Sample PROJ6001 Integrated Project Management Report

PROJ6001 Integrated Project Management Report Sample

Context:

Enterprise Environment Factors (EEFs) influence on various aspects of organisations, operations and project outcomes, even a project team usually has no control over them. Nevertheless, it is important for the project team to effectively manage EEFs as they can impact on project success. In PMBOK 6th Edition (PMI, 2017), EEFs are key inputs to project management processes, and directly and indirectly connected to Impact analysis, Benefit realisation, and Stakeholder engagement. Reflective exercises can help increase the value of the learning experience by relating new materials of learning to prior knowledge and create a better understanding of the discipline. Reflection improves learning by providing a structure to reflect systematically over time on the learning process, and to develop critical reflective aptitudes, skills and habits. Successful reflection enables self-awareness, personal and professional growth, lifetime learning, and will help students develop into active and aware learners and become a reflective practitioner in their professional life.

Instructions:

In this assessment, students are to work individually or in groups (max 4 members) to complete a project management report to Executive Management, using PMBOK 6th Edition (PMI, 2017) as a guide. Referencing other provided learning resources and personal research are highly encouraged too. This assessment contains 2 parts.

Part A – Module 4 Discussion activity: EEFs and Tools of Impact Analysis

In Assessment 2 Part A, students will use their project developed for Assessment 1:

• Identify relevant enterprise environmental factors (EEFs) of the project;

• Propose a tool, technique or framework intend to use for qualitative and/or quantitative impact analysis of EEFs;

• Justify why the selected tool/technique is appropriate.

Students are encouraged to identify EEFs from the project chosen and share personal thoughts with group members in the class. Actively seek feedback and inputs from facilitators. The individual and/or groups should organise discussion notes and upload it on the Blackboard accordingly.
Assessment 2 Part A is due at the end of Module 4. The discussion can be arranged in a “Main post and Responding post” format, or In-Class discussion notes format.

Part B – Impact Analysis Report and Individual Reflection

In Part B, students will assess and incorporate the feedback received from their peers in Module 4 discussion and submit a report on the impact analysis of EEFs identified within 1500 words. The report should address the following:

• Evaluation of the internal and external factors and their impact on project management processes;

• Development of strategies to realise and optimise potential benefits;

• Drafted communication plan and outcomes to diverse stakeholders.
At end of the report, each group member is required to provide a 500-word or equivalent of personal learning reflection. The reflection should cover

• What key knowledge and skills you learned through this subject?

• How will they benefit you further study and career?

• Any good or bad of your overall learning experience? 

Solution

Introduction

The case study describes how the Denmark based toy manufacturing company, LEGO has experienced in implementing agile stage gate model. For Assignment help The existing stage gate model describes a framework of product development where the phases from ideation to marketing are fragmented into different stages with predefined tasks and fixed deliverables. In this model, the proposed plan approves the required production costs. So with the changing needs of customers and market evolvement, the plan of actions cannot be changed because of the cost approval issue. Because of this linearity and rigidity, LEGO has decided to adopt the agile model which will be adaptive with the market changes and respond to the market needs, along with its existing stage-gate model.After this adoption, LEGO faces some internal and external challenges of project management, that are described below:

Impact of Internal and External Factors on Project Management Processes

Internal Factors

Company Culture

The adoption of hybrid requires a major cultural transformation where the company needs an involvement of leadership. Some of the existing managers and employees create change resistance out of fear that the existing stage-gate is replaced (Miner,2015). The leadership should educate the team that the existing stage-gate is not removed, rather it is modified with the new agile method. The existing company’s core skill is not changed, rather there is a cultural shift. The senior leader does not need to forget the stage-gate and learn new agile. Only, they have to add new criteria with their existing stage-gate’s stages; the customer feedback and risk assessment. The cultural shift comes because of the new team constructions. In the earlier stage-gate model, the team were distributed as per their work disciplines, whereas the new team gathers all the disciplines in each single team.

Skill Availability

The company faces the challenge of resource availability for the defined works for first two sprints. The management also cannot avail the right skills in their existing resources who will establish the planning of production for next two weeks for first two sprints. The earlier stage-gate system allows them to develop a product step by step; on the contrary this new hybrid model asks them to complete a single production of a part in each stage (ThomasNet News, 2014). The management approach of the company also faces that the existing planning process does not fit to the new hybrid approach. The short-term production processes the long-term focus. So, the company needs new hires of management who will match to their need. The existing management cannot estimate the required number of resources for the short-term production where the amount of work becomes higher than the existing process. The company faces the challenge of sudden unavailability of resources with their approved cost structure.

Governance Approach

The new project managers of agile team face the problem of measuring team performance with the application of existing team metrics. In the new project team, there are employees of different disciplines who have different KPI metrics. The managers face the difficulty with measuring the progress of the short-term goals defined in the daily short-sprints. They face problem with gauging whether the daily deliverables are met and attending the stand-up meetings because the team members are also involved in other projects. The company, LEGO faces the challenge to determine the amount of time an employee will devote for one project as he is also involved in other projects. the case study shows that the interviews of the management reflect that they failed with dedicating 50 percent of time. Rather they find it is better to determine 30 percent of time per project for an employee.

Company Infrastructure

The company faces the challenge of implementing the sprint deliverables in a physical production. The software team can accomplish a product completion in a sprint within one week but the development of new machine cannot be easier. Even the prototype making takes time in each stage. The team can meet the definition of ‘done’ with the business case but the team faces the challenge of redefine the definition of ‘done’ with the physical production.

External factors

Consumer Trends

LEGO has been capable of adopting new consumer trends of e-buying. The customer focussed strategies in ecommerce buying helped LEGO to increase its sales revenue21 percent from 2019 to 2020 (Cooper & Sommer, 2018). The hybrid facilitates them to demonstrate the ideation and concept feasibility which allows them to get the customer insights quickly. The availability of ecommerce enables the company to gauge the customer responses and understand how much productions they had to manufacture. Also, it can easily judge their product failure from customer feature.

Government Regulations

LEGO has to comply with the government regulation of fair play act. They has to obey the regulations of European union while complying with fair play act; needs to maintain a proper trademark on the web visibility, avoidance of using internet address and also apply the infringement rights of other countries. LEGO has to comply with the rule of producing safe toys for kids from the US government.

Financial Consideration

Compared to 2019, the revenue of LEGO is increased by 13 percent and the sales revenue has increased by 21 percent. The profit percentage is increased in one year by 10 percent which is equal to 12.9 billion (Research and Markets, 2015). Only challenging factor of LEGO is the reduction of foreign currency rate in many countries.

Strategies To Implement Appropriate Courses of Action

1. Cross Functional Leadership

The agile model has a team where people from different discipline gathers to accomplish a team project. Here, the management has to take the approach of cross-functional leadership. The leaders have to develop the skill of resolving potential challenges of a cross functional team. Where people from different work discipline joins, there are some potentials of arising completes. There are some task dependencies which create obstruction in production and challenges for the team members of different disciplines to cope with. The leader must understand the problem and should have profound knowledge to give right suggestion to the team.

2. Governance Approach

The leaders must segregate the projects which are using hybrids from the other projects which use the existing stage-gate, a
s there are some previous long-term projects is still continuing. The leaders can call for daily stand ups for ensuring to track the update and meet their deliverables. As the employees are also involved in many other projects, the stand-ups will conduct more than one project, instead of focusing on one project.

3. Developing a Demo-able Simulation

The definition of ‘done’ for the hardware product can be resolved by developing a demo software feature which gives the simulation effect of the actual product. The company can take feedbacks and insights of customers by sharing this simulation software through virtual experience. Building a 3D print can be a long-term task (Del Guercio, 2016). In the case of LEGO, they ask customers to take part from the planning process. It is helpful in reducing the number of changes after the prototype is built.

Articulate Project Management Outcomes To Stakeholders

The study analyses the qualitative and quantitative data systematically to determine the interest of stakeholders and whose interest will be prioritised throughout the project. the study identifies the priority of the stakeholders with the help of stakeholder power grid tool (Melnick, 2011). The power-interest grid described in figure 1 is used for categorising the stakeholders according to the priority of their interest during a change model in the project. The stakeholders are categorised into four groups, depicted in the 4 quadrants:

The intensity of engagement depends on the level of power and interest of stakeholders. For instance, the stakeholders who have high interest and high power will have regular engagement and active consultation. The priority of the project is to satisfy that stakeholder.

Figure 1: Stakeholder power grid

Source:

Conclusion

LEGO faces that the agile is good for its productivity and adaptability but it is challenging to match with their strategic goals. As the agile model is developed for short term focus, it loses its direction for company’s long-term goals. In order to respond to this challenge, LEGO adopts hybrid model that integrates the existing stage-gate and also applies the new agile model. the new model replaces the stage-gate’s way of working but keeps its stages. Each stages of the stage-gate is approached with agile model’s real-time and customer-focussed prototype generation. LEGO works in multiple industry where they need high efficiency. Adopting this stage-gate model, LEGO has improved its productivity 30 times faster and also reduces the market generation times by 30 times.

Reflection

key knowledge and skills

• From this case study analysis, I have learnt a different perspective of change model. I have learned how LEGO has managed the change resistance of their company culture by only adopting the agile principles in the process, not their stages of project management (Sanchez et al, 2019). This study gives me the lesson of effectively applying the agile behaviour in the management instead of fixing any particular method. I have realised that the application of true agile method is flexibility. So, they integrate this with their existing stage-gate model.

• The study helps me to understand the true transformation of the company by adopting the agile principle which emphasize on empowerment of employees (Solli-Sæther et al, 2015). It enables me to understand the power of leadership behind the success of agile transformation, as the leaders eases of the sudden challenge of meeting deliverables, reducing the delivery time from one month to two weeks.

• I have also learnt how to manage the deliverables based on the priority of the stakeholders.
Benefit in the further study and career

• In the long run, I will apply this agile project management to have better control on the deliverables. It will help me to ensure that customers are satisfied.

• It will help my career of a manager and also an employee to understand the right metrics of performance while I am working in a team and when my individual work is recognised. From this project, I came to know the metric of a team-player (Project Management Institute. 2013).

• Also, I will be acquainted easily with the understanding of hierarchical power when I will be in an agile team. The flexibility of employee empowerment will allow me to accept easily any agile model.

• This experience will help me in my further career to integrate any model with a new promising model as per their flexibility. This helps me to develop my competency through the experiential project management.

• This project gives me the lesson of handling the projects with practical knowledge instead of prioritising the degrees and certificates.
overall learning experience

In this experience I have learnt the project management and its practical functionality throughout the study of LEGO’s adoption of agile model. This experience is valuable as the markets are rapidly changing with the advancement of technology and this project makes us understand how we can overcome the perceived weakness in the traditional project management models. This experience is complementary as it gives the understanding of being risk-averse instead of holding back while failing to give faster response to the changing needs of customers. In this research process, I have observed that many organizations have lost their strength in their traditional project management model and also deprived the people from their existing job. This learning experience makes me aware how to adopt change management without affecting the job roles of the existing employees. For this reason, overall, the experience is very useful for me. This helps me to know how to act ethically and also enter in new market disruptively.

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