Project Management Methodologies for Planning 3-Day Event for Otago Polytechnic

Project Management methodologies

Project management in terms of management perspective means to perform project initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, controlling and closing of the project within limited or specified time, money and scope to meet the client’s expectations (PMBOK, 2017). A project manager has to possess strong planning skills, decent communication skills and the ability to implement the project to deliver the desirable outcome to the client. Ranging from a small sized local event to international events, a huge part of the project investment goes into the project planning and execution undertaken by the project managers (Meredith & Mantel, 2009). As of the most projects, events have a static beginning and end. There is not much flexibility on the time of work packages with organised events (Wagen & White, 2015). Exponential development of human knowledge, growing demand of complex and customised services and competition at global scale are paramount forces behind the need for the evolution of project managements tools and methods.

The objective of this report is to identify the available project methodologies and selected the best fit that can be structured for the 3-day event planning for the research students and staff from the three campuses of Otago Polytechnic, which will be held in Hamilton. Three project methodologies which are considered for the event planning case study are Waterfall, Scrum and CPA, which are described and critically  evaluated to find the suitable one.The report is structured into three main sections - introduction, followed by a brief overview to the three project methodologies and critical evaluation of these and then recommendations. Conclusion and references are provided at the end of the report. 

Events and ceremonies are the part of our culture and need of the society to grow relations and make bonds stronger. An event could be a small function like birthday party or could be as big as Olympic games. In term of management perspective, all events must be well planned and structured before-hand with the help of professionals so called project managers. Events could have strict budget allotments and fixed dates which demands highly organisational skills to  PMM for event management Otago polytechnic,  accomplish them within allocated time and money (Phat, 2014). Project management methodologies gives us a vast range of tools to choose from to meet the needs of distinctive projects.

PMM could be predictive or adaptive depend on the project and its variables. However, to find the suitability of the methodologies, project managers have to understand the nature of project and the ability to mould it to fit into the project demand (Charvet, 2003). An event project is highly innovative in its nature and the event manager have to be creative to develop ideas for the inclusion of new projects within the main event . An objective or goal of the event is the first entity which has to be identified followed by the thoroughly planning process and execution. Three project management methodologies undertaken in this report are to find the best fit for event project are Waterfall, Scrum and CPM