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Tiffany Smith

Professor Rob Wisehart

OGL 321: Project Leadership, Strategy, and Scope

03 April 2020

Module 3 Paper

There is a great connection between project failures and behavioral shortcomings,

which include negative human relations, low productivity, lack of commitment, and poor

employee morale(Kerzner 2014). Harold Kerzner, author of Project Management: Best

Practices; Achieving Global Excellence gives insight on how to achieve behavioral excellence

within project management. This specific resource provided, helped me to personally feel

enlightened through gaining more knowledge on the topic of project leadership.

No project will ever be the same, no project manager will use the same techniques and

skills as another project manager. Although projects have structure and there are skill sets that

many project leaders may have in common, every single situation is going to be different.

Having this understanding helps us to know that situational leadership is required and needed

within project leadership. I have personally experienced this when comparing scenario A and

scenario B of the Harvard Business Publishing project management simulation. The simulation

for scenario B had new obstacles to overcome, which I didn’t experience in scenario A. One of

these obstacles that the team faced, was several of our team members departing from the

project during week five due to competition. The strategy I used was stacking our team up

quite a bit, with more people than needed for a team, but knowing that we would lose quite a

few of our team members, helped when week five came around. If this could happen in real
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life, with actual warnings of knowing what would happen during a project, this would be great,

but it’s not real life. This is why it is important for project leaders to be prepared and ready for

rapid and unpredictable change.

One of the blog entries that I chose to focus on this week is titled, Five Factors That

Lead to Successful Projects. This article taught me important factors that contribute to a

project’s outcome, just like Chapter 10 from Kerzner focused on behavioral excellence as one of

the ways to help a project to have a successful outcome, this article also laid out different ways

to also contribute positively to a project. The fourth factor was one that I was able to relate to

heavily, “Careful Risk Management”. The blog article states that along with the planning

process, there should be a risk log produced in order to prepare for risks that the project could

potentially face(Palmer 2019). Although I did not create a physical risk log while experiencing

scenario B of the simulation, each and every run through the simulation helped me to create a

mental risk log, for future rounds that I chose to play again. This helped me to plan for possible

problems that could arise along with recovering quickly after experiencing obstacles within the

project.

Another blog entry that I studied this week was, Top 10 Main Causes of Project Failure.

A blog that was almost the exact opposite of the first I read, but also very helpful. This blog

taught me that it is easy to focus on projects that are successful, but just as we have to examine

the successful ones, it is also important to examine failure, although, “it seems to be one of the

least discussed topics”(Lim 2019). Evaluating a project from the beginning including preparing

for future risks and obstacles will help to prepare for future projects. I was able to relate real

life projects that I’ve experienced along with the simulation to the points brought up
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throughout the article. One of the causes of project failure can be, “Failure to Define

Parameters and Enforce Them”(Lim 2019). I experienced this throughout the simulation as I had

to find ways to work well with my team, along with having to make changes if tasks or goals

were not being met to the standard that was set. I struggled to know what skill level, along with

how many team members we need to have, in order to complete our project within the target

schedule of 17 weeks. I learned through much trial and error with the simulation, but reading

through this blog helped me to have a deeper understanding of different precautions I can take,

in order to have better project leadership skills. These are skills that I will apply to future

simulation scenarios.

Going back to this week’s chapter 10 reading, I was able to think of many personal

examples that related to the text. One specific topic that caught my attention was that in

section 10.7 “Proactive Versus Reactive Management”. Reactive management includes that of

just having enough time to react to the problems of the day, like putting out fires once they

appear(Kerzner 2014). While proactive management is looking ahead on each project and

planning, preparing therefore the fires won’t even happen. I like to think of all of the courses I

am taking right now as different projects I am managing. Each project has a contract(the

syllabus), deadlines(due dates), communication between clients/shareholders(professor), and a

project manager(me). The way I have been managing my projects(courses)has been in a very

reactive management style way. Just like I am typing this paper up just a few hours before the

deadline is here, reactive. I recognize this as one of my weaknesses, and want to practice better

habits which include being more prepared and managing my projects in a more proactive

manner, therefore I can experience less risk or “fire extinguishing”. I look forward to applying
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this leadership style, along with the other lessons I have learned from this module into the

simulation along with real life situations.

Citations

Kerzner, Harold. Project Management: Best Practices; Achieving Global Excellence. Wiley, 2014.

Lim, Rosanne. “Top 10 Main Causes of Project Failure.” Project, 4 June 2019, project-

management.com/top-10-main-causes-of-project-failure/.

Palmer, Erin. “Five Factors That Lead to Successful Projects.” Project, 8 Feb. 2019, project-

management.com/five-factors-that-lead-to-successful-projects/.