Project Accountability
Any project can be rendered successful if set goals and objectives have been accomplished or exceed the anticipations of the stakeholders; people with certain interests in the project. Project management is literally about adding lanes to a highway, where vehicles have a stake and hence positively impacted. Nevertheless, highway construction would negatively impact the population that stays around it. Distraction can also be quantified in terms of noise and toxic emissions caused by increased number of vehicles plying the highway (Barron & Barron, 2011). The project guarantor who in this case is a corporate director, has the power to allocate resources and implement decisions concerning the project, is also an interested partner. The client, subcontractor, supplier and the government in most cases are also interested parties. The project administrator, associate members and managers from various departments in the company are equally interested parties. It’s pertinent to determine all interested parties in the event of a project upfront. So project accomplishment is anchored on all these individuals, when one department is lacking, the project might fail woefully (Renz, 2007).
Figure 1: Showing parties interested in a given project.
The figure one above is a simple depiction of a typical project environment that exhibits the various parties interested in a given project. In this representation various issues concerning a given project come out. To start with, the number of interested parties involved in the whole process indicates that the project manager has a taunting task through the project timeline. What’s also visible is the fact that anomalies that come with these stakeholders can derail the project. It also confirms that people in charge of the project cannot underestimate the fact that they have to deal with both external and internal partners. External forces in this case are likely to present a complex scenario contrary to what the manager is used to. For instance suppliers who are late when it comes to delivering critical parts might interfere with the project timeline. In most cases, managers have little control on such entities.
Top Management
The company chairman, vice chairman, directors and departmental heads and all committees constitute the top management. These are some of the people that direct corporate approach and development of the company. The advantage that comes with the top management is anchored on the fact that selecting the best team for manage the project becomes an easy thing. Getting required materials and resources can equally enhance project management’s professional position in the company. The downside of it all is that the project would be large and expensive, in which the cost of failure can be more evident than in a small project. One of the approaches when it comes to dealing with the top management would include; creating in-depth schemes and essential milestones that should be sanctioned by top management during the design period. Top leadership relating to the project should substantiate their information disclosure requirements and regularity. A condition reporting approach should be developed and distributed at a given time period. Projects threats and prospective effect should be communicated in good time (Renz, 2007).
Project manager Basically the project manager decides the roles of project members and who to include in the project. Ensuring that the manager is well informed helps in ensuring that all the necessary resources to accomplish the project are available. Nevertheless, if things are not working well in the project, it is important to have a supportive project manager who will go for a bat on behalf of the team. Being supportive to the project manager, guarantees that that manager in turn supports the team regularly and finds out how assess performance of the team. Therefore, the project team should communicate regularly and develop a schedule that is acceptable to the project manager (Garland, 2009).
Peers In project management, peers are individual within the team at the same level. Actually peers are stakeholders in the project. Nonetheless, they do not have leadership or accountability roles in the achievement or failure of the project like the project manager. As such, the project manager’s relationship with peers can be hindered by several aspects including; sabotage; individual or technical conflict; confliction instructions from project and peer managers; poor control and resentment. Support from the peer is paramount. Since, in project management people are concerned about their individual interest, thus the project manager can use politicking, investigation abilities to ensure support and cooperation from peers. The project manager can go a step further by getting support from project funders or senior management to have more authority. It is essential that funders indicate to project members that their support as well as cooperation with regards to project activities is necessary. Project manager can also confront the peers if they observe dysfunctional characters. Additionally, set up frequent review meetings; goals and required performance standards for project member.
Resource Managers Owing to the fact that project managers can borrow resources, other managers should control such resources. Therefore relationship with resource managers is particularly important. If at all the association is good, project managers can consistently get competent staff and appropriate equipment for the project. And when the relationship is poor, it will be difficult for the project managers, necessary individuals and equipments required for the project (Gunlach, 2009).
Internal Clients These are group of individuals in the organization that fulfills internal demand requirements. However, the customer has the ability to accept or even reject the work. Before the beginning of the project, project managers should negotiate, spell out, and provide specifications as well as project deliverables. Once the project commences, project managers should understand clients’’ concerns and keep them always informed. Some of the challenges when dealing with clients are;
- Inadequate clarity concerning client requirements
- Poor documentation of what is required
- Inadequate understanding of client’s operating features
- Not viable deadlines, resources and terms
- Adjustments in the scope of the project
- To be accountable of the clients needs, the project manager should;
- Understand culture and business of the client
- Explain all the project specifications in writing
- Specify a change process
- Be the main communicator in the project
External client
These are clients that projects are marketed to. For instance, with Apple Company, the external clients are buyers of the company’s products.
Government
Project managers operate in regulated environment as such; they have to deal with government departments either all or some levels such as county, state or national governments.
Contractors, sub-contractors, and vendors
In some cases, organizations lack the necessary expertise or resources and work is outsourced to external contractors, sub-contractors and suppliers. Management of these people in project management requires skills just like managing other project team members (Directing Change, 2004). A number of projects largely depend on goods offered by external vendors. When these goods are supplied late, not enough, poor quality or high price than original requirements, the project may be affected adversely.
References
Barron, M. & Barron, A. (2011). Project stakeholders. The Project Management Hut. Retrieved 2014/01/16 from http://www.pmhut.com/project-stakeholders-2.
Directing Change (2004). A guide to governance of project management, Association for Project Management
Garland, Ross (2009) Project Governance – a practical guide to effective project decision making, Kogan Page, London, Philadelphia.
Gunlach, M. (2009). Understanding how project monitoring and controlling integrates to other processes. Bright Hub. Retrieved 2014/01/16 from http://www.brighthub.com/office/project-management/articles/40904.aspx
Patrick S. Renz (2007) “Project Governance: Implementing Corporate Governance and Business Ethics in Nonprofit Organizations.” Heidelberg: Physica-Verl.. (Contributions to Economics)
Last Completed Projects
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