BG007 Project Management and Communication Skills

Question 1

Heading an organizational department comes with a couple of challenges, and it requires comprehensive managerial skills, creativity, and excellent communication skills to efficiently coordinate different activities, committees, and handling of emergencies (Atkinson et al 2006, p.670).

Given my responsibility as the university contact person, I have to immediately organize for an emergency meeting with the university executive/ stakeholders, including the EdR representative to discuss the necessary solution for the emergency. Applying the knowledge of communication management, various communication medium will have to be used depending on the convenience and effectiveness in reaching the target recipient. The topic of discussion will, therefore, be brought for discussion. In the meeting, these would be my contribution (Söderlund 2004, p.190)

In reference to the whole scenario, the university has Berry hall as the priority for the emergency available at hand. Given the fact that the hall features 144 double rooms, it is highly certain that each double room should be able to accommodate at least two students for emergency reasons. It implies that the hall has to be organized to accommodate the new students (White and Fortune 2002, p.7).

As the EdR representative will be part of the meeting, a mutual understanding will have to be reached on the extra costs that will be channeled for the emergency response. Upon entering the agreement of the additional cost, we can look forward to hiring an emergency hall for the meantime as the construction gets complete to help in accommodating the balance of the students from Berry.

For purposes of not compromising the quality of the construction, extra pressure should not be exerted on the construction representative (White and Fortune 2002, p.7). This implies that if the alternatives of hiring an additional hall alongside Berry hall fails, the university committee will have to reach a decision on postponing the reporting date of the students.

It should be noted that the preceding opinion is based on the assumption that the construction project will take the shortest time for its completion. In other words, the project will not take longer than one week after the initially anticipated move-in day (Atkinson et al 2006, p.670).

Question 2

As a person of contact representing the construction company, I hold the image and reputation that is reflected in the institutions/ university. Therefore, I have to take the most appropriate and ethical possible solutions to ensure a mutual understanding between the university and the construction company (Meyer et al 2011).

Having established that the project will not be complete before the move-in day, communication should immediately be made to all the project team members for a general meeting. This communication should reach all the members working on the construction site. This session will be intended to analyze and evaluate the cause of the project failure. The meeting will also share a dialogue of the possible solution given the fact that the project completion will not meet the deadline (Meyer et al 2011).

In my opinion as the person representing EdR, the possible solution that may come out of the general meeting, among others will include;

Developing an emergency management plan for the ongoing project. In this plan, an outline of the program policy and legislative authority will be developed that clearly defines the roles and responsibility of each team member in the emergency program (White and Fortune 2002, p.7). Alongside the roles and responsibility, a well-defined mutual relationship should be emphasized to ensure teamwork in the emergency project. After developing, defining and launching the emergency project, the following can be done.

Breaking down the massive project into units. This will aim at completing specific parts for example, if the construction consist of four floors of the sky scrapper, the team may agree to complete one flow at a time. All the effort that was initially directed to the whole construction will be channeled to a specific floor (Crawford 2005, p.10). With this strategy, the construction company can be able to complete at least 75% of the total work. On the reporting day of the students, the 75% completed part can act as an emergency to accommodate the students as more effort is put to complete the remaining 25%. With this strategy, though inconvenience is created, it provides a solution to the prevailing emergency (Ford and Randolph 1992)

Alternatively, the project manager can agree with the project executives to eject more extra resources into the construction project (Grunig 2013). It is typically true that when more resources are ejected into the project, both human and physical, the project work can be accelerated and may be in some way, the deadline may be met. However, this alternative will lead to altering of the initial cost and budget estimation (Kerzner 2013). In other words, securing extra resources will require more financial base than expected/ approximated.

Of all the alternatives provided, we can understand that one of the best ways of handling emergencies is by being creative and flexible to for adjustments that comes along a project management activity (Packendorff 1995, p.330). The project manager should ask questions like “what are some of the shortest available alternatives that can help me earn the required result without compromising the project quality” answering such questions will undoubtedly lead to the required possible solutions (White and Fortune 2002, p.7).

In this opinion, it is however imperative that for all the possible solutions are undertaken by the project manager, and his team should be clearly authorized by the university (Meredit and Mantel 2011). This implies that the contact person should involve the university stakeholders when handling any emergency case of the construction to ensure efficient information flow and having and maintaining mutual understanding between the parties. As highlighted earlier, effective communication and dedicated team work is one of the core weapons in achieving high quality projects. In the opinion provided, it was assumed that the project was nearing completion but only late by a few days (White and Fortune 2002, p.7).

References

Atkinson, R., Crawford, L. and Ward, S., 2006. Fundamental uncertainties in projects and the scope of project management. International journal of project management, 24(8), pp.687-698.

Crawford, L., 2005. Senior management perceptions of project management competence. International journal of project management, 23(1), pp.7-16.

Ford, R.C. and Randolph, W.A., 1992. Cross-functional structures: A review and integration of matrix organization and project management. Journal of management, 18(2), pp.267-294.

Grunig, J.E. ed., 2013. Excellence in public relations and communication management. Routledge.

Kerzner, H., 2013. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Meredith, J.R. and Mantel Jr, S.J., 2011. Project management: a managerial approach. John Wiley & Sons.

Meyer, M., Roodt, G. and Robbins, M., 2011. Human resources risk management: governing people risks for improved performance: opinion paper. SA Journal of Human Resource Management, 9(1), pp.1-12.

Packendorff, J., 1995. Inquiring into the temporary organization: new directions for project management research. Scandinavian journal of management, 11(4), pp.319-333.

Söderlund, J., 2004. Building theories of project management: past research, questions for the future. International journal of project management, 22(3), pp.183-191.

White, D. and Fortune, J., 2002. Current practice in project management—An empirical study. International journal of project management, 20(1), pp.1-11.