Operations management concepts and applications

Project Management

The author of this short response report is asked to answer two primary questions as they relate to project management. The first question asks the author how project management influences other departments such as marketing, finance, accounting, human resources and others. The second question asks what difficulties and/or limitations exist as they pertain to PERT and CRM in an organization. The author of this response shall endeavor to address and answer both questions.

Questions Answered

As for how project management affects, influences and guides departments like human resources and accounting, the answer to this question is quite clear for anyone well-versed on what project management is and what it can do for an organization when done correctly. It can also be a train wreck waiting to happen for a company that does it poorly. In short, projects are any short-lived changeover process or shift in how a process is done and/or the components and equipment that make it up. It can also be a combination of the two. Such changes can involve a single department or they can involve more than one. For example, a human resources department may shift from one payroll/HRIS solution to another. Such a change would require a project (probably several, actually) to help plan and execute the shift from one solution to another and how best to do that to avoid any problems with continuity and the efficacy in which the work is done.

An effective project management plan and team would manage the resources involved in the equipment and/or process change and would also act as a liaison between departments that are involved or at least affected by the change. If done properly, the changeover will be as seamless and non-chaotic as possible but there should always be contingencies and at least some sort of lag time allowed for issues that can and do come up during the course of the project. It is up to the project leaders to get influence the disparate departments in a positive way by getting buy-in and cooperation with what is going on as opposed to bad projects where the blowback from departments being influenced improperly or not enough can cause a project to fail or be completed with very mixed results.

As for the limitations and difficulties in an organization as it relates to PERT and CRM, there are a few major ones. With PERT, one is talking about a statistical tool. Statistics and metrics in general are only as good as the person that is looking at them and the data that feeds the calculations. Furthermore, PERT will often reveal, if done correctly, what the current conditions are but it doesn't necessarily indicate the "why" of what is going on and for what reasons. Often times, a PERT analysis would reveal the proverbial disease itself but not what is causing it.

As for CRM, an acronym for customer relationship management, that is not an exact science either because there has to be some forethought and due diligence with the planning and execution of a CRM system. Using a template-based approach to a complex issue and/or not wielding the tools based on informed and well-versed knowledge of how the application of the CRM tools should manifest themselves with a certain firm or situation can lead to CRM implementation failure. ERP solutions often fail for much the same root reason.