Selling Project Management

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The main roles left to the helm of the sponsor are:

- to negotiate funding by being the company’s spokesperson to senior management,

- to identify project success factors and sign off on deliverables,

Project Teams and Improving Communication

In project management, it is always necessary to take into account the fact that the team members in the project are from different backgrounds that make them all unique in their attitudes and skills. The best way to assess the team players for easy understanding of the functions they would serve best is to use the Jung Typology Test developed by Jung and Myers Briggs (Human Metrics, Inc., 2016). Finding the right leadership qualities in the team could mean that they can all work independently without having to rely on each other. This way one can identify a likely risk in handing work over to a person or a group of people who do not have self-drive, and that can easily compromise the project. The level of communication between the grouped members has to be enhanced by their attitudes, and there must be an accountable leader who can unite the group and deliver messages to the team. Correspondence from the team members and to the project sponsors has to be timely and precise so that the indicated time is reported and recorded for measurement of deliverables such as time and cost.

Project managers ought to cultivate the skills that they do not have according to the result of their personality tests. Being a project manager means one has to be able to juggle interests and handle others with caution in the way one communicates with them. They could feel encourages and excited or demotivated depending on the communication skills of the project manager.

Project Life Cycle

Projects have life cycles that stretch from the start of a project to the completion phase and the different phases that constitute each stage towards completion. These life cycle stages are used in checking the status of the project as it approaches completion. The eight phases of a project are commonly identified as project strategy and initiation, project definition and planning, project preparation, project design, project development & testing, training & business readiness, support and benefits realization and project close (Kerzner, 2009). During the first phase, a project goes through high level planning and a work breakdown structure is developed, followed by recruitment of project members for the work ahead. The third stage involves the creation of a model concept that can be used to minimize wastage while supporting the required expenditure and allocated time use. The fourth stage is the assessment and training phase where workers and team members are trained on the procedures to be taken during the project, including the handling of equipment. The final stage is the completion phase where the deliverables are all evaluated by project sponsors and major pending reviews. Phase gate reviews are conducted by sponsors and stakeholders for the project to progress from one phase to another.

(Cleland & Ireland, 2006). Items between agenda entries should be simple and less time wasted between them to avoid lag. Explaining the material content of the meeting and the purpose of the meeting, while explaining the deliverables and expectations of the project are important at this stage. The activities on the meeting involve introducing team members and project sponsors, and explaining the schedule of the project, the supplier and the roles to be played by each member in the team. The duration of the project is discussed and the teams are formed pending the start of the project, and the formulation of phases and their characteristic deliverables (Kerzner, 2013),

Resource and calculate progress. The software helps to narrow one’s choices, and organize the resources available to fit within the required schedule, thus enhancing one’s balancing act.

certification by such an institution are that the project manager becomes very marketable for all companies that like to venture into the international market and those that understand the importance of having a project manager (PMI, 2016).

Importance of Identifying & Mitigating Risk in Project Management

Project managers oversee project control and cost management so that the project does not go over the budget, and so that the project can be completed successfully without losses that might result in the stopping of the project. The following are the steps taken by project managers in risk management:

- Identifying the magnitude of the risk. Project members identify the risks and their outcomes under the company depending on the project type.

- Analyzing the magnitude of the risk as identified with the likelihood of each possibility

- Evaluate or rank the risk. You evaluate or rank the risk by determining the risk magnitude, which is the combination of likelihood and consequence for a negative outcome.

- Making assumptions and decisions based on ones judgement on whether the risk or behavior impacts the company negatively improving preparedness.

Risk management helps the company resolve its miscommunication pitfalls and probable negative outcomes and for an acceptable outcome, while increasing the company’s preparedness (Glendon et al., 2016).

Risk management involves assessing and identifying plausible sources of project risks and taking the responsibility of evading such project risks (Bessis & O’Kelly, 2015). Risk management approaches help detect processes, roles of team members, tools and techniques, and work reassignment for minimization of risk. It also involves assessment of quantitative and qualitative measures of success in project risk management. The most common responses to risk are risk avoidance, risk acceptance, risk transference, risk exploitation, and risk mitigation (Bessis & O’Kelly, 2015).to benchmark progress and project completion status.

Schedule and Cost (EVM)

This method may not fully reveal the project completion status owing to the possibility of poor financial management resulting from overspending and underestimating the cost of the project. The estimated cost may read 60% while the project status reads less of that percentage by 20%. The EVM can form a basis for analysis of the project completion status. This is achievable by comparing the work competed to money used up. According