General Questions Base On Articles Course Work

# 1 Question: In his 2007 article, Cervone discusses five process groups and nine knowledge areas in Project Management Institute (PMI). Which two knowledge areas are most critical in delivering a successful project and why?
In his article Standard methodology in digital library project management Cervone identifies 9 knowledge areas in Project Management Institute: scope management, time management, cost management, quality management, human resource management, communications management, risk management, procurement management and integration management. All of them are important for the completion of the 5 process groups of the project, namely initiating the project, planning, executing processes, controlling and finally terminating the project. Success of any project is dependent on fulfilling several criteria. Firstly, the results should be accepted by the customer. Secondly, the project should be delivered on time and within the budget. Lastly, it should have little impact on other operations. While all the knowledge areas are vital for a successful project, scope and quality management processes are perhaps the most important for fulfilling delivery criteria. Scope management is used in the initial stage of the project and ensures clear definition of objectives, communicates the requirements and defines mechanism for progress monitoring. Unless scope management is conducted effectively, the project won’t be able to meet customer needs, as well as it might impact other operations and fall outside of the defined budget and schedule. Quality management is applied during all the project stages, controlling the compliance of the results with the predefined characteristics and customer demands. Unless quality assurance is conducted regularly throughout the project, project outcome might not conform to the original requirements, while non-adherence to the standards might bring the need for rework, increasing the time and amount of money for project execution. Although efforts in these two knowledge areas have a major impact on the success of the project, without effective management of the other knowledge areas, projects cannot be properly executed.
# 2 Question: Carton et al (2008) describe what they consider a "successful" enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation. What aspects of the project made it "successful" in their definition? Would your organization describe this as successful? Why or why not?
ERP system implementation usually has a great impact on the company processes, associated with “re-engineering” of some practices, which leads to the need of tailored strategies for ERP projects. Carton et al. present 9 knowledge areas of PMBOK, as an assessment framework for project management in information systems. The case describes ERP rollout project in a multinational pharmaceutical company Pharma Inc. into its subsidiary, which produces ingredients for secondary production sites. The authors identify this project as successful, due to the fact that it met budget and scheduling requirements, while ramp-ups to full capacity were achieved already 2 weeks before the predicted time. They also describe successful management of human resources, training activities as well as risk management. The use of internal resources was also mentioned as one of the success factors, as it minimized cost, time and transparency in the company. This implementation was indeed a success, however it had major issue, which should be improved before applying this case to other organization. Firstly, Pharma Inc. had problems with the main knowledge area – scope management. The initial surveys were indicating that employees were not fully aware of the purpose of ERP implementation, regarding it as an obstacle for their competitive advantage. Inability to clearly identify the scope for the whole rollout led to the implementation of a “bulky” system, which was complicated and time-consuming both in installation and further customization. The ERP system in the company was standardized, based on the corporate requirements, and did not consider the needs of local users, which triggered reluctance of site personnel to implement the new ERP system. Moreover, project timelines were set in such a way, that in 5 years upon the rollout completion, Pharma Inc. would need to start the cycle again, in order to update previously installed ERP.