Leadership and Simulation Theories in Innovative Project Management

Project management requires both soft and business skills to ensure successful implementation. In order to prove its value, project management has to be aligned with the organizational strategy (Project Management Institute 2012). Although managing projects is a difficult task as it requires a leader who can manage complex events that includes a range of diverse activities. The project manager is responsible for planning, organizing, staffing, monitoring and evaluation, problem-solving, controlling and leading the team from the project start until it is completed (Berg & Karlsen 2016). These activities require the development of the leadership skills of the project manager. The transactional leader is a type of leaders that encourages the organizational learning. It is considered as a good type of developing innovative projects. The characteristics of the transactional leader are similar to mine, that is why I have selected this leadership style to be considered in managing the innovative project. Organizations choose the innovative projects to gain a competitive advantage. The success and failure of the innovative project management depend on the type of innovation (Maphosa & Eloff 2012). The following section discusses the leadership and simulation theories in innovative project management, then the project stages are discussed, followed by the skills I have developed during the project. An evaluation of the actions to be or not to be taken is also introduced and finally, the learning outcomes of the project are addressed.

There are different leadership styles that could take place within the organization that facilitates the organizational learning process and knowledge sharing. Managers have to be guided by the organizational virtues represented in vision, culture, safety standards, fairness, humanity and decency. Unlike the assumptions that say that leaders are only led by profit creation, Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000), as cited in Antunes & Franco (2016), argue that virtues are inherited in leaders and represent the responsible leadership with a direct contribution in decision making, increasing productivity, employee retention and higher quality.

The transactional leader is the type of leaders that have the capabilities of influencing employees’ behaviors. He can provide a clear guidance to his followers about the expectations and the actions they have to do and when they fulfill the requirements he provides them with rewards in exchange. The leader-follower relationship, in this case, results in a clear mutual outcome (Afshari & Gibson 2016).

Accordingly, the transactional leadership supports the organizational learning through providing the subordinates with clear goals to be achieved and rewards. Through its unique way of managing the team, the transactional leadership style supports the organizational innovation in different means (Prasad & Junni 2016). The close monitoring of employees is important to quickly realize the areas that need improvements and corrective actions are necessary to be taken. There are two major behaviors to be noticed concerning the development of the transactional leadership behavior. First is the contingent reward that shows the extent to which leaders make clear goals and provide rewards for the employees for their satisfactory performance. Second is the active management by expectation that reveals the extent to which the leader monitors and corrects the employees’ mistakes to meet the required standards. These two dimensions are expected to enhance the organizational innovation, as they represent a commitment from the organization to reward the employees for their innovations (Tung 2016).

Project Stages and Skills Required for Successful Project Management

Burns (1978), as cited in Yahaya & Ebrahim (2016), has noted that both the leader and followers have common targets, but their relationship does not exceed the exchange of mutual benefits. This clarifies an important issue that the transactional leader is only concerned with goals achievement, not the personal development of the employees.

Simulation is a replica of the system that exists in the real world. Simulation development requires coordination among varied activities programmed that think differently. Intimate knowledge of the system is required, for example, a decision needed to manage the loan portfolio requires the know-how of the models involved. Scheduling activities with the Subject Matter Expert (SME) realizing their availability reduces the level of uncertainty. The project details required for the simulation could be gathered from the SMEs by the designers, modelers and programmers. Various resources think in different ways about the same goal and act to serve a unique objective in the same project. The project manager has to resolve any problem and constraints. An important role that could be done with the assistance of a transactional leadership is to create a team synergy through selecting the appropriate resources, open discussions, offering constructive feedback, solving problems and keeping the team together within demanding circumstances. The simulation design could flow in different directions, it is similar to looking at a certain object from different views. Right, left, bottom and up. Each view reveals a different perspective which provides an integrated view (Waghmare & Nandakumar 2013).

Simulations could be used in project management to allow for cost and time management and to enable for quantifying the level of risk of a project budget or deadlines. It offers the project manager with a certain degree of confidence in the implemented project (Kwak 2009).

Innovative work involves solving complex problems and generates novel solutions useful to the customers. It exceeds idea generation to evaluation and implementation. The project manager or leader plays a significant role in offering a work context in which innovation can take place (Rekonen & Bjorklund 2016).

The preparation of the innovative project required me as a project manager to plan for the efforts needed to create intentional changes within the organization. Accordingly, the change I have made was supposed to lead to an increased customer value or product and service value. This innovation is supposed to create a competitive advantage for the organization I work for. In the preparation phase investments, time and expertise were clearly described. The type of technology to be used either it exists or needs to be developed have been clarified and the expected competitive advantage to be achieved have also been determined (Maphosa & Eloff 2012).

Evaluating Risks and Conclusion

Implementing the innovative project required a combination of four elements represented in, the creation of the new product or service by the inventors and technical expertise, identification of the market and technological opportunity, an adaptation of the technology that meets the opportunity requirements and making the necessary inventions and transferring technology through commercialization (Maphosa & Eloff 2012).

There are three models that explain the innovation project outcomes.  First, the incremental model that involves existing users and offerings. Second, the evolutionary model that involves new users with existing offerings or existing users with new offerings. Third, a revolutionary model where innovation includes new users and new offerings (Maphosa & Eloff 2012). I have utilized the evolutionary model as I have meant to expand the users of the existing offerings.

There exist a diversity of actors with different degrees of involvement. The innovative project in common cases involves several actors, each of them acts to fulfill a certain task according to the project plan and its desired goals (Esparcia 2014). I have played the role of the project manager with the assistance of the team members and an external training expert.

Innovation involves high risk in implementing its activities, leaders have to consider the risk and act to avoid it (Khorakian 2011). As a project manager, I had to be familiar with the sources of risk and solve problems associated with them to complete the project.  

There are various types of skills I could develop to overcome work-based problems, they could be discussed according to Flannes 2015, as follows:

• The employment of interpersonal communication techniques to facilitate the process of information transfer and knowledge sharing.
• The ability to apply different leadership roles based on the project requirements and stakeholder needs.
• Crafting multi-factored motivation strategies.
• Managing productivity of individuals and teams.
• As a transactional leader, I have developed the skill of articulating the vision of the project to the team to describe why the project is being done, its added value and the expected competitive advantage to be achieved.
• I could undertake the facilitator role through providing the resources needed by the team to complete the project activities.
• I could act as a mentor by providing assistance to the team members.

• Planning:

A project is a method of work organization that is used to introduce innovation, address challenges and solves problems. Good planning facilitates the success of the project, as it allows for an adequate follow-up and increases the sustainability of the outcomes (Broucke 2012). This was the reason of why I had to prepare a well-planned innovative project.

• Leadership maturity:

I had to think about certain aspects, including the real understanding of my role as a leader, the effectiveness of the formal authority, the ability to motivate others, ways to create a high-performance culture and the importance of the constructive feedback (Art Petty Group 2009)

• Strategic awareness:

I could create a good picture regarding the strategic importance of the innovation project and I could link the project to the outcomes to offer a better service to the customer (Art Petty Group 2009)

• Executive presence:

Creating and maintaining a good relationship with executives is a very important action that was taken. It is also important to be able to create and deliver the right message to the right level (Art Petty Group 2009)   

• Execution orientation:

It was a critical issue to me as a project manager to work with others to get things done. It involves the ability to work with people outside the project team across functional areas effectively to arrange for the project requirements and solve any problem that might occur. Also, I found it essential to develop performance indicators to be able to monitor the project performance (Art Petty Group 2009)

• Risk management:

It was essential to me to ensure the safety standards and legality. Also, financial knowledge is important for the effective running of the project. Outsourcing was used to overcome any potential risk that may prevent the successful implementation of the innovative project (Dishno 2011). As a project manager, my response to risk is likely to lessen the risk effects. The response had been taken according to the nature of the risk. The contingent strategies to respond to the risk effect were developed to be used in certain situations related to a particular event and the secondary plans (Cruz 2016).  

• The failure of creating an effective culture sensing.
• Missing the importance of effective communication.
• Not to provide a feedback or provide it in a harmful way that runes its effectiveness.
• Not taking a good decision in conflict management.
• Failing to link between the organizational strategy and the project goals.

It is very important to select a project with high probability of success, as the hard jobs may lead to project failure (Heagney 2012). I have also realized the importance of having a consultant that guides that guide the team through the project stages.

Self-awareness focuses on certain aspects of the self rather than the external environment. I could focus more on my own behavior and make an evaluation of the actions I could take and determine my strengths and weaknesses. Accordingly, I could evaluate my leadership skills as a transactional leader and the effectiveness of my decisions (Castelli 2016).

Self-improvement starts with awareness, I believe that experience is the best way of improving my skills. It is important to listen to a feedback from seniors and to be coached by experts in the real world. I tried to do certain activities to enhance my learning process following the criteria set by Art Petty Group (2009), as follows:

• Followed a senior leadership mentor that helped me in many situations.
• Asked my team member to evaluate my key leadership skills to identify my strengths and weaknesses.
• Focused on self- development in the specific areas that the mentor and the team members mentioned as weaknesses in my leadership behavior.
• I have worked hard to gain insight on the innovative project that fits the organization’s strategic plan and the competitive advantage that would be created by the end of the project.
• Changed my reading habits by focusing more on the topics related to leadership, project management and corporate strategy in the allocated time for self-learning.
• Tried to improve my meeting management method by reducing their time and frequency and following the specified agenda.
• I had several training programs specified in communication and public speaking.
• I could develop the innovative project objectives, tasks to be completed, create a monitoring system to track the project development and providing rewards to the team members when they effectively complete their tasks.

It was a very successful experience to know how to use simulations in innovative project management. I have gained knowledge about how to manage cost, time and monitor the level of risk associated with each activity.

In order to develop my leadership techniques, I have followed certain criteria as follows:

• As I seek to become an effective project leader, I used to assist my team members with words and rewards.
• Create an energetic environment to enable the team to develop the innovative projects and accomplish their tasks. This action enabled me to provide quick support, solve problems and encourage the high performance of the team members.
• I used to teach the team members the core principles they face every day and problem-solving techniques to develop a learning environment.
• I have managed to ensure the right visibility of the team to motivate them to do their work.
• Facilitate the way of dealing with conflicting issues and idea generation.

Leaders have to reward people for their effectiveness in completing the required tasks and to know when to sanction them if they have failed to achieve the required goals (Heagney 2012). I did not offer unrealistic expectations, but instead, I have set clearly defined objectives that could be achieved.

Conclusions

The transactional leader is the type of leaders that has the capabilities of influencing employees’ behaviors. He can provide a clear guidance to his followers about the expectations and the actions they have to do and when they fulfill the requirements he provides them with rewards in exchange. The close monitoring of employees is important to quickly realize the areas that need improvements and corrective actions are necessary to be taken.

The project manager or leader plays a significant role in offering a work context in which innovation can take place. The preparation of an innovative project requires the project manager to plan for the efforts needed to create intentional changes within the organization. The type of technology to be used either it exists or needs to be developed should be clarified and the expected competitive advantage to be achieved should also be determined.

Simulation is a replica of the system that exists in the real world. Simulation development requires coordination among varied activities programmed that think differently. An important role that could be done with the assistance of a transactional leadership is to create a team synergy through selecting the appropriate resources, open discussions, offering constructive feedback, solving problems and keeping the team together within demanding circumstances.

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