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Project Management Concepts
Muhammad Iqbal
The Malcolm Baldrige School of Business, Post University
BUS530: Project Management
Dr. Jay Fakilede
07-05-2022
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Project Management Concepts
What is the role of a Project Sponsor?
The project sponsor is the person who is responsible for the complete success of the
project, the appointment of the project manager and his team, defining success criteria, and
ensuring the successful delivery of the project. He Aligns the project with end goals, strategy,
and objectives and ensures the project's proper launch and execution, manages risks and
changes while ensuring the project's quality, verifies project scope, evaluates the project
progress, provides feedback, and arranges and maintains funds.
Who decides all the tasks that need to be completed for a given project?
A project manager is responsible for ensuring his team completes this project on time
and meets the client's satisfaction. He coordinates with internal resources and vendors to
ensure that the project completes within the scope and budget. He also provides resource
availability and allocation, implements risk management techniques to minimize project
risks, creates and maintains complete project documentation, and uses appropriate
verification techniques to manage project scope, budget, and schedule changes.
How does an organization choose one project over another?
There are various techniques adopted by organizations to choose one project over
another. For a small project that is less complex, the Benefit Measurement Model is helpful.
On the other hand, if it's a large, complex project, the Constrained Optimization Method is a
better fit. Apart from that, there are non-financial gains such as organizational strategy, and
the customer relationship is chief among those that play significant roles in the selection of a
project.
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How is the budget finalized for a given project?
The budgeting process is performed at the initial steps of project planning, and
typically it is performed in parallel with the project scheduling process. The project manager
uses the project's Work Break Down Structure (WBS), the costs estimates, historical data and
records, resource information, and policies to identify the monetary resources required.
Aggregating the cost estimates of the above activities allows for setting a standard cost
baseline.
What happens if someone wants to add one extra feature to the project deliverable
halfway through the project?
Any new requests during the middle of a project are known as 'scope creep.' You need
to set up a change management process from the start. Not having a system to handle new
requirements can lead to increased time and cost. A project manager must assess the change
request and prioritize changes according to a pre-defined method. The next step is to capture
the shift in work management software while ensuring more flexibility. Finally, he should reevaluate the risks after incorporating any extra features.
Can a construction project manager run a healthcare-related project successfully?
How?
Project managers' role is abstract; hence they can work anywhere — in any physical
location, with a company of any size, small or big, and in any industry. A project manager
uses the best practices to complete projects of any nature. No doubt industry knowledge gives
project managers an extra advantage, but a construction project manager can run a healthcarerelated project successfully.
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Halfway through the project execution, you learned that a project is running behind
schedule. As a project manager, what would you do?
A project manager’s first step is accurately identifying why the project is running
behind schedule. There are various possible options to get the project back on track: doing
overtime, cutting down some unnecessary procedures, extending the deadline, changing the
scope, or having more resources, whichever will be the best fit according to the situation can
be applied. Once the option is selected, it will be relayed to everyone on board and ensure
that the team and client are on the same page.
Longer the project duration, the higher the chances of risk. What provisions would you
include in your risk management plan?
A risk is an uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or negative
effect on a project objective. As a project manager first step is to identify the potential risk
and then organize your comprehensive list of potential risks by likelihood and impact (low,
moderate, and severe). The next step is to assign ownership for each potential risk and how
they will respond to the risks and continuously monitor risks as it is impossible to predict
everything if the duration is much longer.
Upon project completion, you learned that client is not happy with the final
deliverables. What can you do now?
If the client has accepted all the deliverables but not the final product, that means
something has gone wrong in the last stage. Here the first step is to understand the client's
current situation and why the client will not accept the final product and try to convince the
client that you have delivered what the project charter has defined as the final product. A
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compromise option and trying to close the gaps while being mindful of the impact on cost
and what a future relationship might bring can be the best strategy.
When should a project be marked as complete?
A project will be marked as completed if you have delivered what you agreed on in
the project's scope while ensuring that all acceptance criteria have been met, the stakeholders
are satisfied, and business objectives have been fulfilled. A project completion checklist may
include comparing objectives and reality, confirming project completion with stakeholders
and ensuring it is within scope, clearing pending contracts and invoices, and post-project
report and archiving all documentation.
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References
Asana. (2021, October 19). What is a project sponsor? Breaking down the role and duties.
https://www.asana.com/resources/project-sponsor
Project Manager Job Description. (n.d.). Workable. Retrieved July 10, 2022, from.
https://www.resources.workable.com/project-manager-job-description
Usmani, F. (2022, June 3). What are Projects and Operations? PM Study Circle.
https://www.pmstudycircle.com/what-are-the-project-and-operation-difference-between-them
Watt, A. (2014, August 14). 18. Project Completion – Project Management – 2nd Edition.
Pressbooks.
https://opentextbc.ca/projectmanagement/chapter/chapter-18-project-completion-projectmanagement