Question

List the three main goals of a project. Use an example of a project to implement a new billing procedure for a small lawn mowing business, describe how project management principles help achieve these goals.

Answer 1

In the business world for the successful completion of any project, certain goals and objectives are mandatory. Setting the goals and objectives are considered to be the initial step to any project.The goals thus set should be realistic and working towards the success of the project. Although the goals formulated varies from company to company depending up on the nature of business and the complexity of the same three main goals of any project can be discussed as follows. The first step in goal formation is analyzing and finalizing the time period required to complete the project. A stipulated time frame have to be formulated and the action plan has to be allocated with in the time period. If the project exceeds beyond the time frame the success of the project can be uncertain. Second step is to set budget for the project. All the available revenues for the projects have to be understood and the resource allocation has to be planned as per the budget. If the project expenses exceeds the planned budget, desired profit cannot be obtained. The third important factor can be the stability in the quality of the product and the services of the project. It should not be like the quality of the output is good at the begining and goes on decreasing with time. If compromise is done on the quality the company may loose its scope in the market.

Here taking the project as implementing a billing procedure for the business of lawn mowing, the above mentioned goals can be followed to get success. In order to acheive the goals certain project management strategies or principles can be followed. Various project management principles like planning, initiating, executing, controlling etc can be implemented in the course of acheiving the goals. In the project the members of the project can be initiated to give their ideas about the time frame with which the billing procedure can be completed. With the out come of the time frame, the other course of actions like sourcing the equipments for the billing, man power sourcing etc can be discussed. Once the planning is done the next step would be execution of the plan, having a control over the expenses to make sure every thing is with in the budget. Frequent quality check have to be done to monitor whether the process is happening as per the planned schedule. Once the project is completed as per the time frame the project has to be closed and handed over to the client. The billing project can be run by the project memebrs as a trial to make sure no errors will happen. If there is any delay in completing the billing project, it would adversely affect the business. So there has to be proper strategic planning and execution to have a proper implementation of project.