Subham Pokharel

157075

Subject: Project Management

1. When an organization adopts project based management system into its approach of
managing the organization, then it undergoes various changes and whether it
successfully manages the organizational changes or not depends on how suitable the
project management approach is with respect to organization’s strategy and goals .
Realizing the necessity that the organization which is approaching market opportunity
by the means of innovation should consider resorting to projects, Ujeli Nepal introduced
project based management system in 2007 into its ground of management. Because the
organization was constantly moving for innovation and lowering down its production
cost , project management became a fundamental aspect to align organization’s effort
towards strategic accomplishment. As per the case, since the organization has been
pushing itself to align project’s strategy with organization’s strategy , it seems to have
been following strategic approach of project management. Under this approach, the
project goals are set to implement the strategy or the projects are initiated to support
organization to achieve its strategy. Instead of people being focused on activities, they
are focused on identifying all the strategic goals and the factors that are critical to the
success of satisfying these strategies. Ujeli NEpal’s business strategy emcompasses
expanding the reach within domestic market and cost reduction. Now the successful
implementation of these strategies totally depends upon the alignment of project goals
with these objectives. Project NPD , project CD and project FS all seem to support
business strategies. But Project Trade fair, by far the most costly project, doesnot seem
to be of any support for strategy. When Ujeli Nepal has set out its strategy to achieve
growth by increasing its sale within domestic territory, participating in trade fair in
 Germany to analyse global prospects in a way seems very irrational. This probably could
be attributed as one factor for why project management didnot function as well as it
should have. While its important to looks for bigger prospects and setout long term
objective to become globally competent, but an organization should fix its sight on
current strategy and allocate resources on what it had initially set out to achieve and
this is where Ujeli Nepal went wrong.
The process in project management includes initiating, planning, executing, monitoring
and closing the project. Ujeli Nepal has a well organized aggregate project plan. While
initialing a project different projects, project goals and project team is identified. The
aggregate plan of 2010 has clearly defined project objective and team members has
been specified. Whether project goals align with the strategy is analysed while initiating
the project. Looking at the issues generated by the project gives an impression that the
execution of the project has not been done effectively. The organization was unable to
boost its sales of solar panel and unclear job expectation and work segregation were
other problems created by bad execution of planning. Monitoring constitutes evaluating
project performance, if activities align with project goals or not. Ujeli Nepal was unable
to analyse the outcome of its project investment. Employees highlighted that the
projects were being conducted but due to lack of evaluation of project performance it
became impossible for employees and top management to figure out the role of project
in organization’s growth. Creating reports periodically and evaluating impact of activities
on project goal with quantitative approach could significantly benefit the organization.

2. Aggregate project plan is a list of projects that an organization is willing to undertake. It

consists of essential factors that helps organization to determine if the project is worth
to be executed or not. In the case, aggregate project plan of Ujeli Nepal as proposed in
2010 is given. The aggregate plan presents four projects Ujeli Nepal is willing to
undertake in order to achieve its strategic objective of increasing domestic market share
through use of local materials and nominal increase in cost. Project NPD is the most
important of all the projects. Most of the population in Nepal still reside in rural part of
Nepal with wood being their most prolific means of energy. So, developing a product
that would serve as an alternative to wood could be a revolution in the case of Nepal. To
grab this opportunity, it will certainly requires a lot of time and energy but a successful
outcome of this project can lead to huge market share and long run survival of the firm.
So, the cost of this project could be increased because it provides huge opportunity but
at the same time requires a lot of research and development. Thus, Project NPD should
be allocated higher cost and higher working hours. Secondly, there is project CD which
also is an important project to undertake because the objective is to rectify defects.
Nobody buys defective product so obviously this also is an important project is
accomplish. The cost of the project is miminum among the proposed project and
organization itself will benefit by limiting the cost of this project as low as possible.
Thirdly, there is Project Trade fair which seems to be the most unnecessary project of
all. This is because of the fact that the organization has come up with a strategy to
promote business domestically but the objective of this project seems to deviate from
that of organization’s strategy as it aims to find international market place for the
product. Thus, this is one of the projects that organization should avoid. The fund and
resources of this project can be used partially in the operation of Project NPD which has
the most important objective that aligns with organization’s strategy. In fourth, there is
project FS which doesnot seem to be the most urgent project. Project NPD and project
CD should be prioritized before this project because they consist of more important
objective that support business strategy. Thus, it probably will be a rational decision for
organization to withdraw from the decision to operate project trade fair and rather
allocate the resources of this project on Project NPD and it required on project CD and
project FS.
The ranking could have been made more scientific by including other factors of
evaluation such as risk assessment, resource constraints, dependencies, quality plan etc.
Risk assessment could help the organization to find out the critical risk factor and
procedures to avoid the risk or atleast reduce the impact of risk. Similarly, resource
availability plays an important role in carrying out the project. For example, the
 completion of project NPD requires large amount of information as well as expertise
which could be difficult for the organization to find. In such case project CD could
become more immediate and more executable. From the nature of the project we can
form an impression that projects are independent to each other and dependencies
among projects in very low. But considering the importance and impact it can have on
business strategy , the ranking seems to be very much applicable except that project
trade fair should be eliminated from the list.
3. Issues arising out of wage and bonus isnot uncommon in organizational environment.
Ujeli Nepal’s story is not any different. Sometimes this issue can go onto have a chain of
effects and can monumentally disrupt top management and employee relationship. So,
it is always important to resolve these disputes given the risk factor it presents for
internal management. The bonus issue can be dealt in various ways.
Organization can create a bonus plan into its organization level plan and accordingly
distribute bonus to employees every year. For example, it can have a bonus plan where
it distributes certain portion of Net profit after tax to its employees and keep remaining
portion in reserve as fund for future projects. By this approach both management and
employees will have clear expectation on what to expect at the end of the year and
thus, issues can be avoided.
Another way can be distribution of bonus on the basis of individual bonus scheme or
team bonus scheme or site bonus scheme. Implementation of this method will require
work evaluation of individuals, teams and sites and based on performance bonus can be
distributed. For Ujeli Nepal, site bonus scheme can be used for distributing bonus. It
only has two production centers ( in Bhairahawa and in Bhaktapur) and thus, bonus
schemes can be provided by evaluating the performance of production centers
individually. While evaluating individual team or sight performance various factors can
be considered such as quality, quantity produced, cost management, sales, customer
service, attendance etc.
Team working bonus scheme could be the most effective means for distributing bonus.
It not only makes bonus system transparent but also brings higher level of coordination
 within the team and team building is one of the most important factor for increasing
productivity with organization. Most companies use teamwork in their competence
framework or as a core competence which is rewarded through performance pay.

4. Some suggestions that can be proposed to the organization are

Primarily, when setting project goals it should be carefully analysed on whether the
goals align with the business strategy or not. Project trade fair seems to have project
objective that doesnot have any implication on business strategy. This could
tremendously affect business performance because this project has been allocated the
most part of the project budget without even considering the futility of its impact on
business strategy. It should select those projects that will help the organization to set
domestic level goals and complete its strategic targets.
Even though organization has adopted strategic approach to project management, it
must not overlook the importance of integration within tasks to be performed,
management and employee relationship. Integration between stakeholders and project
team will help project to function smoothly and lead to better team building and
coordination within the project team.
Employees even doubt the honesty of the senior management. The speculation
surrounding the sale of project research being sold to German firms shows the
employees lack of trust on senior management. Thus senior management should
introduce some sort of mechanism that exhibits transparency on decision making and
budget utilization.
Among the four proposed projects in the aggregate project plan, project fair trade
should be the one that should be discarded. The project goal of this project is to explore
export market by participating in trade fair in Germany. Before considering this project
business strategies should be reviewed. The strategy consists of increasing domestic
market share, research on use of local materials and price limitation. All of the
statement included in the strategy has connectivity with growth of the organization by
promoting domestic market share , not anything that relates to promoting sales in
international territory. So, even if Ujeli Nepal successfully completes the project trade
fair it will have barely any implication to what is mentioned in the strategy of the
business. The implication of this project could be huge if business strategy
comprehended the goal to establish Ujeli Nepal as a globally competent firm. But since
its scale of operation is still limited to domestic territory the project will have minimum
significance to the business strategy. Eliminating this project from the aggregate project
plan should benefit the organization. The fund allocated for the project can be diverted
to installation of new equipment for cost efficiency or for upgrading information system
which is vital for every business for information management.