Project Managers Role

Project Managers Role

The project manager is responsible for leading the project of managing & maintaining the trunk road network in North West Scotland for a period of 7 years with a possible 2 year extension in the contract. The project manager being appointed by top management of the joint venture must establish the project manager's role. In order to do so the project manager is to take a number of steps. These steps will include five management functions:

• Project manager's role in planning.
• Project manager's role in organizing the project.
• Project manager's role in staffing.
• Project manager's role in directing the project.
• Project manager's role in controlling the project.

The above functions of project management will be performed by the project manager following the following steps,

The project manager will have to identify the clients and create a single point of contact with the clients; this requires the agreement of clients to the appointment of one single representative to deal with this project. This contact is either one of the involved councils or a representative on their behalf. After agreeing form of communication between the clients and the project manager, then the project manager will look to organizing the project team starting by the discipline managers then the team members. By establishing the project team the project manager will have to communicate the contract requirements with the project team clearly. This achieved by informing the project team of the goals and objectives of the project. The project manager will inform the project team of what is expected of them regarding this project.

The project manager and his team will now have to develop a plan focusing on the work required to be carried out. The objectives and goals of the project are established and the performance requirements of the project will have to be included in the plan. When the plan is being developed, the project manager must identify the responsibilities, schedules, and budgets required for each part of the project.

The work required to fulfill the contract scope requirements must be developed as a work breakdown structure dividing project work into units of work. The scope of the contract will be established as an organization chart for each part of the scope. Then the project manager can establish the roles and responsibilities of the each team member based on position, scope and discipline.

The project manager during the operation of the project will be directing the project by coordinating the important aspects of the project. Problems regarding the project will happen and the role of the project manager is to analyze and investigate them at an early stage to be able to avoid them.

The project manager have to control the project in order to satisfy the scope of the contract and deliver the work to the required standard and quality agreed in the scope. The projects' internal and external contacts have to be recorded, this include meetings, agreements, etc.

When the project manager have completed the steps above he can now lead the project team to carry out the projects work within the agreed period on budget and scope of the contract.

Planning and programming issues

All projects will have planning and programming issues such as being delivered below standard, late or over budget. The project manager has to be actively involved in managing the projects risks.

In this project the issues stem from the broad scope of the project. This project involves the maintenance and management of roads, bridges, structures and other maintenance activities involved. This contract has a number of issues regarding programming and planning which the project manager has to be aware of at an early stage in order to prevent or reduce the effect of these issues on the project. The issues on this contract are as follows,

• Contract scope

The contracts scope is the major issue of this project. The length of roads involved in the scope will require large resources to maintain and manage. The number of bridges listed in the contract including two major bridges.

• Resource allocation

As the scope of the contract is broad it involves the need for a large number of resources such as, machinery, equipment, labor, heavy machinery, etc. the resources is a major issue as the problem is not in some cases the unavailability of the resource as to the wrong resource being allocated for the task. Some resources will have to be outsourced from third parties who might not be able to provide the resource when required or cause delays.

• Overlapping tasks

This issue can cause extra costs on the organization due to the need of extra time or resources to carry out the required work at the same time. Tasks requiring similar resources must be planned apart from each other when possible in order to clear the issue or reduce its implications.

• Poor communication

In a large contract scope as this contract communication issues are considered major issues. Due to the geographical area covered in this contract miscommunications can lead to major mistakes causing significant disruption to the work plan.

• Clients involved

The scope of the contract involve four councils, which means that the work required to be carried out will have to be planned with regard to the clients ability to make the area required available for the necessary work to be done. Work might be delayed for certain unplanned events.

• Conflict

Internal and external conflicts are possible in this type of contract as the dependency on third parties will be high due to the broadness of the contract.

• The period of the contract

The contract is awarded for 7 years duration, the length of the duration require the development of a long-term plan of the projects work required. This will create the issue of re-planning to ensure that tasks are carried out at the right time. This affects the resources needed for the task to be available when needed.

Implications of outsourcing

Outsourcing is the strategic use of resources from outside the organization to perform tasks traditionally done by the in-house staff and resources. Outsourcing provides advantages and disadvantages to the organization depending on the resources being outsourced. In this contract outsourcing will create advantages to the organization but will also have disadvantages.

• Cost reduction, outsourcing equipment and machinery will reduce the costs of owning and running the machinery and equipment. It is a good choice for the company to outsource for machinery and equipment as the company can have a reliable sub-contractor running these resources for the company. Also this will provide the company with the flexibility it needs to be able to maintain and manage the contracts scope more easily and efficiently. The company can now hire a number of sub-contractors and divide the scope over the sub-contractors. The company would reduce its costs by reducing the number of direct employees and services. The company would also benefit from increased margin of profits incurred from outsourcing.
• Quality, when outsourcing services there is the possibility that quality management systems may not be as good as the company's own quality management system. This is due to pressures over the sub-contractor to make a profit from the contract. Quality is more likely to be at a higher standard when the outsourcing option is not been taken due to the reason that it is easier to locate the problem and action is taken faster. In some of the services in this contract it is better for the company to carry out work, which affects the safety the service users, using in-house employees as consequences of lower quality may have negative implications on the company.
• Improve the company's core services, as the company is an operating company outsourcing will help the company to outsource the services which is not critical and not part of the company's specialty. This will benefit the company in
• Planning and resourcing the work, the company will benefit from outsourcing planning and resources because the sub-contractor will provide sufficient labor force to plan and carry out the work required. This will prevent the company from planning and resourcing a very large scope as this contract. The company can then supervise the work and achieve the contract requirements. Outsourcing planning and resources will provide the company with the flexibility needed to sequence the work. If the company was to carry out the planning and resources the costs will be high and lower output of work will be caused.
• The company would outsource to access operational expertise and best practice in the required service, as the contract involve different types of services it will not be able to develop in-house employees soon enough to carry out the required work. Outsourcing in this case will benefit the company as well as reduce costs.
• In this contract the company will benefit from outsourcing some services from local companies located in the region. This will provide the company with better status and publicity.
• By outsourcing some of the services the company can share the risk.

Issues to consider

The government has advised the operating companies of its intension to hold plans for future capital works projects due to the governments overspend of the infrastructure budget. The joint venture board must consider a few issues for the company to maintain its operations without incurring losses until the government reintroduce capital works projects. The board will have to consider the issues which will allow them to profit in these difficult times. The key issues which need to be considered the joint venture board will include the following issues:

• Cost savings, the company must reduce the cost of services. This will include renegotiating the business arrangements with suppliers, create savings on administrative costs, reduce waste of resources, etc.
• Reducing non-critical maintenance activities and tasks where possible, and extend maintenance intervals as possible.
• Redundancy, reducing the number of employees without affecting productivity of the company.
• Renegotiating the contracts, loans, and prices in order to reduce the costs of cash outflows.
• Financial restructuring of the company, restructuring will help the company to identify waste and eliminate it.
• Outsourcing services, outsourcing services to reduce administrative and information technology costs. Also the outsourcing of services from the contract scope to further reduce the costs and increase profits.
• Utilize employees and resources to achieve higher productivity and reduce downtime.
• The possibility of merging certain departments to further reduce costs and increase employees and resources. Merging departments may reduce the number of employees.
• Freeze employment except for necessary employment.

References

• March, C. (2009) Operations Management for Construction. New York: Spoon Press.
• Oberlender, G. (2000) Project Management for Engineering and Construction. London: McGraw-Hill.
• Ritz, G. (1994) Total Construction Project Management. London: McGrow-Hill.
• Walker, A. (2007) Project Management in Construction. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Lock, D. (2007) Project Management. Aldershot: Gower Publishing Limited.
• Juma'h, A. and Wood, D. (2000) 'Outsourcing Implications on Companies' Profitability and Liquidity: a sample of UK companies', Work Study. 49 (7), pp265-274.