BRAVO, Maria Cristine A.

August 22, 2020

MPA – RDP Section A PA – 222
20-0912-132

Reflection Essay No. 2

When assigned with a project with explicit responsibilities and expectations, honor,
excellence, and optimism will be the primary personal things that I will consider. Similar to
what I think, many people feel honored when asked to manage a project for their
organization, especially if it is a high-profile org and if they have a committed and motivated
team focused on project success. However, for many reasons, a project may easily become
one that is at risk. Despite the fact that all project stakeholders want a goal that everything
goes well, this is not realistic in many organizations. As what PMI Pulse of Profession 2020
revealed, 11.4% of investment is wasted due to poor project performance (PMI, 2020) –
threatening the existence of the organization and delivering such lesser value than expected.
For this reflection essay, I will be applying what I have learned from the previous
discussion on how would I deal with identifying the underlying needs that the project is
supposed to meet in order to solve the right problem. Initially, I should be following the
fundamental stages of project development discussed last meeting. These stages include the
initiation, research, requirements, estimates, planning, procurement, architecture and design,
implementation, testing, deployment, and even closing. For the initiation, it is the process of
developing the concept and initial goals of the project. When the primary goals of the projects
were already set, it is then to be followed by the research stage. This stage is where the proper
questions are addressed and problems space are filled in. After citing proper questions for
research, the project will now move to its estimating stage. This is the process where
requirements are mapped for tasking and then estimating the effort required for each task.
Afterwards, when done with identifying the tasks, the management will then gather
requirements from stakeholders and refine them in resolving inconsistencies. Moreover,
planning stage will be next. This is where the management arranged the work prioritization. It
is also the stage where dependencies are identified. The work structure and schedule of
timeline will also take place on this stage. I am now ready for the procurement of the
resources needed for the completion of the project. The procurement stage will let me have
the materials, parts, components, services, facilities, infrastructure, and manpower that I need,
but of course, with the proper budgeting. When the resources are finally set, implementation
of the project will now take place. This implementation phase will discuss the deliverables
needed for the project to happen. And of course, this implementation could not happen if the
architecture and design stage is not included. This stage is mostly important if the project
assigned to me is an infrastructure project. This stages discusses the design of solution such
as the architectural or interior design of the project itself. When done with the structural
(which is an optional stage since not every project is an infrastructure project), testing stage is
next. This is the quality control stage of the project development. It is also commonly known
as the prototype stage for product-based projects. The process of confirming if the actual
reflects what is planned is on this step. Once the project passed the testing period, it will now
be ready for deployment or the actual operationalization. However, after the deployment
period, the development stage still has to end with the closing point. This is not an exit stage
rather a process of releasing resources, finalizing the process that passed the testing phase,
and communicating the close of the project.
The stages discussed above surely gives anyone the confidence of being guided in
project development. However, as I make my report for the next meeting, I realized that one
of the most common mistakes that project managers and developers make is that they
sometimes become overconfident of everything. The excess enthusiasm and excitement
sometimes put every color in grey. Being aware of the stages of project development gives
the managers and developers the idea that they already focused on the rationality of the
requirements and projection of attainable results, therefore, they are now good to go – and
that is not reality. Similar to what Dr. JM Juran mentioned, once you started developing a
project, you created a problem scheduled to be solved. This is due to the reason that project
development is not just a one directional flow of everything. You have to be ready for its
consequences for there are factors that you cannot control. Or even if you have a control over
it, sometimes you are not aware that you are already doing irreversible impacts to the project.
However, even if the project is also a problem needed to be solved, your edge in this is that
you already know that you have a problem. Therefore, you should not be at ease. You should
always be ready for the contingencies. You have to familiarize yourself with the possible
pitfalls that may come along the project. You should not forget that not all the time,
everything will go smoothly as expected – not all the time, things will go according to plan.
The need of understanding why projects fail is important and should be studied explicitly. In
agreement with Shore (2008), it is useful to explore and trace the causes of failure in order to
diagnose the problem and perhaps prevent project failure from occurring. There are several
reasons for project failure. One reason mentioned last meeting is the scope creep. Scope
Creep happens when there is an ambiguous scope definition or when the project scope is a
moving target. This is highly likely to happen when project managers make the mistake of
following and implementing each and every change requested. The project manager should
evaluate first how the change will impact the project. He or she should have to consider,
juggle, and balance the three fundamental aspects of project delivery discussed last meeting –
the scope, time, and cost.
Aside from scope creep, there are still lots of risks and uncertainties that projects
faced upon its development process. These include numerous pitfalls encountered by the
project which will be discussed in the next meetings, specifically on the topic assigned to me.
However, to be able to handle these challenges on multiple fronts, one must be aware of the
common challenges that they might face along the project journey.
References

Leadership, T., & Profession, P. (2020). PMI Pulse of the Profession^®

2020. Retrieved 20 August 2020, from https://www.pmi.org/learning/thought-

leadership/pulse/pulse-of-the-profession-2020#:~:text=Pulse%20of%20the

%20Profession%202020%20(2020).,due%20to%20poor%20project

%20performance.&text=Project%20professionals%20are%20leading%20cross,other

%20areas%20of%20the%20business.

Shore, B. (2008). Systematic Biases and Culture in Project Failures. Project Management

Journal, 39(4), 5–16. doi:10.1002/pmj.20082