Project Management and Project Success

Question: Discuss about the Project Management and Project Success. Answer: Objective The objective of this project is to evaluate critically the relationship between project management and the success of a project in the construction industry. This project also aims at analyzing the possibility for delivering a successful construction project without exercising techniques of project management. Specific Objectives Specific objectives of this project involve critical evaluation of the impact of project management on success rate of a project in the construction industry. Analysis of possibility for delivering successful construction project without the application of techniques of project management is the second objective. The assessment of risks regarding project management in construction industry is the third objective of this project. Finally, the fourth objective is to provide recommendations for mitigating the identified issues. Introduction/Background Huge investments are done by organization on projects, which is approximately 20% of the worlds GDP. However success rate, which is achieved by the projects, are very low especially in construction industry in which around 20% projects were cancelled before commencement of project (Alias 2014). Proper project management ensures a construction project to be successful with economical resources, meeting project objectives and project completion on deadline. Without project management, there are slight possibility of successful project delivery that entirely depends on the type, complexity and constraints of the projects. This project has been chosen to highlight and analyze the possibility of project successful delivery without applying project management techniques in construction industries. The current project also sheds light on the impact of project management on success rate of projects in construction industry. Rationale behind this project is also to identify risks associated with project management that will help to provide recommendations on improvement of project success rate. Explicit Knowledge Project management comprises of necessary tools and techniques of a project manager to successfully enhance and improve project execution quality, meet project objectives and complete the project on deadline. Thus, a project manager applies the techniques to obtain project requirements through cost benefit analysis, risk assessment and mitigation, time management and construction management. According to Alzahrani (2013), success rate of a project only is enhanced due to various factors like understanding the strategic objectives of a project clearly. Once the project objectives are understood, it becomes easier to manage the team of construction workers and engineers by the project manager. Thus, the project manager to the team should communicate definition of the scope of the project. The project manager is also responsible for communicating project technicalities to team members consisting of workers and engineers. Moreover, safety requirements should also be communicated and crea ted awareness through training and development among workers and engineers by the project manager (Beringer 2013). Resources required and reliability of the project is a major factor that is assesses usually by project managers. During assessment, the key competency factor that comes into play is leadership ability of the project manager. Leadership ability of the project manager ensures team motivation and identification of risks and its mitigation techniques applied successfully. Leadership also enables the project manager to manage a change within the project successfully and create organizational and environmental characteristics. As per Davis (2014), a project manager should also possess adequate technical skills that increases competency in identifying, assessing and evaluating technical issues and risks such as design of complicated structure, structural building materials assessment, quality of products, defect in construction procedures and estimation. Several construction projects are executed with less or no project management techniques applied. Construction of small pavements, culverts, roof slabs, refurbishment of small buildings and short walkways construction are few projects that do not involve any project management techniques. Experienced construction workers and contractors often carry out these projects. The major factors involved in construction without project management are team building ability in which the experienced construction workers together complete the construction process as per their experience and knowledge without prior scheduling or planning. Their contractors do improvisation manually and there is less scope of trust building capacity among the construction workers. However around 50% of the constructions in the world has been done without any construction management techniques applied (Gemnden 2015). Initial Findings It has been found that success rate of a project increases with application of project management techniques such as motivation and communication used by project managers to construction workers and engineers to promote and create awareness regarding project scope and objectives. Once the objectives are clearly promoted to the team, it has been found that the success rate chance increases by 80% as employees get motivated to provide their best competency towards project. Training and development provided to the team by project manager also plays an important role as new employees gets competent and familiar with various techniques of the construction such as piling, DMC, construction of slabs, floors, walls, foundations, piers, pile caps and highways. Adequate safety and security programs conducted at construction sites are also necessary to be delivered by project managers to team regarding use of safety belts at high construction, use of safety boot to prevent leg injury, use of helmets to safeguard heads from concrete debris and reflective jackets to look visible from distance (Mir 2014). All these safety instruction when delivered to team by project managers makes them competent and aware regarding safety and thus any accidents or mishaps are prevented facilitating the rate of success. According to Pollack (2014), the technical knowledge regarding the project also makes project managers competent in understanding technical risks to be assessed and any technical specifications that needs to be revised or clarified like revised drawings of the pile caps or any possibility of cold joint formation due to non-monolithic nature of concrete planning. The resource and materials required for projects also needs to be assessed by the project manager through application of project management techniques in quality control and ensure that project objectives are achieved by deadline. Finally, it is found that success rate of construction projects without application for project management techniques is low due to lack of proper knowledge and prior scheduling making the project impossible to commence within deadline and least risk management that ultimately ends up with shortage or surplus resources and building materials for construction. Lack of proper communication also ends u p in poor team cooperation and issues among the workers (Serra 2015). Reference List Alias, Z., Zawawi, E.M.A., Yusof, K. and Aris, N.M., 2014. Determining critical success factors of project management practice: A conceptual framework.Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences,153(3), pp.61-69. Alzahrani, J.I. and Emsley, M.W., 2013. The impact of contractors attributes on construction project success: A post construction evaluation.International Journal of Project Management,31(2), pp.313-322. Beringer, C., Jonas, D. and Kock, A., 2013. Behavior of internal stakeholders in project portfolio management and its impact on success.International Journal of Project Management,31(6), pp.830-846. Davis, K., 2014. Different stakeholder groups and their perceptions of project success.International Journal of Project Management,32(2), pp.189-201. Gemnden, H.G., 2015. Success Factors of Global New Product Development Programs, the Definition of Project Success, Knowledge Sharing, and Special Issues of Project Management Journal.Project Management Journal,46(1), pp.2-11. Mir, F.A. and Pinnington, A.H., 2014. Exploring the value of project management: linking project management performance and project success.International Journal of Project Management,32(2), pp.202-217. Pollack, J. and Algeo, C., 2015. The contribution of project management and change management to project success.The Business Management Review,6(2), p.22-26. Serra, C.E.M. and Kunc, M., 2015. Benefits Realisation Management and its influence on project success and on the execution of business strategies.International Journal of Project Management,33(1), pp.53-66.