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DISCUSSION QUESTION WEEK 1A - INTRODUCTION TO PROJECT MANAGEMENT There are different approaches and standards to project management, but

all the approaches point to some logical and sequential methodology that provides an answer to the following six questions (adapted from Chapter 2 of your textbook). What business situation is being addressed? What needs to be done? What will be done? How will it be done? How will you know it was done? How well was it done? Explain how these questions are related to the basic Process Groups of the PMBOK guide and discuss which questions will be more influential in ensuring the success of the project management approach.

STUDENT ID: 15950183 Introduction

NICHOLAS AHADJIE

Several authors and authorities in Project Management have defined project Management in different ways however for the purposes of the paper I would like to use the definition from PMBOK Guide. It defines Project management as the usage of knowledge, skills, and tools to manage a project from start to finish with the goal of meeting the project requirements. It involves using the appropriate resources. (Sanghera, 2010, p.5) Project management is described in cycles and different institutions have adopted different cycles to describe their concept and philosophy of project management. Some of these cycles include LEAP Program and Project Management cycle, FAO Project Cycle Management and EuropeAid Project Cycle Management among others. All these cycles however address or answers the six fundamental questions: What business situation is being addressed?; What do you need to do?; What will you do?; How will you do it?; How will you know you did it?; and How well did you do it? (Wysocki, 2009, p.22). Wysocki further summarized the various stages of a project lifecycle into five process groups namely Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling and Closing process groups. (ibid., p.27) How the six fundamental questions relate to the basic process groups and the questions that will be more influential in ensuring success of the project management approach What business situation is being addressed?

A project is an intervention that is carried out to meet established objectives within specific costs and time limits. It can be a collection of one or more activities and usually involves a single sector, theme or issue. It may involve multiple partners (and institutions) and may be supported by several different funding sources but often is supported by a single donor. (LEAP Lexicon, 2007, p.35). Within World Vision, projects are designed to meet specific needs or to take advantage of so available local resources to improve the lot of the target beneficiaries. After the signing of the Peace Agreement between North and South Sudan to end two decades of fighting, many refugees from the eastern corridor states such as Blue Nile who fled to Ethiopia started to return home. Most of their communities were destroyed as a result of the war and they returned home to virtually no infrastructure.

What do you need to do? In order to address the needs of the returnee population, World Vision conducted a rapid assessment to determine the prevailing needs in the target area. After the analysis and submission of the assessment report, a reflection meeting was organized with the beneficiaries to determine and prioritize the felt and most urgent needs. How the needs will be met was also discussed to identify beneficiary contribution to the implementation of the project. These steps relates to the initiating process group or what is referred to as scoping process group by Wysocki (2009, p.27). A project concept paper was developed to acquire grants to meet the prioritized needs. What will you do? Answering the question what will you do, relates to the planning and launching process groups. The project design team is put in place with a team leader who conduct problem and object analysis in order to develop a logical framework and a full project proposal. Based on the response from the prospective donor on the concept paper, a budget is proposed which guides the team in the estimation of the project resources (material and human) and budget. How will you do it? The project implementation plan answers this question and it is linked to the launching or executing process group. The positions defined in the project document are filled and given orientation on their respective roles. The detailed implementation and work plan is finalized including all administrative procedures and financial practices.

How will you know you did it? Monitoring plan is developed as part of the project design document and this used as in monitoring the project implementation to ensure that it done according to the design. This question relates to the monitoring and controlling group. Indicator Tracking Table (ITT) is developed from the logical framework and this is used to track progress towards the achievement of the project indicators. Monitoring reports are used to effect changes in the project implementation and these changes are usually agreed jointly with the project beneficiaries.

How well did you do it? End of project evaluation and financial audit is usually conducted to external consultants or institutions to determine whether the project goal(s) had been met. The financial audit also established how well the funds had been utilized and whether the financial policy had been complied with. The evaluation is usually adopts a participatory approach to seek beneficiaries opinion on whether the project goals had been achieved. The final evaluation report is used for a reflection meeting with the project beneficiaries to review the entire project cycle and document lessons learned and areas of improvement is future projects. These processes relates to the closing process group. Conclusion In my opinion all the questions are very relevant and influential in ensuring the success of the project management process however if the needs assessment is not done well, no matter how well the project is project is designed and implemented it will not produce the desired results. Therefore the scoping process group is very essential in ensuring success.

Bibliography
Paul Sangheera, PMP In Depth Project Management Professional Study Guide for the PMP Exam, Second Edition, cengage 2010 Robert K. Wysocki, Effective Project Management: Traditional, Agile, Extreme, 5th edition John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2009

LEAP Lexicon, 2007

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