Principles of Project Management

This particular assignment is based on the topic of two various types of project management. Project management is considered as the organizing, planning as well as managing the effort for accomplishing the successful project. Proper timeframe and the budget frame are needed for doing any project. The proper timeframe can produce a significant outcome. For doing any project management vast knowledge, proper skills, techniques, and tools are required for meeting the requirements of the project. It has been identified that the knowledge of project management has been drawn over ten areas which are such as integration, scope, cost, time, quality, human resources, procurement, risk management, communication, and stakeholders’ management. In this assignment, it has been identified that two several types of project management model have been used which are such as agile project management and the waterfall project management. The agile project management is followed by Apple Inc and the waterfall project management is followed by Al Hokair Company.

Project management is a concept of developing several projects that are incurred started from ancient past. The past activities helped in development of different projects as in making of great pyramid of Giza till Hoover Dam project. The time line suggests the same,

This assignment has been classified into several groups which are such as critical evaluation of the principles of the project management, and the critical evaluation of the differences as well as applications of the project management. In another section of the assignment, the life-cycle of the project management, key activities of the project management, deliverables, techniques and tools of the project managers have been defined. The recommendations have been also provided by this assignment for mitigating the issues.

In this section of the assignment, the principles of the project managers have been explained.  The project of the company of Apple is the product innovation and the agile method has been followed by Apple for doing this project management of product innovation (apple.com 2018). On the other hand, the project of Al Hokair is the development of the e-commerce website and the waterfall method has been used by the company, Al Hokair for doing this project management (alhokair com).

The principles of the project management of Apple Company have been mentioned below.

• Attain the satisfaction of the customer: It has been identified that the software has been built for doing the better performances and also for solving any problem. It has been identified that the short distance among the customer feedback and the requirements gathering can give the opportunities of steering the software in the satisfactory direction of the customers. 
• Be strong for making any changes: the changes are harnessed by the agile process for getting the competitive advantages of the customers. It is very important to change the short distance between the implementation and conceiving (Gren, Torkar& Feldt2015). If the process of development is late then the shifting needs to be made strongly.
• Delivering the working software along with the preference of shorter timescale: It has been identified that the shortening of the distances among the delivery and planning is focused by the agile project.
• Management and developers must work together: It is very crucial as it is not natural for most of the people. Co-location of the management and developers is one of the best ways for handling this (Gren, Torkar& Feldt2015). The company of Apple also can use the tool of communication for motivating the workers.
• Build projects for motivating the individuals: It has been identified that the agile project of the company of Apple does not contain any micromanaging. The team needs to be self-reliant and also self-directed. The company needs to make the proper team so that the company can trust completing the objectives of the project.
• Encouraging the face to face interaction for the proper communication: It has been identified that the company needs to make the short time between the acquisition and the answers. For this reason, the co-location and the remote work at the same time and this is one of the important parts of the management of the agile project.

Figure 1: Model of Agile

(Source: Gren, Torkar& Feldt2015)

On the other hand, it has been seen that the company of Al Hokair has followed the waterfall project for doing the project management of the development of e-commerce. Several principles of the project management are followed by the company of Al Hokair and these principles are such as low level of customer engagement, strong documentation of the project and the sequential project structure. It has been identified that the company prefers to use the documentation process more than discussing the issues of the project (Buchoriet al. 2017). It has been identified that during the project management, basically only 2 meetings are conducted by the company with the customers. 

Comparison of Agile and Waterfall Project Management Models

Figure 2: Model of Waterfall

(Source: Buchoriet al. 2017)

The undertaking of Al Hokair is the improvement of the internet business site and the cascade strategy has been utilized by the organization, Al Hokair for doing this venture administration. It has been seen that the organization of Al Hokair has pursued the cascade venture for doing the task administration of the advancement of internet business. A few standards of the venture administration are trailed by the organization of Al Hokair and these standards are, for example, low level of client commitment, solid documentation of the undertaking and the successive task structure. It has been distinguished that the organization wants to utilize the documentation procedure more than examining the issues of the task. It has been distinguished that amid the task administration, essentially just 2 gatherings are led by the organization with the clients.

It has been identified that organizational communication grows immensely in the last few years. Now it has become norms for the theory of project management. For defining what, why and how the organization remains its sustainability. It has been identified that a specific model is required for depicting the thoughts, idea and the concept in the simpler way for making proper communication in the organization (Stacks & Salwen2014). A specific technology is dealt with this theory for transmitting information between the people and the machines. While the application of the communicational theory different organization s follows different strategies which are explained below.

Figure 3: Communication theory

(Source: Stacks & Salwen2014)

By considering the communicational theory the company of Apple has incorporated some strategies which need to be developed. It has been recognized that authoritative correspondence develops enormously over the most recent couple of years. Presently, it has moved toward becoming standards for the hypothesis of task administration. For characterizing what, why and how the association remains its supportability. It has been distinguished that a particular model is required for delineating the considerations, thought and the idea in the less difficult path for making legitimate correspondence in the association. A particular innovation is managed this hypothesis for transmitting data between the general population and the machines.

The strategies are as follows:

• Need for the advertising: Apple knows that the increment of the revenue scale is not necessary always. It has been identified that Apple relies on 2 various strategies which are such as the placement of the products and the buzz creation. Apple believes that if the customers or user are satisfied with their services as well as their products then the customers of Apple will share the promotion of the products to their followers.
• Avoiding Price Wars by doing the emphasizes of the value proposition:Apple always believes that the business of the company can be hurt by the price competition. The UVP of Apple is reticently focused by the company of Apple. It has been seen that the UVP works in a different way with very smaller packages (Cornelissenet al. 2015). The products advertisement on social media is one of the competitive advantages for the company of Apple. It has been identified that Apple is not competing about price however, Apple, itself is the great competitors to the other popular brand in the market.
• Simple marketing of the products: Apple believes that the overwhelming of the consumers regarding the technology can create the confusion in the marketing mix. Apple keeps the technology very simple which is preferred by several customers. It has been believed by the company of Apple that the best sophistication is the simplicity and for this reason, more customers are impressed by the strategies of Apple.
• Communicate with the customers in the normal language: Apple has made great customer loyalty in the market of the technology. The customers of Apple are very much satisfied with their services and it has been also identified that Apple can understand its customers’ perception as well as their demands.
• Design best customer experience; The elements of every aspect are included in the experience of Apple. As an example, it can be stated that the fans of Apple always appreciate the computers of Apple and in this way, the company has made great customers’ experience. The purchasing process is inspired by the retail store of Apple.

Figure 4: Apple product development strategy

Source:(interaction-design.org 2018)

• Aim at the emotions of the company’s prospects: Apple believes that the emotional connection is the key to the successful strategies of marketing and for this reason, every video of the Apple products get viral rapidly. It has been identified that most of the Apple customers are very much happy by having their services.

On the other hand it has been seen that in the company of Al Hokair has incorporated several strategies for considering the communicational theory which is such as the statement of the purpose, the present situation of the company, organizational as well as communicational objectives, stakeholders’ identification, evaluating success, work plan, and many others (Cornelissenet al. 2015).

Application of the Project Management

The stakeholders of the company are held by the stakeholders’ theory. The purpose of the company’s business has is stated by the theory of stakeholders for creating the value. It is very important that the customers, employees, communities, suppliers, and stakeholders need to be considered by the business (Antonelli, D’Alessio& Cuomo2017). The customers’ interest needs to be kept by the business of the company and it has been stated by the theory of stakeholders.

Figure 4: Stakeholders’ theory

(Source:Antonelli, D’Alessio& Cuomo2017)

Apple has incorporated several strategies for considering the stakeholders’ theory and these strategies need to be developed. It has been identified that the suppliers are engaged by the company of Apple through the expectations of the company. It has been identified that the large strides have been made by the company towards the practices of greener procurement (Antonelli, D’Alessio& Cuomo2017). The systematic evaluating and examining the supply chain for adapting the correc6tive as well as preventive measures and the environmental violations has been begun by the company of Apple. A few years ago, it has been declared that Apple is one of the greenest chains of supplying out of 167 brands in the whole world.

On the other hand, it has been identified that the company of Al Hokair has incorporated several strategies for considering the stakeholders’ theory. The strategies are such as identification of the diverse group of stakeholders, identification of the representatives of the stakeholders and creation of the system for soliciting the feedback (Felin, Foss& Ployhart2015). The other strategies which are followed by the company of Al Hokair are such as incorporating the feedback into the process of strategic planning, and the report back about the stakeholder analysis. 

Two types of project management have been explained in this assignment one is product innovation project management for the company of Apple and another is e-commerce development project management for the company of Al Hokair. In these 2 various companies, the project management processes are also different and their differences are mentioned below.

• In Apple, the process of software development is divided into various phases whereas, in the company of Al Hokair, the lifecycle development of the project is segregated into sprints.
• The waterfall is considered as the structured methodology of software development whereas Agile is flexible methodology (Komai, Saidi& Nakanishi2016).
• It has been also identified that the waterfall model is completed in one project. .on the other hand, the agile methodology is considered as the collection of the several projects.
• The phases of development, testing, designing, etc. can be completed in the model of waterfall once whereas the iterative approach of development is followed by the agile process in the company of Apple.
• It has been identified in the company of Al Hokair that the methodology of the waterfall is the internal process whereas only the customer satisfaction is focused by the agile methods in the company of Apple.

The application of the project management:

It has been identified that both companies Apple and Al Hokair have applied two types of model for doing their project management and the application of these 2 types of the model has been explained in this section of the project management. 

It has been seen that Apple has made the process of decision-making more proper by application of the agile model. The strong customer base of Apple has been made due to the application of the agile model in the project management. The basic version of the software has been made by the company of Apple due to the application of the agile model. On the other hand, it has been identified that the designing and the planning is made more straightforward in the company of Al Hokair by the application of the Waterfall model. The design of the business is completed early due to the application of the waterfall model in the project management.

Stakeholders and Communication

The life cycle of the project consists of four phases. The first stage is initiation. At this stage, the business organizations identify the needs, problems, opportunities as well as the brainstorm ways in order to gratify the need, find out the solutions of the problems as well as seize the opportunities (Stark 2015). The business organization figures out the objectives of the project and recognizes the project’s scope, stakeholders and major deliverables at this stage. The second stage is planning. At this stage, the project management of a business organization creates a plan for the project by estimating the timeline of the project, denoting the tasks needed to be performed as well as including the project phases along with recognizing the possible constraints. At this level, the workflow documents, as well as the process maps, also get created by the project manager. The budget estimation along with financial plan also takes place at this stage. The project management of the company also stockpiles the resources and anticipates the project risks and maintains the quality.Execution is the third phase of the life cycle of a project. At this phase, the project manager assigns the granular project aspects to the appropriate members of the team by creating the tasks as well as organization workflows (Lock 2017). The team members are provided with the explanation of the tasks as well as necessary guidelines and the ways for the completion of the tasks. The project management of an organization provides updates to the project’s stakeholders such as team members, upper management as well as clients by communicating with them (Stark 2015). At this phase, the project management monitors as well as controls the work quality of the team members and ensures that the timeline along with quality goals of the tasks are met by the team members. Managing the budget is also done by the project management at this level. The last level is closure. At this level, the project management analyzed the performance of the project as well as the team members. The management of the project makes sure that all the project aspects are finished properly by providing the reports to the key stakeholders of the project. A conduction of project final analysis is done at this by considering the lessons learned for the future similar projects. The project management also accounts for the user as well as unused budget by allocating the remaining resources for the future projects (Lock 2017).

Conclusion

Figure: Life cycle of a project

(Source: Lock 2017)

The project of the company named Apple Inc is the innovation of products. By considering the agile method, the company Apple Inc undertakes a feasibility study by recognizing the initial problems of the project as well as defining the breadth and depth of the company’s project at the initiation stage. At the planning stage, the company creates a plan of the project by estimating the budget for the project and collecting resources in order to build a functional team for the completion of the required tasks. At the execution level, Apple Inc allocates the specific tasks to the specific team members and provides them with the necessary guidelines in order to complete the project in the typical timeframe and estimated budget. Moreover, the project management of Apple Inc monitors the work quality of the team members. At the last stage, the company analyzes the performance of team members as well asthe project of the company. Apple Inc also makes sure all the project aspects are completed properly (Stark 2015).

The project of Al Hokair is to develop an e-commerce website for the progression of the business at a breakneck speed by considering waterfall method. At the initial stage of the life cycle of the project, the company recognizes its stakeholders for the project and project deliverables.At the following step, Al Hokair creates the workflow documents along with the process maps and also anticipates the risks and maintains the quality.At the next level, the company manages the estimated budget for the project and provides updates to the stakeholders of the project of the company (Lock 2017). At the last stage, Al Hokair conducts a final project analysis and allocates the remaining resources for the future project.

Considering the agile method, the key activities of product innovation project of Apple Inc includes several activities. In the strategic planning, the company adopts the mindset and follows the change disciplines of the organization as per the implementation of the project. Moreover, Apple Inc develops the change vision of the company and prepares itself for the regression, difficulties along with negative attitudes. In the activity of organization collaboration and commitment, all the components of agile are ensured by the company (Layton & Ostermiller 2017). The company also builds an effective team for project completion. The preparation activity trains the organization’s employees to inherit the required knowledge for the project completion. Apple Inc also identifies the measurable outcomes of the project and implements a physical environment for enhancing the collaboration of the project team members. The following activity is execution; where the company enhances the customers’ involvement and includes the requirements in accordance with the security as well as progress monitoring (Layton & Ostermiller 2017). In the evaluation activity, Apple Inc often obtains feedback from the stakeholders and improves the level of the project. The company determines the project value on the basis of customers’ perception and tracks the progress of the project.

Taking in accounts of waterfall methodology, the key activities of development of e-commerce website of Al Hokair consists of various phases. At the phase of documentation and requirement gathering, the company stockpiles comprehensive information in order to implement the project. At the system design phase, the team of the project designs the system by establishing programming language as well as requirements of hardware (Hornby, 2017). The following step is implementation; where the company includes coding and the functional product is created and the information is gathered by the programmers from the last stage. At the testing, Al Hokair begins to test the product and identifies the problems. The project returns the initial stage if any serious issue occurs. The next stage is delivery in which the products get completed and deliverables are submitted by the project team (Hornby, 2017). The last stage is maintenance; in which the company delivers the products to the consumers.

The project deliverables of Apple are as follows:

Ideas:The interest of the senior managers of Apple Inc is expressed by them for the creation of new products. The managers also provide basic information about the products as well at this level.

Creation of product start-up:The Company creates a new team for the project and the team becomes free from the regular structure of the company that helps the team in focusing the development process of the company (Orcik, Vrgovic & Tekic 2014).

Prototyping: The creation of new mockup of the product starts at this phase and it helps in developing the project visually. The design team of the company freely explores the creative ides of the members and selection of idea completes at this level.

The process of a new product:The detail information about the different process stages are provided at this stage.

Weekly review of executive team:The Company conducts a meeting once in a week in order to review the process and build an effective team for achieving the goals and objectives of the organization (Elmansy, 2018).

Design meeting of the peer: A meeting is conducted by the company between the engineers and design team for improvising the idea of design.

Management of production:The management of production ensures the best to be included in the product.

Product testing:The testing of the products is considered at this stage. The executives providefeedback and reviews about the products.

Packaging:This stage allows the design of product packaging and then it is tested on a new prototype.

Road rules:This stage evaluates the entire process along with each milestone of the product innovation. This stage ensures the overall quality of the process along with the product.

On the other hand, the deliverables of development of e-commerce Website of Al Hokair Company are stated below:

Domain name: The Companyselects a domain name for the e-commerce website of the company.

Hosting:It determines the accessibility of the website and efficiency of performance by considering speed, uptime, scalability, support, and security.

Plan for e-commerce website:This stage determines the development of custom and set up of the database along with the time of custom design.

Continuation of e-commerce CMS and maintenance of product database:This stage determines the maintenance of the product database.

Promotion and marketing of e-commerce website: The Company promotes the e-commerce website through the management of social media for engaging the customer (Eskerod & Jepsen 2016).

The company Apple Inc incorporates SWOT analysis for the implementation of the product innovation. The company has become benefitted immensely with the help of this project tool. This tool is applicable in the project implementation and it has assisted Apple Inc for understanding the business better. This tool is applied by the company and gets succored in addressing the weaknesses (Scolozzi et al. 2014). Moreover, this tool helps Apple Inc in deterring the external threats for the company. In addition, the company has applied this tool for capitalizing on the external opportunities that come from the marketplace. Furthermore, it is to be stated that it tool has assisted the company in utilizing the strength of the company. In addition, it is to be stated that Apple Inc gets succored by the application of this project tools in order to develop the business goals as well as create converting as well as matching strategies in order to achieve the goals and objective of the company (Bull et al. 2016). Moreover, the company can endure an effective cost structure by applying this project tool in the implementation of the product innovation as this tool is very cost effective.

Figure: SWOT analysis

(Source: Scolozziet al. 2014)

On the other hand, the company Al Hokair embraces Stakeholder Matrix in order to develop the e-commerce website for the business organization. By the application of this tool, the company can easily identify its stakeholders along with their preferences as well as their roles (Aapaoja & Haapasalo 2014). As development of the project is based on prioritizing the needs of the stakeholders, the company gets help by identifying the stakeholders of the company (Bradley 2016). As a result, the company has easily grabbed the attention and loyalty of the consumers with the application of stakeholder matrix tool in the development of the e-commerce website of the company. In addition, it is to be stated that the company Al Hokair has become able in order to anticipate the potential problems of the project as the company has applied stakeholder matrix in the development of the e-commerce website of the company.

Figure: Stakeholder Matrix

(Source: Bradley 2016)

Conclusion:

The agile method has immensely succored Apple Inc in various ways. The company has become able to satisfy the customers vigorously. The company has utilized the effective process in project deliverables that helps to maintain the quality of products and the application of SWOT analysis has assisted the company in an effective way. Alternatively, Al Hokair has embraced the waterfall method but becomes the failure in customers’ engagement in order to promote the e-commerce website of the company. The stakeholder matrix, on the other hand, has succored the company for the development of the e-commerce website.

The organization Apple Inc needs to utilize powerful and capable representatives, will’s identity capable and supported with the end goal to keep up the nature of the results of the organization. The light-footed strategy has tremendously supported Apple Inc in different ways. The organization has turned out to be ready to fulfill the clients vivaciously. For that, the organization needs to utilize a powerful showcasing chief and also a portfolio administrator as they can be productive with the end goal to grasp a viable advertising and advancement system for the organization. Then again, Al Hokair has grasped the cascade technique however turns into the disappointment in clients’ commitment with the end goal to advance the web based business site of the organization. The partner grid, then again, has supported the organization for the advancement of the online business site.

For bringing effectiveness, recommendations can be suggested to both the companies. The company Apple Inc needs to employ effective and skillful employees, who will be able and justified in order to maintain the quality of the products of the company. On the other hand, it is to be suggested to the company named Al Hokair that the company should endure an effective strategy of brand promotion and product promotion in order to grab the engagement of the consumers. For that, the company needs to employ an effective marketing manager as well as a portfolio manager as they can be efficient in order to embrace an effective marketing and promotion strategy for the company.

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