When discussing project management you must understand the concept of what a project is. A project is something that is not currently in the organization, whether it is something new or something that will improve an existing thing. An example would be a new software package that will eliminate the hand inventory process or a software that will help improve the already existing software package of keeping inventory. Now, project management is the person who has the necessary skills to complete that project. Projects can be determined a success or failure on how well the project manager did their job. Let’s discuss a few projects and what was done successful and what could have been done a little better.
A well known project failure, although old, is a good teaching point on a highly visible project that was not managed well from the top down. The Mars Climate Orbiter mission was conducted under NASA’s “Faster, Better, Cheaper” philosophy. Although this was thought to enhance innovation, productivity and cost-effectiveness of the program, the program manager should have advised caution when discussing the scope, time, and cost goals with the stakeholders. The 2000 report by the board stated “The success of “Faster, Better, Cheaper” is tempered by the fact that some projects and programs have put too much emphasis on cost and schedule reduction. At the same time, they have failed to instill sufficient rigor in risk management throughout the mission lifecycle. These actions have increased risk to an unacceptable level on these projects.” (Mishap Investigation Board, 2000).
The mission for the Mars Climate Orbiter was to develop and launch two spacecrafts to Mars during the 1998 Mars transfer opportunity. Also, it ...
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...ded new senior management being assigned, work plans being reviewed and augmented, detailed analysis for pending mission events, daily teleconferences evaluating progress and work still yet to be done, communication and independent peer review of all operational and contingency procedures was introduced. It should be noted that despite the deficiencies, the spacecraft operated as commanded and the mission was categorized as extremely successful.
All projects are different from the scope, time, cost, the client, all the way down to the team and the person who manages it. The success is determined on how well that project was managed to meet the success. The project manager must have the necessary skills and knowledge to be able to employ the tools and techniques to manage a project successfully and ultimately meet the projects goals and requirements to the end.
An efficient Project manager should be aware of the necessary critical skills, Should learn to communicate effectively with every level, manage the resources in the right way, put strict processes in place, delegate tasks accordingly, do adequate testing, keep realistic expectations, never assume and don’t be afraid of what might go wrong.
NASA has faced many tragedies during their time; but one can question if two of the tragedies were preventable by changing some critical decisions made by the organization. The investigation board looking at the decisions made for the space shuttle tragedies of the Columbia and Challenger noted that the “loss resulted as much from organizational as from technical failures” (Bolman & Deal, 2008, p. 191). The two space shuttle tragedies were about twenty years apart, they both had technical failures but politics also played a factor in to these two tragedies.
Lack of proper risk management process: NASA was using a simple risk classification system and the methods used were only qualitative. There was a lack of proper technical and quantitative risk management methods that could have helped them identify the risks and eliminate them.
The project manager leads the project and provides vision, direction and encouragement. The project manager takes lead in project planning to determine the schedule and budgets neces-sary to meet the project objectives and is responsible for delivering the project once the pro-ject has been approved by senior management. The project manager is also responsible for the project support team.
Buzz Aldrin once said “Mars has been flown by, orbited, smacked into, radar examined, and rocketed into, as well as bounced upon, rolled over, shoveled, drilled into, baked and even blasted. Still to come: Mars being stepped on.” While the verity in this matter is true, it still demonstrates the lack of progress produced by NASA. NASA, a publicly funded program, has been experiencing a deficit in funds due to the increased importance in other programs like education or healthcare. To address this issue, the leaders of technology and innovation- John Bezoes for Blue ORigin; Richard Branson for Virgin Galactic; and most importantly Elon Musk for SpaceX- have stepped up to fill in the need of more capital in space funds.
The adage of the adage of the ad Juran Institute’s Six Sigma Breakthrough and Beyond. New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies. Gray, C., Larson, E. (2008). Project Management: The managerial process. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
To Space The missions of both Apollo and the future missions to Mars are the results of the work done by program planners. In program planning may be more favored over the original. Most successful of the missions were directed with the advice NASA receives and it is due to technology and the input of engineers. With a desire to further the quality of scientific returns, planetary scientists would have a major role in the decision-making process of future missions.
Before we look at the images of managing change that were present in the NASA case study let us review a few of the key events in this case study. The case study for this assignment looks at Challenger and Columbia NASA space shuttle disasters and the commission findings on the disasters/recommendations. Now with a short review of the case study what image(s) of change are present in the case study? From the case study the changes introduced are images of managing. These changes are both management of control and shaping. As NASA recovered from the 1986 Challenger disaster, it used the classic Fayol characterization of management such as planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating and controlling to correct from the top-down the issues that had caused the Challenger disaster (Palmer Dunford, Akin, pg.24, 2009). NASA approached the changes that need to be enacted as a result of the Challenger and also the Columbia disasters from the change image of a director. NASA ...
A project manager should be aware of the key challenges and threats an organization would face as well as he/she should have the skills to tackle the crises effectively and efficiently. In addition to that, a project manager should also be able to convey the thoughts and ideas in a convenient manner who is responsible to make a framework for an effective communication to ensure clear communication between the team members even though the style of communication would be different based on the situation.
Space exploration activist are interested to find ways to colonize Mars believing it will lead to major scientific breakthroughs. However from another perspective, the cost of space exploration since 1958 is over $900 billion (Wallace).The main argument against working
In the globalized economy, Successful project managers are in much demand across many industries. Organizations strongly need experienced project managers to lead their staff to accomplish their business goals and deliver successful projects. In an increasingly complex environment, project managers need to turn into many roles and have all kinds of responsibilities at each level of management within an organization. Good project managers are not born. They need to be trained. They develop their skills through study, practise and experience. They become better project managers after they finish a successful project each time. They learn new techniques and apply them on their projects. They learn their lessons from failed projects and then improve to be better project managers in the future.
Mars One’s budget is safely margined ($6 billion) but cannot handle major
Project managers have to improve their skills every day to deal with the organizational change and especially the world’s Megatrends. However, it can be a challenge for a project manager to comprehend what skills they should be improved, what sections of project management knowledge that should be tried to perceive, and how to measure and enhance their performance.
Over the course of my professional life, I have become increasingly involved in project management roles. Doing so has made me aware of the many varied challenges that can face projects and the project managers who are charged with bringing them through to completion. The success or failure of projects, in whatever economic, political or social field, rests not just on the quality of the project’s goals, but also on the abilities of those involved in the project – and above all those who are managing it – to bring it to successful completion. To do this, project managers need to be equipped with a very wide range of skills, many of which are unrelated to the type of project itself. So, for example, a project manager of an engineering project must not only have engineering
The importance of project management cannot be overstated. For starters it is important that project management provides a flexibility and structure. Project management creates flexible and well-structured business organizations by combining two organization needs perfectly. The organizational needs are determined by making the organization adaptable due to constant changes in the business, secondly organization is extremely important for creating structure. What is most important is that