Summary of PBL Session 1

Assalamualaikum and the very good day to all of my potential readers. Today I will talks about the  Problem Base Learning: Session 1 what I have done regarding the PBL.The 1^st meeting is going well as I expected. All my team members which is our team leaders Hassan, Azmi and myself having discussion about Problem Base Learning: Session 1 and the title of the event is Management Meeting. Firstly, we focused on understanding the situation of the event. If there any our team members not understand the story line of the event, we will share the understanding and knowledge each others until 3 of us really understand the situation so that we can easily solve the problem base learning session 1.

                The 2^nd meeting held in our house, pink bungalow. This meeting, we will start focus on problem solving about the questions that had been given to all each groups. We together answered the questions, if there any different ideas about the answer, we will finalized and choose the best answers of each questions. On this meeting, all of team members giving full of commitment when doing this task.

                Moreover, the 3^rd meeting also still held at our house in Jengka. We going focusing on giving final touch and double check about what we had doing before this before submit to our beloved lecturer, Encik Mohamad Azmi Bin Nias Ahmad.Alhamdulillah, everything going fine. After we finished up all the problems and solution, we email the task to Encik Azmi.

Lastly, I want to pay the most of our grateful and thank to Allah s.w.t for His blessing, I was able to complete our task. I also want to thank to our beloved lecturer, Encik Mohamad Azmi Bin Nias Ahmad because with his guidance and teaching, the understanding of this topic become greater and it make it easy for me to complete the task. In order to complete this task, I had faced some obstacles related to the understanding of the events. I also wish my appreciation and respect to my family that playing their part in the completion of my task with their support and assistances in term of advices and spirit. Last but not least, I would like to thank my friends for the effort that they had put in and also for sharing their knowledge in order for me to complete the report.

                                               "SHARING IS CARING"

Problem Base Learning ( Session 1 )

Event 1 : Management Meeting

QUESTION 6 (12 MARKS)

Apart from management skills that would help the project manager to manage the project, good project manager should be alert with project failure warning sign at any time. What are problems that lead to project failures?

ANSWER

There are a lot of problems that leads to project failure. Of course each project manager wants all projects to be successful. However, project can’t be avoided and it is part of learning process to make mistake. There are always warning sign which the project manager can always be aware with in order to avoid failure. The problems are:

1.         No/Lack of stakeholder involvement or participation

The project manager should communicate with stakeholders from the beginning until the end of the projects. This is to ensure all the visions of the project are properly communicated, defined and verified. The common example of failure is when one part of project is diversified to staff that have lack of knowledge; the staff might get lost and do the job wrongly. The project delivered will have poor definition and will frustrate the key stakeholders. So, in order to avoid such problems, all stakeholders should be involved in all round of the project to get the best out of the project.

2.         Poorly developed budget

The project manager should ensure that the budget made is reliable and best estimates to define and represent the project. It’s hard to develop and construct a reliable budget. It’s suggested that the project manager to make a lot of research and preparation in order to make a reasonable budget. Normally, what happen to a ‘failed’ project is that the project manager always ‘copy’ and ‘paste’ from the previous project budget and made the assumption that the project is similar. Here comes the problem where not all project is similar and different project face different problem and require different solution.

3.         Insufficient resources

This is the most common problem faced by project manager. Required resources are often underestimated and scheduled inaccurately. Companies often encounter problems with resource allocation, as many companies to do not spend sufficient time on resource scheduling and proper management. Insufficient resource will delay the project and will affect overlapping projects. And there are times where companies over estimate their resource which will lead to loss and resources utilized ineffectively.

Project manager should plan the resources and schedule so that no shortage of resource and over estimate happens. Estimates should be made based on strict study and research.

4.         Poorly defined project requirement

Project manager should discuss thoroughly with key stakeholders to define the project requirement, what the end objectives of the project and specific detailed project requirement. Defining the project requirement is essential because the project manager might not want to diversify the project to the wrong staff or business. For example, if the project required the finishing of overall outlook to be high end, the project manager wouldn’t want to sub the project to junior staff with lack of knowledge that will end up presenting amateurish project. The project manager will need to give to a more senior experienced staff who knows how to handle and fulfil the project requirements.

The project manager needs to deliver the project with what required and expected by the key stakeholders in order to succeed the project.

5.         Lack of project planning

After the discussion with the key stakeholders on the project requirement, the project manager needs to plan on how to achieve and deliver the project. It is essential to know that there is more than one alternative to achieve the objectives. Project scope management is therefore necessary to develop reasonable project estimates, enhance the management of customer and stakeholder expectations, and mitigate project risks such as cost overruns and schedule delays.

All variables should be tabled and considered thoroughly before making any decision. It is fine to allocate more time on planning since it is the most important and difficult part of a project. Failure to plan means the project is heading to failure because the success is dependable on hope.