To plan the future strategies and develop new approaches to completing the definite tasks, the companies’ leaders and managers should audit and analyse the previous projects and their results in order to have the complex picture of the real situation in relation to the company’s progress. Olaf Gundersen, the CEO of Wireless Telecom Company, faced some problems with the Maximum Megahertz Project which was not completed during the determined terms and required more financing. From this point, Gundersen was challenged by the necessity to stop the project or to continue it. The problem was in the fact that the company had the similar experience, and three other projects were not completed during the last five years. To avoid the further development of the problematic situation and to handle the doubtful projects, it is important to work out the plan of action which can be effective to learn from the mistakes, to reduce project costs, and to prevent the similar situation in the future.
It is important to concentrate on the results of the previous projects and close the projects which seem to be errant at the early stages. Gundersen have the opportunity to pay attention to the results of the previous three projects which were not completed to operate the Maximum Megahertz Project. This project was not completed before the deadline and required the additional money. It was necessary to cope with a range of such problematic issues as the power reduction, speed increase, and the battery problem (Larson, 2010, p. 530). However, there were no variants to overcome these issues in time. The Maximum Megahertz Project should be closed as the perpetual one with references to the previous uncompleted projects’ results because the leader and managers are inclined to repeat the same mistakes without making the necessary conclusions. If this project was not completed before the deadline using $600,000, there were no any guarantees that this project could be completed in the next six months and with the additional $800,000 (Larson, 2010, p. 530).
The doubtful projects should be caught early to avoid the additional costs. That is why, in-process and post-process audits are important. To overcome the situation with the Maximum Megahertz Project, it is necessary to refer to the previous uncompleted projects. However, to prevent the further problems, it is necessary to develop a specific plan (Meredith & Mantel, 2011). To begin with, Gundersen should pay attention to the regular collection of the information about the project’s progress since the time it was started. The next stage is the analysis of the received data in order to prevent any difficulties at the early stages and use the additional resources to overcome the issues. According to the theory of the project audit, it is also important to concentrate on the project team view (Larson, 2010).
Much attention should be paid to reporting to have the opportunity to analyse the results and make the conclusions. For instance, it is possible to determine such aspects as the incorrect information, not meeting the schedule, the poor coordination, and the poor monitoring among the weak points of the previous projects of Wireless Telecom Company which were not closed in time (Larson, 2010, p. 530). The next stage is to analyse all the aspects of the project in relation to its development. It is important to refer to the project’s intermediate results and the project’s purpose (Mantel, 2001). If the team is challenged by some problems with the project, it is necessary to identify and resolve these problems at the early stages. It is also necessary to correlate the budget used and schedule terms to avoid the situation as it was with the Maximum Megahertz Project.
One of the main challenges for Olaf Gundersen is to evaluate the work of the project managers when the project is not completed and to avoid the possible public embarrassment. That is why, the effective evaluation of the team work should be the important component of the developed action plan. It is necessary to evaluate the work of the project manager and team members to provide them with the opportunity to learn from the mistakes. Moreover, the accentuation of some weak points can help avoid the repeated mistakes. However, the approach to the evaluation should be correct. The performance reviews are important, but they should be discussed individually and the necessary recommendations should be given to the concrete person. It is important to concentrate on the positive aspects of the team members’ work, on the persons’ efforts to achieve the tasks. Persons can be also asked to evaluate their achievements by self in order to learn from the mistakes (Gido & Clements, 2008). Thus, the issues and difficulties are analysed according to the definite actions, but not with references to the individuals’ personalities. Nevertheless, if the analysis of the mistakes is presented for the other employees impersonally, these people also receive the opportunities to learn from these mistakes. From this point, reports and analyses are important for managing the project.
Thus, Olaf Gundersen should pay much attention to the in-process audit of the projects and resolve the obvious problems at the early stages or to close the perpetual projects early in order to avoid the usage of the additional resources. Moreover, the effective evaluation of the team’s work is necessary to accentuate the lessons learned.
References
Gido, J., & Clements, J. (2008). Successful project management. USA: Cengage Learning.
Larson, E. (2010). Project management: The managerial process. USA: Irwin Professional Pub.
Mantel, S. (2001). Project management in practice. USA: J. Wiley.
Meredith, J. R., & Mantel, S. J. (2011). Project management: A managerial approach. USA: John Wiley & Sons.