Week 4 project management discussion

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 Week 4 project management discussion

Week - 4 Discussion
by Yijia Zhang - Tuesday, January 31, 2023, 4:24 PM
Number of replies: 1

1.     Describe a potential timing issue that can occur early in a project and a potential
timing issue that can occur at the end of a project. How would you address each of these
issues in your project?

In organizations, every business is included with a certain timeline and it is effectively

managed by the project team members. Effective project management in companies is
including with various functional operations, resource management, project team members,
and timelines (Kloppenborg, Stamford). A project manager is playing an important role in
conducting all the project activities effectively. Project timing issues have occurred at the
initial stages like onboarding the stakeholders and resources. In a project, the early
onboarding resulted in the loss of the project and onboarding after the project resulted in a
team member shortage (Ibironke & Elamah, 1-9). It becomes project loss, failure or delay.
So, it is considered to be important for the company to follow an effective plan and
understand the needs and requirements of the project to motivate the team members
effectively.

2.     Describe a few normal causes and special causes of variation on a project you have
worked on. How did you address these variations?

A project is a one-time activity that is part of every company to successfully achieve profits
and improve productivity through product or service development. Generally in companies,
the project manager is essential for successfully managing the project plan, executing the
project, and controlling the loss or delay (Kloppenborg, Stamford). Normal and special
causes are two important variations in a project that are helped to complete the project on
time. In companies, common cause variation is involved in different factors which are
unnecessarily affecting the process variation (Gerardi, 2018). Special cause variation is the
process that is involved in more than a factor that is affecting the process variation in a non-
random manner.

References

Gerardi, J. (2018, February 13). Common Cause Variation vs Special Cause Variation.
Retrieved from Project Cubicle: https://www.projectcubicle.com/common-cause-variation-
special-cause-variation/

Ibironke, & Elamah. (1-9). Factors Affecting Time, Cost And Quality Management In
Building. School of Environmental Sciences, Federal University of Technology, 2011.

Kloppenborg, T. J. (Stamford). Contemporary Project Management: Organize / Plan /

Perform. 2015, Cengage Learning.
Week4
by Weihong Cai - Wednesday, February 1, 2023, 12:53 AM
Number of replies: 1

Describe a potential timing issue that can occur early in a project and a potential timing
issue that can occur at the end of a project. How would you address each of these issues
in your project?

Clarity on resource availability and timescales is required for project scheduling. It's a
detailed document that outlines the project timeframe as well as the organizational
resources needed to fulfill each task. One of the potential timing issues is the project
would not start on time. For example, the weather could have an impact on a
construction project. During the project, builders must consider rain, storms, natural
calamities, and extreme temperature variations. Because the factors are
uncontrollable, it is vital to include nature while planning and bidding on
construction projects. A potential timing issue that can occur at the end of a project
is project delay. Poor planning in terms of scope development and project execution
methodologies frequently causes project timeframe delays. Weather, environment
and unforeseen site conditions can cause a project to be delayed by days or weeks.
However, most delays come as a result of inadequate front-end planning at the start
of the project.

Describe a few normal causes and special causes of variation on a project you have
worked on. How did you address these variations?

Common-cause variation is random variation present in stable processes. Meanwhile, special-

cause variation is an unpredictable deviation resulting from a cause that is not an intrinsic
part of a process (Bowen&Neuhauser, 2013). The most common normal cause of variation is
one team member takes a little more than usual to complete a specific task. Other causes
include the uncertain definitions of scope, management failure, and weather conditions. A
project's activities, deliverables, resources, and timescales are used to define the project
during the project planning phase (Kashi, Rozenes & Ben-Gal, 2020). To address these
variations, I list the project into distinct tasks and activities, define project dependencies,
sequence the activities, and estimate the required resources and duration of each work.
Understanding the resources' availability as well as company holidays and staff vacations
which will have an impact on the timeline. I have my project scope description which allows
me to establish important start and finish dates, key assumptions behind the strategy, and key
limits and restrictions. I also need to understand the project risks to ensure that there is
adequate extra time to deal with both identified and unknown issues.

References

Bowen, ME. & Neuhauser, D. (Apr 19, 2013). Understanding and managing variation: three
different perspectives. Implement Sci. 8(1).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3633027/#:~:text=Common%2Dcause
%20variation%20is%20random,that%20are%20not%20random%20variation.

Kashi, S., Rozenes, S. & Ben-Gal, I.(Aug 18, 2020). Project Management Monitoring Based
on Expected Duration Entropy. Entropy (Basel). 22(8), 905.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7517532/