Good Example Of Project Management Essay

Introduction.

Blue Cloud is one of the company's operating in the technological industry. The company provides exceptional software solutions for the business needs in terms of data storage, analysis, and interpretation.
Streamlined and coherent development process is especially important for the technology-oriented companies (Davies, Galliers & Sauer, 2009). Because of the fact that the projects are complex, multifaceted and often involve the work of multiple professionals from the different company departments, which may be located in different geographical regions, the trade of project managers become especially important.
The objective of this paper is to speculate about the strategy utilized by Blue Cloud in its recently announced agile orientation. Furthermore, this paper discusses the approaches utilized by the company in the process of implementing different organizational changes aimed at promoting further business growth and development. The paper also speaks about three phases of planned change, which have been applied in this company and discourses how these processes infected multiple stakeholders.

Discussion

Contemporary business science demonstrates that the development of any fundamental change within an organization may lead to immensely negative outcomes if these changes are not administered appropriately (Becker, Kugeler & Rosemann, 2003). In other words, in the light of the limited educational opportunities in terms of software project management nowadays (this industry is comparatively new, and the mistakes a common), the chances that project managers will commit some sort of industrial blunder are significantly higher, then in the well-developed financial, legal or pharmaceutical industries. In the present case, the first action which should be taken before implementing any new strategy, is to inform the key employees that some fundamental mortifications of the company business practices are about to happen (Schwaber, 2014). Furthermore, some time should be provided to the company employees to get adapted to the upcoming changes. However, in the present case the Chief Executive Officer of the company announced the beginning of the policies but did not provide sufficient timing for the employees to develop behavioral and non-behavioral adaptations. In practice, the following three faces of planned change theory should be deployed in the course of this operation.
The first stage is known as the 'unfreezing" period (Dinsmore & Davies, 2006). At this stage, the managers must create specific circumstances, which make the company increase dissatisfied with the existing status quo. The employees must understand from within, that strong structural changes are required, and that the company is practically prepared to embrace the changes. Successful experience of the competitors is typically analyzed at this stage (Schwaber & Beedle, 2012). The company should be dynamic, which is an important requirement for the successful development of software. Furthermore, at this stage the managers should identify expertise and experience gaps of their team members and reinforce the development departments with the skilled professionals, capable of successful completion of the assigned tasks. Failure to carry out this step appropriately may result in tremendously negative outcomes. It should be specifically accentuated that complex software development are always different, and the company should check its technological resources every time before the order is accepted. Not a single company nowadays possesses sufficient in-house resources to develop anything, what the customer may require. Blue cloud is not an exception to this rule, and, therefore, before it enters into any contractual dealings with its partners, it should check whether the resources match order requirements. That is why the majority of software companies hire developers for a specific project (Durbinsky, 2009).
Besides, when project estimate is being prepared, project managers should allocate sufficient time resources for hiring the required professionals. This step can be difficult, when it comes to attracting senior line developers and quality assurance agents.
The second stage is the so-called 'moving' stage. The main purpose of this milestone of the project development is to help the team members to identify their weaknesses and strengths. It should be specifically accentuated, that the strengths and weaknesses might be both individual and team-levelled (Spector, 2013). Currently, the business scholars encourage the team members to be engaged in active cooperation at this stage in terms of developing and meeting the deadlines and adjusting release times of the company products. The stage is especially important because it helps to formulate periods of the project and informed the customer when he may expect his product to be developed and delivered. Furthermore, extensive technical analysis is being conducted at this stage (Spector, 2013). The developers identify the most useful techniques and algorithms, which can be applied to the needs of this venture. Similar projects are started, and the most successful approaches are selected for imitation and improvement.
At the final stage, commonly referred to as 'refreezing’ stage, the company managers are requested to re-identify the stages of the project (Schwaber, 2014) and to develop a new company motto. At this stage, the company managers must ensure that new stationary equilibrium has been achieved, and they freshly developed behavioral models are comparatively safeguarded from any forms of regression. The core points of this theory, is that the newly developed behavioral type must be to some degree congruent with the remainder of the patterns, otherwise environment and personality of the targeted learner may face a new form of professional degradation or disconfirmation. In other words, the main mission is that the entire group should transform, otherwise the transformation often individual professional traits will not be sustained in the long run.

The Impact on Stakeholders

Different stakeholders are responsible for successful implementation of the above-mentioned operations. Blue cloud case is not an exception to this rule. Shell Skinner, the Chief Executive Officer of the company, realized that some strong structural changes were necessary after he attended the seminar on the use of technology in software development process.
Firstly, the stakeholders who can be potentially impacted by the implementation of the strategy should be identified (Spector, 2013). In the light of the Blue Cloud core competencies, the main stakeholders include company senior management, middle line managerial department, project managers, team leaders and software developers. The use of planned approach exercises tremendous organizational the fact on all of them. Most importantly, using this approach requires them to function as a team first, and then to accentuate their individual professional characteristics. To be more specific, an average developer should first to think about the effects of his work on the project, and only then he should consider using specific technologies and development approaches. Sometimes, the idea which may be suitable for his individual development needs, may not be necessarily adaptable for the project in the pipeline.
Secondly, this method purports that the team members are always open to embracing new technologies and development techniques. In other words, the technological nature of the project may be unexpectedly changed, and all team members should be always prepared to this course of events. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that all of them should be the fast-learners.
Lastly, all project stakeholders must realize the fact that they are mandated to be involved in continual cooperation with the customer. Receiving customers’ feedback timely and reacting to it appropriately is especially important. In the event, his instructions are misinterpreted, the chances that he will disapprove the project become very high (Dinsmore & Davies, 2006). Furthermore, central steps of development are irreversible in their nature, i.e. when the developers create some algorithm, re-developing it may require immense technological or human resources. This option is not always available because of the deadlines or the budget. Therefore, the stakeholders should continually communicate with the customer in order to understand his requests properly and choose the most appropriate technologies for his needs. All important aspects of the development cycle should receive his prior approval.

Scrum Agile Methodology

It is defined as a flexible, holistic product development approach, when the team of developers collaborates as a single unit assembled accomplish a common project objective. The main difference was traditional sequential techniques is that it gives the teams an opportunity to be self-organized (Spector, 2013). Close online collaboration of the team members is encouraged, as well as daily meetings are practiced in order to discipline them and to monitor that the project is being developed successfully.
Furthermore, under the principles of the system, the customer is allowed to change his requirements during the development cycle. Unpredicted challenges cannot be effectively responded to the use of traditional manner. To be more specific, scrum follows a purely empirical approach, admitted that the problem couldn’t be defined in full before the project starts.
In the case of Blue Cloud company this approach seems to be the most advantageous, because the overwhelming majority of the customers are either unprepared to describe the necessities technically or their business needs may evolve together with the market development.
Conclusion

References

Schwaber, K. & Beedle, M. (2012). Agile software development with Scrum. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Schwaber, K. (2014). Agile project management with Scrum. Redmond, Wash: Microsoft Press.
Dubinsky, Y. (2009). Agile 2009 Conference proceedings : 24-28 August, 2009, Chicago, Illinois. Los Alamitos, Calif: IEEE.Computer Society.
Dinsmore, P. & Davies, T. (2006). Right projects done right! : from business strategy to successful project implementation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Davies, P., Galliers, R. & Sauer, C. (2009). Business information systems. Basingstoke, Hampshire New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Becker, J., Kugeler, M. & Rosemann, M. (2003). Process management : a guide for the design of business processes. Berlin, New York: Springer.
Spector, B. (2013) Implementing organizational change: theory into practice. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson,