Description of the Organization Project Changes Management Essay
Here are some guidelines that may help you.
Word count or paper length is a recommendation. A good average is 12 pages.
The company background information should be kept very brief. 1/2 to 3/4 of a page is sufficient. Provide sufficient information to create a frame or backdrop (context) to support your recommendations.
Concepts to include in your paper were covered in the first 5 sessions. But you can include additional concepts discussed in later sessions as you see fit.
The focus of your paper is to identify financial control issues as they relate to project management and no other management issues. State the issue in one or two sentences and impact to the projects.
Provide a recommendation to address the issues you identified above. The recommendation should be 4-5 paragraphs long. Make sure you address the reason why it should be considered.
At least 6 scholarly references should be provided (in-text citations and reference section)
The goal is to demonstrate how the concepts covered in the class should improve the way your organization manages the FINANCIAL aspect of projects.
You can make up an organization if you do not wish to use your current employer or if you do not have that type of experience.
Project Objectives and Description
As you probably know or will learn as the class progresses, some of the management practices used in organizations today are not ideally suited for monitoring and controlling project costs.
The PMBOK indicates the monitoring and controlling process group “…consists of those processes required to track, review, and regulate the progress and performance of the project; identify any areas in which changes to the plan are required; and initiate the corresponding changes”. The process group also involves: (1) “evaluating change requests and deciding on the appropriate response”; (2) “recommending corrective or preventive action in anticipation of possible problems”; (3) “monitoring the ongoing project activities against the project management plan and the project baselines”; and (3) influencing the factors that could circumvent integrated change control and configuration management so only approved changes are implemented”. (PMBOK, page 613).
The objectives of this individual project are twofold:
First, to investigate management practices used by your organization and to identify any issues that detract from the organization’s ability to monitor and control project costs.
Second, to propose changes to these management practices to help resolve these identified issues and explain how your proposed changes will optimize project cost monitoring and control efforts.
Project Requirements
Describe the Organization
Describe the organization type (e.g., commercial, state, local, or federal government, etc.); the organization’s business line(s) and strategic vision or objectives; and the types of projects performed by the organization. You may chose the entire organization or a portion of the organization.
Note: PMI defines a project as a “temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result”.
While it is preferable to use your own organization, you may create a fictional organization if you so choose. If you use your own organization, mask the real identity of the organization.
Identify Issues
Identify the issues with your organization’s management practices that detract from the organization’s ability to monitor and control project costs. You will also clearly describe the impacts of the identified issues on project cost monitoring/controlling activities.
Put yourself in the shoes of a project manager in your organization. What would you do, starting in the planning phase of the project, to make sure you could successfully monitor and control project costs? What elements of the project management plan or associated planning artifacts would you focus on? Now translate these to the organization level. What must be present (processes, procedures, instructions, practices, tools, etc.) to establish a firm foundationthroughout the organization for successfully monitoring and controlling project costs? Where are the holes?
Again, the PMBOK indicates the monitoring and controlling process group “…consists of those processes required to track, review, and regulate the progress and performance of the project; identify any areas in which changes to the plan are required; and initiate the corresponding changes”. The process group also involves: (1) “evaluating change requests and deciding on the appropriate response”; (2) “recommending corrective or preventive action in anticipation of possible problems”; (3) “monitoring the ongoing project activities against the project management plan and the project baselines”; and (3) influencing the factors that could circumvent integrated change control and configuration management so only approved changes are implemented”. (PMBOK, page 613).
There are issues that impact an organization’s ability to complete a project on time and within budget that do not necessarily impact an organization’s ability to monitor/control project costs. Make sure you can articulate a clear connection between the issues you choose and the organization’s ability to monitor/control project costs. Provide sufficient detail to fully explain the issue and its impact on project cost monitoring and controlling activities.
Issues should be narrowly focused. Broadly stated issues typically result in broadly stated solutions. Management may be reluctant to invest time and money to resolve an issue unless the scope of the effort is perceived to be manageable.
Focus your efforts on four to five of the most significant issues.
Note: If your organization has no apparent issues with respect to its ability to monitor and control project costs, create some simulated issues for the purposes of this assignment.
Develop Proposal
You will develop a proposal, addressed to the management of your organization, describing the issues you’ve uncovered and recommending solutions to resolve the issues. Proposed solutions must address the associated issue(s). Sufficient detail must be included to describe how the solution resolves the issue(s) and how the solution is to be implemented.
The purpose of any proposal is to sell a product, service, idea, etc. In this case, you are selling a set of recommendations aimed at resolving issues associated with your organization’s ability to monitor and control project costs. Address your proposal to your organization’s decision makers. Put yourself in their shoeson the receiving end of the proposal. What would you want to know?
What are you selling?
How does it apply to the organization?
Why should we buy it?
What benefits does the organization receive if the solutions are implemented?
What actions do I need to take to realize the benefits?
How long will it take to realize the benefits?
How much will it cost?
For the purposes of this assignment, the last two questions (time and cost) should be addressed, at least, in relative terms. A detailed time and cost analysis is not required. However, if you intend to share the outcome with your organization, you might want to consider including a more detailed analysis at some point in time.
Other Requirements
Assume at least part of your target audience (the organization’s management) does not understand anything about project management concepts, tools, and techniques or managing project costs.
Submit the completed proposal in your assignment folder by Sunday of session 10. The proposal must be submitted as a MS Word document. Line spacing: 1½; font: 12 point; pages: 15 (maximum); no minimum.
A template for the proposal will not be provided. If it hasn’t happened already, you should expect, at some point in your career, to develop a white paper, a proposal, or some other type of document with only a final objective or two for guidance. Organization of the proposal is up to you but the following particulars must be included: (1) a statement describing the organization type (e.g., commercial, state, local, or federal government, etc.); (2) a discussion of the organization’s business line(s); (3) and a discussion of the organization’s strategic objectives.
Again, the organization’s real identity shall be masked in the proposal and the proposal shall be free of any proprietary or closely-held company information, as well as any other information that could reveal the organization’s real identity.
Pay attention to effective writing communications. The effectiveness of your message can be adversely affected by writing mechanics issues and the clarity of your proposal
What this assignment is NOT.
This is not a proposal to do a study to identify issues and propose solutions.
This is not a proposal to perform a specific project. However, past projects may be used to illustrate existing issues impacting the organization’s ability to monitor/control project cost.
Evaluation
You will be evaluated on:
The organization and content of the completed proposal.
Does it tell a complete and compelling story in a logical and readable manner?
Are issues clearly linked to both organizational management practices and project monitoring/controlling activities?
Is sufficient detail provided to clearly explain the issues and their impact on project cost monitoring/controlling activities?
Correct application of financial management concepts, tools, and techniques
Correct application of project management concepts, tools, and techniques
Rationale for proposed solutions.
Are solutions clearly linked to associated issues?
Is sufficient detail provided to clearly describe how the solution resolves the issue(s) and how the solution is to be implemented?
Feasibility of proposed solutions.
Do the solutions effectively resolve the associated issues?
Are the solution appropriate for the type of organization?
Adherence to all assignment requirements.
Writing mechanics and adherence to APA standards
Project Changes
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Project Changes
Description of the Organization
The name of the company is EssTech travels company. This is a travel site company which takes a unique approach towards offering lodging services. Basically, what the company does is, it provides their guests someone’s home as a place to put up instead of a hotel (Elbanna, 2016). It is suitable for people who are travelling or for people with short internships.
On the other hand, if someone has some extra space and they want to rent it out, they can easily do so by through Ess tech travellers and make money for hosting guests and allowing them to use your space for a night or elongated period (Elbanna, 2016). The company was founded by a couple by the name Esther O'Brien and her husband, Nathan O'Brien. It was developed in 2009.
Initially, the couple would host guests at their place to make some extra money that significantly helped them to pay their rent. It was after doing so for some time that they resolved to form a company, and they named it EssTech travels company. This organisation can be described as a commercial kind of an enterprise (Elbanna, 2016). The objective of the company is to ensure that they create homes all over the world where people will still feel at home even when they have travelled outside their homes. However, this can only be done if the management of the company as well aligned and there are right measures on evaluating and monitoring their financial aspects. This paper will focus on financial control matters as they are linked to project management.
Identification of Issues that detract the Organization’s ability to control and monitor project costs
In the fast-moving industries, it is imperative that innovation and technology are fully embraced since it enhances and facilities the ability of a company to accelerate quickly on new concepts and ideas (Harrison & Lock, 2017). As time goes by, the corporate hierarchical corporate structure is slowly approaching extinction, and the project managers are the ones looked up by the management of the companies of various industries.
Typically, business will position and organise themselves into departments that are responsible for carrying out specific duties as well as executing repeatable duties. However, when a company needs to go through improvement or a change, it them come up with a project (Harrison & Lock, 2017). It is during this time that the project manager brings a temporary team together and selects people from various departments who work together to execute and deliver the project successfully.
A digital-born company such as EssTech Travels rarely employs a project manager because it understands that change is on-going and this was built from the onset in the company’s DNA (Harrison & Lock, 2017). Instead of allocating specialists to batches of work and time slots, they depend on creating some self-organising teams which are made up of people having multiple disciplines. Instead of moving people to work, they allow work to flow to the already existent and fixed teams.
These teams, since they are not bound by sprawling oversight and irrelevant deadlines, they are allowed to collaborate and innovate. As a result, the company is offered stability, and that is unusual to many structured organisations. At the same time, it empowers the staff and enhances trust in their competencies and abilities (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017). Although companies such as EssTech Travels are slowly embracing agile teams for their project execution, they still have not faced out the conventional project management concept, and they have faced various financial control challenges when it comes to project management.
When it comes to keeping financial integrity, companies of all sizes, as well as setting, run into almost the same control challenges. Project management can be described as a process that is designed to control and manage the resources of a company on a certain task, within a specified time and a cost. Time, cost and scope are the main constraints while executing a project (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017). The financial controls issues are some of the issues that occur during the early stages of setting the framework of the project as well as the planning stage.
In all of the projects executed by EssTech Travels, the management has always demanded more visibility into program and project performance. All the stakeholders of a business need to have the confidence that all the resources and funds allocated to a project are spent well (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017) Thus, the need for timely reports and information from the project controllers which can be used to design and shape the deacons of the business proactively. EssTech is not unique from any other business, and it has also faced some hurdles that have detracted its ability to control and monitor project costs. There are many sources of these challenges which include but are not limited to the design of the systems and processes as well as the organisational readiness. Some of the financial issues experienced by EssTech Travels in regards to financial controls include:
1. Managing Customer Relations.
All projects always involve customers. These customers always demand to see the performance and cost measurements in the manner that they desire. That explains why we see organisations channelling their resources on getting reports for their clients in the manner in which they have asked (Larson et al., 2014). However, the client’s preferred way of producing reports may not be the best way for the company to predict and plan for the advantage of the project.
Ess Tech travels have been experiencing attacks from the city authorities and were recently fined due to some controversies that surround any online holiday rental business. As earlier mentioned, EssTech Travel is an online platform that offers people to rent out their apartments, homes, and rooms to guests or visitors. Although this arrangement is not illegal in itself, some of the rentals put on the site do not meet the requirements of the local housing. For instance, in a city like New York, tenants and owners are not allowed to legally rent their spaces for periods short as thirty days unless the guest is living in the same property (Larson et al., 2014). Besides, there is a tax implication whereby, the person renting out their holiday accommodation should pay a tourist and hotel tax.
This legal issue can be a tall order on Ess Tech travel since it has to reassure its customers that they will not land into trouble in case they spend their holiday at any of the registered or advertised rooms or apartments.
2. Budgeting and Forecasting Effectively.
In several cases, the approaches to budgeting and forecasting tend to vary depending on the approach and the background of the individual doing the work. Therefore, at times the consistency across these essential elements of the project can be lost (Larson et al., 2014). Thus, making organisations to face the need to make their forecasts and budgets standardised to ensure some level of reliability on how forecasts and budgets are built in one project compared to the other.
Since EssTech Travels does not own property and the only thing it does is to connect holidaymakers and homeowners. The hotel industry is opposed to this kind of arrangement since it is a cheaper option for tourists and visitors thus. Massively undercutting the prices that are charged by B&B and hotels.
3. Getting Progress Information From Various Subcontractors
It is not an easy task to try pull together and comprehensive master schedule from, multiple subcontractors. It can be both a difficult and problematic task — the process of bringing progress data and information such as the percentage complete or ensuring that all the sign-offs are reported accurately from the various subcontractors. The data collected is then used to generate a meaningful analysis and report of the entire project (Larson et al., 2014). The difficulty comes in when trying to obtain data and often there is the irregular delivery of data or information. This in return results in inaccurate as well as delayed reports....