Strategic Project Management

Strategic Project Management

Project management alludes to the process of taking a project from the beginning until the project ends. A project manager is tasked with the responsibility of overseeing and guiding the progress of the project in its entirety. Strategic project management addresses the overall view and determines how the undertaken project can benefit the efficiency of the company as well as its competitiveness in general. The latter uses organizational and project management techniques to enable the firm to advance. The process is facilitated by brainstorming and problem solving to ensure that the project is completed successfully, efficiently, and

promptly.

The schedule is a vital component of project management and is a crucial pillar for every successful project. The management tools are also essential since they are used to determine the tasks of the particular project and organize them into a series of events that can be managed effectively (Serra and Martin 55). However, individuals might be tempted to continue with the work and overlook the essence of developing a schedule. This factor may leave them exposed and make them unable to track the progress of a given project. To have a high chance of completing the assigned project on time, individuals should develop an achievable schedule, corresponds to the client’s demands, and is elaborate and supported by the members of the team.

Developing a realistic and achievable project schedule involves the following steps. First, an individual must identify all the tasks that are necessary for the achievement set goals. An individual should then establish a policy for performing the tasks identified. The tasks should be broken down into adequate details and placed in a schedule. This factor will ensure that the required tasks are more specific (Suvillan). Besides, identifying tasks will give the members of the team more ideas about the time needed to be spent on the defined tasks as well as the quantity of work that ought to be done. The second step is the planning of team members. The project manager should find out the members of the team who are available and ready to execute the project (Serra and Martin 55). The manager should determine whether they have enough task force to complete the required activities. The manager should try to match the employees’ skills with the demands of the project, as well as compare their past experiences to determine whether they possess the necessary capabilities for the task.

Thirdly, the project manager should involve the project drivers and supporters in the development of the schedule. This factor ensures that the inputs of all stakeholders are incorporated into the program. Incorporating the member’s ideas will ensure that the plan is reasonable and ensure that the project workload is distributed evenly across the members of the team (Suvillan). In this step, the project manager should develop a high-level schedule but allow the members’ insights on the ideas that will or will not work. The manager should then assign various tasks to specific members to enhance task ownership and fair distribution. Fourthly, the manager should estimate the time frame for particular jobs to craft a realistic schedule. At this step, the manager should consider the amount of time that every task will consume to determine the tasks that need to be performed.

The project should develop a plan that can sustain constant changes that can be prompted by the shareholders. The project manager should endeavor to comprehend the reason for any shifts and make appropriate changes required to meet the changing landscape of the project (Suvillan). The plan should also develop a process that manages any possible replacement. They should consider the risks that could alter the established schedule. The project manager should then recognize and write down all the assumptions related to the program of the project. The sixth step of developing the project schedule involves the inclusion of a regular schedule. Adding a milestone to a project’s schedule and checking them regularly enables the team to stay focused and allow them to evaluate the progress of the project. Besides, milestones will allow the project manager to keep the project on track and ensure that the project milestones are achieved in alignment with the schedule.

The seventh step of schedule is team calendaring, which is an essential tool that can be used to promote productivity as well as the morale of the group. Understanding the working days, shifts, as well as the availability of resources, is essential in the completion of the project schedule. Team calendaring provides an efficient way for the teams to track the activities as well as the progress of the assigned tasks (Suvillan). Besides, team calendaring ensures that all stakeholders are kept informed on the development of the project being undertaken. Finally, the project manager should ensure that the team regularly stays updated about the progress of the project as well as the necessary changes that should be applied. The manager should ensure they set a regular conversation with the team members to highlight the key issues that need to be addressed. In the interviews, any matter about the progress of the project should be discussed.

Example of Project Schedule Management

Cengage Learning

Cengage Learning is a leading educational content, technology, and services organization for higher education and K-12, professional as well as library markets worldwide. The organization is based in Boston, MA. Cengage sells its products in almost 125 countries in the world. Cengage is a product development firm, yet it managed its projects using google spreadsheets. The spreadsheets became so complicated since they comprised 300 rows of projects and 67 rows of metadata (“Cengage Learning Improves Planning and Use of Resource.”) The long-term planning was disconnected from the resource timelines, making it difficult to forecast capacity adequately. Managing projects, as well as the available resources using spreadsheets, created a high complexity for both medical and educational publishing firms. Cengage wanted to integrate the planning and execution stages of product delivery. The Planning and Operation group staff discovered that the only they could solve this problem was to centralize data into a single system of record.

In the planning process to solve this problem, Cengage Learning wanted to leverage the role-based needs and incorporate it into capacity planning. The company devised a system known as PLANit, which acted as a solution to resource management. The solution enabled the company to incorporate the planning and execution processes within the system’s product delivery. This factor enabled Cengage Learning to enhance its planning, forecasting as well as status and time tracking (“Cengage Learning Improves Planning and Use of Resource”). The company chose the portfolio as well as the resource management investment. The company also chose capacity planning to demonstrate to the executive shareholders all the great work that the firm should accomplish if sufficient resources were allocated. Today, the Cengage Learning can prioritize as well as push the projects down the timeline, and easily identify various groups that require new hires.

Works Cited

“Cengage Learning Improves Planning and Use of Resource.” Planview Enterprise, 2015. Case Study

Schmidt, Terry. Strategic project management made simple: Practical tools for leaders and teams. John Wiley & Sons, 2009.

Suvillan, Emily. “8 Steps for Planning a Successful Project Management Schedule.” Blog, HighQ, 24 Apr. 2015, blog.highq.com/enterprise-collaboration/8-steps-for-a-successful-project-management-schedule.

Serra, Carlos Eduardo Martins, and Martin Kunc. “Benefits realisation management and its influence on project success and on the execution of business strategies.” International Journal of Project Management 33.1 (2015): 53-66.