Project Management Essay

1. Project Management: Strategic Design and Implementation

2. Project Management Process
3. Project management key elements
4. Strategic Issues in Project Management
5. Interpersonal dynamics and teams
6. Project management implementation
Introduction. Project Management: Strategic Design and Implementation
As it is now known project management is one of the integral parts of the contemporary management
system due to its ability to make sure that the goals set in the beginning of a project correspond
exactly to the goals that were achieved later on. It goes without saying that the primarily aim of any
project is a certain definite result. It can be a definite product, a service or information concerning the
required aspects. Project management came as an answer to a great demand on quality management
using special innovative techniques. Since a project can be applied to various spheres of activity of a
company it automatically gets a wide range of usage. The fourth edition of David I. Clelands and Lewis
R. Irelands Project Management: Design and Implementation appeared just in time to satisfy the
growing need for effective management of the projects in any company. David Cleland is often called
the father of project management. His prime target in the book is the explanation of the necessity of
project management as a tool to reach strategic goals of any project. He views management as a
constantly transforming solution-inventor directed to a successful result. The book examines the basic
advantages of project management starting with general process and ending up with alternative
project teams and the future of project management. The author emphasizes that project management
takes into count many other important aspects such as cultural elements of project management,
interpersonal dynamics, possible prospects and the exact instruction for its implementation within any
project.
The book begins with the detailed explanation of how a manager is supposed to design and execute
organizational strategies, or in other words to manage to control a project at any stage of its
realization on practice. It offers the newest achievements in the sphere of state-of-the-art team design
and project life-cycle evaluation. Project management is designed for not only large organizations with
a lot of experience but for small industrial organizations, too. Cleland introduces flexible teams for the
implementations of the strategies in practice. The implementation primarily occurs through the
realization of changes either in products, services or in the processes of functioning of the
organization.
Project Management Process
The principles of project management are completely related to the control of the organizational
process. Cleland himself defines a principle as: fundamental rule or law of action based upon
desirable ends or objectives. Such principle as: the principles of success, of commitment, the tetradtradeoff principle, the unity-of-command principle, the suitability principle, the process principle and
the life-cycle principle. All of the principles listed above play a giant part in the right use of the project
management strategy in order to successed. These principle state that first of all before beginning any
activity within a project this step has to be revised in detail, in other words strategic planning goes
before the step itself. Cleland sees a plan and its realization as a rule that cannot be violated under
any circumstances. The project life cycle regulates the start, and the termination of the project,
depending on the expenses and the productivity of the projects. Project management requires a clear
division of responsibilities between different teams, which all together form one solid management
block. The person, who is in charge of the project, a project manager has to be competent enough in
order to lead the project to its best potential. The project sponsor and the project team are supposed
to present a mutual commitment to the project. The main word to describe the notion of the future
result of project management is success. This success is achieved through constant communication
between the members of the project team, which provides a high quality cooperation that becomes
rather effective in the long run. There must be a planning team to set a plan with concrete objectives,
goals, and tasks and limit the budget for the project and its deadline. The implementation of the
project owing to the communication between the project members is expected to go in the given
direction without any deviations at all. It is this criterion that defines the effectiveness of the project

management the most from the point of view of Cleland. So with the adjustment of the project plan the
project itself goes through several phases: study of its feasibility, project planning, implementation,
evaluation and the maintenance of the project in its most productive position. The maintenance is the
vital part for any project product. It requires deep planning and more strategy than any of the other
phases.
Project management key elements.
The project management system includes 5 main key elements that provide the correct work of the
whole project structure. They are: matrix, project-planning, information, project-control and cultural
ambience. The division of responsibilities forms the matrix. The Project-planning subsystem deals with
dividing the projects functioning into different components, responsible for different actions, which is
also connected to the matrix. The informational subsystem is represented by the general information
about the project and the communication within the projects structure, including stakeholders and so
on. The project control system is directly related to the pre and post evaluating of the project, including
milestones or in other words full monitoring of the projects execution. Cultural ambience is very
important for the successful implementation of a project due to the presence of the human factor in
every single division. This has a high impact on project leadership and is the main factor in team
management.
Strategic Issues in Project Management
As David Cleland considers a project to be the leading force in the design and the usage of any
strategy by a company he takes strategic issues of a project as the premises of its implementation.
The Board of Directors is to be responsible for analyzing strategic plan for any project and establishing
capital projects. Stakeholder management is very helpful here, because the board of directors can
appeal not to a definite project team in general, but to the senior project manager responsible for the
work of the team. He, in turn appeals to the team members he needs to correct the situation or just in
order to control. According to Clelands book this is the way the whole system in under constant control
and checked for following the path chosen by the strategy of the project. To launch any project requires
a very scrupulous work and some projects are just not worth of it. That is the reason some projects can
be predicted to fail from the very beginning without wasting time and costs on its implementation. One
of the possible problems that may cause the failure of the project is ineffective planning, as plan is the
core of the project management. Senior oversight, caused by the incompetence in addition to
inappropriate organizational design may be fatal for a project. The contingent of the team has to be
carefully revised before approving. Another very important aspect is the reality, the reachability of the
set objectives. Objectives that are unrealistic form the very start are doomed. The project has to follow
the principle of continuous improvement at any times. As Cleland states, strategic planning occurs
through the preselection and evaluation of the future possible results of the given project. This
evaluation is related to the ultimate evaluation and deals with the level of effectiveness of the project,
its relation to state-to-the-art technology, possible return on investment, the satisfaction of customers
needs and the probability of meeting the deadline. The project result is the mission that has to be
achieved and fixed. To be the number one aerospace company in the world and among the premier
industrial concerns in terms of quality, profitability and growth.(The Boeing Company) This is the
mission that was set by the Boeing Company and led it to the very top leaders. Their strategic goals
meet the requirements of project management and realized them in the business their organization
was rotating in. Giving a lot of practical information Cleland makes a strong stress on the ability to set
clear objectives one more time. The objective is supposed to achieve the vision-the image of what
the organization should be in the future in its maximum potential. For instance, the example of WallMart: Providing customers with quality goods and making the goods available when and where
customers want them. A clear goal that through correct management perfectly implemented in true
life companys position in the worlds market. From Clelands opinion the way to the objective is made
of blocks and milestones that have to be evaluated at different times. The usage of different critical
resources for each goal is vital in obtaining the best goal for an organization.
Interpersonal dynamics and teams
As the cultural ambience has been already mentioned above throughout the review it is necessary to
emphasize its meaning in the process of work and implementation of the project. It influences greatly
the interpersonal dynamics within the team members and as there are so many factors to take in
count it is very difficult to ignore it. The interpersonal relations form the cultural ambience of the
organization making it a stronger or a weaker body. Certainly, an organization with a weak ambience
will not perform outstanding results due to the lack of unity. Unity is the guarantee of a wellcoordinated work with the most effective results. People in project management need to manage

various projects and for doing it they need to trust each other and not feel uncomfortable with each
other. In order to follow this golden rule it is necessary to have employees that are all at an excellent
level of performance and competence. Only under the condition of considering this factor senior can
be sure to obtain well-adjusted performance. The proper work of the project teams, being an integral
part of project management, starts being one of the primary milestone tasks. Cleland considers
alternative teams to be one of the most effective existing tool to perform efficient quality and
operate properly, it is also considered to be a mean of achieving high motivation of any worker no
matter how low or high his position is. Cross-functional teams represent units that do not just work
with one certain problem, but show a functional and system approach towards the solution of a given
problem, including various human resources. These teams are many-sided and confirm the principle of
a holistic system. The teams appear to be systems inside of one big controlling system, making this
way a great cycle of interconnection. The idea of having teams altogether forming the project
management system is completely based on the ability of these teams enable everyone in the
company to participate in the design and implementation of different strategies. These strategies will
lately make the organization more competitive. Cleland thinks that the formation of a team is a very
important phase in the introduction of a project in any organization. An incorrect selection of team
members may lead to an unproductive activity, holding up the rest of the structural formations of the
project. That is the reason it is very important to match the members of the team in order to gain a
better productivity and efficiency of work. It is the belief of David Cleland that the ultimate task of the
teams is not only to reach for the goals they have set for themselves but also to building blocks in
the design and execution of competitive strategy of the project management. The integration of the
teams and maintenance of interpersonal positive dynamic perfectly suits the strategic plan of any
organization using project management as their ruling principle. The teams in the huge block the form
have to be in constant change and improvement, using as many resources as they can, especially
including critical resources. The culture of an organization as a whole gets definite benefits from using
the team-structure. On one hand it gives every employee the opportunity to reveal himself within him
team, and constantly move if not vertically, but at least horizontally. On the other hand it endures the
commitment to the organization and therefore increases its productivity supported with milestone goal
achievement and the phased control.
Project management implementation
According to Cleland, the implementation of the project management is a very wide process. It
primarily deals with choosing a goal, planning the work and executing it. The projects are expected to
bring certain value to the organization and that is the reason the implementation needs to start with
the analysis and evaluation of the real need of project management for the organization at this defined
period. The growth of an organization may have certain risks if the organization does not really posses
the required resources at the time of the primary implementation period and the final product is not at
a sufficient demand among the customers of the company. The organization, in the opinion of Cleland
has to be able at any time to supports strategic goals with all the required resources. The project has
to provide something unique in order to completely achieve. Project management means making the
right decisions in the right moment at the minimum possible cost. Such companies as Microsoft,
General Motors, Daimler Chrysler and many other organizations have already implemented the project
management system. The results speak for themselves.
A clear stating of the goal, right planning and scrupulous execution lead to a successful achievement
of all the tasks and milestone goals. The presence of these milestone goals in its place becomes on the
most important controlling tasks of project management implementation. The selection of a project
and its profitability and therefore full evaluation is the task that can be completely achieved through
working in teams only. The purpose of project management is the achievement of the vision of the
organization or the achievement of the future possible image in the sphere of its functioning.
Conclusion
The last important issue to mention concerning the book is the project risk. Project risk is designed for
the prevention of an undesired outcome of a project. The management of the risk becomes the key of
the control over the uncertainty in the project. It evaluates the possible risk of the project and prevents
it even before the critical situation may occur and is always based on definite facts and their analysis.
This is often done through the standard risk model. It analyses the possible risk event and its possible
impact with total loss of the organization. So, mainly it deals with the identification of risks using
numerous professional tools such as: work-breakdown structure of a project, schedule-based
prevention, process-based prevention, prompt-list based prevention of risks and of course successthwarting that uses success factors to prevent the possibility of risks.

Generally speaking project management is a great substitution to any management model existing in
the contemporary society. David I. Clelands and Lewis R. Irelands Project Management: Design and
Implementation is a great book for those organizations that seek the best model of reaching their
goals. The constant changing enviroment strongly demands new techniques of management. The
model offered by Cleland has a primary goal of doing the best for the development of any project
through the cooperation of various departments of the organization. The main focus of the book is the
teamwork and strategic planning. According to the book the right and appropriate strategy and
structure of an organizaion can be a guarantee of the best possible result. Nevertheless, project
management is not only about techniques. It is about converting an organization in one solid
formation, one being, that will exist and function for the sake of all of its components. Our society
desperately needs a decent enviroment for the implementation of project management. And as
Cleland states the strategic context of project management, project governance and the proper
organizational design will help it a lot. Periodic risk monitoring also supports this whole system of tools,
decreasing the possibility of getting an undesirable result to its minimum.
Bibliography:
Project Management: Strategic Design and Implementation
by David I. Cleland and Lewis R. Ireland/ McGraw-Hill/4 edition /2002.

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