Question

Projects have a defined start and end date; they do not go on forever and do not repeat. Processes that are repetitive are operations, not projects. Projects accomplish something new. While there may be phases or tasks within a project that have been done before, the outcome will be unique. A project is progressively elaborated, meaning that we can expect to learn more as the project progresses and the details of the plan and the requirements may change to meet the needs of the stakeholders (Balakian & Bergmann, 2009).

Select what you believe was a project that you have been a part of. Using the explanation above, decide if it truly was a project or part of ongoing operations. Justify your decision. Your initial post should contain at least 200 words and be supported by at least one additional professional or academic source. Use this week’s lecture as a basis for your post.

Answer 1

I currently work for a consulting firm which specializes in implementing ERP systems like SAP, Oracle etc. to clients. ERP implementation involves multi-phase process of understanding client's business requirements, mapping it with system capabilities, coming up with fits and gaps, configuring the fits while developing custom solutions for the gaps, testing the configured and developed objects, fixing the issues, deploying the solution into production system and supporting the implementation. This requires readiness at various levels and phases to ensure the implementation goes on smoothly. The project team needs to interact with client users on a frequent basis to get the required business information/data for configuring and developing the system.

Every ERP implementation is considered as a separate project with the below objectives –

1. Client/customer satisfaction

2. Effective utilization of consultants on projects

3. Optimizing the resources and achieving higher profits.

Apart from the common objectives that each implementation plans to achieve, there will be firm specific objectives with various metrics.

Once the implementation of a project is completed, the project team will move to another project. The team members need not necessarily be the same for all projects and hence, it is important to effectively communicate and network to work with various team members in every project.