Question

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

QUESTION 1

Improving Capability with Project Management Certifications: Telstra’s Story
Author: Project Management Institute (PMI)

Many of us live in a world where a nearly limitless amount of information is available. Some 3.2 billion people, almost half the globe’s population, use the internet, according to a report from International Telecommunication Union. As a result, being “connected” has emerged as one of the most critical, and sometimes controversial, aspects of everyday life.

Telstra is a leading telecommunications and technology company, and firmly believes that the more connected the person, the more opportunities they have for success. That’s why its strategic goal is to create a brilliant, connected future for everyone.

To help fulfil this mission and be known as an organisation that continually delivers successful projects, Telstra utilises Project Management Institute (PMI) frameworks, standards, and certifications to cultivate talent, standardise qualifications across its Global Services Practices (GSP) division, and support career paths for its project managers.

Focusing on Customer Delivery the GSP division, which is overseen by Telstra’s Global Project Management Services business unit, delivers high-end technology consulting, design, and deployment across all of Telstra’s technology offerings. Established in 2013, GSP’s major product portfolios include network services, unified communications and collaboration technologies, and security and cloud services.

Senior industry leaders were hired to boost the division’s capabilities, and in only two years, the number of employees grew to more than 1,500. Every day, GSP manages an average of 2,000 unique customer engagements, which range from “everyday” projects to multi-million dollar transition and transformation projects.

The Need for Strategy In order to continue to deliver world class service, Telstra has developed a clear strategy for its professionals, including project managers with formal career paths and professional development plans.

Although Telstra had significant talent within its project management community, not all project management roles were consistently or clearly defined, especially when it came to skills and credentials needed to support customer demands.

PMI research has revealed that more than half of high-performing organisations support project, program, and portfolio management through the use of standardised project management practices throughout the organization.

Telstra needed a certification model that would provide confidence for its customers and ensure that projects would be delivered in a consistent, reliable, world-class manner. This was the impetus for Telstra to establish a formal certification program for its project management community.

Most significantly, this strategic initiative received support from the highest level of management.
“Our vision of becoming a world-class technology company won’t be achieved without world-class project management. It’s central to the way we work, and fundamental to our ability to deliver a brilliant, connected future for our customers,” said Telstra CEO Andrew Penn.

QUESTION 1

Telstra achieved success through pertinent resource management. Constraints and limited resources are encountered when undertaking projects. Discuss and provide examples of the constraints and limited resources. Your discussion must include solutions to common problems when undertaking projects. (20 marks)

Answer 1

Constraints and limited resources are encountered while undertaking some projects as both put a limitation on the scope of the project. The task of the team is to accomplish the project with these constraints and limited resources. Project constraints refer to some restrictions that are imposed on the scope of the project like time, money and labor. These restrictions are made so that the project will remain in the set standards and boundaries. On the other hand, Limited resources mean when the company has a particular amount of all the resources and can not go beyond that. Both of these factors have the potential to create an unforeseen risk to project completion when not managed properly.

Example of Constraint resources

When a project manager asks the team to complete the project within a given time period and according to the guidelines then increasing the scope and adding some new features to the current project will increase the overall cost of the organization. That's why setting some standards and guidelines act as constraints for the projects so that the project will be completed effectively and efficiently.

Example of limited resources

when the project manager asks the team to complete the time within the given budget and resources then it is considered as limited resources. In such a case, the team is supposed to accomplish the project with limited resources. Limited resources can not be considered as a hindrance to the effective accomplishment of the project when allocated effectively. Optimized utilization of limited resources helps the company in achieving anything.

Solution

Constraints and limited resources always come in the way of the effective accomplishment of the project only when they are not optimized rationally. It is not necessary that constraints are always negative or bad for the project completion but can be positive depending upon the way of usage. The project manager must do the following things to overcome the problem of constraints and limited resources:

1. Provide training to the team members to educate them about how to bring maximum output out of limited inputs.

2. Always be clear with the guidelines and step-by-step procedures to accomplish the task so that errors will be less.

3. Instead of using old unskilled workers at lower wages, hire more talented workers for the same work that will worth the pay.

4. Keep an eye on the performance of the workers to check every activity closely and thoroughly.

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