Online Abstracts - Page 3/3
ProMAC 2015
The Adoption of Hofstede’s perspective in International Construction Project Performance
Agustina Fitrianingrum, Yudi Fernando
Become managers in the multinational company considered as a challenging task, because they are influenced not only by the job that needs to be done but also by the cultural values they bring to an organization. Culture is complex which includes shared values, expectations and norms found within countries, regions, social groups, and business firms. When it turns to cross culture it becomes more complicated where there are two or more cultures in a group of people and the cross-cultural management becomes inevitably task. A manager requires to have a competency as a social architect, means that they must understand the relationship of behavioral variables and its influence to project performance that is measured as project success indicators. Examining the relevant of culture to project management is obviously important since the project is being global and borderless. International projects have been boosted by the international funding agencies that give loan to developing countries. This trigger a number of contractors from the developed country are being involved with construction projects funded by international funding agencies. As the consequences, a manager should be able to work with the individuals from other cultures. Since construction is a project-based industry that often suffers from poor performance in terms of time delays, cost overruns and quality defects, this paper attempts to expose the culture’s role in the project management by adopting the Hofstedes’ perspective. The oleo-chemical construction project in the Indonesia is the setting of the research. The paper adopts the Hofstedes’ perspectives on cultural dimensions as power distance, uncertainty avoidance, collectivism, future orientation, performance orientation and humane treatment to explain its relationship in the organization. The purpose is to draw a clear line how does the cultural affect the management. Employing the cross-cultural management would contribute as success drivers in the international construction project performance.
Suggestion about a Communication Method by which Sales Manager Cooperates with Project Manager
Atsushi,SUGIMOTO, Yuji,YASUDA
Generally a large-scale system development project is managed by project members and the budget based on the project risks. On the other hand in the case of large-scale project that is planed to develop more than one user company , and at the following development phase, project members and the budget is restricted because of reducing the project risks. We took part , as sales manager for an IT outsourcer , in the large-scale project which does Teller Machine renewal to each company(bank) of a certain financial group. And the project was put in the success by the quality, the cost and the delivery in spite of limited budget and project members. In this paper we propose about a communication method by which sales manager cooperates with a project manager and leads the project to success.
Effects of Risk Countermeasures According to a Project’s Progress
Ayaka OSHIMA, Yuki Kusano, Shin-ichiro Yokoyama
Of late, it is believed that the risks associated with a project’s failure are many, owing to complex customer requirements, development support environments, development methodology, and so on. Therefore, it is important that suitable measures be taken to counter the risks affecting a project. Apart from these measures, risk avoidance plans and risk reduction plans are made according to the size of the risk. The influence of risks on a project is different and varies according to the stage of a project. A risk avoidance plan is suitable when the risks in a project are high, and a risk reduction plan is suitable when the risks in a project are relatively low. It is good practice to get familiar with the countermeasures taken in past cases, rather than in newer ones. The success probability of a project is likely to improve if countermeasures are taken prior to and post risks. However, success also depends on the project manager’s intuition and experience. Therefore, it is important to obtain knowledge about the cause and effect of a project’s failure from past case studies. Then, the aim of this research is to apply the risks and the countermeasures associated with a past project to a current one in order to improve the success probability of the current project, which can serve as a valuable tool in preventing a project’s failure. The countermeasures, risk avoidance plans, and risk reduction plans, may be only partially effective. But, by using the technique of the proposal, the relationship between the risks of the project at each stage and the success probability of the project can be determined.
Simulation-Based Role-Play Training for Project Management Education
Taichi Nakamura, Shota Horio
Role-play is suitable for the introductory stage of project management training. Role-play training proceeds according to a role-play scenario describing a virtual project. This scenario based role-play training is a pre-stage to practical application and an alternative to the on-the-job training (OJT), and it enables the student to study practices in order to learn about the actions he or she will have to take as a team member. In this paper, we propose an educational method using simulation-based role-play training in order for a student to acquire skills of decision make, and progress management required for an excellent project manager. In FY2014, we carried out the project management education providing consisting role-play training seven times to the third year undergraduate students. The first role-play training is a scenario-based role-play training implemented on the online group-work training environment named PROMASTER (PROject Management Skills Training EnviRonment) to acquire human-related skills: leadership skills, communication skills, and negotiation skills. Once students have obtained knowledge through classroom lectures and the scenario-based role-play training, the second and third steps of face-to-face based group works are conducted using learner-created WBS, task network figures, a Gantt chart, and a performance measurement baseline (PMB), which are created at an initial phase of an actual project. The artifacts created by students in the exercise included a project plan to be used in a simulation-based role-play exercise implemented by a system named COMPASS (training for COMprehensive Project mAnagement competency based on a Simulation System). The proposed educational method would be capable for a student to learn about a way of solving the encountered problems in an actual project through this experience. In an actual project, there is no room for failure as occurred in this exercise. However, through the simulated experience of failure, it is possible for students to learn. Hence, the exercise is an effective a part of project management education and this can be regarded as an effective system.
Application of PROMCODE Open Project Management Platform to Large-Scale Multi-Vendor Collaborative Projects
Mikio Aoyama
PROMCODE (PROject Management for Contracted DElivery) is an open platform for exchanging project management data on the Web. It enables to collaboratively manage projects, especially for the multi-vendor projects in the development of large-scale software systems. The PROMCODE interface specification is defined for exchange management data across different organizations while each organization keeps current project management practice unchanged. The PROMCODE interface specification is based on the common project management model elaborated from the experiences of large-scale multi-vendor software development projects in Japan. The common project management model defines a model of scope, work items and artifacts. After the PROMCODE interface specification is published in Japan, it is now underway to the international standard of OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards). The PROMCODE interface specification is open since it is based on open standards including Web and OSLC (Open Services for Collaborative Cifecycle). Based on the PROMCODE interface specification, the member companies of PROMCODE consortium are adopting the interface specification to the proprietary project management tools or Excels. They are also deploying the tools on the cloud computing platforms. With the deployment of the tools, the PROMCODE member companies are working toward the application of the platforms to real projects. This article reports the problems and solutions in the application of PROMCODE interface specification to real project management of large-scale multi-vendor software development projects. This article also discusses the impact of the Web-based open interface standard for the project management of multi-vendors.
Vehicle Requisition System with Automated Gate in Public Sector, Rwanda
CYUZUZO Yves
Rwanda government owns vehicles for helping government employees while they performing official Government business. National Institute of Statistic of Rwanda (NISR), one of public institute in Rwanda is the primary statistical agency that has the mandate to produce general purpose statistics. NISR currently owns 32 vehicles which facilitate and supporting employees in their activities of coordinating and collecting reliable data in the whole country. Employees share vehicle available for business uses, through vehicle requisition process, but up to now this process everything is done manual. A lot of vehicles requisitions spend much time waiting the approval or denial of any hierarchical staff in case he/she is not in the office. And employees spend much time moving from their offices to submit the vehicles requisitions forms. Objectives of this project is to recover time spent by the requisitions process and related control traffic flow in parking with RFID tags technology which will hence public sector working effectively and efficiently. In this thesis, the project plan of the prototype development that limited in vehicle requisition process in public sector by facilitating the users (Administrators and users) is mainly described. The main functions include registering, editing and tracking the requests. The research hypothesis is also introduced for the verification, such as: (1) Developing a web base system will save time with visible transaction process and report generation. It will increase the efficiency in the functioning and good services delivery of institutions. (2) RFID technology will improve the vehicles traffic management process by offers visibility of real-time vehicles movement, less manual work and costs. The research is planed with actual measuring the time reduction and questionnaires to users for their satisfaction. The results of research are planned to be reported after it completed.
Designing Process to Manage a Project
Yoshihiro Akiyama, Masaaki Hashimoto, Masanobu Umeda, Keiichi Katamine
Projects have become more complicated, complex, and agile with increasing project sizes, cost, and reducing delivery time. Surely, during such a project life cycle, the team must manage changes in the stated requirements, team members, other resources, schedule, and quality objectives. Achieving such project goals that the stakeholders understand and agree with the team at the beginning has become less successful. The first successful processes were developed for software by Watts Humphrey of SEI Carnegie Mellon University during the last two decades (1990s and 2000s). The processes, called as Personal Software Process (PSP) and Team Software Process (TSP,) are operational processes which every team members define and follow a step by step to achieve the stated goals in a self-managed way. The TSP has demonstrated the success in multiple software development areas such as business system, embedded systems, and aircraft and aerospace systems and suggest to realize the proven-potential to improve today’s practice of managing projects. This presentation discusses first the process and its detailed features necessary to cover key activities of a project team during the team and project life cycles respectively. Then we describe briefly an approach for how to design such a project process and when to implement them respectively. Difficult challenges in the process design and implementation are discussed including the experiences that we have had through industry projects and education and PBL at Kyushu Institute of Technology: - How the team’s management is involved at the beginning and during the lifecycle, - How and when the team prepares its capabilities or skills of team members, - How to manage the performance early enough to achieve the project goals particularly the quality goals stated by the customers.
New Agribusiness in a Local Town: Application of New Education Program for Septimal Industry
Misaki UENO, Motohiro Adachi
In Japan, the economy of local towns have been deteriorating last two decades, but no remedy has been found to tackle this crucial social issue. Under this circumstances, revitalizing town by “septimal” industry has been focused upon by far. The “septimal” industry is defined as the new industry where a positive non-economic farming value (i.e. enjoy the space of green sites or enjoy the atmosphere of crowd of a food festival) added to the “sextiary” (sixth) business returns which combine the business activities of the primary (i.e. farming), secondary (processing), and tertiary (commercial) sectors. This paper examines in what ways septimal industry can contribute to the added value of local business from a viewpoint of project management system. In order for this purpose, we employ a case study of ‘student-led farming and processing business as well as creating crowd of the shopping street. This attempt has newly started with teachers and students at Wakayama University in Japan, which is administrated by education program at the university.
Agile Transition from Project Management to Product Development Flow
Wei ZHAO
Large traditional software development usually use projects to manage the scope and schedule for every involved development teams. That’s the big obstacle to do large scaled agile transition, for example, the fixed mindset of project scope, big-upfront analysis and plan, project deadline, functional silo team etc. This paper presents one case of applying product development flow principles to solve the obstacles. The background of the case is that the project charter will take long time to get approval, therefore, the cost of investing the project charter frequently is very big in case agile iteration has been applied. Meanwhile a few SME make the effort estimation, plan and committed date in the very earlier phase, but when the dedicated teams are released to begin the new project, the time and environment, the understanding of the requirements and the scope have been changed, but the committed release date has to be kept. And every team will handle many different projects at the same time. The team cannot focus to delivery with many interfered sources. The product development flow is a mode that all the demands are managed in one unified feature backlog as the big requirements pool, and then there is no project concept anymore only continuous development concept exists, the development teams’ focus has changed from many projects’ scope to time-boxed content release, it’s called product iteration release. The teams will refresh, update and commit their product iteration plan in the beginning of every small development iteration. Meanwhile to solve the frequent charter issue for so many projects, the project charter activity can be done once a year or twice a year to reduce the waste and cost of management and approval in order to keep the vision and roadmap of the large software development.
Social CRM system realization in drastic changing China market.
Sun Yan Feng
Client is a decorative company from China, and public it’s stock at ShenZheng Stock Exchange Market. It’s business include design, construction, product procurement, household production. Client invested in new IT technology/system construction to increase it’s market share, especially on B2C (Business to Client) part. IBM has provided client ERP solution and IT Planning before this opportunity coming. In this project, IBM planned to provide a Social CRM system that include 1) CRM system to integrate customer information and sales, pricing, post-sale information. 2) Cloud platform for customer that they can confirm progress of decorative work with Smart Device(IOS, Android), PC real-timely. 3) Social networking platform for information share among designer, construction team and customer. During propose phase, we defined solution deliver as traditional waterfall model, and made project management plan accordingly as we have done hundreds of times before. However client’s requirement changed frequently with deliver moving on, that caused big deliver issue on scope/cost/time/… management. After root cause analysis(5 why), we got to know the deep reason is client’s business changing rapidly to align with the drastic change in China market. Per deep communication with client, we change/re-define the method to Agile instead, that reflect the real business situation with principle put client first. IBM CRM Asset which harvested from another China client was utilized to reduce repeated effort and help to achieve the milestone with tight schedule. Social CRM system brought perfect customer experience in mobile platform, improved the sales conversion ratio, and strengthen the client’s competitive in dynamic market.
A study for Creating Autonomous Distributed Project Team
Yasunobu Kino
General organization, for example company organization, government organization and project organization, tend to has hierarchical structure in itself. We tend to calls that kind of structure as Command and Control types. In this organization, managers or leaders direct project members to execute certain tasks. We believe that kind of stricture is a natural organization behavior. On the other hands, there are different stricture in some organization called as Autonomous Distributed. Autonomous Distributed types does not have clear managers or leaders. Every project member behaves according to their own decision. In this paper, we will discuss the differences of Command and Control Organization Type and Autonomous Distributed Organization Type. After that, we will discuss how to create effective Autonomous Distributed Team.
Complex Project Management in New Generation Banking System Integration
Ms Xue Ying Guo
To meet daily increasing business demand, one of China Local Bank launched a project to construct new generation banking system for gaining the advantage of region business and competition environment. Scope of this project included 100+ Applications development/upgrade, New Data Center Building, New IT Infrastructure (Servers, Storages, Network, etc.) and Disaster Recovery system rebuild. Client IT department (100+ staff) and more than 80 suppliers’ company, thousands of engineers are dedicating on this project. Considering lack of experience, client signed an integration consulting project with IBM. The complexity of this project include: 1. Negative Client Relationship Management due to Re-Organization of Client IT Department. 2. Complex System Integration Management for multiple applications/Infrastructure and comprehensive data migration. 3. Challenge contract management with fix-price contract, while consulting service scope not aligned with client. Leverage CPM Relationship management method, IBM Team analyzed stakeholders at client side, identified their different attitude to IBM and take related action plan to cover them. Phase by phase, client’s attitude to IBM changed from “Waste”, “Useless” to “Add Value” and then authorize “Best Supplier” award. Through deep experience of banking system, adopting IBM World Wide Project Management Methodology—WWPMM, IBM planned 3-tier management schedule, help client well planned and controlled 100 applications integration both at software level and Infrastructure level, which help client mitigate high risk of system cut-over. Even after 9 months project delivery, service scope still can’t be aligned with client due to ambiguous definition in fix price contract. With several months’ communication and negotiation, we reached agreement and have some profit exchange within project scope, finally the contract was completed as target, and client signed new contract with IBM for extension service. Finally IBM Project team successfully help client complete this complex project as planned. System performance achieved double TPS after cut-over. Client issued thanks letter to IBM to recognize IBM’s professional project management.
How to Work in a Virtual Project Team
Dennis Jin
Today many skilled professionals work as part of a virtual team. The virtual side of your work might be challenging. You may found it hard to build relationships with other teammates. Many of your co-workers are located in different countries, and they rely heavily on email, instant messaging, and video chat to communicate. You often caught yourself jumping to conclusions or misinterpreting emails, because you are unable to communicate with your colleagues in person. As a result, team interactions can be strained and unsure, and conflicts can arise, which has resulted in some tension within the group. If you're part of a virtual team, then this situation may sound familiar. In this article, we'll look at how you can work successfully in a virtual team. There are many tools and strategies that you can use to work successfully in a virtual team. We look at these below. Effective communication is important within a virtual team. Proper communication strategies not only help you avoid misunderstandings, but it will also increase your effectiveness. At times, you might need to raise issues with your boss or colleagues, or participate in other sensitive discussions. When this occurs, think about how you're going to communicate in a virtual team. There are some useful tools you can use to strengthen the connections among you and your team members. Use social networking tools such to connect with team members. When you work in a virtual team, you have to make an extra effort with relationships. It's normal for professionals who work virtually to experience feelings of isolation. You might also feel as if your organization has ""forgotten"" you, if you often work remotely.
Oracle Business Intelligence Applications 11g: How to Avoid Project Failure?
Michael Lebedinski
Every business has its own model of operation and information needs that supports strategic decision-making. Oracle Business Intelligence Applications 11g (OBIA) provides a highly customizable platform for implementation of analytical reporting solutions. The many benefits of OBIA come with a cost of significant implementation effort and project risks. Segregation of analytical reporting requirements, protecting project scope from creep, controlled agility, scheduling project in conjunction with other projects and allocation of relevant resources can reduce an OBIA project risks to a manageable level. The key to a successful OBIA project is taking into account the critical risk factors including scope and schedule. Failure to address any of these critical risk factors increases the chance of failure dramatically. Key Words & Phrases: Oracle, Business Intelligence, BI Applications, OBIA, OBIEE, ODI, EBS, DW, Data Warehouse, E-Business Suite, Analytical Reporting
Utilization of ERP in Various Government Departments
Kunal Kumar Rai
ERP systems are most integrated information system to collect, store, manage and interpret data for effective plan and control of an organization and its various departments. Today’s Government’s departments require some strategies to increase their efficiency, transparency and accountability to improve usability and citizen services. In this paper, an attempt has been made to visualize the impact of ERP systems in government’s various departments. Here we are planning to implement the ERP system in various government departments like the Finance Ministry for budget planning, Tax calculation and revenue management. HRD Ministry for Human resource development in the field of education and research and bidding of government’s tender with the help of ERP. SCM System in Ministry of Railways and Ministry of Food Processing Industries will help in better Food Storage, Movement and Vigilance as well as Quality by analysis and planning. We are now going to discuss here- how this software, system and its functionality can be implemented and how this will become beneficial for the government and its citizen. We will also going to discuss how it will help in the prevention of corruption, fraud, waste and abuse and how it’s going to bring transparency between government and its citizen. We are also going to analyze- what are the risks in implementing this. For this study, Government of India Ministries namely HRD, Agriculture and Finance have been selected. Based upon the this ERP model, the various recommendations have been suggested; So that the government can also perform advanced analysis and planning using large volumes of data, accurately prediction of future trends, delivery of better results and get the beneficiary results of it. Implementation of ERP in various government Sector Companies like Oil and Gas, Security and Defense, Telecommunication etc. are playing a crucial role in their development and progress which is also stimulating us to use the same technology benefit of citizens of citizen, for transparency in governance in order to eliminate Corruption, Fraud, Waste and Abuse.
An Approach of Designing Projects on Project-Based Learning: Case Study at Department of Home Economics, Kobe Women’s University
Masatoshi Kaimasu
Project-Based Learning (PBL) is one of the significant methods to gain students` knowledge and skills through their group works at school. Various educational institutions, e.g. universities and high schools, have adopted PBL nowadays. The Department of Home Economics, Kobe Women’s University (KWU) also introduced the life production course 5 years ago. In the course, students participate in Practice I, II and III to gain practical knowledge and skills of PBL. There were some good practices to collaborate several partners, e.g. local government and private firms, in the past. These were often carried out based on partners’ issues and needs. Practice III is an implementation stage. Prior to implementing projects in Practice III, students need to understand these and design projects in Practice I and II. Design skills are required to improve analysis of situations and issues. In another word, logical analysis is crucial. In addition, design is often associated with creativity, which often has opposite meanings. Students also have limited experiences and skills. Thus it is not easy to design proposed projects. In addition, the Project Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) focuses on planning and implementation phases. There is little description of design phase in projects. This paper introduces trail approaches for design phase of projects at KWU. Both improvisation and logic trees are introduced in Practice I and II. Through the result of questionnaires, which assess the classes at the end of terms, effectiveness of the improvisation and logic trees can be examined.
Evolution of ‘Project Management’ as a Scientific Discipline
Alireza Abbasi, Ali Jaafari
In this research, we investigate the quantity and quality of worldwide research production in the field of “project management” over the past 35 years. We perform bibliometric analysis using the Scopus database between 1980 and 2014 to develop an understanding of the evolution of research on “project management”. Using the knowledge of a domain expert in the field of “project management”, we first develop a set of reliable keywords which represent the field. Secondly, we develop a data extraction strategy for searching on the phrase “project management” in the title or keyword or abstract of publications by limiting our sources to journals in English. We observe the evolution of this field by analysing not only the quantity of publications, but also their quality (citations) per year and compare their growth trend in four periods. The results of our analysis confirms that the not only the research themes or topics but also the active parties involved in project management research are changing over time.