Project Success or Failure
Project Success or Failure
Order Instructions:
It is important to take note that the writer will be written a synopsis of the company, and the company must be from the U.S
Project Success or Failure
Success or failure in any endeavor is usually determined by numerous factors—some foreseeable and controllable, others not. It’s generally agreed that a good plan, executed well, often results in success. But sometimes, good plans go awry due to sheer happenstance. For example, most sports fans have seen a team’s seemingly brilliant game plan rendered useless by an unfortunate injury to a key player. When that happens, any chance for success is often contingent on the response and leadership of the team’s coaching staff in adjusting the plan.
Similarly, more than a theoretically good plan is needed for projects to be successful. Success or failure often results from the steps taken or not taken by project managers and other key staffers during the course of the plan’s execution. Utilizing your research on factors leading to success and failure of projects, choose a company that is regarded as a model of successful projects in the United States of America. Now, imagine yourself as a project manager for this company.
• Write a brief synopsis of the company, focusing on a particular successful project.
o What specific actions did the leaders take that led to success?
o What qualities did the leaders display that demonstrate a model for what the best project managers do?
• Cite two reasons why this project might have failed if not for the leaders’ management approaches.
o You should reference at least two scholarly resources from your research on causes of project failure.
Resources
Readings
• Cooke-Davies, T. (2007). Project success. In P. W. G. Morris & J. K. Pinto (Eds.), The Wiley guide to project, program & portfolio management (pp. 226–249). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
In Chapter 10, the author discusses the elements of successful project management, outlining typical criteria for success at three different organizational levels. The chapter, as a whole, sets up a framework for thinking and talking about project success with the objective to advance the art and science of project management.
• Abbas, T. P., & Sanavullah, M. Y. (2008). Chaos: The root cause of project failures. ICFAI Journal of Computer Sciences, 2(2), 66–79.
The authors assert that chaos is inherent in the field of software engineering (SE) despite impressive advancements. The study attempts to identify the major factors that prevent appropriate remedies and points to flawed SE practices as the root cause.
• Flinders, K. (2011, September). Just say ‘no’: How to save your IT project—and career—from failure. Computer Weekly.
SAMPLE ANSWER
A project is regarded a success if all its objectives and goals are realized at the end of the project. The major factor to a successful project is by having a talented project manager. Poor managers lead to project failures. Since a project may be a success or a failure, several factors are involved. For project success, smart people, that is the human resource should be considered first. Proper planning is also a key factor. Other factors include open communication, careful risk management, and secure project closure. On the other hand, there exist several factors that lead to project failures. Some of these are poor planning and hence inefficient ways to track progress, weak leadership, failure to manage and set expectations, and inadequately trained project managers. With these factors considered, a project in a company can be regarded a success or a failure (Barker & Cole, 2012).
Google Incorporation, is a corporation based in the United States of America. Throughout its project operations, it has realized success thanks to the excellent factors put in place. Sergey Brin together with Larry page is known to be the founders of Google. They had an objective of making the world’s information accessible and useful together with the organization of the information. Google Inc. has several projects such as the Google self-driving car project. Its developer is the Google X that aims to provide technology for electric vehicles (Barker & Cole, 2012). These cars are designed to use a software named Google Chauffeur. The project is led by the co-founder of the Google Street View known as Sebastian Thrun.
Leaders from the Google self-driving car project employed several factors to realize its objectives (Camilleri, 2011). Proper planning is a crucial factor in any project management. Plan sets up a project to its success from the start. For the project, during its planning stage, all the stakeholders were on board, and it ensured that all of them got to know the direction of the project. Open communication is another step considered by the project leaders to be an important step in realizing the success of the project. Consideration of outside sources of information is vital. Working under defined schedule is important, and this thus leads to the need for an open communication. The team needs to be well informed about the current programs of the project. Open communication is also considered as a factor that helps prevent the occurrence of problems (DuBrin, 2011).
The qualities of the leaders involved in the Google self-driving car project deployed qualities that led to the success of the project. Good communication a very vital tool that is presented by the leaders. Their ability to communicate to almost every staff in the project vicinity prevented a lot of problems from occurring. Integrity is a good quality that is presented by the leaders involved in the project. The actions carried out by the leaders should be of moral standards. The ability to delegate tasks is an essential element that a project manager must deploy to his subjects. It enables proper specialization and also the right workforce for the correct job within the project. With the presentation of these qualities, the leaders in the project were able to realize success (Camilleri, 2011).
In this project that depends mainly on technology, lack of open communication will have led to several problems encountered in the course of the project. Was it not for the quality of open communication portrayed by the project leaders the project might have failed. The lack of proper planning qualities by the leaders could have led to the failure of the project. It is, therefore, essential for every project to consider proper planning (DuBrin, 2011).
Upon conclusion, the Google Self-driving car project has realized success due to the proper leadership with talented leaders. For any project to achieve its success, management of the project should be the priority since it is critical (DuBrin, 2011). Project success and failures all depend mainly on the management and the qualities of the leaders. Failures are in other cases controllable while others are not even certain.
References.
Barker, S., & Cole, R. (2012). Brilliant project management: What the best project managers know, do and say.
DuBrin, A. J. (2011). Leadership: Research findings, practice, and skills. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.
Top of Form
Camilleri, E. (2011). Project success: Critical factors and behaviours. Farnham: Gower Pub.
Bottom of Form
Pather, S., Remenyi, B., & Remenyi, D. (2011). Managing risks of ICT projects. Kidmore End: Academic Publishing.
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