For this assignment, you will conduct some academic research on project manageme

Question

For this assignment, you will conduct some academic research on project management and Six Sigma applications. You may use your textbook as a resource, but you must also use at least one additional outside resource. You will use your research to formulate your own plan and proposal. Your report must cover the following points but not necessarily in this order. Please do not limit your responses to this bulleted list..

1. Explain why project proposals, including Six Sigma projects, must support an organization’s mission and goals. 2.

2. How are project management skills important in the Six Sigma process?

3. Project plans must provide details about how the project will be accomplished. Select six of these details and describe and discuss their importance.

4. Consider a project that you are working or might work on either at work or here at school. Using information in the textbook and your resource(s) as a guide, write a project proposal.

Be sure to include in your proposal why your proposal should be accepted.

Please answer all of the questions, if you can not answer all of the questions do not reply.

Explanation / Answer

Project management and six sigma application

            A project is an activity performed by an organization in order to achieve a predetermined outcome. It’s not limited to persons involved but it is temporal and have a clear start and end. According to Tonnquist, B. (2008), projects are commonly used for realizing goals and visions of a business. Having a clear distinct5ion between the organization activities and project activities helps to clear confusion about different duty performance. Project management helps organisations to perfect customer relations and experience shorter development time, higher reliability and clear orientation towards goals (Meredith, J and Mantel, S (2010)). Six sigma is discipline that deals with process improvement based on result-oriented leadership, competence and problem solving methodology (Sörqvist, L and Höglund, F (2007)). Organisations that have implemented this discipline can capitalize on the success of individual projects by investing as a way to amplify potential gains across the organization.

            Project proposals are brought up to help organisations achieve their goals and missions by rising strategies that will lead to their success. For this to happen, the project proposal must have clear and strategic layout to support organization’s mission and goals. The project manager should play a potent role in executing organizational strategies by providing critical information the executives who set organizational strategies. Proposals outline plans to the organization about a project. They give detailed information as to why the organization should implement it and how to manage it. Clear expected outcome from the implemented project is also started to create confidentiality to the organization of implementing it. Project proposals also must explain how an organization will accomplish the stated goals by discussing the project activities including who will conduct them, how and when.

            Six sigma projects must support organization’s goals through its methodology of helping project managers develop mission to provide positive organizations environment. Six sigma is used to increase revenue, reduction of cost and improve processes which is every organization’s goal. Its methodology improves newly stabilized process metrics which is a benchmark. When this methodology is used appropriately, organizations can maintain their rigorous goals and work towards their achievement. Due to its documented methodology, six sigma improvements can give organizations high returns when appropriately used. Project proposals and six sigma projects must therefore support organization’s mission and goals as they are key managerial components that facilitate business development.

            The art of planning and handling project activities to ensure achievement of organization’s goals and objectives in time requires technical skills. Project management has four levels of hierarchy involved in implementing these skills. These include the corporate Centre who in charge of corporate strategies, project sponsor who owns the project, project manager who is responsible for the management of project team and the project team members who executes the project.

            The project management skills of designing detailed budget and prediction of project resource cost aligns with the financial systems’ integration which is a standard practice in six sigma and also part of the project. The capability of setting clear specifications and objectives for the organization to achieve the highest outcome quality is an essential project management skill which is important in six sigma main objective of improving quality of the processes by reduction of variation. Project management skills help to capture the important issues to consider when selecting a six sigma project that includes profit maximization, maintaining of market share, consolidating market position, the opening of new markets, maximum utilization of available resources, boosting organization’s image and handle organization’s risks.

            Project plans must be set strategically to be effective and accomplish the company’s goals. The project must start with preparation. Here the project manager chooses the team members who will be part of the project. A work breakdown structure is created by stakeholders and they produce a detailed plan in all phases of the project. The project initial documents are produced in this phase and actions are put in place to secure key resources of the project. This helps to set the approximate time that will be needed to complete the process. Secondly, there is the design phase. In this stage, the project’s deliverables are created using project initial documents and the project team work with the stakeholders to develop the designs of the deliverables. Flow charts and swim lane diagrams are used to create map of the working. This help to create an easier way of viewing and designing stages. Thirdly there is the development and testing stage where building of the components of project outputs is began. This helps to confirm that all the components are working properly as they should.

            The fourth phase is the training and business readiness where there is the preparation of the project launch. Users are trained, outgoing support is put in place and transferring of data into the new system is conducted. The fifth phase is the support and benefit realization where transitional support is provided after the launching. Project benefit delivery is monitored in this level before the project team is assigned to another field. Finally the project closure phase takes place where documents are completed and stored, post-implementation review is carried out and project team members are reassigned to appropriate roles in the organization.

            Having considered all these steps, a proposal should be viable and ready to implement. An organization that considers such measure can achieve a reasonable outcome and keenly following the project proposal since all measures are taken into consideration and chances of failure are completely minimal.

References

Meredith, J and Mantel, S (2010) Project Management - A Managerial Approach, p 13

Montgomery, D.C., Woodall, W.H.: An overview of Six Sigma. Int. Stat. Rev. 76(3), 329–346

(2008)

Sörqvist, L and Höglund, F (2007) Six Sigma, p. 31

Tonnquist, B (2008) Projektleading, p. 5

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