Question

As a project goes through the execution phase, project control is critical to ensure that a project stays within the constraints of time, cost, and scope. A project manager will use different monitoring techniques to help keep the project within these constraints. If a project incurs changes, becomes delayed, or costs become higher, a project manager will execute change control to document and determine how to handle the change.

Once a project is completed, the project team should complete a final project report, which is the administrative record of the completed project, which identifies all its functional and technical components as well as other important project history. It includes all the strengths and weaknesses of the project as it progressed and offers a final assessment of what went right (or wrong) throughout the life of the project. It is essentially a “lessons learned” document of the project.

Your assignment is to prepare a project report for your project using Microsoft Word, make up a fictious project of your choice and complete a project close report for that project, make assumptions as needed since your project is fictitious. The goal is just to get you to understand how a project close report is created and the type of information that you would include within it. Include the following sections/elements:

1.                   Project Performance

This should include a candid assessment of the project's achievements relative to its plan. Did the project achieve the goals you set out to accomplish? It should also include candid criticism as to the project performance. What caused this poor performance? What recommendations do you have to ensure it doesn't happen in future projects?

2.                   Lessons Learned

What are come key Lessons Learned that you generated from the project or for the sake of this assignment some key learnings from the course.

3.                   Administrative Performance

What are the standard administrative practices that occur within an organization that were beneficial to the project? What were some drawbacks that could be improved on?

4.                   Organizational Structure

How did the organization's operating structure help or hinder the project team? How could it have been changed to better align the structure with the activities?

5.                   Team Performance

How effectively did the team perform this project? Were the proper people picked to perform the project? Were they properly trained? How did the project manager perform? Address team-building techniques and training activities that you think would ensure effective team performance of your project if it actually occurred.

6.                   Techniques of Project Management

What organizational methods are effective for project management? These include software, scheduling, rules, procedures, etc.

7.                   Benefits to the Organization and the Customer

To what degree did this project provide the benefits and accomplish the goals that it intended? Keep in mind that goals are not always immediate and can occur over time.

Answer 1

1. Project Performance: The project was entrusted to our team with the goal of conducting a market research to understand consumer perceptions on product development; to study pricing strategies and to study what competitors are offering to the consumers so that differentiated products may be offered to the consumers. The duration of the project was six four months. The team started its work right from the first day. The team was divided into four groups. Two groups were tasked with conducting the consumer survey in different regions, one team was entrusted with competitor analysis and the other team was responsible for documentation and supporting office work. The members performed consistently and the team could complete its project in a record span of three months, one month ahead of the schedule. The team could realize all its goals and the report of the market study conducted by its members is a testimony of team work. The members were clear of their job roles and there was no ambiguity, therefore they could start their work smoothly from the day one itself. However, there were certain shortcomings in accomplishing the projects. The team could get the competitor’s data for three competitor brands. The members were unable to study the pricing strategies of five competitors as originally planned. Inclusion of all the five brands would have made the report comprehensive. In the future, the team members shall develop a blueprint of what is not achievable/ difficult to achieve and one team would be exclusively responsible for accomplishing that task.

2. Lessons learned: The team has learned that role clarity without any ambiguity make the team members work efficiently. Another aspect that the team has learned from this project is conflict management; detecting the cause of conflict at early stage and suitable resolution will stem the conflict from its root. In terms of business processes, the team also learned the intricacies of the marketing research, consumer dynamics and competitor’s strategies.

3. Administrative performance: Administrative functions like weekly appraisal of the project performance was highly beneficial for the project. Weekly appraisals quickly identified the deviations from the original plan and they were quickly addressed. Therefore there is no major failure associated with the project. However, one administrative obstacle in the smooth running of project was lengthy procurement process. Essential items like stationery items would arrive after a lengthy procedure and repairs also took considerable time. The administrative process of procurement must be simplified.

4. Organizational Structure: The organizational structure was somewhat a hindrance to the progress of project. The team had to take inputs from two departments: Marketing and Research development. Similarly, the team had to report to two departments above mentioned. Approvals and suggestions were contradictory and took time. Management must consider a creation of marketing research as a separate division under or as a sub-division of marketing. The personnel in the marketing research division may be drawn from marketing and research departments.

5. Team performance: The team performed consistently better. All the members were aware of the standard procedures and their job roles. The members in the team were inducted based on their experience in the marketing research. However, refresher training was conducted on methods and procedures of data collection and data analysis. The project manager was the interface between four teams. Project manager co-ordinated the four teams and reported to the marketing and research departments. Their feedback was also shared among all the teams. The team manager was skilled at managing the technical aspects (data collection and analysis) as well as managerial and interpersonal roles. Manager had closely monitored the project on a daily basis and provided all sorts of advice whenever needed. In future projects of marketing research, the teams must be trained and sent for pilot study so that difficulties in any aspect may be detected and planned accordingly.

6. Techniques of Project Management: The established guidelines of the company were highly responsible for the success of project. Additionally, software provided by the company where the team could upload the data on daily basis. The data analysis software was highly advanced. All these facilities supported the progress of the project.

7. Benefits to Organization and consumer: Market analysis conducted by the team will be the guideline for product development. The report recommends the features preferred by consumers in the market. Consumers will also benefit from the project, because they will get the product that they have wished.