ICT PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Status report used in project management.
Project status report refers to the vital section of effective project communication and the straitening of the management through various updates within then project’s activities such as stakeholders, team, as well as potential sponsors (Landau, 2017). (Landau, 2017), further notes that by combining all the three updates mentioned above, will help the project manager and the stakeholders save time and possible mistakes that might be grave to the project if not tactically fixed. The main objectives of the status reports include the following;
To easy the communication complexities amongst the project stakeholders
To ensure efficient communication across all the stakeholders.
The following list is a summary of the effective status report used in project management;
- General project information
Under general information we have;
- Project name
- Project manager
- Number of the required resources
- Report details
Report details include;
- Date of the project
- Time of the project
- Project summary
Project summary includes;
- Completion dates bracket
- Approximated costs
- A list of project tasks
- Milestone review
Project milestone include;
- Milestone
- Planned
- Actual
- Issues and risks
- Issues
- Risks
- Resolutions
- Project metrics
- Costs
- Scope
- Time frame.
Challenges and Pitfalls of different status reports
The term pitfall in project management refers to the potential problem that is likely to take place while the project’s completion is still in progress thus interfering with the earlier plans to its completion. The following are some of the challenges and pitfalls in project management;
- Complicated procedures during tendering sessions. The request for tender (RFT) documentation was extensive, comprising four volumes of information. The tender process was an interactive and complex one that involved significant ongoing negotiations where tenderers were encouraged and requested to work with different sub-contractors to deliver the best outcome for government in terms of price, delivery, and deliverables.
- The optimistic bias and timeframe. From this case study, for instance, the myki business case indicated the project would only last at most two years – this was when the contract for the existing ticketing system expired. We can as well note that there was none of such projects with the same complexity had been previously completed successfully in less than four or five years. However, myski business case had over-ambitious plans that the project could be viable within two years of ultimatum time. Undoubtedly, the two-year timeline was not met and an increase in the completion time for the project had a significantly impacted upon the project’s final costs. Uncontrollable optimism was seen as a discouragement to most of the employees who they suspected the public could judge them as non-performers after the project completion time had elapsed unsuccessfully.
- The conflicts of interests during the procurement process.As it is noted from the case study, “The approach used for tendering the project was the “interactive tendering approach” or “competitive dialogue”. However, a few individuals have mandated the task to foresee and make informed decisions that left out vital information from the rest of the teams. This foreshadows future disagreements which lead to the project’s completion objectives to fail impact on the project of the perception of a conflict of interest. This unwelcomed behavior can lead to the uncommitted audit team. If the auditing team is not aggressive to their work, then there could be a serious misreporting on financial expenditures, as well as withholding key information necessary for the smooth running of the project(Thompson, lacovou, Smith, & Keil, 2014).
Difference between the status reports provided for the two teams, that is sponsors and the steering committee.
From this case study, we note that the steering committee is primarily installed in the project management process and makes sure that the blueprint of the project is brought to reality by accomplishing it. We also note that their time frame during the project implementation process is guaranteed as long as the project is performing in equal proportional to the laid down guidelines. On the other hand, the project sponsors are said to be the final decision-makers especially when the project manager is not performing as was expected to be. To add on, they can hire, retain, and/or fire a new steering committee based on the project’s performance.
References
Landau, P. (2017). The Ultimate Project Status Report Checklist. Retrieved July 27, 2020, from https://www.projectmanager.com/blog/top-16-leadership-management-books-2016
Thompson, R. L., lacovou, C. L., Smith, H. S., & Keil, M. (2014). The Pitfalls of Project Status Reporting. MIT Sloan Management Review. Retrieved July 27, 2020, from https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/the-pitfalls-of/53863MIT55317/