Project Management

Question One - Explain the triple constraint and its importance in project management.

The triple constraint is where managers are faced with making trade-offs between the scope of a project, the time it consumes and it's cost. Within the life cycle of any project, the scope, time and cost with unavoidably change. The three variables are interdependent, and if one variable is changed, the other two will be affected:

• To increase the scope of a project, both the time spent on the project and it's cost will also increase.
• To reduce the time spent on a project, costs will be increased and the scope reduced.
• To reduce the costs affiliated with the project, the time spent on the project will be increased and the scope of the project reduced.

Project management is the making of intelligent decisions in regards to these three variables. Managers often find it difficult to balance these three variables, leading to the development of companies such as The Australian Institute of Project Management (AIPM), who develop programs to assist managers in their project development skills through. Further details on the services AIPM provide can be found here.

Question Two - Describe the two primary diagrams most frequently used in project planning.

The first main diagram used in project planning is the Program Evaluation and Review (PERT) Chart. This particular diagram is a graphical network model that depicts all the tasks of a project and the relationships that form between it. In particular, it focuses upon the dependencies between such tasks, and the critical paths that need to be followed.

The second main diagram used in project planning is the Gnatt Chart. This form of charting shows the project tasks that must be completed in a simple bar graph against a calender form, allowing time frames in which to complete tasks to be easily identified. Often, database programs such as Microsoft Excel can be used to form the basis of such a chart.

Question Three - Identify the three main areas a project manager must focus on managing to ensure success.

Manging people - the professional needs of a project must be balanced with the professional and personal needs of a project manager's team of employees. Dealing with people on a day to day basis, and ensuring they understand their role and function, as well as managing and dealing with any conflicts that may arise is the key to ensuring the human component of project management is upheld to the highest standard. The following YouTube video discusses some of the challenges managers face in relation to managing people: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRzV1dJMErw

Managing communications - likewise, managers must ensure that all communication pertaining to the project at hand are managed and controlled. Communications must be directed at the appropriate persons, ensuring that all vital information regarding the development of the project is directed to right person, ensuring that development will be implemented.

Managing change - managers must be capable of managing changes that may occur throughout the project management process. As mentioned, the three variables of time, scope and cost will inevitable change throughout the life cycle of any project. Thus, it is important for managers to confront these changes and ensure they add to the value of a project, rather than detract from them.

Question Four - Outline two reasons why projects fail and two reasons why projects succeed.

Projects fail due to the inability to align the project to the objective of the wider company. An inability to do this would result in a standalone project that may be inconsistent with the overall view of a company, hence making it difficult to gain wider support for such a project within the company. A second reason as to why project fail is due to the inability to move beyond individual and personality conflicts. This is usually the result of poor person management, and can result in a fractured team trying to work upon a singular project. This can result in objectives failing to be fulfilled, and the overall project being inconsistent as a whole.

Projects succeed when sponsorship is gained from the executive level. When executive members of a company support a project, it is likely that the project will be supported throughout the whole organisation. This leads to greater employee input and a greater ability to improve the project with the vast amounts of knowledge provided. Projects are also successful when a good decision making structure has been implemented. This avoids rash and inconsistent decisions being made, and ensures all decisions pertaining to the development of projects are well thought through and considered.

Customer Relationship Management and Business Intelligence

Question One - What is your understanding of CRM?

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is the managing of all aspects of a customer's relationship with an organisation. The benefit of CRM is the increase in customer loyalty and retention, which correlates to the profitability of an organisation. In essence, the communications between an organisation and their customers are seen to be "friendlier", and organisations hence appear less focused on gaining profits and more focused on customer satisfaction. The main intention of CRM is to keep existing customers rather than apply effort to find new customers.

CRM is a business tool that has increased substantially in popularity over the past ten years. Christopher Musico reports upon this finding in 2009, noting that over the past five years, the CRM Market had consistently grown, and from 2008-2009, the market increased by 12.5%. The full text can be found at http://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/CRM-News/Daily-News/CRM-Market-Grows-for-Fifth-Straight-Year-55275.aspx.

Question Two - Compare operational and analytical customer relationship management.

Operational CRM - supports traditional transactional processing for day-to-day, front of office operations or systems that deal directly with the customers. An example of an operational CRM system is Microsoft Dynamics CRM, where the CRM system is designed to integrate with standard Microsoft programs, such as Outlook and Excel. Product information can be found at the following link: http://crm.dynamics.com/.

Analytical CRM - supports back-office operations and strategic analysis and includes all systems that do not deal directly with the customers. Analytical CRM systems focus on long-term customer relationship management. These CRM systems are used to mine large amounts of data in order to map customer trends. Analytical CRM systems work in conjunction with Operational CRM systems to provide the most reliable customer information and profiles.

Question Three - Describe and differentiate the CRM technologies used by marketing departments and sales departments.

In Marketing Departments, operational CRM is used through campaign management systems, where users are guided through the formation and implementation of marketing campaigns. Operational CRM assists through looking at the costs associated with implementing and maintaining such a campaign. It can also be used to form customer profiles to assist in the selection of a target market which would be the focus of the campaign.

In Sales Departments, operational CRM is used mainly to automate the sales process. Such systems allow sales persons to coordinate their occupation and streamline the business processes they use most. Functions such as calenders, reminder systems, and contact databases can be used by sales departments as a way to automate the sales process.

Question Four - How could a sales department use operational CRM technologies?

An Operational CRM System would benefit a sales department on a day-to-day basis through:

• Generating lists - customer information from a variety of sources is complied and segmented for different marketing campaigns
• Cross-selling and up-selling - CRM systems can be implemented to make it easier to add further products to the sale (cross-selling) or increasing the value of a sale (up-selling

Question Five - Describe business intelligence and its value to businesses.

Business intelligence is the technology that provides data to support strategic decision making within the executive levels of an organisation. Business intelligence relies heavily upon data mining, whereby large amounts of data are analysed to map out patterns and trends. The following link shows how data can be mined to extract common themes and patterns that may emerge when large amounts of data are analysed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzh1D-_0hQA.

Question Six - Explain the problem associated with business intelligence. Describe the solution to this business problem.

The main problem associated with business intelligence is that companies are data rich and information poor, i.e.companies have access to so much data that they cannot distinguish between what is valuable to them and what is not. The consequences of this includes a diminished opportunity to compete with other firms, and the inability to decide upon the best tactical move for a business to take, given the fact that they have an abundance of data but a lack of information and knowledge.

The solution to this problem is business intelligence. As data mining methods can be used to analyse such vast amount of data, the data will be converted into more useful formats and therefore, functional areas have an increased opportunity to use such information in their own specific decision making situations

Question Seven - What are two possible outcomes a company could get from using data mining?

• Increase in profits - data mining revels trends that can be targeted in future advertising and marketing campaigns.
• Better deployment of resources - data mining will highlight trends that may also indicate what products are most popular and which are least popular, allowing a company to better spend their resources.