Project Management: A Critical Evaluation Essay

Introduction

Available literature demonstrates that a project schedule is a fundamental constituent of any project management activity, issues of size or scope of the project notwithstanding. Indeed, as noted by Kerzner (2001), a project schedule not only directs the project stakeholders on when each activity should be done, but it reveals what has already been achieved, whether certain activities are late in terms of delivery, and the sequence in which project activities need to be completed.

It is against this background that the present paper seeks to respond to a few issues related to project scheduling, primarily the identification of activities needed to estimate resources and durations, identification and discussion of some of the milestones that may be contained in a project, and, lastly, the provision of a summary of how human resources should be assigned to each project activity to guard against lateness or perceived schedule slips.

Activities to Estimate Resources and Durations in Project Management

An accurate assessment or estimation of the resources and durations needed to complete particular tasks should be an issue of imperative concern for project managers and other stakeholders in the team.

Kerzner (2001) notes that while it is true that duration estimation analyzes the time that may be taken to complete either the entire project or subsections within the entire project, activity duration, on its part, is to a large extent dependent on other time and resource approximations. In this perspective, the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) can be proposed as an activity that can assist the project team to estimate the resources and durations needed.

This activity not only defines a project in the context of its deliverables, but provides a framework for breaking down the stated deliverables into consequential units of work (Kerzner, 2001). The author further notes that with this breakdown, team leaders are able to ascertain a proper work hierarchy that operationalizes resource and duration estimations.

The second activity that could be proposed entails undertaking a critical path review using the Critical Path Method (CPM) with a view to estimating the overall project duration. It is of significance to note that the CPM has the capacity to calculate the total project duration while basing its estimates on individual task durations and their interrelationships.

It therefore follows that the series of project tasks determining the minimum time required for the project should be included as the critical path (Kerzner, 2001).

The third activity that could be proposed involves undertaking a performance evaluation review using an effective project management tool, such as the Performance Evaluation Review Technique (PERT). According to Schwalbe (2010), this activity employs a pictorial description of project tasks as a system of dependencies with a view to assess or investigate the most likely time and resource estimates.

Forth, the project leader in conjunction with other members can initiate a Resource Breakdown Structure (RBS), which is basically “…a hierarchical structure that identifies the project resources by category and type“(Schwalbe, 2010, p. 222).

The information gathered by this structure is fundamentally important in not only determining the costs of resources, but also on how to go about acquiring the resources. Lastly, a Three-Point Estimate (TPE) can be used to estimate activity durations. This activity, according to Schwalbe (2010), revolves around designing “…an optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic estimate [whereby] the optimistic estimate is based on a best-case scenario, while the pessimistic estimate is based on a worst case scenario” (p. 223).

Milestones for the Project

Milestones are simply goals or objectives that assist project leaders to keep track of the overall progress for any project, with each milestone indicating a forward movement (Higginbotham, 2008). In essence, milestones not only assist in building continued momentum for the team members, but they show progress to members of staff as well as to other leaders.

The SMART (specific; measurable; attainable; relevant; time-bound) criteria can be used to describe project milestones in the context of the outlined case study (Schwalbe, 2010).

Under the ‘specific’ term, we can identify and describe the first two project milestones, which may include:

1. A fully functional remote deposit capture must be in place within the next five months to allow a month’s time for any necessary adjustments, and
2. The remote deposit capture must be able to fulfill the core objectives of increasing customer satisfaction and curtailing customer loss. Under the ‘measurable’ term, we can identify and describe the third and forth milestones, namely:
3. The remote deposit capture, upon its commissioning, must be able to improve customer satisfaction levels by up to 25 percent, and
4. The bank must be able to register an increase of about 20 percent in its customer base upon the commissioning of the new project.

Moving on, under the ‘attainable’ term of the SMART criteria, we can identify and describe the fifth and sixth milestones, namely:

1. The staff members need to undergo training to improve their abilities and skills towards the operationalization of the new project, and
2. The need to make heavy investments in information technology (IT) to ensure the goals of increasing customer satisfaction and avoiding the loss of current customers are met after takeoff.

Under the ‘relevancy’ term, we can identify and describe the seventh and eighth milestones as follows:

1. Conduct a baseline survey in the fourth month of project implementation to evaluate how other banks are coping with the issues of customer satisfaction, and
2. To conduct a baseline survey to investigate the relevancy of remote deposit capture against the industry’s best practices. Lastly, under the ‘time-bound’ term of the SMART criteria, we can identify and describe the project milestones as follows:
3. We must have the necessary IT infrastructure in place by the lapse of 90 days (three months), and
4. We must be able to test the new IT infrastructure using selected bank customers by the lapse of 150 days (five months) to provide room for any improvement or adjustment.

Assigning Personnel to Project Activities

It is indeed true that an IT-related project such as the implementation of a remote deposit capture for a banking institution certainly requires personnel from a wide variety of fields, such as software developers, network administrators, java programmers, risk assessors, junior support staff, internet security personnel, subcontractors, and senior personnel such as the chief information officer (CIO), among others.

The way that all these personnel are assigned their duties is critical to the success of any IT-related project (Schwalbe, 2010). According to Lock (2007), personnel should be assigned to project activities based on their availability, level of skill and training, and an open mind to learn more. The table next page demonstrates how the tasks will be delegated among the personnel involved

It is indeed true that some projects may fall behind schedule owing to a multiplicity of factors, such as lack of finances, lack of materials, lack of the required personnel, and occurrence of natural catastrophes, among others (Lock, 2007).

When such eventualities occur, the project manager or leader may renegotiate the scope/ schedule of the project with the project sponsor, along with other members, to evaluate if it is indeed viable to either reduce the scope activities of the original project or possibly increase the schedule duration to ensure that project scope activities are satisfactorily met (Schwalbe, 2010).

Second, the project leader, in collaboration with the project sponsor and other team members, may engage in resource re-allocation to make sure that extra resources are availed to project areas that might have fallen behind schedule.

Third, the project members might engage in multitasking, which basically entails working on multiple project activities for a specific amount of time to permit for more than one activity to be completed (Lock, 2007). Other strategies that may be used include increasing dedicated time, project schedule compression, and fast-tracking of activities (Schwalbe, 2010).

Conclusion

The above analysis demonstrates the complexities involved in project management, particularly in making estimations for resources and time durations. The analysis has also touched on project milestones and how such milestones need to be generated to ensure successful implementation of projects. All in all, the underlying task is for the project manager to lead the team using industry-specific best practices in project management to ensure successful implementation (Lock, 2007).

Reference List

Higginbotham, J. (2008). Project planning: Identify milestones, assumptions, and tasks. Web.

Kerzner, H. (2001). Project management: A systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling, 7^th Ed. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.

Lock, D. (2007). Project management, 9^th Ed. Hampshire: Gower Publishing Ltd.

Schwalbe, K. (2010). Information technology project management. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.