Project Management Behaviors: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Essay.

You are required to identify three situations where either a team member or a leader behaved in the following ways:

• The good: exemplary project management behavior was observed
• The bad: poor project management behavior was observed
• The ugly: unacceptable project management behavior was observed

Each case can be either something you were personally involved in or observed, or something you read about.

1. A description of the context and the case
2. A critical reflection on why you felt the case to be ‘good’, ‘bad’, or ‘ugly.
3. Offer the lessons learnt for project management practice.

Defining Project Management

The project management concept in recent times can be considered as a high priority for all organization or company. This can be incorporated without taking into consideration that the business body us small or large. These projects can be diverse individually; however as time goes some management technique, tools and problem solving approach have directly proven themselves more beneficial than others. Few points, which play dominating role in the sphere of categorizing a project management, are Definability, order, customer, value adding, and cross functionality (Schwalbe 2015).

The focus point of the report is to discuss three situation in which the concept of project management behavior is good, bad and ugly. The different situation is judged and a critical reflection is provided on the same. The lesson, which is learnt from each of the scenario, is also taken into consideration.

Good project mainly refers to delivery of the project is done according to the requirement and within the time framework. After the main delivery of the project and its peripherals, the team member relish the opportunity to engage in project review project. This puts emphasis on the individual accomplishment relating to their work done in the project. Through this a recognition is established which are highlighted. Cross-pollinate can also be generated by this means between other team of the projects. Perhaps it can be stated that the most readily applicable direct outcome of a successful project closure is the advantage lessons which are learned to implement the improvement of the process. The process improvement can be in the sector of both technical aspect as well as project management practices to increase the efficient of subsequent projects.

Case: Bayer is a biopharmaceutical company; it is often possible to initiate a reduction of the cost as the company launches the first generation product. The company had leveraged the technical observation into the potential improvement, which was directly helpful for them across multiple products. On the other hand, opportunity to streamline the project management governance and the processes may prevent themselves from improving the productivity of the entire organization (Lientz and Rea 2016).

I have come across much project management behavior, but to my notice, a good behavior of the project management is very much important factor. One of the most important factor that prevails in the concept is the one time delivery of the project (Nicholas and Steyn 2017). Project delivery should always be considered to be done within the time framework, which was defined during the project initiation. It has come to my notice that maintaining the time framework is very much crucial, as all other factors are co related with the concept. The factors of financial, stakeholders, organization reputation are linked with the delivery of the project. According to me, I can state that the reputation of an organization directly prevails over the factor of delivering of the project meeting the requirement of the client. The client should always be an important factor from the point of view of the organization (Kerzner 2013).

Good Project Management Behaviors

The main lesson that is learnt from the scenario is that a good project management should always prevail in the mind of the organization. It has few factors which are linked up with the concept such as a delivery of the project on time, delivery of the project should be done with the clients requirement and maintaining the projects budget. Before initiation of any project all, the factors, which are involved within the peripheral of the project, are or should be taken into consideration (Larson and Gray 2013). Taking into consideration a software development process all the phases such as requirement of the software, the testing phase should be into mind and it should be followed until the delivery of the project is done and completed. In this sector of project management, the updating of the software also plays a very vital role in order to meet the market demand of the software. This helps the organization to compete with the competitors (Walker 2015).

In situation where there is absence in the primary delivery the project closer are often intuitively considered a bad outcome. The situation where the project is closed without proper outcome it is very much demoralizing, especially when the team is working efficiently towards achieving the outcome of the project. However “bad” can be used in different ways and in different order of facts. Definitive termination of the project combined with directed closeout processes can have direct broad beneficial effects. It can also be stated that the project closer is not negative inherently. The human nature often drive the team member to distance himself or herself from the work and herein lay the willingness to work cooperatively. The willingness to work in an environment of less participation and reduce the direct willingness to work cooperatively can reduce the stress reaction, which is involved in individuals (Grimm, Hofstetter and Sarkis 2014).

Case: Apple Lisa in order to capture the market tried to target the business consumers. In order to do so they put forward a tag of lower price of the IBM PCs. The concept did not allow Apple to capture much of the market share. Lisa was considered as the first GUI computer for the business users. This could have been brought for a price of $10000 (nearly $24000 today) (Ramaswamy and Dawson 2015). This model could help the user to use the mouse to fiddle with the files in the digital desktop with a processor clocked at a speed of blistering 5 MHz and 1MB of RAM. The model was a failure and first model was sold only to a quantity of 10000 units. This taught a great lesion and especially to Lisa’s original project head Steve Jobs who was kicked out of the project and was put on another project (Mir and Pinnington 2014).

Case Study: Bayer

In the above case scenario, it can be stated that before initiating any project the market demand should be taken into consideration. According to me, the product, which are in the market, should always meet the requirement of the customers. On the other hand, it can be stated that if the project does not meet the requirement of the user or the price of the product is on then higher end it would be a failure (Snyder 2014). It should be taken into consideration that if a project fails it would directly affect the financial aspect of the organization. A projects failure or success directly demand on the initiation and the market demand of the product or the software. I can put forward an aspect that the team, which is working towards a same goal, should have proper coordination involved within them. This would directly help in achieving the main target or the goal, which is set forward (Ahmad and Cuenca 2013).

The main lesson, which is learnt, is that each project involves a huge investment of financial aspect into it. On the other hand, if the project does not succeed it would directly affect the organization. It can also be stated that apart from the financial factors, there are also other factors that would be affected such as reputation and the issue related to the stakeholders.

Ugly can be a term used to ingloriously distinguish the projects closer. This takes place by means of recognition the underperformance in the particular level of the organization. The aspect can be considered to be leading root to the driving which is frequent to unmanaged project closer (Cicmil et al. 2017). As the project faces inadequate ad hoc communication, which can create a perception, which is negative that has to be accepted as a reality. In this scenario the matrix organization where the balance factor between the project priority and the functional aspect are blended are mostly affected. As the negative perception grows into the environment of the project there can be risk, which are related to management, which is functional which directly, redirects the resources to more favorable view of the project and by doing this there is an issue contributing to poor performance of the project. As the team of the project deteriorates, it is very much uncommon taking into consideration members to directly engage in the operation which is related to the rescue in a basic attempt to maintain the overall project’s working. The group of tenacious stakeholders may involve significant amount of time in the concept of creating an alternative plan or goal that are being perceived (Burke 2013).

Lessons Learned from Good Project Management

Case: After only two years of the market of the personal computer, IBM was able to steal about 26% of all the sales. When Big Blue saw all the market and the money, they decided to come into the market. Therefore, after a year or so it launched the PCjr (Verburg, Sijtsemaand and Vartiainen 2013). The PCjr was marketed to be compatible with the IBMs more serious business machine but more affordable. Later on, it was seen that it turned out to be neither of the two (Serra, C.E.M and Kunc 2015). It was more expensive than its mere competition and it could not run most of the great number of software’s that the IBM computer could run. The magazines at that time stated that the PCjr was one of the biggest flops in the history of the computing and project management scenario (Paul and Basu 2016).

The need of the people in the sphere of technology is ever increasing in recent times. People usually need more and more features into any product with a limited price framework. The organizations in order to meet the desired demand always plan to introduce new technology. According to me, a software or a products price play a very vital role. In the above case scenario, the organization tried to launch a product, which would be minimum price but involves more features than the IBM, but it turned out to be a failure. The company tried to keep the price within the budget and neglecting the essential features. Features actually add value to a system. If a system with more features with less price would directly attract the customers and as a whole, the organization would be affected by it.

The main lesson, which is learnt, from the scenario of the PCjr is that a software or a product should involve two important factors which are very much important in any project management. They are namely quality and price. There should not be any negligence in the sector of quality as the user are directly involved into it. If the quality were not appropriate without involvement of the necessary features but the price would be on the lower end the project would be a loss or failure. The main approach that can be learnt from the aspect is the organization should try to involve all the features and try to keep the price of the product on a lower end. This would directly help to achieve the market and be a dominating player in the market (Verzuh 2015).

Bad Project Management Behaviors

Conclusion

The report can be concluded on a note that project management can be applied to any field relating to technical as well as non-technical aspects. There are many factors, which are involved into the framework of the project management. These factors can be directly related how a project would stand at the end of the development. The main factors that are mainly discussed in the report is the factor of time framework and financial aspect. A project to be successful should be completed within the time framework, on the other hand within the budget, which is proposed for the project. Different scenarios are taken into consideration, which directly involve project management as a good, bad and ugly system of coordination. Teamwork is another important factor, which is very much crucial in the working towards goal and achieving the goal of the organization.

References

Ahmad, M.M. and Cuenca, R.P., 2013. Critical success factors for ERP implementation in SMEs. Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, 29(3), pp.104-111.

Burke, R., 2013. Project management: planning and control techniques. New Jersey, USA.

Cicmil, S., Cooke-Davies, T., Crawford, L. and Richardson, K., 2017, April. Exploring the complexity of projects: Implications of complexity theory for project management practice. Project Management Institute.

Grimm, J.H., Hofstetter, J.S. and Sarkis, J., 2014. Critical factors for sub-supplier management: A sustainable food supply chains perspective. International Journal of Production Economics, 152, pp.159-173.

Kerzner, H., 2013. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Larson, E.W. and Gray, C., 2013. Project Management: The Managerial Process with MS Project. McGraw-Hill.

Lientz, B. and Rea, K., 2016. Breakthrough technology project management. Routled

Mir, F.A. and Pinnington, A.H., 2014. Exploring the value of project management: linking project management performance and project success. International journal of project management, 32(2), pp.202-217.

Nicholas, J.M. and Steyn, H., 2017. Project management for engineering, business and technology. Taylor & Francis.

Paul, V.K. and Basu, C., 2016. Scenario Planning and Risk Failure Mode Effect and Analysis (RFMEA) based Management. Journal of Construction Engineering and Project Management, 6(2), pp.24-29.

Ramaswamy, G. and Dawson, M., 2015. Discovering the reason for information technology project failure. Journal of the Alabama Academy of Science, 86(2), pp.106-107.

Schwalbe, K., 2015. Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.

Serra, C.E.M. and Kunc, M., 2015. Benefits realisation management and its influence on project success and on the execution of business strategies. International Journal of Project Management, 33(1), pp.53-66.

Snyder, C.S., 2014. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge: PMBOK (®) Guide. Project Management Institute.

Verburg, R.M., Bosch-Sijtsema, P. and Vartiainen, M., 2013. Getting it done: Critical success factors for project managers in virtual work settings. International journal of project management, 31(1), pp.68-79.

Verzuh, E., 2015. The fast forward MBA in project management. John Wiley & Sons.

Walker, A., 2015. Project management in construction. John Wiley & Sons.