Project Management – Case Study 1

Understanding project success through analysis of

project management approach

Submitted By

Praveen Nair
1. How, in your opinion, is the “Pentagon model” (Schiefloe, 2011) suitable
for analysing the performance of a project organization? Explain.
Pentagon model is a good tool for evaluating and understand the effect of
different project management approaches. It can be used for analyzing the
performance of complex organizations.
1.Develop and apply in connection with causal analysis.
2.It is a system oriented approach which combines a system perspective
with a social constructivist theoretical approach, characterized by
keywords such as interpretations& sense making.
3.It considers both formal and informal aspects into account.
4.Can be adapted based on different project organization
It analyses five different aspects

Aspects Type of Qualities

aspect
Structure Formal 1. Formal organization
2. Roles and responsibilities
3. Rules and regulations
4. Defined procedures
5. Working requirements
Technologies Formal 1. Tools
2. Infrastructure
Ex. Project control systems,
communication and collaboration
techniques, office layout etc
Culture Informal 1. Tools
2. Infrastructure
Ex. Project control systems, communication
and collaboration techniques, office layout etc
Interaction Informal 1. Communication
2. Cooperation
3. Coordination
Social relations Informal 1. Social Capital
and networks 2. Trust
3. Commitments
4. Knowledge sharing
5. Power and alliances
6. Competition and conflicts
 The 5 aspects of the Pentagon model can be applied to analyses factors which
influence the performance of the project organization as they cover both
formal and informal internal qualities in a systematic way. It analyses the
project organization based on external context and external relations.
Pentagon model has tried to develop a correlation between the success of a
project and influencing factors. It has tried to illustrate different scenarios
possible by which a project can succeed. It has tried substantiating the success
by relating the factors with three cases analyzed in the paper.

2. Which Project Management approach according to you would be better than

all others? Why? Substantiate with examples from the case, and theory.
Two kinds of approach discussed in the paper:
1. Prescriptive Approach 2. Adaptive Approach
1. Prescriptive Approach:
• Entering from the top through the formal qualities.
• Focuses on formal quality of a project organization, including
Governing, documentation and procedures
• Traditional project mgmt approach.
• Framework for how the project organisation can work so that earlier
mistakes can be avoided.
• Creates a common knowledge platform for the project team and its
contractors.
• Entering from the top through the formal qualities.
• The focus is on accomplishing the project task.
2. Adaptive Approach:
• Focus on the process of developing and improving a project
organization, project culture and team commitment.
• Entering the project from the bottom part of the model through the
informal quality.
• Starts with the organization aspect, but also requires that the formal
quality are developed as soon as the project has been launched.
 Analysis
A Adaptive approach is better than the prescriptive approach.
B The conventional project management focuses widely on formal
concepts and cannot adapt to a dynamic bushiness environment.
C Traditional approach focuses on the plan and adherence to plans
whereas adaptive approach can be customized or tailored by the team
to meet their requirements.

Advantages of adaptive approach:

• The model considers the strategic as well as the tactical aspects of project
performance in the short term and the long term
• It introduces novelty, technology & complexity
• It focuses on customer interaction and customer satisfaction
• Projects work with self-managed teams that are empowered to take
decisions
• Agile process are relatively light-weight
• Megaproject normally have long duration which sometimes results in
significant changes in the project management team and adaptive approach
takes care of it.

3. Which factors are critical for project success? How are these different from
project management success? Does Project management success mean
project success too? Discuss.
Below are the factors for project success.
• Support from senior management
• Clear realistic objectives
• Strong/detailed plan kept up to date
• Good communication/feedback
• User/client involvement
• Skilled/suitably qualified/sufficient staff/team
• Effective change management
• Competent project manager
• Strong business case/sound basis for project
The project management mainly focuses on few important key elements like
• Optimization - Planning, breakdown techniques, and scheduling of
complex tasks
• Factor - Success factors and project outcomes/project performance
• Contingency - Project organization design/structure
• Behaviour - Project organization processes
• Governance - Governance of project organizations/transactions
• Relationship - Management of the formation and development phase
of projects
• Decision - The interplay among decision makers in the early stages of
projects

Project Management success does not literally mean it’s also project success.
The project is executed due to reason, if the project succeed then project
management succeeds, as in project management Governance and outflow
from input and ROI is been calculated, if nothing is met in project then its
failure at both end, if projects success in turn management of project is
considered to be successful.