guseva, A. Lyalin and I. Brikoshina, Capability maturity models
in engineering companies: case study analysis. In ITM Web of Conferences (Vol. 6, p.
03002). EDP Sciences, 2016.
[8.]M. Hopkinson, The project risk maturity model: Measuring and improving risk
management capability. Routledge, 2017.