Assessing The Project Management Office Set Up Business Essay Example

in team attacks. The lower-level teams consist of 3 to 5 members depending on the project scale.

Organizational design

Understanding an organization's internal structure is important for predicting behaviorThe way in which people work together, along with individual and group factors, has an impact on employee attitudes and behavior. The structural relationship within a workplace also sets limits and controls for employees. Managers should be aware that organizational researchers can objectively measure structural variables such as work specialization, span of control, formalization, and centralization. However, employees do not objectively measure these features themselves. Instead, they observe their surroundings in a non-scientific manner and form their own implicit models of the organization's structure.

The diagram below illustrates the relative importance of different activities within an organization based on its size.

Large house

Small house

Spokesperson
Resources Allocation
High Affair Proctor
Disturbance animal trainer
Negotiator Entrepreneur
Front man Leader

Moderate Entrepreneur Propagator

Low

Importance of Managerial Roles in little and big Firms

BestConsult combines internal and external personnel to provide consulting services. The internal organization should not be too heavy since BestConsult serves mid-sized organizations. The organizational structure will be designed according to each client's needs. A group consisting of 3 to 5 individuals will be assigned specific clients, with the group coordinator taking charge. This role will rotate among the group members from project to project.The organizational hierarchy of BestConsult is displayed in the diagram titled "Organ gm of BestConsult". This hierarchical structure will be upheld by the company. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) holds a pivotal role within the organization and is supported by a consultative panel to aid in decision-making processes.

Reporting directly to the CEO, the Chief of Project assumes the position

of operating officer and focuses exclusively on project activities, which are fundamental to BestConsult's operations. The project team is further divided into two parts, with small yet high-performing subgroups responsible for executing these projects.

Within the Project Planning section, there are two subdivisions: Project Analysis, which handles new projects; and Detailed Project Activity Budgeting, which outlines specific activities conducted by the execution division.

The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) oversees funding, accounting, and internal auditing functions within BestConsult. Furthermore, the Human Resource division plays a vital role in managing both internal personnel as well as external individuals involved in project execution. These external personnel primarily consist of field experts such as academics and experienced executives.

Lastly, the Marketing and Customer Relations division takes charge of promotional activities aimed at acquiring new clients while maintaining existing ones.This organogram is recommended for BestConsult, a company that needs about 35 employees to operate and complete roughly 50 projects annually. Effective management of personnel is vital for BestConsult as it relies on the quality of its staff. Both internal and external employees are utilized for consulting work, necessitating the recruitment of a small yet efficient team and the establishment of a network of highly skilled external resources. Creating a positive workplace environment is crucial for attracting and retaining talented individuals. Both the organization and employees have specific expectations regarding career growth timeframe. If individuals are not promoted within this timeframe, they may seek opportunities elsewhere. Traditionally, firms only offer partnership or ownership opportunities at higher levels; however, some companies have introduced profit sharing, stock options, and other financial incentives in recent years to involve lower-level employees in overall company success. Despite these incentives,

most employees still aspire to be promoted to higher positions as it serves as a screening process for the company to ensure necessary skills are possessed by young professionals.While effective initial recruitment processes may reduce the need for extensive screening, they cannot completely eliminate the need for the promotion process to fulfill this important function. Additionally, the concept of a "risk of not making it" is advantageous for the company as it creates pressure on junior employees to work hard and succeed. The promotion incentive depends on two main factors: the average time spent at each level before being considered for promotion and the "odds of making it" (the proportion of juniors promoted). In companies experiencing growth, a highly leveraged company (with a high ratio of juniors to seniors) will offer a lower chance of reaching higher positions due to intense competition among juniors. Conversely, a less leveraged company at the same rate of growth will need to promote a higher percentage of its juniors, thereby providing a stronger motivation for advancement.

In business systems and documentation field, standards, methodologies, and requirements exist. However, even in organizations with strict controls and implementation best practices, there are often significant gaps in system documentation. This occurs due to a combination of practical circumstances and human nature. Practical circumstances arise from multiple individuals being involved in maintaining and developing systems throughout their lifespan.The text discusses the diversity of outputs due to varying levels of expertise and concerns among individuals. It also mentions that very few individuals remain with the organization throughout the entire life cycle of the business system. The human characteristic of attentiveness and ability, or idea and

accomplishment, is said to be equivalent to the human character characteristic. However, when the package is maintained and developed at the production level, there is no immediate influence on documenting the process fully.

According to Wikipedia, a business process improvement (BPI) typically involves six steps, which are as follows:
1. Selection of process teams and leaders: These teams consist of 2-4 employees from different departments involved in the process.
2. Process analysis education: The chosen members of the process teams receive training in process analysis and documentation techniques.
3. Process analysis interviews: Members of the process teams interview people working on the processes to gather information about their structure and performance data.
4. Review cycle: Employees working on the process review draft documentationTo achieve a common understanding of the process among all involved employees, it may be necessary to undergo additional review cycles. This text outlines the iterative procedure for certification and problem analysis in a project. The initial step involves using interview results to create a procedure map, which is then reviewed and integrated with existing procedure descriptions. Any suggested improvements discussed during the interview are also incorporated into the procedure maps. Furthermore, a thorough analysis of procedure problems is conducted based on the procedure map and information gathered about the process. At this stage, information from the scheme audit is also available and used to identify steps for process improvement. BestConsult should follow these steps to ensure accurate and efficient execution of their organization's tasks. It should be noted that the business regularly updates its procedures. In Task 2, communication plays a crucial role in project success as emphasized by the text. Careful planning of communication and setting

expectations with stakeholders are essential actions to take. Face-to-face communication within the project team and understanding client expectations are key factors contributing to success.The author's experience as a project manager has demonstrated that effective communication is crucial for project success. Kerzner defines effective communication as the exchange and conveyance of information through verbal or written messages, effectively expressing thoughts, and exchanging meanings using symbols. Effective communication involves both sending and receiving messages. In project management, Project Communications Management ensures the timely and appropriate generation, collection, dissemination, storage, and disposal of project information (Project Management Institute Standards Commission, 1996, p103). Communication is the process of exchanging information between entities and consists of components like the message, source, encoding, channel, decoding, receiver feedback noise context shared meaning. Interactive nature is an important aspect of effective communication. Communication in projects can take different forms such as oral, written non-verbal means. Oral communication is commonly used in face-to-face meetings or over the telephone and group meetings providing flexibility to speakers who can communicate not only with their voice but also through body language attitude nuance absent in written communication.Written communication is typically more precise and can be delivered through various forms such as memos, letters, or notices. It can also be transmitted via Email or the project management information system. To enhance the effectiveness of written communication, it is important to initially capture people's attention and provide a reason for them to read further. In my experience, this technique has proven valuable in projects. For instance, when updating clients on project status, I incorporate attention-catching graphs and relevant milestones alongside standard written updates and variance reports. Non-verbal communication also

plays a significant role during projects. The way individuals dress, their tone of voice, and body language while speaking all convey crucial information. Being mindful of someone's body language can greatly enhance comprehension levels. For instance, an intake of breath may indicate a desire to communicate while a furrowed forehead may suggest lack of understanding or disagreement with your point. Effective project communication is vital for successful outcomes. Personally, I find that 90% of my project management time revolves around some form of communication—whether within the project team or with clients.Communication is essential for a project manager to overcome challenges, develop project plans, resolve interpersonal issues, and provide updates to clients. Organizational culture plays a crucial role in enhancing efficiency within a group of individuals working towards a common goal. According to Stephen Robbins, organizational culture is a system of shared meanings. Though understanding the creation and definition of organizational culture can be challenging, Tejashree Talpade defines it as being formed through paradigms, rites and modus operandis, organizational structures, control systems, equations of power, symbols, narratives and myths. Additionally, organizations have both dominant cultures that are practiced throughout the entire organization and subcultures that are practiced by smaller groups like divisions or subdivisions. Employees learn about these cultures through narratives, rites, material symbols, languages and the environment. The presence of an organizational culture promotes commitment and guides decision making as well as employee behavior. In order to foster creativity within their workforce at Google continuously hires industry experts but recognizes that power dynamics cannot fully control creative individuals.If employees are not supported in their creativity, it will decrease. BestConsult, a company that focuses on providing

creative jobs, needs to maintain an organizational structure that promotes and supports creativity. According to Angle (1989), one way to encourage creativity is by creating coherence within the organization. This means fostering an open and confrontive climate for conflict resolution, which ultimately enhances innovation effectiveness. When there is a lack of coherence, innovation becomes negatively correlated with team innovation levels.

Since BestConsult plans to adopt a small high-performance team-based approach as its organizational structure, coherence becomes a vital component. The KEYS framework's "organizational encouragement" subscale includes various elements that contribute to promoting creativity and innovation such as encouraging risk-taking and idea generation, supporting idea evaluation, facilitating collaborative communication, involving employees in decision-making and management (Amabile et al., 1996). Other scholars like Angle (1989) and Kanter (1983) also support the importance of open communication across different groups within an organization. Kanter specifically emphasizes integrative structures with multiple linkages between departments often found in matrix organizations. Organizational structures and cultures that support or at least do not penalize this type of communication are more likely to foster effective creativity and innovation.Recruiting and motivating project teams can be more complicated than just selecting the best candidate. Along with writing job descriptions and advertising positions, it is crucial to consider if a candidate will fit in with the team or organization's culture. What happens if someone misrepresents their accomplishments and cannot secure the position? How do we ensure that the most qualified individuals apply for jobs? Recruitment mistakes can waste time, money, and resources, impeding team progress. This is why learning effective recruitment strategies is essential for managers. Recruiting is one of a manager's most important responsibilities and distinguishes good

managers from bad ones.

Motivation encompasses various desires, drives, needs, wants, and similar forces that influence human behavior. The concept of motivation revolves around the relationship between needs, drives, and goals. It indicates an individual's willingness to pursue a specific objective while determining the nature and source of motivating factors. From an organizational behavior perspective, motivation is a managerial function that inspires, encourages, and pushes individuals to take necessary action.

Motivation can be expressed by the formula:

P = M ( A+K )

, where P represents performance, M represents motivation,
A represents ability,and K represents knowledge.The interconnectedness of needs satisfaction, motivation, needs, and activities towards achieving goals was emphasized in a 1955 seminar held in Nebraska, America. The seminar highlighted the importance of promoting, involving, and recognizing the mental attitude of subsidiaries within the organizational sector as a means to drive employees towards accomplishing their objectives. Leadership plays a crucial role in comprehending group behavior and guiding them towards attaining goals. Enhancing group performance relies on having an accurate predictive capability. While the search for universal leadership traits proved unsuccessful, it can be stated that individuals with aspirations, high energy levels, a desire to lead, self-assurance, intelligence, relevant knowledge honesty trustworthiness , and flexibility are more likely to succeed as leaders. The behavioral approach categorized leadership into task-oriented and people-oriented styles; however neither style was found to be universally effective in all situations. Understanding of leadership improved with the development of contingency theories that considered situational factors. More recently neo-charismatic theories have gained acceptance as we learn more about the personal characteristics attributed by followers to charismatic and transformational leaders. Undertaking 3 involves individual reflection on

learning outcomes. An undertaking refers to a temporary endeavor or occupation aimed at achieving specific goals different from general business pursuitsThe primary focus of the Masters in Business Administration program is on profit and nonprofit organizations, covering management, marketing, funding, and accounting. However, undertaking is also important in various fields such as technology, medicine, mining, strategy, and marketing. To gain a deeper understanding of these undertakings, it is crucial to delve into them further.

The module's learning outcomes are intriguing. Many of these outcomes were previously taught in separate modules but applying them to project management dynamics proved to be highly beneficial. LO2 has particularly helped me improve myself. In a typical business setting, a manager's responsibility does not involve the completion of the business as it is an ongoing concern. However, in the case of a project, the success of the manager depends not only on its execution but also on its successful completion. This concept is completely new to me.

Another interesting topic worth exploring is the relationship between time, scope, and cost. Understanding the distinction between traditional and agile theoretical models for time-, scope-, and cost-management greatly aids comprehension of project outcomes and potential performance.

In addition to management considerations already covered by TQM (Total Quality Management), there is also discussion about quadruple restraint quality within this context; however, I find the term "quality" and its connection to projects somewhat unclear.

Lastly, core process areas are another vital yet challenging concept that needs attention.The success of management, whether it is in a project or a business, relies on effectively reengineering the chosen process. In projects, there are eight types of processes that include procurement, communication, and

risk management, which particularly catch my interest. These concepts are both new and significant to me. Unlike in business where teams and groups naturally develop coherence over time through continuous collaboration, projects require establishing coherence quickly after starting in order to achieve success. Therefore, when selecting project members, their ability to quickly establish coherence should be considered. This course has provided me with various new ideas and insights that are not only applicable to project management but also other areas of study based on my previous knowledge. However, I feel a lack of practical in-depth understanding may be due to time constraints and the unique nature of this course.