Question

propose practical project management planning and execution guidelines for ensuring that projects are completed within much reduced lead times, reduced cost while at the same time still meeting specifications, You can use financial calculations to motivate your response on how cost was reduced

Answer 1

A project can be large or small like designing an office space, website development, construction of a building, implementation of a sfotware, etc. Whether large or small, successful implementation of a project depends upon proper planning and execution of the plan.

Planning projects

It is the foremost and most important step of project management. Without careful planning and monitoring, even the most well though out projects may fall through. We need to identify what is the problem which needs to be solved, who will solve it and what are the steps required to solve it. The first step is to identify the stakeholders. Stakeholders are the people who are going to be directly or indirectly affected by the project. eg. in case of software development for an office, the stakeholders would be the office staff and the promoters. The next step is to identify the goals of the project in relation to the stakeholders' expectations. The planning function involves conversion of these expectations into measurable goals. The success of the project depends on how well these goals have been met.

Determine scope and deliverables of the project

Each and every goal needs to be identified of the project and these goals must be broken down into deliverables.There should be a time-bound action plan for achieving each of these deliverables and resources need to be assigned accordingly. Here, the cost of implementing each activity comes into play and needs to be considered while selecting the best course of action. The best course of action needs to be selected based on lowest costs and short lead times.

Support plans:

With the basic plan in place as described earlier, certain support plans are required to augment its effectiveness. A human resource plan where the team who will carry out the various assignments needs to be put in place depending upon their skills, experience and capabilties. The roles and responsibilties of the various team members need to be defined. Similarly, a communications plan needs to be in place where heirarchy, accountability and reporting patterns are defined

Budgeting:

Here, we need to list down all the possible expenses in the various heads such as personnel, capital outlay, interest, lease payments, supplies, electricity, travel, etc. This is a very important step without which no sort of reduction in costs can take place. Also, we need to keep a margin in the budgets incase the actuals are different from what was planned.

Project Implementation:

Once the planning phase is sorted, it is time to put the plan into action. The various steps involved in this phase are as follows:

Monitoring:

It is important to monitor the progress of the project at each and every step of execution. A system needs to be set in place for this during the planning phase and followed up on strongly. Project-monitoring software systems can help measure progress.

Reporting:

It is important to have a continuous reporting structure, during each and every phase of project implemention so that the stakeholders can measure deliverables and take corrective action whereever necessary

Problem solving:

As a result of the monitoring or the reporting process, certain problems may come to light. It is important to tackle these problems at the stage at which they arise before proceeding further, as if the problem is not solved at the initial stage, it may hamper the overall successful implementation of the project. The most common problems are expenditures over and above budgets, lead times not being met, quality issues, people issues, etc. The project manager needs to keep a watchful eye for any such problems and tackle them hands-on.

Project closure:

This is the final step after the planning and implementation phase. Here, we need to review all the factors such as cost, lead times, quality, etc and wrap things up. We must recognise the efforts of all the team members who were responsible for bringing the project to its completion stage.