What is the Connection Between an Organization’s Strategic Plan and the Creation of Projects?

albert a asked:

What is the connection between an organization’s strategic plan and the creation of projects to be completed within the organization?

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How Do You Do Cost Estimation?

Tong asked:

i asked about project management system and i have 3 answers about, thank you so much for all valuable answers(Roadkill, vertigohashem and edith b). For this question just be apart of Project Management we used to estimated by asking to contractor and estimated by contractor, it take a long time and hard to explaint in details to management team. please suggest, both software until how to do. thank you.

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Why is the Implementation of Projects Important to Strategic Planning?

creed_crackers asked:

And what is meant by an integrative approach to project management? Why is this approach important in today’s environment?
sorry.. i’m a new student who take business courses here… can’t find in the websites…

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The Role of the Project Manager in Corporate Strategic Planning

Strategic Project Management Made Simple: Practical Tools for Leaders and Teams

When Fortune Magazine estimated that 70% of all strategies fail, it also noted that most of these strategies were basically sound, but could not be executed. The central premise of Strategic Project Management Made Simple is that most projects and strategies never get off the ground because of adhoc, haphazard, and obsolete methods used to turn their ideas into coherent and actionable plans. Strategic Project Management Made Simple is the first book to couple a step-by-step process with an inter

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Strategic Project Management Made Simple: Practical Tools for Leaders and Teams

When Fortune Magazine estimated that 70% of all strategies fail, it also noted that most of these strategies were basically sound, but could not be executed. The central premise of Strategic Project Management Made Simple is that most projects and strategies never get off the ground because of adhoc, haphazard, and obsolete methods used to turn their ideas into coherent and actionable plans. Strategic Project Management Made Simple is the first book to couple a step-by-step process with an inter

Price:$29.95

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Using the Project Management Maturity Model: Strategic Planning for Project Management

“It has often been said that ‘to improve, one must be prepared to measure the improvement’ and ‘one must inspect what one expects.’ The Kerzner Project Management Maturity Model has provided this tangible measure of maturity. The rest is up to a company to set the expectations and to inspect the results.”–Bill Marshall, Nortel Global Project Process Standards (from the Foreword)
Strategic planning for project management-a proven model for assessment and continuous improvement
Haro

Price:$85.00

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Using the Project Management Maturity Model: Strategic Planning for Project Management

updated for today’s businesses-a proven model FOR assessment and ongoing improvement

Using the Project Management Maturity Model, Second Edition is the updated edition of Harold Kerzner’s renowned book covering his Project Management Maturity Model (PMMM). In this hands-on book, Kerzner offers a unique, industry-validated tool for helping companies of all sizes assess and improve their progress in integrating project management into every part of their organizations.

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Strategies for Business Financial Management

showmehowvideos asked:

Strategies for Business Financial Management Business Management Series Your Host: James Brandon CPA In This Video You Will Learn •Start up business considerations •Small business finances and funding •Managing books, bookkeeping and accounting •Forming the business entity •Preparing for payment of taxes •Understanding cash flow •Common reasons businesses fail and prevention •Legal concerns •Accounting software Learn invaluable financial accounting consideration used to help you manage your business. James Brandon a veteran CPA shares his knowledge and experience with you in this video. James will discuss basic business management strategies used by businesses looking to take a proactive strategy to operating a business. Mr. Brandon has over 25 years of extensive experience helping small businesses manage their books and realize their company’s potential. This video is designed to help a home based business or a growing business looking to imporve thier knowledge of managing finances. For the complete video visit www.showmehowvideos.com

Get instant access to Project Closure templates that will help you to formally close your project by handing over deliverables and documentation to the customer, review your project success, and identify lessons learned for future projects.

Using Financial Metrics to Improve Your Business

Financial metrics are the group of different activities, mostly concerning finances, that have the aim to improve the growth of the company. Financial metrics are not limited to finances alone. For example, the same metrics also apply to projects, or even to clients. Customer service is not only for the advertising or marketing employees, but it also applies to finance personnel. Metrics can be understood as a plan or a program. To measure effectively, one needs to analyze the results of the implemented plan.

When speaking of the financial aspects of any business, they may include different details about revenues, cost, market share, and many others. Project managers, business owners, and independent contractors are all challenged to create and implement plans that are in touch with different areas of the financial sphere. There are three main things that must be considered when developing a plan – target, implementation and analysis.

On the implementation stage you should made a thorough discussion. You should take into consideration all the areas of the plan from people to budget. Policies for the implementation of the plan must be reviewed. All activities have to be lined up in the accordance with targets of the plan. The team must be able to identify different problems that could arise along the way. And it is necessary that there are will be the needed solutions.

Analysis is a very important part of the process. At this stage the effectiveness of the financial plan is being measured. Targets are used as a basis to determine whether the plan is successful or not. If the company is able to reduce the expenses, then it could be said that the plan is effective. In this stage, the finance metrics are applied. These metrics can help to assess as good points of the plan, as well as less effective areas.

Different companies react in different ways to results. Some companies may take it as the challenged needed to be overcome and other companies store these date just for statistics and do nothing. But the most appropriate thing to do is to accept these challenges.

Nowadays we are living in the world where information makes life easier. If you are properly armed with the information in your topic you can be sure that you will in any case find the way out from any bad situation.

Implement Change: What Happens When Preparedness Is Lacking in Change Implementation

Corporations and the army share a number of features. Both tend to fairly strictly arranged with categorical procedures and qualifications required for advancement. Both tend to employ enormous numbers of people, which requires significant administration. Most importantly, corporations and the military both have a fundamental need for a preparedness to effect change. What is interesting is that, even though firms exist freeof many of the restrictions of the army and employ less people, they exhibit less preparedness than the army when it is time to implement change.

In principle, both organizational structures should be in the practice of predicting changes. The army should be anticipating changes vis potential attacks, replies to attacks, and protocols for dealing with new threats. Firms should be predicting potential changes in areas which affect them directly, for example oil costs or extra laws.

What is engaging is the army, for all the flack it takes for over the top bureaucracy, has a tendency to practice preparedness to a bigger degree. It is standard practice for the army to run exercises which mimic a range of circumstances, starting from best to worst case eventualities. Corporations, on the other hand, have a tendency to eschew the practicalities of the best way to implement change until such changes are thrust upon them. This can say why examples where firms are compelled to implement change create so much internal culture shock.

History has shown that the unprepared often suffer for their lack of preparedness. The discussion can be made this lack stems in part from the inclination to fixate on the moment issues of managing a business. However, such a fixation on running the business unavoidably results in a detriment of preparedness and a reduced ability to implement change. In a world where change is happening ever faster and more frequently, the power to implement change effectively is going to ascertain which corporations thrive and which of them will fail.

For more information, please see our website: Implement Change

Change Implementation: How Intelligent People Tend To Undercut Change Implementation

In industries that are made up of very smart folk, change implementation can be particularly challenging. This stems in part from a perception that ideas about change management or organizational change are only relevant for groups of folks with lower intelligence. The actuality is that homo sapiens generally, regardless of intelligence, benefit from the employment of change management during change implementation. In reality, the smartest folks stand to benefit most, instead of least, from change management.

Anice example of this can be found in the petrol industry. During well drilling operations, if the hole being drilled is more than a few degrees offof vertical it can become a major problem. These non-vertical holes are referred to as inclined bore holes.

Asolution to the physical Problems of inclined bore holes was created and released some time ago. Yet, at a recent meeting of the Society for petrol Engineers, a paper was presented that debated the way in which the industry has mostly didn’t adopt the solution and was still depending on jury-rigged solutions in the field. In theory, a grouping of highly educated, smart engineers would have jumped onto the solution and looked to implement industry wide change implementation referring to inclined bore holes.

In practice, extremely clever folks have a tendency to have very strong opinions per how things ought to be done. They will rely on their lonesome judgments and experiences to outline their approach to issues, at least lacking the presence of a widely acknowledged authority in the field. These strong opinions have a tendency to undercut attempts at change implementation. This is particularly true if the change does not conform to given person’s opinion on the topic.

If the change involves a grouping of such people, it can become an extremely slow process as each person tries to assert their opinion or perception. The employment of change management best practices can help to beat a number of these issues by making the method a methodical effort instead of a scheme to convince individuals one by one.

For more information, please see our website: Change Implementation

Change Implementation: All About Tracking Methods, Compliance, and Adoption During Change Implementation

In a change implementation, organizations will infrequently make use of high level tracking strategies. This generally implies the use of a database system. Precise action items for individuals are programmed into the database and email is used to inform individuals when these actions items need to be started. As the action items are worked on or completed, reports are entered into the database to advise the change team of progress. The firm and use of such database systems can be handled as a matter of creating compliance or enabling adoption of the change.

If the approach to the tracking of the change implementation is compliance, it usually involves the change team working thru the planning stage largely independent of those who will be expected to enact the plan. The stages of the plan are inspected and action steps are created to move the project forward. These are put into the database and people are informed of their role. The position behind this approach is one of here is the job and youare expected to complete it.

When the approach is meant to enable adoption, it generally involves more interactions with the people who will perform the action steps. Members of the change team will probably go to the people and discuss the change with them. The individuals will then offer the steps they’d need to complete for the change implementation to be successful in their office or division. These steps are then integrated into the database with the email reminders. The object here isn’t to force compliance, but to remind individuals that they need to complete the steps they designed.

There’s no hard and fast rule governing which approach is more effective in a change implementation. It is defined on a situational basis. The determination could be a choice based on the predicted resistance to the change, the size of the change or the organizational culture. If there is the expectancy of high resistance, compliance could be the appropriate approach. Adoption is frequently better to achieve in smaller affiliations or when the change only affects asmall area of an organization. The change pro will have to read the situation and counsel the customer as to what they believe will be the most effective approach for the change implementation.

For more information, please see our website: Change Implementation

ERP Software and the Numerous Uses of Executive Dashboards

manufacturing Software systems are generally developed to be used in Enterprise configurations, which usually include Executive Dashboard modules geared for quick views of all aspects of the company; generally in real-time data.

These ‘dashboards’ are designed to fill a certain role and have an important purpose. Top level management in large companies do not have the time to spend a lot of time looking at reports that are full of confusing details. They need a quick and easy way to look at key performance indicators, in real time, so that they can make the high level decisions that they need to make on a daily basis. These indicators can be customized by each company within the software’s interface, so as indicators change or companies grow, the software’s dashboard can adapt.

Thus, in some companies, C-Level executives may only need to see the basics of the P&L and other reports – things like sales figures, monthly comparisons, current market data, and maybe even competitor positions. In other words, the things most pertinent towards making the most effective strategic choices.

Executives at lower levels might need to see where the rolled up P&L data is coming from, such as which business units or projects are impacting those particular indicators. These executives might also want to know how some of their direct reports are managing their responsibilities, thus they might opt for being able to view data for each segment within their jurisdiction, in order to interject proactive motivation or assistance when it is most important.

That is not to say that all businesses will use dashboards the same way. The specific model that your company operates on will dictate what indicators are important and which ones can be ignored. One good way to ensure that the right people are always looking at the right set of indicators is to map out all buiness processes and methodologies and look for the best ways to monitor that data.

Executive dashboards have the ability to supply numerous forms of data, so long as you have the proper interfaces and data feeds established. Companies certainly benefit from mapping their business processes and methodologies to reflect the synergistic relationships between all segments of the business, and marrying that to the ERP software functionality.

If your software package doesn’t have executive dashboard functionality, take comfort in the fact that there are numerous third-party executive dashboard packages than can be integrated with most commonly used business software.

Finally, it is worth noting that these dashboards and the decision making that they facilitate are only as good as the data that is put in to the system by the end users. If garbage is put in to the system, garbage will come out. Therefore, as always, I stress the importance of thorough and frequent end-user training for all companies that use industry-specific manufacturing software.

The Evolution of Project Management

Importance of Project Management is an important topic because all organizations, be they small or large, at one time or other, are involved in implementing new undertakings. These undertakings may be diverse, such as, the development of a new product or service; the establishment of a new production line in a manufacturing enterprise; a public relations promotion campaign; or a major building program.

While the 1980′s were about quality and the 1990′s were all about globalization, the 2000′s are about velocity. That is, to keep ahead of their competitors, organizations are continually faced with the development of complex products, services and processes with very short time-to-market windows combined with the need for cross-functional expertise. In this scenario, project management becomes a very important and powerful tool in the hands of organizations that understand its use and have the competencies to apply it.

The development of project management capabilities in organizations, simultaneously with the application of information management systems, allow enterprise teams to work in partnership in defining plans and managing take-to-market projects by synchronizing team-oriented tasks, schedules, and resource allocations. This allows cross-functional teams to create and share project information.

However, this is not sufficient, information management systems have the potential to allow project management practices to take place in a real-time environment. As a consequence of this potential project management proficiency, locally, nationally or globally dispersed users are able to concurrently view and interact with the same updated project information immediately, including project schedules, threaded discussions, and other relevant documentation. In this scenario the term dispersed user takes on a wider meaning. It not only includes the cross-functional management teams but also experts drawn from the organisation’s supply chain, and business partners.

On a macro level organizations are motivated to implement project management techniques to ensure that their undertakings (small or major) are delivered on time, within the cost budget and to the stipulated quality.

On a micro level, project management combined with an appropriate information management system has the objectives of: (a) reducing project overhead costs; (b) customising the project workplace to fit the operational style of the project teams and respective team members; (c) proactively informing the executive management strata of the strategic projects on a real-time basis; (d) ensuring that project team members share accurate, meaningful and timely project documents; and (e) ensuring that critical task deadlines are met.

While the motivation and objectives to apply project management in organizations is commendable, they do not assure project success.

Project management has been practiced for thousands of years dating back to the Egyptian epoch, but it was in the mid-1950′s that organizations commenced applying formal project management tools and techniques to complex projects. Modern project management methods had their origins in two parallel but different problems of planning and control in projects in the United States.

The first case involved the U.S Navy which at that time was concerned with the control of contracts for its Polaris Missile project. These contracts consisted of research, development work and manufacturing of parts that were unique and had never been previously undertaken.

This particular project was characterised by high uncertainty, since neither cost nor time could be accurately estimated. Hence, completion times were based on probabilities. Time estimates were based on optimistic, pessimistic and most likely. These three time scenarios were mathematically assessed to determine the probable completion date. This procedure was called program evaluation review technique (PERT).

Initially, the PERT technique did not take into consideration cost. However, the cost feature was later included using the same estimating approach as with time. Due to the three estimation scenarios, PERT was found (and still is) to be best suited for projects with a high degree of uncertainty reflecting their level of uniqueness.

The second case, involved the private sector, namely, E.I du Pont de Nemours Company, which had undertaken to construct major chemical plants in U.S. Unlike the Navy Polaris project, these construction undertakings required accurate time and cost estimates. The methodology developed by this company was originally referred to as project planning and scheduling (PPS).

PPS required realistic estimates of cost and time, and is thus a more definitive approach than PERT. The PPS technique was later developed into the critical path method (CPM) that became very popular with the construction industry.

During the 1960s and 1970s, both PERT and CPM increased their popularity within the private and public sectors. Defensee Departments of various countries, NASA, and large engineering and construction companies world wide applied project management principles and tools to manage large budget, schedule-driven projects.

The popularity in the use of these project management tools during this period coincided with the development of computers and the associated packages that specialised in project management. However, initially these computer packages were very costly and were executed only on mainframe or mini computers.

The use of project management techniques in the 1980s was facilitated with the advent of the personal computer and associated low cost project management software. Hence, during this period, the manufacturing and software development sectors commenced to adopt and implement sophisticated project management practices as well.

By the 1990s, project management theories, tools, and techniques were widely received by different industries and organisations.

Why Project Management?

There is no doubt that organizations today face more aggressive competition than in the past and the business environment they operate in is a highly turbulent one. This scenario has increased the need for organizational accountability for the private and public sectors, leading to a greater focus and demand for operational effectiveness and efficiency.

Effectiveness and efficiency may be facilitated through the introduction of best practices that are able to optimize the management of organizational resources. It has been shown that operations and projects are dissimilar with each requiring different management techniques.

Hence, in a project environment, project management can: (a) support the achievement of project and organizational goals; and (b) provide a greater assurance to stakeholders that resources are being managed effectively.

Research by Roberts and Furlonger in a study of information systems projects show that using a reasonably detailed project management methodology, as compared to a loose methodology, improves productivity by 20 to 30 percent.

Furthermore, the use of a formalized project management structure to projects can facilitate: (a) the clarification of project scope; (b) agreement of objectives and goals; (c) identifying resources needed; (d) ensuring accountability for results and performance; (e) and encouraging the project team to focus on the final benefits to be achieved.

Moreover, the research indicates that 85-90% of projects fail to deliver on time, on budget and to the quality of performance expected. The major causes identified for this situation include:

(a) Lack of a valid business case justifying the project;

(b) Objectives not properly defined and agreed;

(c) Lack of communication and stakeholder management;

(d) Outcomes and/or benefits not properly defined in measurable terms;

(e) Lack of quality control;

(f) Poor estimation of duration and cost;

(g) Inadequate definition and acceptance of roles (governance);

(h) Insufficient planning and coordination of resources.

It should be emphasized that the causes for the failure to deliver on time, on budget and to the quality of performance expected could be addressed by the application of project management practices.

Furthermore, the failure to deliver on time, on budget and to the quality of performance expected does not necessarily mean that the project was itself a failure. At this stage what is being discussed is the effectiveness and efficiency of project execution and not whether a project is a success or failure.

Conclusion

Project management should be viewed as a tool that helps organizations to execute designated projects effectively and efficiently. The use of this tool does not automatically guarantee project success.

Sandro Azzopardi is a professional author who writes several articles on various subjects on his web site and local newspapers and magazines. You can visit information about this article and others on: http://www.theinfopit.com/technology/theevolutionofprojectmanagement-1.php

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