PROJECT MANAGEMENT Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

PROJECT MANAGEMENT - Essay Example This report is based on a case related to National Program for IT that has decided to abandon the ?12.7 billion project after years of delays (Campbell, 2011). NHS project has been cancelled because of lack of planning as improper planning has been identified as the most important reason for the failure. There have been several problems throughout the project that will be discussed in the report. This report will highlight the importance of project management techniques, processes and planning in order to accomplish the goals of the projects and will apply the technique with respect to NHS project. Furthermore, this report will discuss about the differences in managing a small project and a large project. Also the report will critically evaluate how the management of NHS managed the project and how the project was planned and how it has been carried out. In addition to this, the report will also analyse the execution of the plans by the management and how risk management techniques a nd proper costing and staffing techniques would have appreciated the project value. The report will then critically evaluate things that went wrong and became the reason for the abandonment of the project and then suggestions and recommendations have been given that could have improved the process and increased the chances of successful completion of the project. PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROCESS AND PLANNING: There are different techniques that are used by project managers in order to successfully complete the project. Project life cycle is the most widely used concept in project management and it is defined as different phases that a project would undergo throughout its life. The project life cycle will also be applied on the NHS project and then it will be analysed whether the project went through its different phases properly or not. A typical project has five phases and these phases include (Bedford and Cooke, 2001): 1. Initiation 2. Planning and Design 3. Executing 4. Monitoring and Controlling 5. Closing (CostField) Initiation is the first phase of the five phases of the project lifecycle and during this phase of the project lifecycle, the strategies along with the targets and objectives of project are defined as to what the project is about and what the project manager would like to achieve from the project. There were flaws when it comes to the NHS project as the goals and objectives were not clearly defined and the strategies were also ambiguous thus the problems can be seen from the very first phase of the project life cycle. After defining the goals and objectives of the project, the project manager in the second phase plans and designs different tasks that he or she would like to accomplish in order to complete the whole project. Work break down structure is one of the most widely used techniques in order to define and break the whole project into different small tasks (Cleland and Gareis, 2006). Although the project was divided into different tasks but the management was not able to achieve the deadlines of these tasks and thus it lead to delay in the overall project duration. By dividing the whole project into different tasks, the project manager is also able to assign these tasks to different employees and manage the