Background Information
This is a paper review conducted on one of the papers written by the students. It aims at looking at the content, organization, style, mastery, methods, applications and quality of the work, in order to gain an in-sight about the main aspects associated with the delivering leadership recognized in a particular project. Rules of grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, among other aspects of writing are looked into in this paper review.
The aim of origin paper
The paper that is being reviewed was a response to the question below:
What are the leadership styles and qualities most appropriate to complete projects and operational activities? To do this the following check list will be used.
General Comments
There are a lot of grammar mistakes in the paper and the use of the first person noun which is not allowed in academic writing. Although the paper has explained most of the leadership styles and qualities that should be possessed by project managers, it has not given proper illustrations.
However, it has explained the relationship that should exist between project managers and their team members and how this relationship influences the progress of project. The author has used a variety of good academic sources to discuss the paper. The following part gives the general comments made on each part of the review process in the order given in the above check list.
Content
The content of the paper does not conform to the requirements of the modern business world. The author makes a lot of grammar mistakes that makes some parts of the paper almost vague. One has to struggle to understand what the author implies in some areas.
However, it gives sophisticated information to project managers that can guide them in deciding who is to be concerned with certain project and what is expected of them, that is the project team and its responsibilities. If the paper had been written more professional it would act as a good source of information to modern project managers.
The paper provides a brief description in the form of a literature review. It starts by defining leadership styles as put forward by different scholars. The author of the paper goes ahead to discuss six different schools of thought in leadership style theory which are summarized in the form of a table.
This is a good aspect in writing of academic papers because it helps the reader (and project managers in this case) the grasp the concept that is being discussed. Leadership competencies are also discussed at length and just like the schools of thought, they are summarized in a table. The author demonstrates the depth of his research and academic prowess by use of more than 25 references from books, journals, among other academic sources.
Organization
The paper is not organized properly although the author has made use of subheadings to separate the sections. It starts with an introduction that does not give a clear guideline of the entire paper. Instead of giving a brief overview of the topic to be discussed, the author starts by explaining one of the major articles to be discussed in the paper. A reader can not be contented with the information since it seems incomplete.
Introduction
The introduction is a little bit blurred and does not give a clear picture of what the paper entails. In the introduction, a ready expects to find, a brief discussion of the paper which is not so.
It is not exciting and does not in any way entice the reader to read the rest of the paper. in most cases, the introduction is used to give a brief overview of the whole paper and it should leave the reader with some suspense to make him read through the entire document.
However, this paper does not do so and a reader has to be so much determined in the document for him to go through it. As the reviewer of this paper, I would advice the author to rewrite the introduction and make it attractive to a reader who is interested with the information contained in the paper.
Theoretical Framework
The author uses more than twenty references to discuss the topic on leadership. However, the author did not discuss some of the critical points and ideas required by project managers. Some of the main points as summarized by the author are given below:
The author gives a set of processes that should be adopted in a project and explains the kind of information that should be incorporated in a given project. He goes ahead to explain what is met by a successful project. According to the author, a successful project, that is, one that delivers quality results within the set budget and on time depends on the quality of people who are involved in its execution.
This includes project board and the project team which does most of the work. Today, projects involve different groups of people including the customer, suppliers, and the users.
The author recognizes project manager’s job. To do this, he selects human resources who are competent enough to work on the project and it is his responsibility to supervise their work to ensure that it done timely and according to laid down standards. The project manager designs the project plans which specify the responsibility of the project team and the completion date.
However, the author does not give the techniques that should be used by project managers to control projects. This includes
Quality Review
The purpose of this technique is to ensure that, the products resulting from a project are of good standard, that is, they meet the quality criteria. More often than not, this is done in a quality reassess meeting in which inaccuracies in products are recognized.
It is worth noting that the quality review meeting is not under any obligation to resolve the errors identified in products, its work is to bring the interested people together and to help the project team in addressing the identified issues
Product Based Planning
This technique defines a project according to the output and not its activities. Before a project is initiated, the project managers have to understand the products required by the users. This helps them in planning for the activities that should be incorporated in the project but it is not the activities that determine the end product
Change Control
This technique gives a procedure on how to log and assess the impacts of a project, how to escalate issues to the board, and how to manage changes.
Moreover the author does not make use of one of the sources given for the assignment which I think is very credible. Goleman talks about the qualities of a good leader and the different style of leadership on page 78 and 79.
He goes ahead to explain the concept of leadership as the process where an individual controls other people in achieving the goals and objectives of an organization or a group of people. If this article was included in the paper, it would form a good foundation for future project managers.
Data/ Evidence Used in Case Study Examples
The author uses an appropriate case study for this research. The case study is based in an institution that developed operations strategy that required the head count in Australia operations to be reduced in favour of off shoring certain processes to India.
This operation was to be implemented in two stages and was being led by an implementation manager, although the business sponsor was solely responsible for managing the project and this is the focus of this paper. His duties and qualities are listed in the paper. This provides a good base for the research paper.
Discussion and Evaluation of Data/ Evidence Findings
The analysis of this paper is methodical although the thesis is not explained in detail. The author did not use clear illustrations, although he made use of tables to discuss the paper. Most of the sections are not discussed in-depth and do not give enough information that can be used by future project managers and team members of projects.
Conclusions
The conclusion is not clear. The author does not highlight some of the main points discussed in the paper but gives a brief summary of some of the sections tackled in the paper. However, there are no new concepts given in the conclusion. It seems to be indistinct and the sentence structure is not clear.
Style
The document is not organized properly according to the requirements of the modern business world. Moreover, the author does not follow the rules regarding to grammar and presentation, although he did use proper vocabulary to explain the key points.
The sentence structure is not good and some of the sentences are too long. The paper has been cited sufficiently and all direct quotes put in quotation marks. It is evident that the author has used various references to write the paper which is an important aspect in research.
Mastery
The paper does not contain high-quality knowledge and information on the subject although the facts discussed in the paper are sustained by different views from different authors. Moreover, tables are used to give clear and precise definitions to certain concepts.
Fulfilment
The assertions made in the introduction part of the paper, are not strong and evocative of the requirements of the paper, which shows the irrelevance of the content as depicted by the author. However some of the content in the main body is supported by valid facts although the author has not used credible references to support his facts.
Methods
The structure used by the author is good although at some instances he uses unclear sentences. The paper begins with a vague introduction that does not highlight the main areas to be covered in the paper. Different articles have been used in the paper to sustain the author’s main claims.
The case study given in the paper was also appropriate as it illustrates the topic being discussed. The author has made use of tables to discuss the key points although he does not give enough explanation regarding these tables.
Applications
Important conceptions on leadership styles and the influence they have on team members have been lucratively explained. These conceptions were also associated to matters of project management in a successful way. The paper applied of vital concepts, and it was in actual fact a mythical work, which entailed use of fundamental aspects.
Quality
In general, I can rate the paper as of medium quality. Most of the aspects required for the assignment were covered in the paper. The author used more that twenty references although most of them were not from credible sources. The author did not give a clear demonstration of how the theory can be used in real life situations.
Also, the author relied more on facts from different authors, but did not seem to give his personally views concerning the topic. He used tables to explain key issues which are a recommendable thing. However, the author ignored the use of graphs which would be also good to a reader. The author has used the first person nouns (for instance I and we) in the research paper which is not allowed.