Implementation of the Project

The situation for the company is the leaking oil tanks that need replacement in order to avoid company losses as well as environmental pollution. The aim for this project thus is to correct the leakage and bring the oil tanks to the required standard that will not cause wastage to the company. In this regard, the company defines goals such as prevention of environmental pollution, optimization of the company’s operation during and after the repair of the three leaking oil tanks, and ensuring the safety of all the employees at the western site. According to Interact (2013), project implementation means employing the recommended activities to meet the company’s objectives in order to achieve success and outputs. Moreover, it is necessary to engage all the stakeholders while doing the implementation. In addition, safety of the employees and the continuity of the operation become basic as the management employs the changes.

For this task, the implementation involves the managerial structure because it includes the employees and the project team. Besides, the implementation must consider the different interests of the stakeholders for whom the company serves. For instance, the company has petroleum outlets whose major concern is to ensure that they have constant supply of the fuel. Contrary, the leaking tanks interfere with their operations because it leads to oil shortage. The environmental body on the other hand affects the company’s operation as it feels the leaking tanks spill wastage to the environment causing pollution. With this view, the body can launch complaint to stop the company from operation at all. According to Du & Vieira (2012), business operations and companies should include projects that show environmental responsibility. As a result, the oil company has the responsibility to include projects that help protect and preserve the environment.

First, the projector manager has to take the lead of the management structure. The management structure thus should have the lead partner and the project manager who work together to coordinate the implementation of the recommended changes. According to Interact (2013), “The project management has to have an efficient management system and always has to be flexible to current needs and changed situations, as the project is rarely implemented exactly according to the initial plan. Nevertheless, the partnership should aim to deliver quality results and outputs. Quality means meeting expectations described in the application and those agreed within the partnership.” This means the management structure must include the partnership between the project manager and the lead partner. Both of them must coordinate the implementation process to ensure success.

In this regard, the management structure works through the implementation tasks such as implementation of the project, which entails monitoring, considering risks involved, changes and the quality of the project implemented. In addition, the management evaluates, reports, and communicates the changes implemented in the project as summarized in figure 1 below.

Figure 1: Project Implementation Tasks

The partnership works with each partner performing a specific role assigned by the project manager. However, the lead partner has the overall responsibility to monitor the project progress to ensure that everything goes as planned. The project manager on the other hand assesses the activeness of the partners, conducts consistent review of the team to ensure that project implementation is progressive, and that each partner is playing the assigned role and responsibility (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017).

Nevertheless, organizational culture and leadership style also has impressive influence on the implementation of any project. For this oil company, these factors will indeed play a role on how the project to repair the oil tanks will be implemented. According to Turner (2014), “Local culture, customs and social dynamics also influence the management style; along with the nature of the project, the nature of the team and the personality and skills of the project managers.” Moreover, leadership styles such as autocratic, paternalistic, laissez-faire, and democracy will determine how well the company implements the project. For example, autocratic leadership will require the project manager to make all the decisions and compel the project team to implement exactly what the manager says. On the other hand, paternalistic leadership dictates that the management to make decisions that favours the employees, in this case the task force assigned to implement the project. Democratic however, allows the employees and all the stakeholders to contribute in the decision-making. Lastly, laissez-faire gives the task force to make decisions without the interference of the management.

Management Plan

The case study indicates payments of fines to the environmental body and a reduction of fines due to the fuel leakage that pollutes the environment. A plan to combat this issue includes the repair of the three leaking tanks. In order to implement the project, management plan has to be designed that aims to fulfil the objectives of the project plan. First, the implementation of the project plan requires monitoring of the project in order to check on its progress. According to Aliverdi, Naeni & Salehipour (2013), monitoring is the main project management tool that companies and organizations use to check the progress of the project. Monitoring the project ensures the project input and output are in line with the initial plan of the project. In addition, it ensures that the expenditure the company uses in the project is in order with eligibility rule.

Monitoring therefore will be the main tool for the case study. In order to implement the whole plan using this tool, the project team will consider and put focus on such factors as time, resources, cost, and quality of the project. Actually, implementation focuses on the output and the inputs for the project. Output will be the result of the implementation.

Time entails the period the life cycle of the project takes. For the management of this case study, the project takes one month for the full implementation of the management stages. The management hence should set aside adequate time to implement and monitor every phase of the project life cycle. In addition, the management needs to use resources that suit the changes it aims to implement in order to achieve the project aims and objectives. For instance, for the successful repair of the tanks, the company needs to purchase steel patches that will be used to repair the leaking tanks instead of buying new tanks. This is both economical and time conserving. Besides, it would not stop the continuity of the operations at the fuel outlets. The project team also needs finances to fund the implementation process. It is for this reason that project management budget must be constructed to help fund the repair of the tanks as well as other expenses. According to Aliverdi, Naeni,& Salehipour (2013), every project management should have a budget to cater for the expenditures incurred according to the project plan. In this manner, the budget will sustain all the expenditures and avail all the resources needed to complete the project.

Another important factor for the completion of the project is ensuring that quality of the whole implementation process is realized. SWOT analysis of the project thus will be important in managing the plan to produce quality (Yuan, 2013). First, the management will consider the strengths and weaknesses of the project before its implementation. Looking at the strengths provides an opportunity to avail more resources and time in achieving the strengths. On the other hand, the weaknesses provide an opportunity to correct the shortcomings of the project in order to implement a project that will favour and meet the interest of all the stakeholders. Moreover, a close review of the opportunities available for the company in implementing the project will give hope to the management as well as the project team (Yuan, 2013). In general, the analysis help the company consider both internal and external benefits of implementing the project. For instance, repairing the tanks will surely save the environment from pollution; hence, it gives the company an opportunity to exhibit environmental sustainability plan apart from avoiding excess wastage of oil due to spillage. Indeed, the plan will also prevent the company from paying fines due to environmental pollution.

The project manager can also lead the team to use Program Evaluation Review Technique. The tool enables planning and control of the tasks necessary for the completion of the project (Morris, 2013). Moreover, it defines the roles of every member of the team so that each activity is done accordingly and appropriately. It gives the chronological flow of the project activities. PERT organizes the project as follows.

Figure 2: Management Plan Steps

Project Performance Evaluation

Project evaluation is fundamental in ensuring that the company achieves its project goals and aims. In this manner, project measurement tools and techniques are used to determine how far the project team deviated from the initial project plan and goals. The possible performance measurements include performance reviews, trend analysis, earned value analysis, and information distribution tools (Gbadebo & Adebayo, 2017). These tools are necessary in every evaluation phase. According to Hart (2011), a good evaluation contains four phases same as the phases of the project plan. The phases include planning, dissemination, implementation, and completion. Planning for instance lays out the necessary steps the evaluation team will take in evaluating the project. It also identifies the stakeholders who will take part in the evaluation. In addition, implementation ensures that the project evaluation retains the participants from the initial plan and offers appropriate training to the project team on how to carry out evaluation. Consequently, dissemination ensures that appropriate results obtained from the evaluation are communicated to the audience who for this case are the stakeholders (Mok et al, 2015).

First, performance refers to meetings the project team conducts to evaluate the project status. According to Hart (2011), the project team should hold these meetings once every week, fortnight, and monthly. This way, the team might give regular assessment of the project’s progress so that they determine the improvements that they need to make to the plan so that it meets the goals and objectives of the project. Besides, it assist the team to detect any deviations earlier enough for corrections before the project completely fails to meet the targeted goals.

Secondly, trend analysis enables the project team and the management to determine whether the project is deteriorating or not. This is done through the assessments of project results over a period for example a month or so depending on the project timeframe. In most cases, the evaluation is used for long-term projects. However, for this case study, the project team can do the analysis on a weekly basis in order to check and determine on the adverse trends of the results produced by the repair done on the oil tanks. According to Olawale & Sun (2015), trend analysis provides the management with advance warning of the adverse results so that the project team has adequate time to employ corrective measures for the success of the project.

Again, earned value analysis help the project team to determine whether cost and schedule precedes the actual plan or fits within the plan. The analysis integrates the measures for scope, cost, and schedule in order to help the management team review the performance of the project plan (Olawale & Sun, 2015). Moreover, it gives a clear comparison between the work the team does and the planned work on the project plan. The analysis involves calculations of three values, which include planned value, actual cost, and earned value. The planned value is the amount the team estimates in the project plan while actual cost is the exact amount the project consumes.  Earned value on the other hand, refers to actual amount of work the project achieves on its closure (Vanhoucke, 2009). Based on these benefits, this assessment is the most commonly used evaluation by project managers.

In summary, project evaluation uses these tools to assess the project on four levels that include, planning, implementation, completion, and dissemination. The planning phase entails the project team and the company need to employ evaluation following the chronology of these phases as one, phase leads to another.

Figure 3: Summary of Project Evaluation Steps

Project Closure

The closure of the project involves doing the final touches and completing all the stages of the projects (Turner, 2014). In addition, the project team uses the opportunity to inform all the stakeholders on the achievements of the project. Besides, the team terminates all the contracts and sub contracts they used during the project. For the case study, the project team will use the project closure to assess whether the project implementation was successful or not. For example, the main goal for this project was to repair the oil tanks to prevent environmental pollutions and to eradicate the fines the company pays to the environmental body.

The undertakings of the closure can be summarized in the following steps. The first step involves the post-mortem of the whole process. During post-mortem, stakeholders come together to provide feedback on the success and failures of the project. In addition, the project team confirms whether they managed to meet the project objectives.

The second stage entails paper work, which is purely signing and approving the documents used in the project. It is the stage where the project manager terminates the contracts from employees and subcontracts.  The paper work also involves payments of all the cost incurred during the project.

The third step is called the release resources. In this step, the team manager frees the team members so that each member can prepare for another project. This process is very crucial as it also evaluates the effectiveness of the team. According to Clow (2012), teams have various specifications and specialization as each team is a mixture of a variety of skills. Undertaking this step thus may help the project manager to identify another team for the next project.

The fourth step involves retrieval of old project documents in order to do a comparison between the current project and those before. This part is equally important because it makes the project team to check on the trends of their projects as they progress. The trends may help the team to determine and correct the recurrent weaknesses of the team overtime (McLeod, Doolin & MacDonell, 2012).. It is therefore important for the team to retrieve the documents and evaluate them.

The last step may sound irrelevant but it is indeed important. After completing the project and undertaking the above steps, it important to celebrate the success of the project as a team. The most important part of this stage is to award and motivate the team members for the successful completion of the project. According to Silvius et al (2012), awarding and motivating the team members through get together celebrations boosts the morale of the team members. Actually, it makes them feel the management recognizes their efforts and skills that led to the successful implementation of the project. The table below summarizes the flow of the steps the project team undertakes in the closure of the project.

Figure 4: Closure Process

References

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Clow, D. (2012, April). The learning analytics cycle: closing the loop effectively. In Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on learning analytics and knowledge (pp. 134-138). ACM.

Du, S., & Vieira, E. T. (2012). Striving for legitimacy through corporate social responsibility: Insights from oil companies. Journal of Business Ethics, 110(4), 413-427.

Gbadebo, A. O., & Adebayo, A. O. (2017). An Agent-based Performance Evaluation System. International Journal of Computer (IJC), 27(1), 28-38.

Hart, D. M. (2011). Component Evalaution Project Summary(No. SAND2011-1958C). Sandia National Lab.(SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States).

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McLeod, L., Doolin, B., & MacDonell, S. G. (2012). A perspective‐based understanding of project success. Project Management Journal, 43(5), 68-86.

Mok, K. Y., Shen, G. Q., & Yang, J. (2015). Stakeholder management studies in mega construction projects: A review and future directions. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2), 446-457.

Morris, P. W. (2013). Reconstructing project management. John Wiley & Sons.

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Yuan, H. (2013). A SWOT analysis of successful construction waste management. Journal of Cleaner Production, 39, 1-8.