Stakeholder Analysis, Conflict Management, Performance Audits, Employee Development, And Communication In Project Management Essay.

What action is needed to support each of the groups from the influence chart? What should you take into consideration when determining what actions to take?

What is conflict management and why is it needed?

How do you establish your role within a project?

What is a performance review?

How can a performance review be implemented?

What are the benefits of learning or development?

What action is needed to support each of the groups from the influence chart? What should you take into consideration when determining what actions to take?

Stakeholder analysis is the first action that is to be taken into action for supporting the groups from influence chart. Stakeholder management is very important that is used to win the support from others. The stakeholder analysis can be plotted by two matrix, power as well as interest. The factors that should be taken into consideration while determining the actions is meeting the needs of the stakeholders, determining the key player, considering the facts that are least important and at last show consideration.

What is conflict management and why is it needed?

Conflict in a project mainly arises when the individuals differs in their interests, thinking processes, as well as opinions and does not compromise with each other. Conflicts as well as disagreement in a project leads to negativity. To solve the issues of conflict and disagreement, conflict management is required while dealing with a project. Conflict management helps to strengthen the bonds among employees that solve maximum of problems to disappear automatically. Conflict management is used in a project to prevent fight in the beginning rather than to face the negative consequences.

How do you establish your role within a project?

The project manager is responsible to allocate among all the members of the team. The structure of the organization should be kept very simple so that it is easily understandable and can be followed easily. As a role of project manager, it is a duty of project manager to complete the project in specified time with all its objectives. As a duty of project manager, the responsibility of the manager is to ensure project proceedings within particular time frame and also managing the relationships within the stakeholders and the contributors. All the deliverables are also managed by a project manager in a project.

What is a performance review?

Performance Audits in a project explains different terms used in the project that involves reviews, audit, assessment, or evaluation. Review of a project refers to review of project performance by project team or by any stakeholder of the project. The review or audit of a project is mainly done by external party so that the performance is evaluated in a project. Among the employees who are involved in a project, performance review is basically a technique that is used to compare, gauge as well as analyze performance of work that is in progress in the project. There are many benefits of performance review that is being used in a project. One of the benefit involves conducting the performance review is that it can dictate fate of project in the organization. The things measured, analyzed, and compared in performance reviews includes actual implementation of the project and all the completion dates related to the project. There are different techniques used for conducting performance reviews that includes critical chain method, earn value management, critical path method and trend analysis method.

How can a performance review be implemented?

Performance review of employees implies giving feedbacks of the work that takes place in a workplace. Performance of the employees are noted with the help of performance review implementation within a project. The employees who are connected with the project usually gets motivated when they receives feedback regarding their abilities, accomplishments, as well as capabilities. Performance feedback or performance review helps to improve the weakness among the employees of the company.

Conflict Management

There are four steps that are involved while implementing performance review in a project. The first step involves about discussing all different types of reviews with the human resource leader of the company. The second step is to utilize knowledge that is gained from the human resources so that they can determine the performance review that works best for the organization. The third step involves conferring with executive leadership team and the human resource team to get favored program. All the benefits and the drawbacks of the performance review are considered in third step. In the fourth step, the human resource leader are charged for rating the type of performance review as well as training program is developed for the managers and the supervisors instructing them how to review their program.

What are the benefits of learning or development?

For every organization who deals with a project, employee learning as well as employee development is important that attracts and then retains skilled workforce in a competitive market. The learning and the development that are involved in an organization are transformed to accelerate the development skills and also helps to improve the employee engagement as well as employee retention. The organizations embrace the modern learning and enhances development. There are different training methods that improves the learning method of the organization. Now the organization uses technical based learning and development that enables technology learning and development in the organization.

How can you document an individual’s development needs?  

Identifying the development needs is a challenging task in an organization. Development needs can be enhanced through training courses and there are several training courses that are available from which an individual can choose. First of all the it is important to identify the need of development that is needed by the individual and then work accordingly about which meetings and trainings are to be done. The best way to discuss an individual development need is by implementing Development and Performance Review (DPR) in the organization. The developments needs are to be considered for the development before implementing DPR. Then the DPR will help to enhance the need that is required for development. There are actually three stages of development needs. The stages are described below-

• Identifying the skills, behaviors, as well as knowledge that are required for the job- All individuals has a job description in the company that they are working for. Individuals also has person specification. So, identifying the skills are most important for doing well in the job.
• Study the present skills, behaviors, as well as knowledge that an individual processes- To improve the development needs of an individual, it is very important to know the present knowledge, skill and behavior of the individual who is working presently in the organization.
• Compare the actual skills, behaviors, and actual knowledge with those required along with the gaps- There will be difference between the skills, knowledge, and behaviors that the individual actually possess and the skills that will be required to meet the needs of the organization. The gaps in between them are known as the development needs that will be needed for development.

What is the importance of effective communication in project management?

Communication is the process that helps in effective communication in between all the stakeholders and the suppliers involved in a project. The main reason for most of the project failures is lack of communication in between the stakeholders and the suppliers. The definition of communication can be defined as exchange of expression and information, feelings and thought. In the sector of project management, the exchange of information involves skills, experience, as well as knowledge.

What is a communications plan and what do they usually include?

A communication plan is basically a policy driven approach that provides information to the stakeholders. The communication plan defines the specific information to be given to particular person, when the information is to be delivered and what are the communication channels that will generally be used for delivering the information. A communication plan defines what information is to be communicated with particular audience segments. The communication plan should also address the person who has the authority for making the communication confidential and how the information can be disseminated. An effective communication plan also helps the stakeholders to decide the communication channel that can be used for feedback and about how the communication can be documented.   

Project Manager's Responsibility

Communication involves six steps that helps to make an effective plan for communication. The six step that are involved in communication plan are stated below:

• Perform the situation analysis- The present situation of communication is to be analyzed before implementing the communication plan in the organization.
• Define the Objectives- All the communication objectives are to be defined and the results that would be achieved from the communication plan should also be described in the plan.
• Define the key audience- The key audience such as clients, educators, media representatives, etc. are to be listed to whom the messages are to be delivered.
• Identifying media channels- Messages of communication should be delivered through many media channels. Most effective channels is to be chosen.
• Establishing time table- There should a fixed time table for evaluating the communication objectives and time span is to be made for completing the communication for better results.
• Evaluating results- Evaluating the results is most important part of communication plan. Results are to be evaluated for future use and all the required adjustments are needed to be done so that the communication plan is done in a better way in future.

What requirements do stakeholders have regarding content and timing of engagement with project management teams?

The stakeholders should require engaging with the project management teams to be informed about status of the project, its progress as per scheduled time and require to know about the project information. The stakeholders uses various activity engagement. Two main engagement that is used for content and timing engagement is consultation and collaboration. Consultation involves process of discussing and consulting. Collaboration involves working with someone with some content for producing something. This helps to identify the gaps in knowledge and improves the service requirement and the service delivery in the engagement process. The engagement planning in project management demonstrate attempts that is to be accountable through service planning.

What are the five steps in creating successful stakeholder relationships?

The five steps that are used for creating stakeholder relationships are stated below-

1. Developing the strategies that are involved in the stakeholder engagement.
2. Mapping the stakeholders.
3. Preparing for engagement for short term goals as well as long term goals.
4. Engaging all the stakeholders involved in engagement.
5. Establishing the action plans.

What form can agreement on project communication take? Why are such agreements needed?

 An agreement is basically an arrangement that involves people consent and certain conditions related to behavior, attitudes, and ideas. The contract for communication involves some rules for improving communication and presenting them as friendly resource. The contract of communication includes guidelines that are described as agreements, which is made in between the communication parties. There are mainly five agreements that is to be achieved by the communication parties. The first agreement is NT communication partner, next is to set communication partner with the ASD.

Agreements are needed to avoid the miscommunication as well as misunderstanding that mainly comes from different style of communication. To mitigate such differences, and to make the communication clear agreement is needed.

How can variance be communicated?

Variance in project management can be communicated is that the project variance does not wait till the completion of the task for identifying the variance. The project manager collects information of the results and the plan and variances are forecast the variances. Another main use of project variance is status reporting for project sponsor. Variance is communicated that allows project manager to show sponsor about how the project is running and the tasks that are to be scheduled.

Explain the difference between policy-level stakeholders and implementation level stakeholders.

Policy-level stakeholders are the stakeholders (individuals or organizations) who formulate the project policies and influence the project outcome. These stakeholders are groups of people who are directly affected with positive as well as negative factors by action of agency, organization, or institution.

Implementation-level stakeholders are the stakeholders (individuals or organizations) who are impacted by the project outcome. The implementation stakeholders are the group of people who are directly affected with positive as well as negative factors by action of agency, organization, or institution. The implementation stakeholders starts some process as well as implement the processes for which they require training.

How can the technique/ strategy of personal meetings be used to ensure stakeholder engagement? What are their advantages and disadvantages? Provide three examples of each.

There are many ways by which personal meetings can be used for ensuring the stakeholder engagement. First of all, the objectives of holding the meeting should be defined and the purpose of organizing the meeting should be confirmed. Personal meetings helps to put the right person who has knowledge in the right path with perspective and the stature that are related to the topics. Personal meetings also should articulate to provide the reference. There should be Terms of Reference to make the expectations clear to the participants. Personal meeting ensures the stakeholder engagement by understanding all the issues and the challenges they may face while carrying out the project.

Performance Audits in a Project

Advantages of personal meetings-

• Early identification of trends and relevant issues-

The fact of maintaining a continuous dialogue with the stakeholders carries with it the possibility of be able to identify new issues that may influence the conditions, both for the company and for the market in general. 

• Better management of risks and opportunities-

Having knowledge of perspectives and access to resources of interest groups can help 
to the company to manage opportunities and risks more efficiently and effectively. 

• Innovation and improvement-

The knowledge and resources of the groups of interest can also help the company in the 
improvement and innovation of its processes and of its products or services.

Disadvantages of personal meetings-

• This process is mostly time consuming as meeting take much more time for making decisions.
• The process of holding meeting in a stakeholder engagement is very much costly and there are many formalities that are to be held in a meeting.
• Meeting in stakeholder management are sometime difficult to control as many men have different thinking.

Why is it necessary to consider the different interests and expectations of stakeholders?

All the stakeholders in an organization has different interest on the project or may have different expectation from the project. It is necessary to consider all the different interest as well as expectations of the stakeholders because they have two implications. The first implication denotes the project that is undertaken has promised to meet the diverse expectations. Appropriate evidence is needed for monitoring as well as evaluation process that shows whether the expectation is met or not. The diverse expectation also are mutually compatible. All the stakeholders expects to meet the objective of the organization. So it is very important to agree and to discuss the interest as well as expectation of the stakeholders in an organization.

What common problems can lead to variances in stakeholder engagement? Provide at least five examples.

• The interest of the stakeholders are impacted by stakeholder engagement.
• Incorrect and misleading concepts of the content may rise due to variance in stakeholder engagement.
• There are problems of stakeholder complaints.
• Variance may implement untimely distribution.

Apply Project Time Management Techniques What can be included in the Work Breakdown Structure to provide the detail needed for effective planning and control? Give at least four examples.

The Work Breakdown Structure consists of timeline, afford and the requirements of the project that are involved. The WBS contains of all the sum of work that are involved in the project with time that will take to complete each part of the project. There are basically three levels in a work breakdown structure. Level 1, level 2, and level 3 in WBS structure which defines the project clearly. The WBS contains milestones, deliverables, tasks, as well as cost of the component in a project.

Consider a dinner party, with entrée, main course, and dessert. If the dinner party is considered a project it will need a WBS.

The methods that are applicable in project time management techniques are

• Defining and sequencing the activities
• Estimating the activity resources
• Developing and controlling the schedule of the project.

What should be considered when estimating duration and effort? Outline four considerations.

When estimating duration and effort, four considerations that are to be made are:

• Priorities of the activities
• Estimated time to complete each activity
• Number of human resources involved in a particular activity
• Predecessor(s) of each activity

What can impact on a project schedule? Give four examples.

Project schedule can be impacted by:

1. Task predecessors
2. Task priority

• Slack

1. Baseline task

Identify mandatory, discretionary, and external dependencies for the dinner party project.

Task Name	Duration	Predecessors
dinner party	0.1 days
Entrée	0.1 days
Take the order	5 mins
Cook the Food	30 mins	2
Plate the Food	10 mins	3
Serve the Food	5 mins	4
Main Course	0.09 days
Take Order	5 mins	2
Prepare Ingredients	10 mins	7
Cook the Food	20 mins	8
Plate the Food	5 mins	9
Serve the Foods	5 mins	10
Dessert	0.03 days
Take the order	5 mins	2
Plate the Dessert	5 mins	13
Serve the Dessert	2 mins	14

The predecessors shows the dependencies.

Project baseline confirms the schedule of the project. The project baseline consists of three baselines that includes schedule baseline, scope baseline and cost baseline. Combining these three baselines are referred to as project baseline.

Planning for the dinner party is well underway. Using the estimates from the previous activity create a Gantt chart for the dinner party project.

The project baseline helps in project measurement and there is no earned analysis in the project. The project baseline changes the starting date as well as ending date of the WBS and schedule of the project.

The dinner party has been changed. The preparation and cooking times for the entrée have doubled, while the ingredients for the main course are available pre-prepared (no preparation necessary). Update your project documentation accordingly.

Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish
dinner party	0.1 days	Mon 6/11/18	Mon 6/11/18
Entrée	0.1 days	Mon 6/11/18	Mon 6/11/18
Take the order	5 mins	Mon 6/11/18	Mon 6/11/18
Cook the Food	30 mins	Mon 6/11/18	Mon 6/11/18
Plate the Food	10 mins	Mon 6/11/18	Mon 6/11/18
Serve the Food	5 mins	Mon 6/11/18	Mon 6/11/18
Main Course	0.09 days	Mon 6/11/18	Mon 6/11/18
Take Order	5 mins	Mon 6/11/18	Mon 6/11/18
Prepare Ingredients	10 mins	Mon 6/11/18	Mon 6/11/18
Cook the Food	20 mins	Mon 6/11/18	Mon 6/11/18
Plate the Food	5 mins	Mon 6/11/18	Mon 6/11/18
Serve the Foods	5 mins	Mon 6/11/18	Mon 6/11/18
Dessert	0.03 days	Mon 6/11/18	Mon 6/11/18
Take the order	5 mins	Mon 6/11/18	Mon 6/11/18
Plate the Dessert	5 mins	Mon 6/11/18	Mon 6/11/18
Serve the Dessert	2 mins	Mon 6/11/18	Mon 6/11/18

A review is an analytic process that is used to gather data or information from a certain phase or part of a project.

Performance Review of Employees

When should a review of a project to determine the effectiveness of time management take place?

After the project schedule is developed, effectiveness of time management in the project can be reviewed using the PERT chart. The PERT chart helps to determine the flexibility of each activity in the project and thus scheduling changes and review can be done accordingly.

After completing the WBS it is necessary to develop a tool that can help develop a picture of your project. One such tool is PERT analysis. What is a PERT diagram used for?

A PERT analysis is a PM tool that is basically used for scheduling, organizing, as well as coordinating the tasks in a project.  PERT analysis helps to analyze as well as represent all the tasks in a project.

Describe project management tools and techniques for creating and monitoring schedules.

The project management tool that can be used for creating as well as monitoring the schedules is Gantt chart. It is a chart that is developed for graphical illusion of schedule which makes plan, track particular tasks, and coordinate the tasks in the project. Mainly scheduling is used for planning and well as scheduling the project.

For effective procurement management, the roles of the users, suppliers and management must be aligned with the business organization’s strategic direction.

What is delegated authority within the context of developing a procurement management plan?

The delegated authority need to analyze the procurement requirements in the project, analyze the changes in multidisciplinary environment, work within limited supervision, agreed limits and authorization, establish suitable routine and procedures for procurement process and others.

What is a contract and what should be considered when planning a contract between an organization and supplier?

A contract is a document that contains certain points of agreement between two users or parties. When planning a contract between an organization and supplier, it has to be ensured the organization receives services / products as per required quantity and quality and on the other hand, the supplier receives financial benefits as per the agreed prices for the services or products.

Describe the tools and techniques that can assist in gathering and evaluating information on suppliers.

Some tools and techniques that can assist in gathering and evaluation information on suppliers are as follows:

1. Using internet search and verification
2. Checking business licenses of the supplier

• Ask for bank reference from the supplier

1. Background check through various sources

What other terms can be used to mean contract? Provide at least three examples.

Some other terms that can be used to mean contract are bond, pact and agreement.

What impact do terms and conditions have upon a contract?

Terms and conditions set certain guidelines in a contract that both the parties signing the contract must fulfil or otherwise face penalties.

What documents can be developed for contracted supply of goods or services? Provide at least two examples.

• List of requirements of goods and services.
• Contract document for the project to set the terms and conditions.

What activities might be included in procurement for a project? Provide at least 10 examples

Procurement includes activities such as

• Tendering,
• Supplier selection
• Transportation to the final port
• Insurance
• Inspection services
• Import as well as export
• Estimate the delivery time
• Managing the contract changes
• Agreement on the goods as well services
• Closing contract

How can an organization receive, reconcile, and register supplies to make sure the goods are those ordered and match the agreed price and specification?

The order that is placed by the client should be verified before placing the delivery. The invoice should be cross checked by the supplier so that all the requirement of the client is fulfilled. This helps the organization to receive, register and reconcile supplies so that the goods are delivered properly and actual price is met.

What is contract administration?

Contract administration is basically managing the contracts that is made by the customers, partners, employees, and vendors. The personnel who is involved in contract administration basically negotiates, manages, and support effective contracts. All the processes and the procedures are implemented in the organization.

What is the objective of a procurement audit in finalizing the project’s activities?

The objective of procurement audits are as follows:

• Improving the profits
• Support the operational requirements
• Managing the procurement process and then supply base effectively and efficiently.
• Developing strong relationships with other groups.

Who is responsible for deciding a procurement contract has been completed?

The procurement manager is responsible for deciding the procurement contract that has been completed.

What process assets might be updated as a result of a review into the effectiveness of the procurement process? Provide and describe at least three examples.

Effectiveness of the procurement process is the main issue in procurement performance that is the fundamental to cost effective in delivering the goods and the services in all the organizations.

How can a weighting system be used as a project procurement management tool?

The weighing system ensures awarding the best seller related to the contract. Weighting system also involves scoring of the proposals and the seller that has the highest score is awarded.