Essay on Navigating Challenges in Project Management: Forming Teams, Project Selection, and Successful Closeout

Challenegs Faced When Forming New Teams

When project managers decided to create new groups, they come across some challenges that may threaten how the team will function. The first challenge is the shortage of diverse skills and talents. For a team to work well, it must have consisted of different people, each of them with additional skills relevant to the project that is about to kick off (Pinto, 2013). Shortage of such people may compromise the work that the team is about to undertake. The second challenge is that some team members may not have proper skills in communication (Maylor, 2003). As a result, it is difficult to communicate on the steps of the project before it kicks off. The people who are forming the new teams do not know each other. Therefore they may not have an excellent professional relationship at this point communication becomes paramount to the success of the project. When a project manager is developing a new team consisting of different people with different but relevant skills to the project, there may be duplication of roles. This is a scenario where people do not understand precisely what they should do and what other team members are supposed to do. As a result, project time is wastages in the initial stages of the project lifecycle.

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There are proposed solutions to the above problems. Shortage of sufficient skills to make up a competent team can be done by ensuring that the team have been recruited from a wide geographical area. Many people should be allowed to apply, and only those who show the best competence should be compelled to be team members (Maylor, 2003). If there are roles that can be conducted virtually, then it becomes easy to recruit team members who are located in other parts of the world. Poor communication among team members can be overcome by ensuring that regular meetings are ben conducted as frequently as needed to ensure that every shareholder is well updated in the progress of the team. In case anything is not straightforward questions should be asked for clarification purposes (Pinto, 2013). Duplication of roles in a new meeting can be eliminated when only the needed number of team members are recruited. Every person should be assigned specific tasks according to their skills and talents. In the meetings, the team member should report their progress on the docket that they have been given to eliminate any confusion.

Project selection

Importance of project selection

Project selection is critical to every organization in that many opportunities may present themselves in tines when the organization does not have enough resources to exploit all the possibilities (Maylor, 2003). In scenarios like this project manager and the organizations are forced to make choices and only slept the project that is likely to pay back maximum returns. The project selection process is strategically essential to an organization because when one project is selected the opportunities related to the other alternatives are forgone. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure that only the project that is likely to give maximum returns is selected and assigned the available resources. The project decision of strategic importance to an organization because of the pressure of time (Pinto, 2013). A project must be completed within the shortest time possible, given the available resources.

Proposed approaches

There is a different tool that project managers can use to select an optimum project to be undertaken. The first approach is known as the checklist model. This involves developing a checklist that will contain the requirement that should be fulfilled by a project for it to qualify to be undertaken. Items to be included in the index have time, cost and seeped to markets. This approach helps project managers to pick the most suitable project by selecting the one that meets most of the minimum requirement.

The second approach is known as the simplified scoring model where a checklist id developed, but at this time a weighted score is attached to each specific determinant. All determinate may do not carry equal weight, and therefore a wait score can be developed, for example, using the range of 1 to 5. If the organization is short of funds, then it may increase the weight of cost to 5 (Maylor, 2003). If the project is flexible in time, the importance of time can be lowered to 2or 1. The project that best fits the need of the organization is identified by picking the project with the highest score.

The third method is known as the analytical hierarchy process. The criteria that will be considered when developing the projects are selected, followed by the creation of sub-criteria. The criteria's that can be used to identify the project may include financial benefits, contribution to strategy and contribution to IT structure (Pinto, 2013). Further, these three significant criteria will be subdivided too much smaller standards. For example, financial benefits can be subdivided to shorten and long term. After that, all the project choices will be analyzed, and the one that bests that best fits will be picked.

Project closeout stage

Unlike other organizational activities, projects are created with a finite life cycle, and at some point, they will have to be closed. The project closure phase in important because of several reasons that include ensuring that all activities have been successfully conducted according to scope and as earlier planned. Besides, it ensures that all project management processes have been finalized conducted, and all relevant parties have signed a document to confirm that.

Project closure is also necessary for that it helps avoid mistakes in future projects. It also helps avoid liabilities issues that result from delayed payments. Project closeout phase is also crucial in that it ensures that every resource has been delivered to back to the store and if they were hired tie their owner (Maylor, 2003). The closeout phase plays as a whistle Brower by declaring that the project can no longer be compared as a project and the deliverables are handed over to the parties that were to benefits from the deliverables of the project.

Factors preventing successful project closeout

Some factors can hinder a good project closeout despite the project being successful in all the other stages. A successful project closeout may not be successful in an event where the project is approved too early. Most of the shareholders will not consider any other action meaningful since the project has been accepted and paid for (Maylor, 2003). Secondly in an event where a company is running multiple projects some people may not see the importance of delaying the start of a new project to follow the procedure to closeout a project that has been completed and approved. This denies the entire organizations the benefits that come with clear project closeout. Some people do not give project closeout the attention they it deserves. In other scenarios, the people assigned the activities of project closeout were not there doing the lifecycle of the project. As a result, they do not understand the project (Pinto, 2013). When they are given the task of conducting the project closeout phase, then it may not be completed appropriately, and the benefits that come with project closeout phase may not be enjoyed by the firm (Maylor, 2003). There are some scenarios where lessons learnt during the closeout phase are just treated as a bookkeeping procedure, and therefore very little attention is given to them. An event like this the company undertaking the project will not enjoy the benefits of good project closeout.

References

Maylor, H. (2003). Project management.

Pinto, J. K. (2013). Project management: achieving competitive advantage (No. s 57). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.