Project Management Assignment: Project Management Strategies For Maxima LT

Question

Task: Successful completion of this assignment will result in achievement of the following subject learning outcomes:
1. Understand PMBOK knowledge areas and process groups and their role, relevance and impact on project management best practice and PMI’s Code of Ethics.
2. Critically compare and contrast project management approaches and their appropriateness for managing a variety of project types.
3. Apply appropriate project management tools and techniques, paying particular attention to risk management.
4. Critically reflect on the leadership styles necessary to succeed in a range of project management situations, and their personal capacity to succeed in those situations.

Answer

Introduction
Project management is a practice from which tools, skills, knowledge, and methodologies are implemented so that projects needs are met within any organization (Meredith, et al., 2017). It is an effective approach used by every organization so that projects are completed on time. However, management of small or large size project faceissue like lack of knowledge, coordination, and collaboration with project members. Hence, to fill these types of the gap, it is important to understand what and how project management is helpful for the organization Maxima LT. Furthermore, the success and failure of the project depend on the performance of team members should be considered.Maxima LT is a retail trade operator company with a turnover of EUR 1.85 billion and situated in the Baltic States. Maxima’s biggest challenge to hiring project minded people with time management and good communication so that project activities could be submitted effectively.

Learning Discussions
Project Management is an important part of any organization to consider. Project is a small work that has a fixed start and end and used for creating a product or service in the organization. However, to deliver a successful project, the management it necessary and implemented through the following concepts.

Project Management Life Cycle:
Maxima needs a framework so that the management of the strategic project becomes simple. Hence, PM offers a Lifecycle with different stages with specific goals so that the project could be completed on time without any issues (Heldman, 2018). It is important that project implementations must follow these stages to obtain a better result. The project management life cycle stages are as follows.

• Initiation: In this stage, project initiationbeginsin which business case and feasibility study for the project is done as well as project charter is created.
• Planning: This stage has activities for planning the project with time, budget, cost estimation as well as risk management is also developed.
• Execution: The execution stage implements a project plan into action by briefing project team members, stakeholder communication and other related project activities.
• Monitoring and Control: It is important to measure project quality and control actions. Hence, this phase looks after project quality control and assurance as per project plan.
• Closure: In this stage, project closure occurs through project performance, post-project review and documentation for the project are made.

Project Management Practices:
Another important part of achieving Maxima better management of strategic projects is the implementation of practices in a compulsory manner.

• Communication Plan: Usually, a lack of communication between stakeholders and the project manager is responsible for project failure. Hence, a communication plan should be developed so that all stakeholders involved will be informed about the progress of work done. Additionally, team members can build a collaborative environment with frequent communication.
• Risk Management: a Risk is an event that occurs uncertainly within project execution(Carvalho,& Rabechini, 2015). Hence, risk management is important so that strategic projects will not get stuck with additional issues. The risk assessment provides a way so that risks could be managed in advance with a response plan.
• Set project deliverables: Whenever Maxima takes a project they should first consider project objectives clearly. Due to chaos certain confusion for project activities arrives hence goals must be clear from the beginning.
• Avoid Scope Creep: The continuous development in the project scope is known as scope creep. It must be avoided so that the scope will not be increased in an uncontrollable manner. As it impacts time, budget, the cost in a negative manner and projects gets delayed for a long time.
• Quality Assurance: Project quality is another issue that could lead to project failure. The quality assurance teams check whether all the activities of the project are completed and goals are met or not.
• Change Management: Lastly, change management is a process which implemented to make people adopt changes. For instance, project team members must be faced with change management adoption. To improve the project and achieve success change must be quickly considered.

Project Management Methodologies:
Furthermore, project management methodologies are another concept that provides a framework for the project. These methodologies must be choosing by Maxima so that their strategic projects could be implemented in a logical and structural manner.Some of the methodologies Maxima could use are waterfall model, agile, scrum and integrated project management. However, agile can be seen as the current project management methodology used by several organizations. While the waterfall model is non-iterative and implements each process after the former process is completed (Dhamnaskar, & Londhe, 2016). For example, once the feasibility study is completed that only project planning will be done. On the contrary, the agile and scrum framework is iterative in nature. There is no need to complete the first process and jump on next, we can do both simultaneously. Lastly, integrated project management is another method in which all the processes are integrated on one single platform. However, Maxima is suggested to use agile or scrum because it is faster, better and can be iterated several times. Furthermore, stakeholders and customer both are involved from starting of the strategic construction projects.

Competencies of Project Manager
Maxima wants to hire people with three qualities such as professional work culture, loyalty, and team spirit. However, to manage team members project managers are required with core competencies. The competency of project managers is responsible for making team members work accordingly. According to PMBoK guide, three talents must be possessed by project manager such as technical project management, leadership skills and strategic and business management (Larson, & Gray, 2015).

Project Success and Failure
Maxima LT wants to hire people apt for project management and could work with timely boundaries. However, the lack of project management activities could make strategic projects for company failure.I have understood that project management practices and their implementation bring changes to the company. For example, the project life cycle will be helpful to plan estimated project time. Whereas, the agile methodology could make project completion fast than the traditional approach. However, lack of such practices could hamper project quality, disappoint customers and brings down reputation. On the contrary, the project manager competencies also intervene with project success and failure. The success could be achieved if the project manager has full knowledge of technologies,business and personal skills. If competencies are absent then projects would be lost from Maxima and no one will want to work with them again. Hence, project management is an important aspect which could make projects successful and send them as one more failure.

Conclusion
Therefore, to achieve a success rate to the strategic projects, Maxima should follow about discussed project management strategies. Furthermore, project life cycle provides a way so that projects could be planned from start to end. Additionally, project management practices such as communication, risk management, quality assurance, avoid scope creep and project deliverable setup are important. These practices safes project from being a failure to the organization. Whereas, project management methodologies should be chosen wisely that could complete the project is minimal time. The core competencies of the project manager are helpful to build the communication, team spiritand effective environment. The leadership of the project manager makes the project more successful. Hence, project management tools and knowledge are helpful for achieving project success. However, if tools are techniques are not acquired properly that project management strategies fail. And if it fails the strategic projects also fail and as a result company shuts down.

References
Carvalho, M. M. D., & Rabechini Junior, R. (2015). Impact of risk management on project performance: the importance of soft skills. International Journal of Production Research, 53(2), 321-340.
Dhamnaskar, T. A., & Londhe, P. D. (2016). The Comparative study of Agile software engineering with Traditional Waterfall model using GOMS architecture. Asian Journal For Convergence In Technology (AJCT), 2.
Heldman, K. (2018). PMP: project management professional exam study guide. John Wiley & Sons.
Larson, E. W., & Gray, C. F. (2015). A guide to the project management body of knowledge: PMBOK (®) guide. In the Project Management Institute.
Meredith, J. R., Mantel Jr, S. J., & Shafer, S. M. (2017). Project management: a managerial approach. John Wiley & Sons.