Management

1. Analyzing cause and effect relationships

Scope, schedule (time) and resources (cost) are three main areas of decision parameters. It is necessary to discover their inner relationships and the relationships with project outcomes. Firstly, target scope is the goal of planning process that determining the tasks, time and cost for specific project. An increase in scope requires better resources and longer time. Secondly, schedule, which is a timetable setting deadline for each tasks and for whole project. If company delays the due date, resources will be reallocated and higher cost will be added due to prolonged working. Thirdly, cost is defined as the budget required by the completion of project. The lack of cost will decrease resources and therefore lower the competition quality of the project.

In addition, project characteristics including skills level and deadlines have a strong linkage with team morale and work quality. Team’s skill level is related to the employee’s skill level. A team with high level employees will create higher quality project and lower rate or mistakes. It is crucial for building team morale and employee engagement. However, this project will cost more money due to high welfare for workers. In compare, a team with basic level workers can save lots of budget in the staff wages area. Unfortunately, these employees may produce technical problems and reduce the working quality in both effectiveness and efficiency factors. Thus, company may need to provide opportunities of training for employees.

2. Discovering effective strategies to manage projects

For completing the project within budget and schedule, my initial assumption was that company should use basic levels of all parameters. Based on this assumption, I have created a team with 4 members, basic skill level and lower outsourcing. Further, by observing each week’s project performance, it is indicated that the cumulative cost was far exceeded the budget and the project has not...