Project Outline:
Working title:
Research into projects in organizations in order to determine whether failure to deliver on time, in-scope and budget is as a result of poor sponsorship, mismanagement, or lack of flexibility and support throughout the organization.
Project Proposal:
Projects have three critical elements. These are time, scope and budget. These three factors are mutual and affect each other. For example, a change in scope would affect both budget and time. This can be illustrated by the following example. If the scope of a project becomes greater, then the project time and budget have to increase in order to meet the new scope. Globally, countries and organizations are undertaking in projects in all sectors. This is mainly because economic growth is pegged on effective completion of projects. Many projects fail to deliver in terms of time, scope, and budget. This means that the project manager and project sponsor loses money as well as resources due to this. Therefore, it is important to critically analyze and assess in order to understand why projects fail to deliver in these three sections.
The research question also addresses the "lack of flexibility/agility and support throughout the organization.” This has a direct relation with the Supply chain of the organization. This affects the building of database and lessons learned from previous projects to be used in next tenders. In addition, it affects the executions cash flow forecasting, and the readiness of the finance, procurement department, quality assurance, quality control, and cost control department. For any urgent new needs or fast track projects, building alliances with subcontractors, suppliers, banks etc. in order to offer the organization more flexibility and agility to respond to project needs.
This is important mainly because this research would offer vital information to project managers as well as project sponsors on what causes a project to fail. Therefore, it is important for one to carry out a research on the cause of this failure. In this research, I will examine the poor sponsorship, mismanagement, or lack of flexibility or agility and support throughout the organization. This will shed more light to project stakeholders on what cause projects to fail and in effect trying to solve the issue of projects failing to deliver. The data collected will be aimed at trying to determine whether projects in organizations fail to deliver on time, in-scope and on budget due to poor sponsorship. In addition it also seeks to determine whether projects in organizations fail to deliver on time, in-scope and on budget due to mismanagement. Lastly it seeks to determine whether projects in organizations fail to deliver on time, in-scope and on budget due to lack of flexibility/agility and support throughout the organization.
Motivation for this subject area choice:
The main motivation for this project is that I would like to understand why projects fail. I have extensive knowledge in the field of project management and carrying out this research will help expand my knowledge in this field.
Research Question:
Why do most projects in organizations fail to deliver on time, in-scope and on budget? Is it poor sponsorship, mismanagement, or lack of flexibility/agility and support throughout the organization?
Methodology:
This research will utilize a combination of primary and secondary research methods. Primary research will be conducted using a questionnaire that will be developed. The questionnaire will be administered to project managers, organizations involved in projects as well as project sponsors. The questionnaire will seek to gather information from the respondents in an effort to meet the project aims. Secondary research will be carried out by using available library facilities to find literature (scholastic journals) that relates to the research question. The information collected will be used to support the primary data collected.
How this project will assist with my career plan:
This project will assist build my career since I am currently interested in a career in construction management. Therefore, this project will help me understand why projects in the construction management sector fail.
Reference List:
Project Management Institute. (2004). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide). Newtown Square, Pa: Project Management Institute.
Collis, J., & Hussey, R. (2009). Business research: A practical guide for undergraduate and postgraduate students. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Williams, T. C. (2011). Rescue the problem project: A complete guide to identifying, preventing, and recovering from project failure. New York: American Management Association.
