Core issues in project management: contracts, planning, and stakeholders

Project management is a systematic methodology of attaining aims and objectives in a given criteria for instance time and budget spread on number of years. Project management has been behind every major project for instance man landing on the moon to polio campaigns throughout a country (Gray CR and Larson, 2008).

The subject of project management has grown and blossomed over a number of years. It dates back to cavemen. The cavemen would hunt in groups for a successful hunt. The Egyptians used some form of project management to construct the pyramids of Giza we see today. This is a clear instance of how viably project management has been used during the past centuries (Gray CR and Larson, 2008).

In case of modern era, the project management has been monumental in development of industries and other fields. It makes sure that a project is completed under a given deadline. This protocol is required while overseeing an intricate project and oversees its completion (Fretty, 2006). This paper will stress on the core issues and finds a logical and descriptive solution to:

Non-effective PM

Business case

Contract issues

Planning fallacy

Stakeholders

1: Contractual issues

A contract is bound by policy and legislative framework, but apart from that, there are number of commendable factors, which are embroiled in the final stages of an agreement (Bucero, 2006).

Managing risks

Efficient management entails risk management, which is especially needed in case of an agreement. For the contracts on which the projects are based, this entails recognizing the risks and developing a risk management plan consequently. This entails recognizing the segments / events / stages where, risks are bound to occur and the risk that plagues the confines of that agreement. Thus, the risk assessments must be revised on and off again and modifying the risk treatment plans in case, it risks an agreement (Jones, 2008).

Handling Affiliations

For any agreement to develop and be manageable, the relationship between the concerned two parties must be taken in consideration. The concerned parties have a professional and productive relationship for the successful completion of a project, whilst respecting an agreement. The contract's agreement is reliant on certain factors. Making a contract addressing the needs, ensure a workable relationship with the agreement team. The agreement team must know all the details necessary for reaching a project successfully and the desired outcome of a particular project. The objective of relationship management is keeping open communication. Deeming it impossible is out of the question. The contract won't push forward unless the desired personnel don't contribute. Having a good working alliance doesn't entail that issues will be listed and taken in consideration. They must be acknowledged and resolved in an affable manner (Morris et al., 2000).

Managing resources

Experienced individuals are highly effectual in case of effectual contract management. Thus, it's highly imperative that the required individuals availability is a given in such a case. The negotiations can be executed efficiently. The timeframe is crucial for all the concerned parties which include the contract team. The project details need to be transparent for the contract team to be able to devise a contract best suited for all parties to agree (Morris et al., 2006).

Allocating responsibilities

This concern becomes all the more important as the complexity of the project grows. Allocating responsibilities needs some commendable investment beforehand. It is necessary to invest time in the contract development state period for outlining the deliverables as well as the relevant time frame required and avoiding disagreements regarding the roles of other parties. For reaching a successful arrangement, the milestones must be attainable. A feasible and agreeable project plan sinks teeth into the project's completion. This constitutes analyzing, if sub-contracts are needed and timeframe desired to complete and execute a project. In case of government contracts, a time frame is given for the fiscal year and hence, each project needs to take that into perspective. Some government contracts have severe frames. They must be incorporated into every project plan and will be supervised constantly, so as to end the project within a given timeframe. The firm can't violate a government contract. The key factor is efficient project scheduling and supervision of the project, not to mention milestones and reporting constantly (Cleland and Gareis, 2006).

Ethical behavior

The concerned parties should behave in a cultured and behaved manner. They should be open-minded and transparent. While working on government contracts, this fact is particularly important as governance agreements are in place. The funding agencies have an idea on how much too fund for a particular agreement and all expenses will be fully accountable (Greer, 2009).

2: Business case

The business case is a component of due diligence process. The risks, costs, benefits are measured against the investment being made for a particular project / product. The options are pools and assessed for solving the business dispute (Field and Keller, 2008).

A business case is a way out for the relevant businesses to assess if a given project needs to be paid heed to and a viable solution actually is in favor of the company. This is attained by qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis. The former is called SWOT (Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and threats), while the latter is termed as financial analysis technique. This provides a logical answer if a solution is viable and if investment fulfills the required business goals at hand. The project must be financially, objectively viable for the businesses of higher designation (Kerzner, 2009).

The concerned problems arising in a business case exceeds a monetary clarification. The issues can range from:

Solving the business issue

Initiating a project

Including a problem statement

Proposed solutions

What's in it for staff, clients and company

The amount of money, time and resources required to reach the end result

Risks, restrictions and suppositions

Monetary consequence (Yager, 2009)

3: Planning Fallacy

The organizations as well as people may seldom neglect the estimated time for a project completion. This happens even in the case, when such cases have happened before. The project planners always focus on the ideal scenario for their project at hand, according to the researchers. They fail to oversee the practical scenario for their project to work out for them (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979). Roger Buehler and his contemporaries have voiced the idea of wishful thinking. Usually, the project planners deem that a project will reach completion according to their idealized vision. In another research, Buehler and contemporaries provide an answer in case of self-serving favoritism as to how people rate themselves on their previous record (as cited in Pezzo et al., 2006). They will take due credit on relevant tasks well done, but fail to take credit on delays and outside interferences. People are unable to view the past record of project delay. An experiment concluded that predictions made by people secretly is often absent of optimistic bias. Thus, people create an idealized scenario to favor their judgment and impression. The same idea is given in management theory (Cooks, 2002).

One plausible answer is focalism, which can constitute neglecting of off project perils. Sometimes, people may neglect the external factors which relate with a project indirectly. Then, they may also neglect high impact risks as one is improbable than the other one (Mulcahy, 2003a).

The project planners mostly plan on the project in perspective and neglect certain factors such as:

Sickness

Vacations

Meetings

Overhead tasks (Mulcahy, 2003b)

The project planners then tend to overlook the smaller details such as time taken on small tasks for instance time taken for one brick to be placed in a wall. This neglects usage of actual metrics and raises optimism bias. For instance, placing one brick and multiplying by total number of bricks. The intricate projects which are absent with respect to goals often fall prey to (Rich, 2008):

Scope creep

Mission creep

4: The stakeholders

Stakeholder management is the most essential component of project management. It has been seen that many projects and especially those of delicate nature, for instance game changing projects and politically affiliated projects will succeed / fail only in the case, when the pertinent stakeholder is deeply engrossed (Lewis, 2006).

The project managers need to navigate through a maze of egos and personal interests involved. In this case, we will examine the prime four stakeholder management tips, which ensure a smooth running project (Joseph, 2003).

Definition of a stakeholder

An often observed mistake is to comprehend the value of the stakeholder. The stakeholders are basically concerned individuals or an organization, which are involved in a particular project. This point is worth noting. The stakeholders are all an organization / group of individuals with relevant interest in a project. This entails that not only the customer is the stakeholder, but the client's client, the client's sponsor (the project funder to operate on the project, if it's not the same individual as the client), various department in the client's company, and the list goes on. But the real question is that how can one recognize all the necessary stakeholders (Joseph, 2003).

Recognize the stakeholders first. Initiate some meeting or a get together. This must be done before a project. This is a time for analyzing the stakeholders involved. So many projects commence in the absence of a meeting. Hence, suppositions are made, the relevant stakeholders are referred with and after months, one key stakeholder materializes out of nowhere and announces that the project isn't going as planned. By saying that, this means they weren't consulted beforehand (Joseph, 2003). The top management takes a step back and poses a real threat to the project. They should be tackled carefully. Some admirable method of recognizing the stakeholders are given below:

Brainstorming

Talking with experts on the subject

Lessons from previous projects (Dennis, 2007)

They should reach an agreement. Ensure that stakeholders are recognized and a set document is given to them. They should see eye-to-eye on roles and responsibilities. The stakeholders own some important document, which isn't for the project managers. It is necessary to agree on a given set of rules and regulations, hence months afterwards, the blame game is avoided and egos are saved from bruises (Dennis, 2007).

All stakeholders aren't equal with respect to stake involved. After making a list of stakeholders, and considering them as ' group of individuals or an organization with interest in a project', it is pretty apparent that all of these concerned individuals can't involved in the project decisions and final decision is nearly impossible to reach at. Thus, attaining an agreement or reaching a final answer is next to impossible. The consequent step involves the stakeholder to be assessed on the basis of their interest. One great method is to draw the stakeholder matrix. The horizontal line of the stakeholder matrix is the interest line, while the vertical line is called influence. Then, the stakeholders are assessed on the basis of their daily participation in the project and their influence level in it. Thus, the need for their participation is analyzed and hence used accordingly (Young-Hoon, 2005).

5: The inefficient PM method

The project management method entails the issue of constant evolution. Newer methods and approaches are invented from time to time for countering the present challenges and trends. For the current scenario, the skills are focused on people skills. The most competent project managers are often very strong speakers and businessmen. Thus, they are able to work with different individuals from various backgrounds. One more issue to tackle is project risk assessment. Risk management is a vital factor in saving costs of a project and plays a pivotal role in safety factor and health factors (David, 2006).

Thus, the leading companies should generate commendable leadership skills in every project manager and train them to work with considerable risk (David, 2006).

In conclusion

This paper focuses on key issues faced in project management and finds solutions to issues in business case, contractual issues, stakeholders, planning faults and in efficient PM method.

The miscellaneous challenges are to attain the project goals and objectives whilst, respecting the predetermined restrictions. The other issues include:

Scope

Time

Quality

Budget

The secondary and key challenge is to maximize the inputs and amalgamate them to attain the desired goals.