Personal Project Management Philosophy
All students will respond to the following:
� Address the major ideas in each section of this course and their place in your personal philosophy of
project management:
o �Key Factors That Determine Project Success and Failure�
o �Aligning Project Portfolio, Organization Strategy, and the Organization Mission�
o �Applying the Stage-Gate Model to Optimize Project Performance�
o �Effects of Organizational Behavior on Project Innovation�
o �Developing a Unified Approach to Portfolio Management to Achieve Organization Success�
Finally, what would you say is the single most important principle relative to project management that you
have learned in this seminar?
Readings
PERSONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT PHILOSOPHY 2
Key Factors That Determine Project Success and Failure
Planning: One of the factors that lead to project success or failure is the planning.
Successful projects must be well planned and coordinated right from the beginning to the end.
On the other hand, non-successful factors are usually poorly planned and executed, leading to the
project failure (Mathur, Judgey, & Fung, 2013).
Executive Support: The level of executive support determines the level of project success.
Weak executive support would result into weak project implementation and high chances failure.
On the other hand, high level of executive support would lead to better project implementation
and the success of the project.
Technical Competence: The technical team must be competent enough to executive a
wonderful project portfolio. If the technical support lacks competency, the project would face
poor implementation and the overall project failure (Whitty, 2011).
Resources: Resources make it possible to implement the project without any delays or
limitation. Availability of resources would make it possible to have a successful project and vice
versa
Expectations: The expectations of the project must be realistic and achievable to ensure
the project success (Mathur, Jugdey, & Fung, 2014). Unrealistic and unachievable goals would
automatically result into project failure.
Aligning Project Portfolio, Organization Strategy, and the Organization Mission
An organization needs good coordination between various departments so that everything
is aligned with the organization strategy (Gareis, 2007). The ability of the organization to align
PERSONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT PHILOSOPHY 3
the project portfolio, the organization strategy, and the organization mission ensures that
everything is the project is done to the completion. Lack of alignment would lead to time waster
and unsuccessful project completion. Therefore, a clear designed organization missions
statement is a prerequisite for creating value in the successful projects launched by the
organization.
Stage-Gate Model to Optimize Project Performance
According to Whitty (2011), the Stage Gate model allows an organization to improve the
quality of the project and enhance their speed while reducing the project risk and failure.
Importantly, the Stage-Gate model allows the organization to enhance the excellence of their
new and innovative product by integrating various product driving approaches that are simple to
understand. Therefore, the Stage-Gate model allows incorporates decision making at all levels
and functions to support quality and timely achievement of superior results. This helps an
organization to launch competitive landscape that helps them achieve their project goals.
Effects of Organizational Behavior on Project Innovation
The organizational behavior helps to instill the culture of innovation within the company.
It is the duty of the management to ensure that they instill the right culture of innovation on their
employees to ensure that all projects are launched successfully (Whitty, 2011). The motivation
from the top management ensures that individual and group interactions within the organization
are motivated to innovate accordingly.
Unified Approach to Portfolio Management to Achieve Organization Success
According to Fischer and Hermann (2011), a unified approach to portfolio management
that can help to achieve organization success can be implemented by the Meta design of the
socio-technical systems. In this approach, the technical systems are engineered to provide
PERSONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT PHILOSOPHY 4
reliable and anticipatable interactions between the systems and their users in project
implementation. In this regard, the users will act as designers to provide fixed solutions to the
project goals. Therefore, the socio-technical systems are enough to spur the culture of
participation and collaborator management that is important in the project success (Fischer and
Hermann, 2011).
The information learned from this seminar is a applicable into a unified portfolio of
program management. One of the guiding principles to aligned the project management
objectives with the organizational mission. The other principles that I will apply relates the
standard of engagement by putting proper structures of who will be concerned with the project
and how. My main concern in personal project management philosophy will be organizational
behavior. I will need to instill the culture of innovation and excellence as part of my project
management exercise. In addition, I will involve the executive in the initial phases of project
planning so that the necessary executive support and resources are adequately supplied.
PERSONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT PHILOSOPHY 5
References
Mathur, G., Jugdev, K., & Fung, T. S. (2013). Project management assets and project
management performance outcomes. Management Research Review, 36(2), 112-135.
Mathur, G., Jugdev, K., & Shing Fung, T. (2014). The relationship between project management
process characteristics and performance outcomes. Management Research Review, 37(11),
990.
Whitty, S. J. (2011). On a new philosophy of project management. International Journal of
Managing Projects in Business, 4(3), 524-533.
Fischer, G., & Herrmann, T. (2011). Socio-technical systems: A meta-design perspective.
International Journal of Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development, 3(1), 1-34.
